History of Grand Theft Auto (1984 - 2021) | Documentary

welcome back everyone i'm nick930 and today i want to share with you the complete history of grand theft auto [Applause] every day [Music] grand theft auto is an open world action adventure series published by take two interactive and created by rockstar north formally known as dma design limited in each game players assume the role of a unique protagonist who find themselves tangled up in the criminal underworld and need to complete a series of felonious acts around a fictional interpretation of a major metropolitan area the series is best known for its massive contribution to the open world video game genre with highly interactive large-scale environments that offer an unprecedented level of immersion and realism but it's for the same reason that the series is often the focus of intense scrutiny and controversy with its no holds barred approach to its adult themes and violence being falsely attributed to the moral failings of american society in the 21st century but this false equivalency has not dissuaded consumers in the slightest and has instead only fueled interest in the series further making grand theft auto not just an enjoyable open world experience but a worldwide cultural phenomenon and one of the most successful video game franchises of all time so how exactly did this landmark action adventure series get its start and what about it has kept it relevant nearly 25 years later well to answer that let's start by taking it way back to the origin of the series creators in 1984 a small group of like-minded computer enthusiasts met up at a computer club in dundee scotland club members and regular attendants included dave jones an ex-timex employee who is studying systems engineering his bevel classmate steve hammond a 14 year old mike daly and russell k who had been working with dave on a prototype for a game for the zx spectrum the group known as the kingsway amateur computer club expressed a deep interest in computer game development and regularly paired off on projects to take advantage of their respective skill sets often sharing critical programming techniques along the way but it wasn't until dave's sci-fi shooter menace that things really started to take a churn tired of building games for spectrum computers like his colleagues dave along with another of his classmates tony smith tinkered with a game for the amiga instead which allowed for more detailed spaceship designs and more complex parallax backgrounds the game was heavily influenced by the likes of konami's salamander that at the time was only available to play at the arcade so providing that type of experience to a home computer was a big deal and caught the attention of the liverpool based game studio psygnosis who agreed to publish dave's game under their banner with a publisher now lined up dave founded his new studio dma design which he named after a line in a programming manual for his amiga 1000 and after several years of development he released his first successful game menace menace was a turning point for the group of young programmers as they realized that there was some serious money to be made in the emerging game development space at the time game development was not considered a real profession computer gaming was already so niche that developing games for it was seen as more of a hobby than an actual career option but as the first check started to trickle in dave saw potential and set up shop in a tiny upstairs office space in downtown dundee it was around the same time that mike russell steve tony and newcomers gary timmons and scott johnston were brought on as full-time developers for dma with some even leaving behind their old jobs and academic plans before long the studio is working on several more games for psygnosis most of which were some form of sci-fi shooter but as scott began to animate little human enemies for one of his projects he unknowingly set off a chain of events that would change dma forever these little guys are the lemmings a short stack of pixels that players would spend years navigating through treacherous puzzle chambers using an assortment of carefully curated tools the lemming started off as a sort of running gag with mike daly and gary timmons sharing a couple silly animations of the creatures getting into trouble one day but after psygnosis got a glimpse of the characters in action they were sold on the idea and the studio entered into full development on a dedicated game starring the suicidal rodents lemmings became one of the studio's first big collaborative efforts with mike dave russell scott and gary all designing as many levels as they could and even challenged each other to see who could make the most difficult level it got to the point where they were all masters at the game and were solving some of the most difficult chambers in record times which only pushed them to create more ingenious puzzles as a result finally in 1991 dma released the original lemmings game and were immediately met with a surprisingly strong response within only the first day lemmings had sold well over 55 000 copies a figure that mike daly claims would equate to about 15 million units sold back in 2006 and exponentially more when adjusted for today's metrics lemmings overnight became a cultural phenomenon all its own and skyrocketed dma's popularity through the roof even drawing the attention of nintendo who saw major potential in the small scottish development team following this incredible success dma invested in some major upgrades they had recently moved out of their tiny upstairs office to a much larger space in an office park near the old university and had brought on several new employees to handle their many ongoing projects but now that they were raking in some real money they decided to expand the operation and occupied two new rooms in the same office complex including one that they would use for sophisticated motion and audio capture technology they then spent the better part of the next three years building follow-up titles to the beloved lemmings with sequel after sequel being turned out each with a familiar positive response from audiences but then in 1993 sony made a surprise acquisition of diagnosis to bulk up their upcoming console division and along with it the entire lemmings intellectual property leaving dma without a publisher or their signature creation however this turned out to be more of a blessing in disguise the folks at dma were burned out on lemmings and saw this as a golden opportunity to finally return to more mature content so they turned their attention to the newer 3do multiplayer console platforms hoping to build a game that would take advantage of their more powerful components after receiving an offer from nintendo to work on their upcoming ultra 64 system instead they quickly transitioned over to an ambitious 3d action adventure game called body harvest body harvest was unlike anything dma had built before it was one of their earlier attempts at making a fully realized 3d environment while also reintroducing their love of more mature and violent sci-fi action and it was even a feature title used to help advertise the n64's capabilities prior to release but nintendo was unsurprisingly not on board with body harvest's more adult themes they fell in love with dma's cute and lovable lemmings characters and were expecting the studio to deliver something along those lines so despite plenty of effort from both sides to compromise the title ultimately failed to meet the n64's launch window and dma had the game published by midway instead effectively grounding their relationship with nintendo before it ever gotten off the ground this would inevitably prove to be a critical step for the young scottish studio as her supposed moral depravity would be fundamental in securing their next big publisher in enter the hauser brothers whose love of hollywood action films and the music industry helped pave the way for a full-time gig working at a new experimental branch of bmg entertainment in london with an emphasis on the emerging video game space at first the two brothers didn't really see much potential in this area they didn't consider video games to be all that cool or exciting as the biggest games of the time were geared towards children but that all changed when dave jones stopped by their office in 95 to pitch a unique multiplayer action adventure game that involved criminals racing around a city being chased by the cops this project given the working title race and chase was originally prototyped by mike daly who struggled for months to emulate the 3d design of clockwork knight to function within the confines of a fully interactive metropolis eventually mike was forced to redesign the game from a new top down perspective instead with the rear wall being textured to look like the city streets and elongated prisms being used to simulate buildings with the camera perspective now locked in mike and dave worked together to incorporate some rough driving mechanics along with camera scrolling routines and traffic scripts to help better visualize what the game would play like but after weeks of play testing around the office they realized that the game just wasn't any fun they initially intended to have players select between two teams the cops are the robbers and engaged in high-speed pursuits across the city but this concept was quickly abandoned after they realized how boring it was to play on the cop team having to obey traffic laws slowed down the pacing considerably and trying to dodge pedestrians at crosswalks was nearly impossible due to the limited camera perspective suddenly a light bulb went off why not have players control the robbers exclusively this changed everything suddenly the sidewalks made sense to drive on and pedestrians went from being annoying obstacles to potential bonus points from here the idea started to pour in like having fire trucks respond to fires and then being able to steal those fire trucks switch on their sirens and clear traffic it was at this point that dave jones saw real potential in the project and pitched the game to the hauser brothers who were so enamored with its open world nature that they agreed to publish it under bmg interactive on the sole condition that the game be renamed into grand theft auto now that the core concept was nailed down the real work could begin development for the original grand theft auto was messy to say the least the engine that mike had built was incredibly unstable with an insurmountable amount of bugs and glitches coupled with frequent crashes that made the map design process nearly impossible they ended up having to draw each of the game's city streets by hand using massive pieces of graph paper that barely fit on their desks and when they finished they painstakingly transferred the designs over to the engine itself but even after getting the cities up and running they ran into an even more frustrating realization the game still wasn't fun to play most of the missions involved boring delivery objectives and they struggled for months to find a way to make them more exciting with things like power-ups and crazy weapons doing little to improve the feel then one day one of the game's many glitches caused some of the ai-controlled police vehicles to relentlessly smash into the player's car instead of just pulling them over as intended it was almost as if they were magnetized to the player refusing to give up the pursuit it was so much fun to escape from that rather than fixing it the developers decided instead to make it a core gameplay feature giving rise to grand theft auto's signature wanted level system that continues to define the series to this day but gta's intense car chases weren't its only big selling point ahead of the game's release the hauser brothers came up with an ingenious idea to help boost the game's initial sales and hired ex-publicist max clifford to tip off major news outlets regarding the game's vile and immoral