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Games should purely be designed for fun; this is why I class gameplay as the single most important aspect of any video game.
If I say to you the word ‘Rockstar’ then you will most likely know which game I am referring to in the topic title. Of course, I am talking about the ‘Grand Theft Auto’ series. In this story I will try to give you a good insight into the history of the GTA series, starting with the original Grand Theft Auto for the Playstation, which was released way back in 1997, up until how the series obtained incredible success in the present day with, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.
As I have stated before, the first Grand Theft Auto was released for the Sony Playstation in 1997. The Playstation was renowned for it’s 32bit graphics engine, which gave great potential for stunning 3D gaming. This was a major revolution in gaming history as previous 16bit consoles like the SEGA Megadrive and the SNES only allowed for 2D gaming. Now, that is one major factor that made GTA stand out from all other games. This was a time when everyone else was attempting to move into the 3D era, but Rockstar took a big risk. They decided to release a 2D game which featured a top-down view of a massive FREE-ROAMING city, which was actually a breakthrough in its own right, as this was one of the first games which allowed you to play the game, the way YOU wanted to play it. That is in where I believe, lies the secret to the massive success of the GTA series.
Grand Theft Auto was purely about gameplay, and concentrated on actually making the player have fun, without any need for any fancy 3D graphics. Just to let you know what the gameplay was like in GTA and what the game involved, I’ll give you a little run down of the game and why I like it.
You start off as a wannabe gangster in the big City and have to work your way up to being the top brass that runs the whole place. Good concept, eh? The City is absolutely enormous, but fortunately for you, you don’t need to walk all around the place, there are other modes of transport available, granted its others peoples mode of transport you are using though, as you can steal ANY car that takes your fancy or you can even take a bike if you like the open air. One of the best features about GTA is the freedom that it gives you; you can play the game properly, as you do missions for other gangsters to get your feet in the door, in order to work your way up to the top of the criminal ladder. Missions vary from simply just ‘borrowing’ a selection of cars for gangsters, to full-blown bank jobs and assassinations. Or if you just fancy having a laugh, you can go around the City as freely as you please, you have a large arsenal of weapons available to you. So you can go around terrorising the locals or finding bonus missions, like the infamous Kill Frenzy or collecting up the hidden packages scattered all round the City. However, with all of the ruckus you create, the cops aren’t long on getting onto your trail. It’s great getting a full –blown war going with the Police and the Army. Certainly it is a great game, and if you can find a copy, I highly recommend you get it. You wont regret it, I promise.
As you would expect, GTA was met with some serious controversy. It was claimed to be too violent and immoral and was even brought up in The Houses of Parliament!
Thankfully though, the game came with an 18 BBFC rating, so there was very little that could be done about it, which was a relief because it would have meant the death of a legend.
After the huge success of the original on the Playstation, Rockstar decided that they would produce a sequel and in 1999, they confirmed that the game would go ahead and would be ingeniously called GTA2. Still with an 18 rating, but blood was removed to reduce the possibility of even more controversy. Well, as you have seen, the original was a great success, so what could Rockstar do to make any kind of improvement? Well, they added a much more tactical aspect to this instalment, the basic concept remained true to the original, but this time around you had to think a lot more carefully about which gangs to work for and how you would complete a mission in the easiest way possible.
This time around, you had to gain respect from the gangs before they would even offer you a job. This added a whole new element to the already almost perfected gameplay. In order to gain respect from one gang, you had to kill members from their rival gangs, it remained true to a good gangster flick, you won the game by playing each gang off with one another, but you had to do this without becoming prime target yourself.
Although GTA2 still remained in 2D form, Rockstar did actually try to improve the graphics, which was really good of them, because they already knew that no-one really cared about what the visuals were like, so they could have just been lazy and produced a slightly re-vamped version of GTA1, but they took the time and effort to ensure that gamers weren’t being left short changed. That is one reason why I have a huge amount of respect for Rockstar. But as we all know, gameplay was perfected in GTA1, so other than the ‘Respect’ feature, what else was new?
Well, as expected, new weapons were introduced, like Petrol Bombs and Tazers. But one of the most fun additions, were the chain of garages that were dotted all around the map. You could drive in to them, and get, machine guns attached to your bonnet, get oil slicks for when the cops were chasing you, it was hilarious when a copper was after you, just at a corner you could drop some oil and the copper would fly off into the water or head off into a big crowd of people to their impending doom. This was a great addition, because it added even more to the ‘fun factor’ and increased the tactical side even more.
