The Making of Grand Theft Auto

Edge Online has another fantastic feature, discussing the creation process behind GTA. From the article: "One of the defining moments of the series happened in early 1996, not long after Baird joined the team. 'At that time, we were still a series of small missions,' he says. "We had a long, long brainstorming session where we picked up on an idea for one long level containing multiple missions proposed by one of the level designers, Paul Farley. We took this and expanded it into the open-ended structure that the game shipped with. This meant a big expansion of the scripting and improvements to game systems — they had to handle the game running over multiple missions instead of the short structure.'"

Comments

Top Down Driving/Walking

[Jonah Hex]

Driving from the top-down perspective drove me crazy with the first GTA, and trying to walk around using the keyboard made me want to ignore the game and just kill all those virtual people. I can't imagine how many times I was killed while walking for a mission, for me it totally overshadowed the "living city" aspect they go on about in the article. Hell I don't even remember that I noticed it was "living" at all, since like most GTA games then and since you merely have to move out of the zone you're in and back into it to find everything "reset"; no crashed cars, dead bodies, etc. Where the hell are all the tow trucks, EMT's, and coroner's that mysteriously clean up behind me? Why can't I kill them too so the wreckage stays? Do I just need to install a "decal limit" hack? ;)
Jonah HEX

Re:Top Down Driving/Walking

[Mac Degger]

Memory constraints...heard of them?

Not only that, but you got frustrated using the /keyboard/? In that day and age, when the first GTA came out, keyboard was de rigeur. You wanted to drive with the mouse instead? You're crazy....driving with a mouse must have been possibly the worst control mechanism you could come up with for a top-down driving game.

Re:Top Down Driving/Walking

[DrXym]

Memory constraints...heard of them?

True of GTA 1 & 2, possibly true of GTA 3+ on the PS2. Certainly not true on the PC. One of the most annoying aspects of playing GTA 3 / VC / SA on the PC is that you can turn 360 degrees and everything behind you - vehicles, pedestrians etc. has respawned as something else. The only things that pass the rotate test are stolen / wrecked cars, enemies & bodies, but they too have some low timeout. If your typical MMPORG (e.g. WoW) can have literally hundreds of player chars, all individual and replete in their own kit on screen at once, then I don't see a technical constraint with GTA being able to track a couple of hundred peds and cars in your immediate vicinity.

The reason that it exists I feel has more to do with GTA being a port. But if they can revamp the graphics and controller, then why not the game engine? Here's hoping the next gen game is attempts to resolve these issues. The driving aspect is actually very good, but the environment is too static and predictable. It needs smarter peds, less obvious spawning, proper indoor areas, destructable landscapes and long term memory of the mayhem you've caused.

Obligatory Rockstar Classics Link

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.rockstargames.com/classics/

Download GTA 1 & 2 for free from Rockstar. Gotta love it. 2 is just plain awesome.

Re:Too Bad

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

GTA 3 was kind of fun. They all were. Driving around is fun, and I liked the radio and such. The driving controls weren't that great but they worked and that may even be one of the reasons why they were fun. But the rest of the game just SUFFERS. I know there is supposed to be a great story and tons of missions, and I've played some of them. But the shooting/targeting/aiming controlls have been abysmal.

Though I'm a raving GTA fan boy, I don't consider this sacrilege. You bring up good points. One thing I'd mention, though, is that it's fairly clear that you played this on the PS2 and not the PC. I played GTA3 and Vice City on the PC. Though the driving suffered a little, it made the targetting problem a LOT better. When I played San Andreas, well it was on the PS2, and frankly this change in perspective illuminated your points quite clearly. I don't think any GTA fan out there who's being honest with himself could tell you that those problems don't exist. As a matter of fact, San Andreas is the EXACT reason I will not be getting a PS3. I do NOT want to go through this control-hell again. I cannot BELIEVE that they did the exact same controller again. It's not right.

"I've posed this before. What's the response I usually get? "Try the games on the PC!". So the solution to bad controls on a console is a port that they made later? If they can't get it right on a console (where I can at least rent it) then why should I shell out money for the PC version?"

Err.. I'm sorry... I wrote the previous paragraph before reading this line. I was heading towards 'try it on the PC!' Well, should you? I cannot promise you that you'd love these games anywhere near as much as I did. I really don't know anything about your tastes other than you liked Zelda. I can sympathize, there. I can tell you that the targeting problem is a LOT better on the PC versions. Perfect? No. You're not going to get Zelda's top-notch control here. But it's still good, and yes, the games are rewarding. The mouse is FAR better for taking shots with. I would suggest that if you can find Vice City for $15, it'd be a good gamble for you. (Though GTA 3 was good, Vice City was considerably better, and that one may actually convince you to give SA a try. I don't imagine you taking the leap from GTA3 to SA...) If you balk at paying $15 (I don't even know if you can find it that cheap... but it's the amount I'd pay to try something recommended.) then let it go. S'alright, man. Even though I think these games are great, I get the impression from your post you did give them a serious try. GTA did earn its spot in gaming history, even before the Hot Coffee pitchfork party.

Open ended better than single story line

[Pearson]

I like all the games in the series, but with the move from GTA2 to GTA3 they lost one of my favorite features. In 2 there were three gangs in each level. They each had a gang they hated and a gang they were indifferent about. So to do missions for one gang, you had to be hated (to a certain degree) by their rival gang. The fun part was that when you finished all the missions for one gang you could go on a rampage in their turf and get jobs from their enemies. It felt like you got 3x the gameplay for each level.

Also the humor was lost in the transition to 3D. For example the wandering line of Elvis impersonators who were especially skittish, but if you managed to run over all of them at once you got a bonus and the words "Elvis has left the building!" Or the announcer's voice when you got an insane stunt bonus.

The score multiplier, which would get zeroed by an arrest, along with charging in-game money to save the game, added real tension to the game. You didn't want to save very often because it was expensive (the way to get out of the level was to get a certain amount of money), and you loved the multiplier which gained +1 each time you completed a mission without getting busted or killed. So, by the time you had a 6x multiplier you were on edge for any sign of the cops since you would lose so much. Naturally, the missions were designed to get the cops all riled up which was very thrilling.

In the 3D ones, you save whenever and don't care (which limits the risk to repeating once single mission), there is little humor, and the levels are pretty linear, as far as the missions go. That said, I like the 3D versions, and absolutely love Vice City (80s music + the PCJ = ftw!)