nature the media took the bait and before long grand theft auto began to flood newspaper headlines scaring parents into shielding their vulnerable children from the exciting new action game set to come out soon that they probably would have never heard about otherwise the baden switch almost worked too well with bgm interactive threatening to cancel production of the game on numerous occasions fearing that the negative backlash might hurt their brand but the team at dma convinced them otherwise confident that they had a real winner on their hands and in the fall of 1997 dma released the very first grand theft auto on dos and windows platforms with additional ports for the sony playstation and game boy color following shortly after the original grand theft auto kicks off in a fictionalized interpretation of new york city called liberty city players assume the role of one of eight preset characters each with their own distinctive clothing skin and hair color and are tasked with completing various criminal jobs around town to earn money and progress further in the story at first players take on job opportunities from the mafia which usually involve taxiing characters from point to point or delivering an unspecified package after earning their trust the mafia then brings the player in on some more lucrative opportunities like serving as the getaway driver for a major bank job but when things get too hot the player is sent across the country to a fictionalized interpretation of san francisco called san andreas and later reimagined miami called vice city where they proceeded to meet new criminal organizations and perform a series of increasingly more deadly jobs for them in exchange for money to progress further it's a pretty basic story design with some repetitive mission objectives and a forgettable plot but gamers picking up gta back in 97 were too distracted with the game's potential for mayhem to care gta gives players all the tools to wreak havoc across its three available cities in any way that they see fit they can for example run across sidewalks and streets dodging traffic along the way or they can alternatively steal a nearby vehicle even those already occupied by ai-controlled drivers the main goal throughout the course of the game is to earn a set amount of cash in each city either by completing the structured missions accepted at payphones or by committing specific crimes like smashing into other cars flattening groups of pedestrians or even killing police officers using a small but powerful arsenal of weapons available firearms in the game include a handgun a rapid fire machine gun a powerful rocket launcher and the flamethrower and each weapon has a limited set of ammunition that can be replenished by walking over any weapon icon of the same type hidden throughout the environment also hidden in each level environment are specific kill frenzy challenges that task the player with killing a set number of pedestrians within a strict time limit to earn a special bonus reward however the action on foot is only half of the gta experience the other half is spent behind the wheel of any of the 50 some vehicles available in the game these vehicles range from small and speedy sports cars to much larger trucks buses and tanks and to make the experience feel more realistic most of the cars and trucks even come equipped with a working radio station complete with its own set of songs and fictional dj as players cruise down the road smashing into cars and gunning down civilians they'll also need to contend with the game's most wanted system that will send endless waves of increasingly more aggressive police after the player to put a stop to the heinous axe the player's wanted level status is denoted by the small digitized policemen heads at the top of the screen and if a player continues to break the law more powerful police forces will arrive making it more challenging for the player to escape to drop this wanted level players have two options they can either drive to a local respray shop and pay to have their car disguised instantly removing any wanted status or they can alternatively find a rare bribe token hidden in the game world that will call off the police without the player need to pay anything however this is easier said than done the police at higher wanted levels can be extremely dangerous setting up roadblocks and even arming themselves with body armor and fully automatic weapons making them extremely lethal when on foot and this is a big deal because getting killed in this game is the last thing that the player wants unlike more modern entries to the series the original gta features limited lives to complete chapters and if a player fails to earn enough money before losing their lives then they'll be sent back to the results screen and are forced to start the game from scratch it's a remarkably challenging experience with some insanely tight time limits for missions and extremely low time to kill but this simultaneously made reaching higher wanted levels even more exciting as any wrong move could result in an instant death if that wasn't enough the original gta also offered its own form of competitive multiplayer with players able to play locally using a wired modem connection to either race or battle it out across the city but despite all its efforts to make the experience as ludicrously fun and enjoyable as possible the end result still fell short of meeting the expectations of critics reviewers often complained about the game's awkward camera systems and found the gameplay to be more frustrating than enjoyable but the most common complaints received concerned the game's outdated visuals that paled in comparison to other late 90s games on the playstation still despite its visual shortcomings and its arguably shoddy gameplay design gta still managed to drum up some impressive sales numbers with over 1 million copies sold by the year 2000 the hauser brothers clever marketing scheme paid off perfectly and made gta the game that parents wanted to shield their kids from and now that the title had its reputation both dma and its publisher were quick to move on a sequel [Music] while all of this was going on a new beast was stirring beneath the surface in 1996 take two interactive an american video game publisher based in new york decided to take their company public and use the additional funding to begin an aggressive acquisition campaign starting with some lesser-known publishers like gametek in 1997. but the big news came in the early months of 1998 when take two decided to purchase bmg's video game division with the ultimate end goal of acquiring the newly established grand theft auto property in the resulting buyout several of the higher ups at bmg interactive including the two hauser brothers were relocated to a new office space in new york and within a year they announced the formation of the publisher's first in-house gaming division rockstar games a name that reflected the hauser brothers past ambitions to be rock stars meanwhile back in dundee dma design were dealing with a completely different acquisition soon after the completion of the first gta dma started to change hands rapidly it was first sold to a british software house by the name of gremlin graphics in 1997 who hoped to benefit from dma's technical know-how and expand their business interests but after about a year another studio infogrames entertainment purchased gremlin and along with it the dma offices [Music] this complicated things quite a bit dma were still under a contract with bmg interactive to develop grand theft auto 2 and when push came to shove infogrames were forced to sell dma directly to take 2. two officially making grand theft auto take two's intellectual property many at dma were greatly disappointed with this news having dealt with this kind of thing before they were all too familiar with what would come next so before long many of the original developers responsible for dma's defining titles parted ways with the studio leaving those remaining to pick up the pieces prior to his departure mike still served a pivotal role in establishing gta 2's signature dark atmosphere in the months following the original game's release mike had overhauled the game engine rendering as top-down roles using a more sophisticated 3d graphics renderer and incorporating new lighting effects that he picked up on from the team working on the playstation version when he left the designers that took over embraced this new artistic direction for the game and started to populate the new game environment with these glowing lights and then toned down the overall brightness giving the game a uniquely dark and dystopian feel the developers also wanted to improve upon the original game's generic mission structure and introduced a new dynamic reputation system to give players more freedom of choice and in the fall of 1999 dma design with the help of the newly established rockstar games released their second entry to the series grand theft auto 2 first for the pc and playstation and then later for the sega dreamcast and game boy color gta 2 is one of the more unique and unusual entries in the grand theft auto series rather than being based on a real world city gta 2 takes players to the futuristic dystopian metropolis known only as anywhere city where several powerful gangs maintain control of distinct districts players assume the role of a single protagonist named cloud speed who is willing to do whatever it takes to climb to the top of the criminal underworld cloud like the preset characters from before is a silent protagonist who just accepts jobs and works his way up through the world of crime but he is expanded upon a bit more in a promotional short film created by rockstar's marketing team highlighting his ambition and sociopathic tendencies even so gta 2 still doesn't offer much in terms of its story and it's designed in a way that lets players tell their own story by creating as much chaos and destruction as possible the biggest new feature in gta 2 is the redesign to the mission structure in each district players must now carefully balance their reputations between the available gangs displayed by a colored bar in the top left corner of the screen if a player accepts a mission for one of these gangs and manages to successfully complete it then they will improve their reputation with that gang thereby unlocking more lucrative jobs later on but if they fail that mission or coordinate with a rival operation then the player's reputation with that particular game will decrease locking players out of certain missions and churning previously neutral ai on the street into hostels this creates a very unique dynamic in gta 2 that's not seen in any other entry but it's not the only thing that sets it apart gta 2 also introduces a few new weapons to the mix like the shotgun some throwable explosives and the electro gun that further adds to the game's semi-futuristic setting other changes include new vehicle upgrades that can equip players with things like front mounted machine guns redesigned player power-ups that make things like the kill frenzies queer to the player and new collectible gta tokens that can be used to unlock lucky bonus challenges but other than those few changes and the ability to jump over vehicles gta 2 doesn't really do much else to differentiate itself from the original classic and this became even more clear when the reviews for the game started to trickle in critics bashed the game for doing little to innovate from a technical level saving that the game especially on the playstation looked about the same as the last one others pointed out that the gameplay had barely changed and the new features weren't enough to hide the fact that it was basically the same as before so while the initial sales for the game were impressive with over a million shipped copies during its launch period they inevitably slowed to a crawl making gta 2 a rare miss for the series but gta 2 wasn't the only entry to the grand