So GTA2 remained as fun as the original but managed to add a little more on top, with another successful game on their record, Rockstar were on a roll.
Also in 1999, it was decided that Rockstar would release an add-on disc to GTA1, this was to be titled, GTA: London. This meant that you would have to have bought GTA before you could play it, and as much as it pains me to say, it was a severe let down, the one title in the series that just shouldn’t have seen the light of day.
Although graphics weren’t on top of Rockstars development list, they really did take the biscuit here. It was a lot worse than GTA, but the important thing is, they had also neglected the gameplay element too. Which is what made the other GTA games acceptable. Missions were poor and boring, and not of many. The mission structure was very poor as well and made the whole story hard to follow.
Put simply, there just wasn’t enough new features to make this game enjoyable, or even remotely interesting to play. This may sound harsh, but I believe that GTA: London was simply just a cash-in on a good series and was a major set back for Rockstar. How would they be able to redeem themselves, they had to do something original and innovative. It took 3 years and a whole new console to allow Rockstar to regain its great reputation. They did this on a humungous scale, and their next game became an important part of gaming history and is considered as many to be a masterpiece and quite simply, the best game ever made on any console.
Of course, I am talking about GTA3; this was released for the PS2 in 2001. The most immediately noticeable new element of the game is that it made a revolutionary step, and GTA became 3D, at last. It was an unbelievable sight, an entire city, to roam around as much as you pleased and do almost anything you wanted. This was truly a major moment in gaming history. GTA3 has sold over 600,000 copies since its release date and is still selling even today; its multi-platinum status proves that this is the most successful, game of all time.
The gameplay remained astounding and more than made up for the atrocity that was GTA: London. This time you are left for dead after a bank job and you have to get revenge by doing jobs for the Mafia, Yardies, Triads and more. The story unfolded as you done each mission and has many twists along the way with betrayal and murder, just like a movie. New inclusions included police helicopters, which meant you couldn’t just hide on top of the many accessible roofs, as these guys would just shoot you as soon as look at you, but fortunately you were provided with a massive arsenal, remaining true to the series. Get the Rocket Launcher and shoot them down and watch as they tumbled out of the sky, ploughing into unsuspecting civilians below. But the most important thing, and the reason I think GTA3 was such a success, is that GTA3 never got boring, you could play it for hours on end and more, but you would always go back to it and find new things to do, like Taxi Missions, Ambulance Missions, and even the incredibly great fun, Vigilante missions.
This time, radio stations were out of this world, Rockstar had gotten hold of a DJ called Lazlow, who had a station in the game called Chatterbox, this is a favourite with many gamers as it contains many comical moments and actually makes you want to just pull your ‘borrowed’ car over and listen, not many games can do that.
Rockstar really did deserve the success that they had, they didn’t just release a lazy, half a**ed game, like other developers do, just simply because of the PS2’s success. But Rockstar has made every effort and has once again put the gamer first, which has worked well for them, if only more developers would take heed, because if they think of the gamers instead of their wallets, then their wallets will quickly fill by themselves, just as Rockstars’ has.
GTA3 made Rockstar a fortune, around $400,000,000 if I am not mistaken, and provided funds for future games, which means we can look forward to many more.
By now, GTA was a world famous game, and needed little or no advertising when Rockstar announced their next title. GTA: Vice City.
The hype for Vice City was unbelievable, almost everyone in the gaming community wanted it, and it was a success before it even hit the shelves. Vice City was first rumoured to be an add-on to GTA3, but Rockstar had started work on it as soon development work for GTA3 was completed. So it was a whole new other game, which was a relief after the disastrous attempt on the last add-on.
Vice City was released in November of 2002, and demand for the game was astronomical with many stores being sold out before they had even opened because of pre-orders, I myself pre-ordered the game and went to my local gaming shop and was waiting outside the store at 8:30, half an hour before it opened, and I wasn’t alone either, there was a queue of around 30 people waiting outside with me. It was amazing. Okay, for those who don’t know the game, which is probably none of you, I’ll just explain a little of what it was like.
This time, Vice City was set in the 80’s and remained 3D. Set in a city resembling Miami, and featuring some real life buildings this time, like, The Malibu, The Ocean View Hotel, and others, Vice City really was something special, no other game at the time could even compare to it. Unbelievably, the graphics had been improved, with crisp water and sunlight effects, and with this being Miami, it was great just driving down the beach front on a motorbike during a sunset, and watching the sun reflect and glisten against the water, simply amazing.
You play the part of Tommy Vercetti, you are fresh out of Jail, and not having learned any kind of lesson, you are straight back into the seedy underworld of organised crime, a deal goes wrong, and you have to get the money back before your boss gets really, really mad. Some really famous people provide the voice-overs for all off the major characters in the game; this just shows the magnitude of GTA’s success. Even the radio stations had authentic songs from really big acts from the 80’s, like Blondie, Michael Jackson, Iron Maiden, Ozzy Osbourne, The Buggles. That’s just to name a few.
Rockstar had made another masterpiece, although Vice City was not as revolutionary as GTA3, it is still, in my opinion, one of the best games that you could ever play and gets the big seal of approval from myself, and I expect many other gamers out there.
So, what do Rockstar have in store for us now, how can they possibly improve, it’s hard to imagine how they can make their next game any better, but I’m confident that they will pull off another amazing feat and produce another incredibly successful game.
Rockstars next project for the GTA series is rumoured to be called, GTA: San Andreas, set in a city resembling San Francisco, but little is known about it yet, but lets hope it is something special.
Well done Rockstar, you truly have created a masterpiece.
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it.
Lou Role.
If I say to you the word ‘Rockstar’ then you will most likely know which game I am referring to in the topic title. Of course, I am talking about the ‘Grand Theft Auto’ series. In this story I will try to give you a good insight into the history of the GTA series, starting with the original Grand Theft Auto for the Playstation, which was released way back in 1997, up until how the series obtained incredible success in the present day with, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.
As I have stated before, the first Grand Theft Auto was released for the Sony Playstation in 1997. The Playstation was renowned for it’s 32bit graphics engine, which gave great potential for stunning 3D gaming. This was a major revolution in gaming history as previous 16bit consoles like the SEGA Megadrive and the SNES only allowed for 2D gaming. Now, that is one major factor that made GTA stand out from all other games. This was a time when everyone else was attempting to move into the 3D era, but Rockstar took a big risk. They decided to release a 2D game which featured a top-down view of a massive FREE-ROAMING city, which was actually a breakthrough in its own right, as this was one of the first games which allowed you to play the game, the way YOU wanted to play it. That is in where I believe, lies the secret to the massive success of the GTA series.
Grand Theft Auto was purely about gameplay, and concentrated on actually making the player have fun, without any need for any fancy 3D graphics. Just to let you know what the gameplay was like in GTA and what the game involved, I’ll give you a little run down of the game and why I like it.
You start off as a wannabe gangster in the big City and have to work your way up to being the top brass that runs the whole place. Good concept, eh? The City is absolutely enormous, but fortunately for you, you don’t need to walk all around the place, there are other modes of transport available, granted its others peoples mode of transport you are using though, as you can steal ANY car that takes your fancy or you can even take a bike if you like the open air. One of the best features about GTA is the freedom that it gives you; you can play the game properly, as you do missions for other gangsters to get your feet in the door, in order to work your way up to the top of the criminal ladder. Missions vary from simply just ‘borrowing’ a selection of cars for gangsters, to full-blown bank jobs and assassinations. Or if you just fancy having a laugh, you can go around the City as freely as you please, you have a large arsenal of weapons available to you. So you can go around terrorising the locals or finding bonus missions, like the infamous Kill Frenzy or collecting up the hidden packages scattered all round the City. However, with all of the ruckus you create, the cops aren’t long on getting onto your trail. It’s great getting a full –blown war going with the Police and the Army. Certainly it is a great game, and if you can find a copy, I highly recommend you get it. You wont regret it, I promise.
As you would expect, GTA was met with some serious controversy. It was claimed to be too violent and immoral and was even brought up in The Houses of Parliament!
Thankfully though, the game came with an 18 BBFC rating, so there was very little that could be done about it, which was a relief because it would have meant the death of a legend.
After the huge success of the original on the Playstation, Rockstar decided that they would produce a sequel and in 1999, they confirmed that the game would go ahead and would be ingeniously called GTA2. Still with an 18 rating, but blood was removed to reduce the possibility of even more controversy. Well, as you have seen, the original was a great success, so what could Rockstar do to make any kind of improvement? Well, they added a much more tactical aspect to this instalment, the basic concept remained true to the original, but this time around you had to think a lot more carefully about which gangs to work for and how you would complete a mission in the easiest way possible.