theft auto series to release in 1999. around the same time that dma were working on gta 2 take 2 interactive had begun to make use of their newly acquired studios in the gametech purchase and renamed the canadian alternate reality technologies into rockstar canada this studio was then tasked with creating a series of small expansion packs for the original gta and was given access to most of dma source code to make it happen which as mike daly noted is not really the most stable code to work with there was only so much that could be added without the entire game breaking on them so rockstar canada decided to instead focus on making mostly cosmetic alterations and set their expansions in 1960s london all the assets and ui were redesigned to fit this new theme and a new story with some simplistic animated cutscenes were incorporated to help the experience stand out full development for this expansion took rockstar canada a little under a year and in the summer of 1999 they released the expansion pack gta london 1969 with a follow-up prequel expansion only a few months later in this first expansion players are again given the choice between a series of preset characters and are set loose to cause mayhem on the streets of london as far as the mission format goes everything is handled the same as the original title players accept missions from red telephone booths and run amok downtown gutting down targets smashing cars into lines of pedestrians and fleeing from the police only everything has been repurposed to fit within the game's new british backdrop the ai traffic for example will drive on the opposite side of the road icons for weapons like the machine gun are redesigned to resemble british variants like the sten smg and all the vehicles are now modeled after classic british vehicles from that era including iconic double and triple decker buses it's a pretty clever twist on the original format but the cosmetic changes weren't enough to sway critical reception the expansions were criticized for their lack of actual improvements to the core gameplay and focused on the game's incredibly outdated visual design and even though it still provided the same enjoyable experience as the other two titles it didn't offer enough to grab their audience's attention which was made evident by the significantly lower sales numbers even so the development team behind the expansion weren't done quite yet and a few months later released the follow-up gta london 1961. the second expansion offered several new vehicles and missions along with a few minor gameplay improvements including an option to upgrade cars with armor plating and the ability to perform drive-bys but aside from those few add-ons it too failed to innovate and it ultimately was released as a free download on rockstar's website exclusively for the pc player base gta 2 and the gta london expansions that released alongside it demonstrated that brand recognition wasn't enough to deliver the same success they had experienced previously and it was now up to dma design to reinvent the series and keep it from fading into obscurity [Music] following the lukewarm reception of gta 2 the studio's founder dave jones decided that it was time to step down take two were now in a position to fully acquire dma design and he knew that if he stayed he would likely be stuck working on grand theft auto games for the rest of his career something that he was already tired of working on so he resigned in 1999 and later became the head of a new dundee based game development studio called real time worlds in 2002 replacing dave as dma's lead project director was leslie benzies leslie was another self-taught programmer that joined the dundee office in 95 to work on an n64 game called space station silicon valley this game was a real test for the team involved as all the developers responsible were brand new to the studio and were working with tech that they had never worked with before but even so they came together to deliver a unique and charming experience and the end result was well received by critics but more importantly rockstar were impressed with what leslie and his team and managed to accomplish and task the group with tackling the next main line entry to the grand theft auto series built to take full advantage of the upcoming playstation 2. to accomplish this rockstar secured an extended license to use criterion's new game engine renderware that had proven more than capable in the 2000 game burnout but unlike burnout dma were faced with the daunting task of cramming all the complex city simulation associated with the top down gta series into a fully realized 3d world without tipping over the memory limitations of their ps2 dev kits they first started by planning out the general layout of the city beginning with the basic geometry in roads and then erected simplistic city structures to try and approximate the level of complexity that they were dealing with then leslie together with programmer adam fowler and lead artist aaron garbett came up with an ingenious streaming solution that effectively streamed the environment off the cd around a fully rendered polygonal object in this case a car by doing this they could circumvent the obvious memory limitations of the console itself to allow players to traverse through a massive open-ended environment almost seamlessly a discovery that would inevitably influence the design of every gta game moving forward now they have the streaming method in place the developers then began to populate the world with even more detail mothering out tons of cars designing weapons and testing out the general player movement and controls meanwhile a team of writers including dan hauser himself penned the game's script which would fundamentally transform the identity of the series with the first few games recognized today as the 2d era the plot felt disjointed from the gameplay experience with mundane mission objectives having almost nothing to do with each other but thanks to the new mocap studio dma had purchased previously gta 3 would be the first entry in the series to feature fully voiced and motion captured cutscenes adding substantially to the game's general tone and feel they even hired a few big actors to take on some of the game's characters including robert logia frank vincent and even rapper and songwriter keith guru elam in the final years of development things became even more hectic the art direction underwent a number of major changes with early builds of the game having more of a bright and colorful cartoon-like quality to them but this was later changed to accompany the game's darker story tone and new visual effects like rain and trail board were introduced to help give the game a unique visual flair in june of 2001 dma took an early build of the game to the electronic entertainment expo in los angeles eager to show off the exciting new title that they had been working on but to their dismay audiences didn't seem all that interested in what they had to offer it was almost as if people had forgotten about the grand theft auto series entirely and instead flocked to booths showing off new games like metal gear solid 2 and a completely different rockstar game called state of emergency following this disappointing trade show debut dma returned home determined knowing full well that what they had to offer was far more exciting than anything that was shown at e3 then just as they were getting ready to ship the game worldwide tragedy struck with the september 11th terrorist attacks in the united states the attacks were not only emotionally devastating for the company but even directly impacted rockstar's headquarters in new york as they were forced to vacate the building for over a month what's more investors started to worry that gta 3's parody of new york would now come off as insensitive forcing dma to make several minor cosmetic alterations at the last minute including remodeling the emergency response vehicles disabling projectile collision with prop planes at the airport and even adjusting the city skyline to avoid any coincidental imagery they even were forced to submit a new design for the game's cover art resulting in the iconic comic book collage that the series continues to use to this day [Music] finally after several years of development and an unforeseen last minute delay grand theft auto released in october of 2001 exclusively for the playstation 2 with pc and xbox ports releasing in the years that followed grand theft auto 3 brings players back to liberty city with an entirely brand new story line completely unrelated to the original two diera games players assumed the role of a silent protagonist named cloud not to be confused with the character for the same name in gta 2. in the game's opening cut scene cloud participates in a bank robbery with his girlfriend catalina but before he could reach the getaway car catalina double-crosses him leaving him for dead in the alleyway and he's stabilized by the police and subsequently sentenced to 10 years in the liberty city penitentiary a few weeks later while in root to serve his sentence the prison convoy holding cloud is ambushed by the colombian cartel you kidnap one of the prisoners and then destroy the bridge with an explosive cutting off access to the central island this is where the game begins and players are given full control of cloud and kick off their journey through the criminal underworld of liberty city to not only earn some cash but exact revenge on catalina the game's core structure is eerily similar to that of the original gta with players taking on jobs for the italian mob and then quickly escaping to the next area when things get too hot but thanks to the new animated cutscenes there's substantially more weight to each of the game's missions adding actual personalities to the various crime bosses that players are forced to interact with i see nothing but good things for you my boy memorable characters include cloud's friend eight ball who accompanies cloud during their initial prison break don leone and his wife maria the crooked cop ray machowski and the egocentric billionaire donald love that has a bit of an interesting appetite like gta 2's level environments grand theft auto 3's liberty city is oozing with personality from its absurd billboards and posters to the ridiculous things pedestrians will say as the player passes by my mother's my sister everything about gta 3's world is purposely built to parody how the media portrayed american society in the early 2000s with things like violent crime prostitution and corruption being a common attribute of the city's inhabitants what really drives home the game's satirical nature though are the radio talk shows especially the station chatterbox fm where real life radio talk show personality jeffrey laszlo jones not only plays a fictional version of himself but co-wrote the script with dan hauser establishing a lot of the series's signature american cynicism okay and speaking of impossible jane from cedar grove is on the line and she wants to talk about how difficult it is being a parent today hello jane hi laszlo i wanted to say something about these video games they are warping our kids minds my son's dog buko got hit by a truck and he says mommy mommy where's the reset button laszlo life does not have a reset button right but this show does i love that button but despite its major improvements gta 3 is still fairly lacking in the story department with each character's personality being wholly attributed to common stereotypes that again is deliberate but doesn't necessarily make for the most engaging narrative experience but remember this was 2001 the idea that a game could deliver deep in well-crafted storylines was not at all in the norm especially not in the action-adventure genre instead gta 3's true strength lies in its revolutionary open world gameplay design with a highly immersive world to explore along with plenty of reworked gameplay mechanics and missions to help populate it thanks to the efforts of the programmers at dma grand theft auto 3 is the first entry in the grand theft auto series to feature a dominant third person perspective positioning the camera behind the player model rather than above though if players want they can still swap to a top-down viewpoint if they're feeling nostalgic to make the most out of this new perspective gta 3 also features a more believable game world to play in this interpretation of liberty city isn't just a jumbled mess of streets and buildings like before but rather a living breathing world that's enhanced using a full day night cycle and randomized weather effects the city is broken up into three districts that each have a distinctive look and feel the first district is portland an industrial lower class area based heavily around new york city's brooklyn borough here players will experience the seedy criminal underworld at its worst with kings like the italian mob engaging in open warfare with the neighboring triads while hookers and pimps roamed the red light district the second area only accessible after completing enough missions is staughton island this is the city's business district built to resemble new york's manhattan island here there are towering skyscrapers a football stadium a casino and a shopping mall that all serve as a backdrop for yet another criminal rivalry this time between the yakuza the jamaican yardies and the colombian cartel finally there's shoreside vale where liberty city's elite reside with white picket fences swimming pools and high-end mansions together these three districts along with the added verticality make for a much more intricate and complex game world making it much easier to get lost within it so to help players find their way gta 3 also introduces the radar to the player's heads-up display that shows the player's position relative to nearby streets along with any relevant map markers to help locate new objectives to traverse through these worlds players can catch a train and walk around or more practically steal any automobile that they see and drift around the city streets driving in gta 3 is a big improvement over the 2d titles now that players can see more than 20 feet in front of them though this new perspective also brings with it a more realistic physics system with vehicles that can tip and roll causing them to spontaneously combust and explode if the player isn't careful all the vehicles you'd expect can be found cruising the streets of liberty city like sedans sports cars and trucks many of which will only spawn in specific areas to add to the simulation though if a player wants to they can now deliver their favorite stolen vehicle to their personal garage at a marked safe house and then save it for later use gta 3 is also the first entry in the series to allow players to pilot boats and airplanes though the only drivable plane the dodo can be challenging to keep airborne with its clipped wings gta 3 also sees a total overhaul to its on-foot character movement gone are the awkward tank controls from the past replaced by a much more modernized control scheme where the left joystick can be used to move the character while the right joystick can be used to control the camera when in a locked first person perspective gta 3 also is the first entry to introduce a sprint key giving players an extra speed boost to evade danger though it can only be used in short bursts at first with cloud getting tired and slowing down after a short while the increased verticality of the level environments coupled with the ability to control the camera also plays a big role in how the combat is handled enemies won't just appear directly in front of the player after all so a new aiming system has been implemented to account for this for console players the default aiming system utilizes a lock-on mechanic that can swap between targets within range of the equipped weapon and on pc players can make use of a new free aim system allowing for even more precision weapons in gta 3 include classics like the pistol assault rifle flamethrower and rocket launcher though there are newcomers like the uzi that can be used to perform drive-bys a shotgun for close quarters a fully auto m16 and sniper rifle both powerful enough to dismember enemies and throwable weapons like molotov cocktails and frag grenades useful for destroying vehicles and taking out hostiles hiding in cover these weapons are gradually unlocked throughout the course of the campaign and can either be picked up off the ground like before or purchased from any of the available ammunition gun stores throughout the city though players need to be careful not to be arrested or killed as all their collected weapons can still be removed after they've been booked by the police the police system has also seen a big change with the leap to 3d like before causing mayhem will check the attention of the local authorities giving the player a wanted level only the max wanted level has now been increased to six with more nuance to each level leading up to it at one star the police are pretty easy to get away from they won't actively spawn looking for the player and instead we'll run up and try to arrest the player if they happen to be in the area at 2 and 3 stars the police become much more aggressive and will actively drive around searching for the player and will also open fire when possible by the time the player reaches 4 stars the swat teams are called in who are much more heavily armored and carry automatic weapons roadblocks begin to pop up more regularly cutting off key roads and trying to escape on foot is practically impossible if the player somehow managed to survive this then they'll need to contend with the deadly fbi at five stars and finally upon reaching the maximum six stars the army who will drive in in big military-grade transports and armored tanks it's a far more robust system and probably one of gta 3's most fun mechanics to toy around with as escaping from higher wanted levels can be quite the challenge to do so players need to evade the police long enough for the stars to disappear though at the higher wanted levels it can be extremely difficult due to the sheer volume of first responders on the streets but it's still not impossible thanks to the returning police bribe tokens and pain spray stations along with the increased verticality of the level structures that allow for some creative getaways all these updated mechanics greatly transformed the grand theft auto experience with more exciting car chases and gun fights throughout a densely populated city environment providing hours of unscripted chaotic action though there's still plenty of structured content to enjoy as well including over 50 mainline story missions each more challenging than the last along with the many main story missions there's several optional side jobs to participate in as well these include payphone missions that are typically simpler but don't advance the story off-road missions that have players driving through checkpoints on uneven terrain to beat the clock and rc missions that have players destroying target vehicles using a little rc car then of course there's the vehicle-specific missions that will activate when entering a specific service vehicle jumping into a taxi for example will give players an opportunity to make some extra cash completing taxi fares entering a fire truck lets players drive around putting out fires and getting into a cop car lets players complete vigilante missions where the player is given a target to kill within a time limit gta 3 also sees the return of environmental collectibles only this time in the form of hidden packages there's a hundred of these packages hidden around the city often in hard to reach places and collecting enough of them will unlock instant access to weapons and armor available at the player's safe house collectively grand theft auto 3 is a massive improvement over its arcade top-down predecessors everything from the game world the story design the combat and the driving have all been redesigned to take full advantage of the new camera perspective and the result is an experience that completely transformed not just the grand theft auto series but the entire gaming industry the game soared to popularity upon release achieving incredibly high review scores across the board with many praising it for its unrivaled attention to detail and its incredible level of freedom there were certainly a few complaints like the game's cars that seemed to light on fire too easily and the improved but still slightly clunky controls but gta 3 was still considered a masterpiece in game design by most a reputation that helped it to achieve unprecedented early sales numbers but as the game skyrocketed to the top of the charts along with it came a tsunami of controversy gta 3's heavy focus on violence and adult themes sparked outrage as many pointed fingers to the developers and producers for trying to brainwash children into committing crimes while simultaneously failing to acknowledge its clear satirical nature or even the actual scripted mission objectives my general object of this game kill as many people as you can get as many stars as you can some even blatantly misrepresented the content making up features that have never been featured in any gta games get extra points for shooting somebody in the head as opposed to shooting them in the body you have to wonder exactly what the values that we're teaching our children this is of course not the case as gta 3 removes the old point systems from the 2d era and there's never any objective throughout the game that requires players to indiscriminately kill any innocent civilians if anything the built-in most wanted system actually dissuades overly violent behavior punishing players for targeting unarmed pedestrians and preventing them from progressing further until they either let things cool down or are killed and subsequently stripped of their weapons even so the controversy quickly became a hot topic in american politics with representatives from both sides of the aisle pushing for increased censorship and regulations on video game purchases but this rapid notoriety had the opposite effect on america's youth as more and more people became aware of the game's existence solidifying grand theft auto 3 as one of the most well-known and influential video games of all time immediately following gta 3's initial ps2 release dma design's core development team commenced to work on an expansion pack for the game that would include new vehicles to drive weapons to shoot and an extension to the available story missions but after it became apparent that gta 3 was a huge success they decided to turn their attention to developing a full-fledged sequel instead before they could do this there were a few logistical matters to attend to rockstar studios finalized their acquisition of dma design renaming them into rockstar north and the last remnants of the scottish development team were relocated to a new office space in edinburgh where they continued to work on rockstar titles to this day by early 2002 full production on the next big gta had begun all the assets built for the cancelled gta 3 expansion were then retrofitted for a new 1980s theme according to an interview by edge magazine with sam hauser the 1980s theme was planned well before gta 3 had even released but it was canceled before it entered full production likely after the low reception of gta london and gta 2 though with gta 3's unprecedented success they felt the 1980s theme was worth revisiting and the writing team began extensively researching media related to the time period most notably scarface carlito's way and a complete vhs collection of michael mann's miami vice from here the art team got to work sculpting a drastically different metropolis for players to explore aaron garbett in particular spent a lot of time nailing down the look of the city's iconic architecture ensuring that the neon outlines would glow along the city