This time around, you had to gain respect from the gangs before they would even offer you a job. This added a whole new element to the already almost perfected gameplay. In order to gain respect from one gang, you had to kill members from their rival gangs, it remained true to a good gangster flick, you won the game by playing each gang off with one another, but you had to do this without becoming prime target yourself.
Although GTA2 still remained in 2D form, Rockstar did actually try to improve the graphics, which was really good of them, because they already knew that no-one really cared about what the visuals were like, so they could have just been lazy and produced a slightly re-vamped version of GTA1, but they took the time and effort to ensure that gamers weren’t being left short changed. That is one reason why I have a huge amount of respect for Rockstar. But as we all know, gameplay was perfected in GTA1, so other than the ‘Respect’ feature, what else was new?
Well, as expected, new weapons were introduced, like Petrol Bombs and Tazers. But one of the most fun additions, were the chain of garages that were dotted all around the map. You could drive in to them, and get, machine guns attached to your bonnet, get oil slicks for when the cops were chasing you, it was hilarious when a copper was after you, just at a corner you could drop some oil and the copper would fly off into the water or head off into a big crowd of people to their impending doom. This was a great addition, because it added even more to the ‘fun factor’ and increased the tactical side even more.
So GTA2 remained as fun as the original but managed to add a little more on top, with another successful game on their record, Rockstar were on a roll.
Also in 1999, it was decided that Rockstar would release an add-on disc to GTA1, this was to be titled, GTA: London. This meant that you would have to have bought GTA before you could play it, and as much as it pains me to say, it was a severe let down, the one title in the series that just shouldn’t have seen the light of day.
Although graphics weren’t on top of Rockstars development list, they really did take the biscuit here. It was a lot worse than GTA, but the important thing is, they had also neglected the gameplay element too. Which is what made the other GTA games acceptable. Missions were poor and boring, and not of many. The mission structure was very poor as well and made the whole story hard to follow.
Put simply, there just wasn’t enough new features to make this game enjoyable, or even remotely interesting to play. This may sound harsh, but I believe that GTA: London was simply just a cash-in on a good series and was a major set back for Rockstar. How would they be able to redeem themselves, they had to do something original and innovative. It took 3 years and a whole new console to allow Rockstar to regain its great reputation. They did this on a humungous scale, and their next game became an important part of gaming history and is considered as many to be a masterpiece and quite simply, the best game ever made on any console.
Of course, I am talking about GTA3; this was released for the PS2 in 2001. The most immediately noticeable new element of the game is that it made a revolutionary step, and GTA became 3D, at last. It was an unbelievable sight, an entire city, to roam around as much as you pleased and do almost anything you wanted. This was truly a major moment in gaming history. GTA3 has sold over 600,000 copies since its release date and is still selling even today; its multi-platinum status proves that this is the most successful, game of all time.
The gameplay remained astounding and more than made up for the atrocity that was GTA: London. This time you are left for dead after a bank job and you have to get revenge by doing jobs for the Mafia, Yardies, Triads and more. The story unfolded as you done each mission and has many twists along the way with betrayal and murder, just like a movie. New inclusions included police helicopters, which meant you couldn’t just hide on top of the many accessible roofs, as these guys would just shoot you as soon as look at you, but fortunately you were provided with a massive arsenal, remaining true to the series. Get the Rocket Launcher and shoot them down and watch as they tumbled out of the sky, ploughing into unsuspecting civilians below. But the most important thing, and the reason I think GTA3 was such a success, is that GTA3 never got boring, you could play it for hours on end and more, but you would always go back to it and find new things to do, like Taxi Missions, Ambulance Missions, and even the incredibly great fun, Vigilante missions.
This time, radio stations were out of this world, Rockstar had gotten hold of a DJ called Lazlow, who had a station in the game called Chatterbox, this is a favourite with many gamers as it contains many comical moments and actually makes you want to just pull your ‘borrowed’ car over and listen, not many games can do that.
Rockstar really did deserve the success that they had, they didn’t just release a lazy, half a**ed game, like other developers do, just simply because of the PS2’s success. But Rockstar has made every effort and has once again put the gamer first, which has worked well for them, if only more developers would take heed, because if they think of the gamers instead of their wallets, then their wallets will quickly fill by themselves, just as Rockstars’ has.
GTA3 made Rockstar a fortune, around $400,000,000 if I am not mistaken, and provided funds for future games, which means we can look forward to many more.