skyline another major focus for the development team was on delivering a more ambitious story with gta 3 dma design had always intended to give the lead protagonists full dialogue in order to tell a more compelling narrative but because of their time constraints they were ultimately forced to drop the idea though now that they had a little bit more time to work with and were raking in some serious revenue they went all in and contracted ray leota to play the lead protagonist along with this rockstar also secured the licensing for over a hundred era appropriate songs to be played from the vehicle radios only further adding to the immersive nature of the experience then after only nine months of development rockstar north released the hotly anticipated sequel grand theft auto vice city gta vice city tells the story of tommy versetti a gangster sent to a fictionalized version of miami florida to aid in the expansion of the mob's influence during the coke-fuelled 1980s but after a major drug deal is ambushed tommy has ordered to track down those responsible or risk deadly retribution from his boss sonny ferrelli you better not be school me tell me because you know i'm not a man to be screwed with like with gta 3 vice city story pacing is maintained by the availability of its missions with players needing to complete basic jobs for low-level crooks before moving up to take down high profile drug lords and corrupt politicians however unlike gta 3 vice city's pacing hits a brick wall in its third act where the game's finale is only made available after successfully purchasing enough business operations around the city and completing their associated side missions it's a design choice that today would likely be frowned upon forcing players to complete mundane side activities to artificially lengthen the experience but remember this was released back in 2002 so the open world game design to gamers back then was still pretty fresh and exciting so much so that players likely already completed enough missions prior to reaching this junction in the story even so this is only a minor pitfall when considering vice city's impressive new story direction that's more engaging thanks to its fully voiced cutscenes along with plentiful inspiration from classic 1980s cinema television and music bersetti's hot-tempered personality for example mirrors that of scarface's lead character tony montana shut that big mouth of yours stop running your fat slime ball and the mansion that tommy inherits partway through the game is similarly designed after tony's mansion from the film's last act and even more obvious reference is ferceti's lawyer friend rosenberg who both looks and acts just like sean penn's character in the film carlita's way there's also a ton of influence from the miami vice television series with character clothing music choices and many of the missions being pulled straight from some of the early episodes in fact tommy's friend lance vance is even voiced by the same actor that played detective tubbs back in the 80s and shares almost the same backstory from the show's first episode one of vice city's most endearing qualities is its stylish atmosphere the developers completely nailed the look and feel of 1980s miami at least in how it appears in film and tv the world is rich in color with patches of thick ferns and palm trees breaking up series of tan art deco structures while aqua and hot pink neon lights glow along the facades the game's heads up display and menus similarly reflect this theme with a blue and pink color scheme and all the radio stations and vehicles play hit songs from the 80s including michael jackson's billie jean toto's africa and iran by aflaca seagulls on top of the refinements made to the game's story gta vice city also builds upon the well-received gameplay formula from its predecessor with a brand new environment to explore lots of new weapons and vehicles and some increased mission variety the core gameplay remains mostly the same as before with only some minor under the hood tweaks that aim to polish up gta 3's rough edges the player animations for example have been cleaned up a bit making tommy walk and run more naturally through the world and the hand-to-hand combat has been redesigned to allow players to engage multiple targets simultaneously the game's gunplay has also seen some nice changes with tighter bullet spread and snappier auto lock mechanics to make the action more responsive on top of this voice city also introduces a plethora of new weapons to toy around with practically every weapon from gta 3 returns like the pistol the shotgun uzi and sniper rifle but there's now higher end alternatives for each of these weapons including the python revolver a spas-12 shotgun a ruger carbine and a semi-automatic psg-1 sniper rifle the only catch is that players can only carry one of each weapon type and will need to ditch a corresponding weapon if they want to use something different for players looking to get up close and personal lots of new melee weapons have been introduced most notably a chainsaw that will cause blood to splatter onto the player's screen when used to kill an enemy vice city even adds in some new special weapons to the mix like the m60 light machine gun and the devastating minigun that can absolutely decimate the streets of vice city but the police are ready for this as they've been upgraded to be more aggressive towards the player and can now deploy things like spike strips that will pop the player's tires and cause them to lose control of their vehicle speaking of which vice city nearly doubles the number of vehicles over gta 3 with dozens of new era appropriate cars trucks and boats to race around in including the return of motorcycles that have been absent from the series ever since the original game vice city is also the first entry in the series to introduce pilotable helicopters along with a plane that doesn't have its wings clipped and all these new vehicles come in handy as by city's environment is tailor-made to take advantage of them all alleyways for example are sometimes too narrow to pass through in a normal car or truck whereas motorcycles can slip straight through making them extremely helpful when invading pursuers and the boats and aircraft become incredibly important in the later half of the game as players can use them to island hop more easily when trying to earn the coveted 100 completion the overall level design of vice city in general just has a more organic flow to it than the often ridge-like structure of liberty city giving it a completely new and distinctive feel what's more vice city also houses lots of new storefronts to visit including restaurants bars clubs shopping malls pharmacies and clothing stores many of which can be robbed at gunpoint old storefronts like pay and spray and ammunition also return though the latter is more properly realized requiring players to now speak to the store owner at the counter and purchase weapons directly off the walls in keeping true with the game's rags to riches mentality players can now purchase additional safehouse properties to save their game and several business ventures that come with their own specific missions to complete and the option to collect a reoccurring monetary kickback from them all in all vice city's gameplay design is a marked improvement over its predecessor it takes everything that worked about gta 3 like its open world structure and its third person perspective and builds upon it with a more realized game world to explore and more things to do within it vice city was a huge success the reception to the game was massively positive media outlets praised by city for delivering a better sense of story and atmosphere while also praising the game for its improvements to the gameplay one of the most common compliments given to the game was its brilliant 1980s miami setting that helped deliver a distinctive personality that gta 3 significantly lacked but it wasn't without its problems some reviewers did cite various technical issues that hindered the action including lengthy loading screens and the aged camera and combat systems on top of this vice city also accumulated its own fair share of controversy again being used as a scapegoat for violence in modern society newsreels portraying vice city at its most violent quickly dominated the weekly news cycle villainizing the game and the developers responsible one group in particular cited a more specific reason for concern claiming that vice city's portrayal of haitian immigrants that make up one of the many criminal factions within the game was detrimental to real-life haitian americans and may incite violence against them protests regarding this issue were staged outside of new york city hall following a report on cbs eventually prompting rockstar to add a new disclaimer adjust some dialogue and remove all mentions of haitians or cubans from later ports of the title however this would only be the beginning as the controversy surrounding the grand theft auto series would only continue to escalate alongside its rapidly growing popularity in the summer of 2003 18 year old devin moore was placed under arrest in the state of alabama for attempting grand theft auto he was only 18 years old a recent high school graduate that had no prior history of violence or aggressive behavior but while being escorted into the police station moore stole a handgun from an officer killed three people and then attempted to flee in a stolen squad car only to be detained again shortly after according to the associate press his first response when he was recaptured was life is a video game everybody's gotta die sometime the story sent shockwaves through the media reigniting fierce debates regarding violence's place in video games and because moore was identified as being an avid gamer his legal defense even tried to make a case that games like grand theft auto were to blame for his reprehensible actions but the judge handling the case dismissed the connection denying the defense from introducing the games as evidence and the follow-up civil suit presented on behalf of the victims were similarly thrown out striking a major blow to anti-violent video game activists in the following years take two's legal teams would continue to fend off multiple lawsuits targeting their properties mainly pertaining to grand theft auto and its violent content though as it turns out it wouldn't be the violence that would get the company into hot water meanwhile back in edinburgh the developers at rockstar north entered into production on a brand new property hoping to capitalize on their growing reputation among their audience this project later given the name manhunt was built using mostly the same technology as gta though when looking at it it's understandably difficult to tell the game is basically the opposite of grand theft auto with much smaller restricted spaces and a far more serious tone making its extremely violent premise all the more shocking as expected it generated some major backlash from anti-violent gaming activists though this time even some members at rockstar games felt they might have gone too far admitting that at least in gta you weren't being forced to perform horrible atrocities but when reviews started to pour in praising the game for its excellent stealth action and unique premise it became clear that rockstar weren't just chasing after a shock factor but rather expanding the medium to appeal to the more mature demographic though of course manhunt wasn't the only project being worked on by rockstar north at the time grand theft auto was still their keystone property after all so as work was wrapping up on the pc version of vice city writers dan hauser and james warl started to draft plans for the third installment when deciding on the next setting they agreed early on that the final game in their 3d trilogy would be set in san andreas being as it was the only location from the original game yet to receive the 3d treatment and in keeping with the new precedent they had set with vice city they opted to build their story around a distinctive cultural theme this time the inner city hood life during the early 1990s as expected a story about life in the hood centered around a predominantly black cast of characters was a bold direction for a team of scottish developers to take especially a story that was set to use the infamous l.a riots as a backdrop for the action so to ensure that the topic was treated with respect they also hired rapper producer and director mark jordan aka dj pooh who assisted in writing and provided consultation throughout the course of development additionally the entire development team were flown to california to conduct field research in areas they plan to represent including some of the more dangerous streets in los angeles and then cross-checked architectural designs and landmarks with their new york offices to avoid any time-based errors when they finally returned the programmers and art department got to work on their most ambitious environment to date a map that consisted of not one but three major american cities and everything in between their goal seemed somewhat unobtainable at first liberty and vice city were already gigantic taking up almost the entire game disc with frequent load times in between districts so the programming team came up with an elegant solution rather than having all the assets in the world like buildings vegetation and decoration load together in giant chunks a new render pipeline would convert distant objects into lower poly variants and materialize only when within range of the player this allowed the art team to hugely expand the scope of the environment with three massive cities only making up a fraction of the playable space but they also didn't want this space to be empty so they worked on implementing a new animation scripting interface that could be used to generate hundreds of unique gameplay mechanics and immersive features even the lighting systems saw some nice improvements and borrowed lessons learned from the development of manhunt to incorporate shadows that could be used by the player to hide from enemies finally after an extended two-year development period rockstar games released the highly anticipated next entry to the series grand theft auto san andreas as always for the ps2 first and the pc and xbox a year later san andreas kicks off in 1992 in a fictional reimagining of los angeles referred to in the game as los santos it tells the story of a young black man named carl johnson who after hearing that his mother was killed in a gang-related shooting returns back to his home neighborhood to attend her funeral but he soon learns that things at home are far worse than when he left it with the rival ballas game represented by the purple colors having taken over most of the hood on top of this a unit of the los santos pd's crash initiative led by lead antagonist officer 10 penny detain cj and then blackmail him into completing various odd jobs for them in order to cover up their corruption throughout the course of the game's first act cj works alongside his grove street friends and family to help regain respect in the hood shutting down crack dealers executing drive-bys on ballas and even helping a wannabe rapper jump start his career you don't want me to come with a gun in your face i feel hotter than anybody in the world but right as things seem to be turning around for grove street cj uncovers a huge conspiracy and is forced into exile beyond the city limits from this point on the game's narrative begins to resemble past gta games with your typical rags to riches structure cj is introduced to several interesting and often absurd characters as he accumulates significant power and wealth and drifts from one area of the world to the next until finally becoming the most powerful man in the state of san andreas and the game's finale offers possibly one of the most unique and exciting climatic sequences in the entire series as the streets of los santos erupt with mass rioting mirroring the real-life la riots of 1992. in addition to other real world events from that time san andreas also draws significant inspiration from 90s hip-hop culture and hood films like menace to society and boys in the hood and features an even more star study cast than by city including chris bellard ice t pierre fonda chris penn david cross james woods and samuel l jackson even by today's standards that's a lot of star power for a video game some of whom play hugely important roles throughout the narrative and when compared to vice city san andreas tells a much more engaging story with improved cutscenes better written characters and a much more unique plot breaking away from cliche mafia movie references to give players a totally new experience when it comes to its gameplay design san andreas offers a significant number of changes improving on aspects that worked well before while also adding new features to further immerse the player the core gameplay remains the same as the past two games though there are a few long requested features to round out cj's abilities players can finally swim in bodies of water for the first time unlike before where touching the water would instantly kill the player and short walls can now be vaulted over making traversal on foot through rally ways and backyards more practical the game's gunplay has also received some nice improvements incorporating an even more responsive autolock aim system along with a new colored crosshair to telegraph the target's health status players can also crouch to increase their weapon stability perform combat roles and sneak up on unsuspecting hostiles for stealth takedowns similar to the stealth systems used in manhunt most of the weapons available in san andreas share fundamental similarities to the weapons we saw in vice city with two to three variants for each weapon type and more or less the same bouncing between them all there are some newcomers to the arsenal though like a winchester rifle a heat seeking rocket launcher remote explosives and additional hardware like parachutes and night vision goggles the vehicles have also been improved with better handling and superior damage models what's the increase to the number of available vehicles that's most impressive here with tons more cars boats and aircraft along with a few more absurd options like hovercraft go-karts and the famous jetpack the biggest and most blatantly obvious improvement san andreas offers though is the extreme increase to the environmental scale san andreas isn't one city it's an entire state and it's filled with way more variety than anything the series has ever offered the first area los santos is a large concrete jungle with a maze of ghetto neighborhoods that act as an urban war zone north of this is the rural countryside of red county that's loaded with tall mountains thick forests and winding rivers along with plenty of redneck farmers doped up hippies and roaming biker gangs further northwest there's the game's second major city san fierro that features lots of verticality thanks to its steep roadways along with plenty of opportunities for naval action out in the bay in the top half of the game's map there's bone county a vast desert region home to several small towns abandoned airfields and a highly secure top-secret military base called area 69 and finally there's the los ventura strip where players can burn all their money on slot machines and card tables only to make it all back in a daring casino heights the sheer size and diversity available in san andreas playable space greatly dwarfs that of all previous entries in the series combined but what's even more impressive is that this wide-reaching landmass is also chuck full of things to do first there's the main missions that seem to function the same as always players enter a mission marker watch a cutscene and then complete a series of objectives but each mission does a better job of setting itself apart with new scripted action set-piece moments and unique gameplay features introduced at a steady pace all throughout the length of the campaign early on players perform relatively simple tasks like fighting gangsters stealing cars and robbing storefronts as the world begins to open up the scale and general absurdity becomes more and more apparent with players needing to navigate remote control planes burn down pot farms with a flamethrower and even drive a motorcycle into a back of a cargo plane as it's taking off from an airstrip but its attempt to stay at least somewhat grounded helps preserve its charm next there's the optional open world activities many of which are specific to certain parts of the game world in los santos for example players can roam the streets spraying graffiti tags and fighting for control of territory and gang wars the los santos map is broken up into distinct territory blocks with each color representing a different game and venturing into a rival territory can sometimes be deadly especially when wearing the wrong colors the player's goal is to try and conquer as many of these areas as possible for the green group street family this is accomplished by traveling into enemy turf and killing the ways of enemy gangsters and then defending any conquer territory from retaliatory strikes to sell the fantasy further players can recruit gang members using their earned influence throughout the campaign and can even perform group drive-bys just like the ones in the 90s hood films that the game tries to emulate another big addition to san andreas is its new role-playing mechanics players can now fully customize the look and appearance of the game's protagonist with businesses like barbershops tattoo powers and several different clothing shops each with an explorable interior and distinctive clothing styles players can also visit restaurants and choose from different food items on the menu to restore their health but need to carefully balance this with regular exercise at the gym to maintain their stamina and strength or risk cj getting too fat or too thin players also need to maintain their driving and shooting stats by visiting schools and ranges to brush up on their skills and can learn new techniques like fighting styles depending on their skill level san andreas also introduces a new girlfriend dating system allowing players to befriend specific female characters and bring them out on dates who will react to the player's driving speed and choice of restaurant with a fun meter determining whether or not they want to be romantically involved with cj after being dropped off back home other new open world activities include mini-games like basketball pool and gambling new business-based missions home invasions lots of new race types low rider challenges demolition derbies photography dancing bmxing simply put there's a ridiculous amount of stuff to do in this game way more than anything the series has provided before making it the ultimate open world sandbox experience and as you can probably already guess the response to it was overwhelmingly positive san andreas received even higher review scores than vice city did with critics applauding rockstar for the remarkable attention to detail all crammed into a single duel later dvd gamers everywhere praised the game for its hours of entertainment coupled with a more engaging plot and interesting environment and some like gamespot even claimed that it was the best game in the series san andreas went on to sell well over 2 million copies in the first week greatly outpacing by city before it it not only became the best-selling game of 2004 but eventually became the best-selling game ever made for the playstation 2. though as with every grand theft auto release not everyone was happy a few critics call that rockstar for their aging visual design and criticized the title for its poorly implemented mini games some even knocked the game for its depiction of the l.a riots in the finale faulting it for completely