By now, GTA was a world famous game, and needed little or no advertising when Rockstar announced their next title. GTA: Vice City.
The hype for Vice City was unbelievable, almost everyone in the gaming community wanted it, and it was a success before it even hit the shelves. Vice City was first rumoured to be an add-on to GTA3, but Rockstar had started work on it as soon development work for GTA3 was completed. So it was a whole new other game, which was a relief after the disastrous attempt on the last add-on.
Vice City was released in November of 2002, and demand for the game was astronomical with many stores being sold out before they had even opened because of pre-orders, I myself pre-ordered the game and went to my local gaming shop and was waiting outside the store at 8:30, half an hour before it opened, and I wasn’t alone either, there was a queue of around 30 people waiting outside with me. It was amazing. Okay, for those who don’t know the game, which is probably none of you, I’ll just explain a little of what it was like.
This time, Vice City was set in the 80’s and remained 3D. Set in a city resembling Miami, and featuring some real life buildings this time, like, The Malibu, The Ocean View Hotel, and others, Vice City really was something special, no other game at the time could even compare to it. Unbelievably, the graphics had been improved, with crisp water and sunlight effects, and with this being Miami, it was great just driving down the beach front on a motorbike during a sunset, and watching the sun reflect and glisten against the water, simply amazing.
You play the part of Tommy Vercetti, you are fresh out of Jail, and not having learned any kind of lesson, you are straight back into the seedy underworld of organised crime, a deal goes wrong, and you have to get the money back before your boss gets really, really mad. Some really famous people provide the voice-overs for all off the major characters in the game; this just shows the magnitude of GTA’s success. Even the radio stations had authentic songs from really big acts from the 80’s, like Blondie, Michael Jackson, Iron Maiden, Ozzy Osbourne, The Buggles. That’s just to name a few.
Rockstar had made another masterpiece, although Vice City was not as revolutionary as GTA3, it is still, in my opinion, one of the best games that you could ever play and gets the big seal of approval from myself, and I expect many other gamers out there.
So, what do Rockstar have in store for us now, how can they possibly improve, it’s hard to imagine how they can make their next game any better, but I’m confident that they will pull off another amazing feat and produce another incredibly successful game.
Rockstars next project for the GTA series is rumoured to be called, GTA: San Andreas, set in a city resembling San Francisco, but little is known about it yet, but lets hope it is something special.
Well done Rockstar, you truly have created a masterpiece.
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it.
Lou Role.
Page:
Lou Role wrote:
> Thanks, what forum was the 'Remember the Originals' post in? I could
> be interested in reading that. Anything to do with GTA. I think Im
> obsessed !
>
> :)
Well it was in here anyway but I'm not to sure if it was called that.. have u got msn?
> Thanks, what forum was the 'Remember the Originals' post in? I could
> be interested in reading that. Anything to do with GTA. I think Im
> obsessed !
>
> :)
Well it was in here anyway but I'm not to sure if it was called that.. have u got msn?
Thanks, what forum was the 'Remember the Originals' post in? I could be interested in reading that. Anything to do with GTA. I think Im obsessed !
:)
:)
I did one like this a while ago called *Remember the originals!!* which basically outlined the GTA Series.. but was no where near as good as this. Nice work mate.
I read the post before, but didn't comment. It's excellent and gives a good background into GTA. Well done.
Thank you Cub. Im glad you liked it. The original GTA was brought up in the houses of paliament because of the nature of the game, but thats just boring old Britain trying to spoil things again.
(I am from Britain myself before I get shouted at)
:)
(I am from Britain myself before I get shouted at)
:)
Well done Lou Role. I'm sure if there is anyone out there who hasn't played GTA yet, then I'm sure they're going to realise what they've been missing out on after reading the game's history! I didn't know it had got a mention in parliament!!
*Crying* That was so beautiful, so well written, oh god.
( . )Juicy Melons( . ) wrote:
> But, if GTA I was banned, then it wouldn't be the end of a legend,
> seeing as it was only one title. I know what you're trying to say, but
> i'm being picky today :D.
Yea, I really should have said something like, 'It would be the end of a legend before it even began'. That would have made more sense.
:)
> But, if GTA I was banned, then it wouldn't be the end of a legend,
> seeing as it was only one title. I know what you're trying to say, but
> i'm being picky today :D.
Yea, I really should have said something like, 'It would be the end of a legend before it even began'. That would have made more sense.
:)
*Presents lou role with a medal*
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