ignoring the racial discrimination that led up to the actual real world events but the biggest controversy and the one that would ultimately begin san andreas most enduring legacy in pop culture was the infamous hot coffee mod the hot coffee mod if you somehow haven't already heard about it was a fan fan-made modification introduced into the pc version of san andreas a year after the game released the mod unlocks an unused mini-game that inexplicably made its way into the final code where players could directly control cj while having consensual sex with one of his many girlfriends when news of this secret gameplay feature broke in 2005 all hell was let loose immediately u.s politicians on both sides of the aisle condemned rockstar and the esrb rating system for failing to notify users of the adult-only content senator hillary clinton in particular pushed for legislation to be passed to further restrict access to adult themes in gaming threatening to greatly limit game distribution with hefty fines and other penalties we are determined to stop a situation in which video games with pornographic and violent content are being peddled to our children rockstar argued against the allegations claiming that by modifying their game code the client had violated the terms of agreement but upon further investigation the esrb confirmed that the code was indeed still included in early copies of the game and as a result rockstar issued a patch and re-released the game with the content removed though a minuscule number of consumers actually took them up on their recall offer and this was only the start rockstar also faced a wave of class action lawsuits resulting in losses of tens of millions of dollars the hot coffee controversy marked the first major loss for rockstar to this day it's still unclear how the mini-game made its way into the code but whatever the reason the hot coffee mod proved that the grand theft auto series wasn't invincible and rockstar north would be sure to thank the senator for concern about america's youth with a fitting tribute in the future in the years following san andreas incredible success rockstar north saw a major expansion to its staff size the team had remained fairly small throughout gta's 3d era but with next generation consoles looming on the horizon and the promise of delivering more than just gta games in the future rockstars saw fit to expand and move their studio to a larger space near calton hill meanwhile take two continued their ambitious expansion picking up studios and transforming them into new proprietary 2k offices along with additional studios under rockstar games one such studio was a british portable game developer called mobius entertainment who were responsible for a game boy advanced version of remedy's first max payne title in 2003 impressed by how this portable max payne game turned out take 2 purchased mobius entertainment transforming them into rockstar leads and assigned them a project to create a similar handout experience for the grand theft auto property but after seeing the potential in sony's recently unveiled playstation portable they reassigned the leads team to start working on a psp title instead and handed off the game boy project to a third party developer named digital eclipse resulting in 2004's grand theft auto advance gta dance takes place in the year 2000 one year prior to the events of gta 3. players assumed the role of mike a typical low-life thug who along with his buddy vinnie is looking to earn enough cash before leaving the country for good but right as they're about to leave vinny's car explodes along with all the money they had collected and mike vows to find those responsible and avenge his fallen friend throughout his vengeful journey mike meets up with plenty of other low-life criminals in liberty city including a few returning faces from gta 3 and he proceeds to complete various jobs for them to get closer to the ultimate troop unlike its 3d counterparts gta advance doesn't feature any voice acting or motion capture cinematics resorting to still image cutscenes and text bubbles instead though the mission structure established with gta 3 does remain intact meaning players can visit markers on their mini-map for specific characters that they meet and steadily grow their influence around town and all this is accomplished through the lens of the returning top-down perspective along with a few other caveats to account for the game boy advance's weaker specs it's easily one of the least visually appealing titles in the entire franchise with a limited color palette flat environments and some archaic animation designs but the level layout introduced in gta 3 is more or less included and even features a few extensions to areas like the western island grand theft auto advance even managed to squeeze in the optional vehicle-specific gig drops like taxi fares giving it a leg up over the classic top-down gta games but it's otherwise a basic and forgettable experience that failed to impress and its resulting sales and reviews quickly reflected this with many knocking the game for its poor visuals boring soundtrack and outdated controls though fortunately for the grand theft auto series gta advance wouldn't be its last foray into the world of portable gaming as digital eclipse took the heat for the first poorly received gta game in years work proceeded at the lead studio on another original grand theft auto experience built to harness the untapped potential of sony's new playstation portable but to pull this off right the devs at leeds would need some help so they reached out to rockstar north who let them borrow hundreds of assets and code that they then retrofitted to work within the confines of the psp's capabilities what's more they even had rockstar veterans like producer leslie benzies lead artist aaron garbett and writers dan hauser and james worrell all reprise their perspective developmental roles to ensure it delivered the signature rockstar level polish fans had come to expect then after a little over a year of full development rockstar leads released grand theft auto liberty city stories exclusively for the playstation portable liberty city stories as the title suggests brings players back to the hustle and bustle of liberty city three years prior to the events of grand theft auto 3. only this time instead of tearing up the streets as cloud players assumed the role of returning italian gangster tony cipriani who fans of gta 3 may recognize as the mission giver with the less than grateful mother living upstairs tony where the hell have you been not one so called all the time you were away the story kicks off in 1998 with tony returning home after being told to lay low for a while in his absence the lyon family led by don salvatore leon had steadily been growing their influence throughout the city and have set up shop in eastside portland to break into the prostitution and gambling rackets in the area tony eager to jump in where he left off is instead stuck working from the bottom all over again slowly earning back his reputation to get in good with the boss but as he rises through the ranks of the mafia he's thrust into a three-way gang war between the other families in the city and the resulting fallout helps to shape liberty city into how it appears in gta 3. when stacked up to gta's past two mainline entries liberty city stories place things a bit safe the general plot bears some heavy resemblance to your typical american gangster movie with the most obvious inspiration being coppola's the godfather though having a fully voiced lead protagonist does help to deliver a more focused plot structure than the last time players visited liberty city and to have all this delivered into a completely handheld experience was and still is pretty impressive but even more impressive than this is the way liberty city stories preserves gta's iconic open world gameplay design this isn't just a top-down spin-off with some mundane delivery missions this is a full-fledged 3d era gta experience tailor-made to take advantage of the psp's hardware capabilities tony moves and behaves just like his mainline console counterparts with the ability to run around the streets of liberty city steal cars shoot bad guys and perform drive-bys the only caveat is that the psp doesn't come with the right joystick so the game camera can no longer be controlled manually while moving the player instead players must rely on the game's more aggressive auto center camera design or optionally hold down an aim button to switch the left thumb pad to control the camera instead of the movement this is obviously not ideal as trying to dodge bullets and keep track of where they're coming from can be difficult but the improved auto aim does help make the gameplay more tolerable liberty city stories also doesn't make use of any of the new mechanics introduced in san andreas parking back to the slightly simpler design of vice city instead this means there's no swimming and no wedge vaulting and all the complex rpg systems and mini-games are stripped away though features that were introduced in vice city like motorcycles unique weapon sets and different character clothes do help to make this return trip to liberty city more engaging liberty city stories also sees the return of online multiplayer to the series albeit only between six players over a wireless ad hoc mode still even so this would be the very first time the series would offer a legitimate 3d online multiplayer experience in grand theft auto something that as you probably already know has become a pretty big part of the series since liberty city stories was highly regarded by fans reviewers credited rockstar leads for how much they managed to squeeze into sony's handheld especially the full liberty city map the graphics are obviously not quite as good as the console counterparts with the draw distance often pointed out as a tactical drawback but it's otherwise a legitimate 3d era gta experience in fact it even received a re-release on playstation 2 in 2006 with superior visuals and a more traditional control scheme but its real contribution was to the psp convincing gamers that the device could deliver true console level experiences on the go it quickly dominated game sales for the device and because of the success rockstar games were quick to greenlight a follow-up after work on liberty city had wrapped rockstar leads kicked off production on a sequel this time letting players carry the beloved sun-soaked streets of vice city in their pockets development for the sequel took considerably less time to complete as most of the hard work converting the renderware engine to function on the psb had already been accomplished prior though now the developers were working on a title post san andreas they were able to incorporate more of its updated gameplay mechanics and features while also throwing in a few brand new ideas to help their projects stand out and within only a year of development rockstar leads released their second entry to the gta series grand theft auto by city stories first exclusive through the psp and then again on the ps2 a year later like with the last game vice city stories is a prequel to its 2003 counterpart that helps to piece together events prior to tommy vercetti's rise to power players this time assume the role of vic vance an honest military man just looking to earn some money to help pay for his brother's medical treatment but after being reassigned to work on a military base for the corrupt sergeant martinez he's caught up in some questionable activities and is later caught and dishonorably discharged now out of options vance turns to a life of crime trafficking guns drugs and involving himself in a massive turf war between the cubans the cholos and the trailer park mafia but it's when vick's brother lance vance comes to town that things start to really get out of hand as the duo get ensnared in a cocaine field conflict with the notorious mendez brothers it's once again a competent rags to riches storyline that does a great job of paying homage to classic action films and 80s music while setting up the events for its mainline console counterpart though it's far more compelling main protagonist and better writing really shows setting it far apart from its liberty city predecessor this release also features some improvements to the gameplay mechanics for the most part vice city stories handles a lot like liberty city stories with the same awkward camera toggle to make up for the single thumb pad and the d-pad helping to make up for the lack of clickable thumbsticks and rear triggers however many features introduced in san andreas have finally returned like swimming flying and riding bicycles vice city stories also introduces a few of its own new features to the formula most notably the ability to capture and maintain criminal rackets throughout the game world there are several small fenced off shacks usually with a single vehicle parked outside if the player blows up this vehicle they initiate a hostile takeover where they need to defend against waves of angry gangsters looking to protect their assets upon successfully defeating these enemies players assume control of that business and can complete asset missions to help increase their revenue it's sort of a hybrid of vice city's property ownership systems and the gang wars introduced in san andreas and the short simple objectives attached to them make the criminal racket missions the perfect fit for a portable handheld other new features include a new vehicle-based side mission that lets players serve as a lifeguard and the ability to repurchase confiscated weapons after being killed or arrested along with several technical enhancements over liberty city stories vice city stories was even more successful than his predecessor earning higher average review scores and generating significantly more sales with it rockstar leads had pushed the boundaries for portable gaming even further delivering a nearly flawless port of the 3d grand theft auto experience up to par with the hugely popular vice city in san andreas its story was also praised as it helped deliver a much more interesting protagonist with far more personality and character than the cookie cutter italian mobster from before with this release rockstar leads were successful in delivering on their initial promise of a title that would smash expectations of portable gaming though instead of completing the trifecta with the san andreas stories they turned their attention to other rockstar properties instead including a psp port of rockstar toronto's the warriors a year later and with that the 3d era of the grand theft auto series finally came to an end while all this was going on the core dev team up north were gearing up for the next major step in grand theft auto's evolution for the past six years they had made liberal use of the renderware engine for practically all of their games but in 2004 electronic arts purchased criterion along with the rights for their renderware technology this caused a major ripple in the industry as most games developed for the sony playstation 2 were built using this engine and some developers like illusion softworks were even forced to restart development of their planned mafia 2. this wasn't the case with everyone though for the first few years following the acquisition rockstar's uk based studios were permitted to continue using the engine in accordance with their pre-existing contracts allowing them to create san andreas and the two psp games though after these projects were completed it became clear that the next entry to the grand theft auto series would need to leave render ware behind this is where angel studios entered the picture angel studios was a san diego-based software development studio founded by diego angel in 1984. the studio had a slow start working on various computer animation contract jobs with minimal revenue for years until they finally made some headway working on games for microsoft and nintendo in the mid-90s in the early 2000s angel studios entered into a partnership with rockstar games and created racing games like midnight club and smuggler's run using their own proprietary technology called the angel engine and following the success of those two titles take two interactive acquired them and rename them into rockstar san diego where they then went on to create a second midnight club and a linear action shooter set in the wild west called red dead revolver in 2004 rockstar san diego became a critical component of rockstar's continued success as a company now that ea owned renderware the other rockstar teams needed a new platform to build off of so rockstar san diego established a team of programmers to create a next-gen version of their angel engine capable of improved rendering lighting and with the help of third-party technologies like euphoria incredibly lifelike physics computation resulting in the aptly named rockstar advanced game engine or rage for short this new engine was first showcased in a basic table tennis game created by rockstar san diego but it wasn't until rockstar north got their hands on the technology that the potential of what they had created would become fully realized now equipped with a suitable replacement engine rockstar north initiated work on their most ambitious new grand theft auto since the original leap to 3d according to aaron garbett the goal for this new entry was to focus only on the series most fundamental aspects and then build around them with an unprecedented amount of detail to really drive home that this was a new era for the series because of this the writers decided that it would be appropriate to return to liberty city once again only this time the recreation of new york would be more authentic and capture the extreme level of detail that players expected on new gen consoles as usual rockstar sent out a team to new york for field research where they recorded videos of traffic patterns and captured hundreds of thousands of photos and supplemented this with additional support from the head rockstar game headquarters upon their return the artists broke up into individual teams each focusing on their own distinct area of the map ensuring that everything from the buildings to the way people looked and behaved was unique enough to give the city a true to life feel adding to the authenticity was the extreme new level of detail afforded to them by the more powerful engine and development kits artists with architectural backgrounds helped to sculpt the facades of every building while character designers made use of a special image metrics technology that allowed them to more properly telegraph characters body language another major focus tackled early on was on redesigning the series's poorly aged combat systems the 3d era combat while serviceable just wouldn't cut it for the experience rockstar north ramming for so the team began to incorporate a more responsive auto targeting system along with the new snap to cover mechanic that had become increasingly more popular after the release of epic's gears of war meanwhile the writers had their own set of challenges to overcome for the longest time the story and grand theft auto games had always felt like an afterthought with some brief animated sequences before and after missions with no real emotional tie to any one character so with the jump to next gen lead writer dan hauser sought to fix this problem and deliver something more meaningful and thought-provoking games had come a long way in the 2000s with titles like mafia and metal gear solid proving the value of character development in mature themes however dan never considered those games to be in competition with the likes of grand theft auto and instead look to film as a benchmark and now that the technology had caught up he felt he could finally tell the style of story he always wanted to without resorting to cheap gags or lazy parody rockstar also abandoned their dependency on major hollywood talent to deliver the dialogue feeling that having known celebrities would detract from the realism of the experience and so they hired several unknown actors that better suited each respective role finally after three years of full development the next generation of grand theft auto had arrived and rockstar released grand theft auto 4 for both the playstation 3 and xbox 360 in the spring of 2008 with a follow-up pc release later that same year gta 4 follows the story of nico bellick a vengeful eastern european ex-soldier who arrives in liberty city onboard an old cargo ship called the platypus upon disembarking he's greeted by his eccentric cousin roman bella who had bragged to nico for years about his incredible success in america however as nico soon learns roman may have exaggerated a bit about his accomplishments and is actually just a failed cab business owner living in a dirty studio apartment in one of the poorer areas of the city so you full of crap what to make matters worse nico discovers that roman's fiancee is possibly involved with another man to which nico violently responds setting off a chain of events that eventually lead the two cousins to be pursued by the russian mafia throughout the course of his journey nico establishes friendships with many diverse characters including a jamaican drug and weapons dealer little jacob a wife a creep before him yeah a steroid junkie and image obsessed brucy i got you man and the volatile mccreary brothers most of whom deliver their own distinct set of missions throughout the campaign so none of you worry about nothing we're here for the bank's money it's going to a greater call shut up and handle the safe and all these characters are expanded upon further through extended conversations during long car rides that differ on repeat playthroughs the game's narrative also paints a much less romanticized portrait of criminal life in america with most of the characters nico interacts with having some sort of drug addiction often leading them to make poorly thought out decisions that either get them caught or killed even nico who remains mostly neutral with the people he meets in liberty city is still haunted by his past life and finds himself relentlessly tormented by his desire for vengeance maybe that is no excuse [Music] roman rahman are you sleeping you fail come on nico's immigrant background also plays an important role in the story's delivery giving players an exaggerated perspective of america's post-9 11 hysteria and how it applies to an unobtainable american dream though that's not to say gta 4 is all serious there's still plenty of sexual innuendos social commentary and cinematic parodies all throughout its lengthy 30-some hour campaign including an intense bank robbery sequence ripped straight from the finale of michael mann's heat but even so the story feels more mature than any of rockstar's past work setting the tone for more gritty and adult themes to follow then there's the environment liberty city as it's portrayed in grand theft auto 4 is a completely different beast than any of its early incarnations it's not just a series of repetitive neighborhoods with one or two familiar intersections anymore but rather a massive parody of manhattan island and its surrounding boroughs there's central park flushing meadows coney island the washington square arch rockefeller center times square and even the statue of liberty out in the harbor that's modified a bit to pay tribute to one of rockstar's bigger fans what's even more impressive is the unbelievable attention to detail that developers crammed into every inch of the city the streets of the hd aero liberty city are densely populated with loads of varied npcs going about their daily lives taking cabs eating food throwing trash out of their car windows and even pulling out umbrellas during the occasional rainstorm the game's new physics system only furthers gta 4's more immersive feel with countless environmental props that dynamically react to outside influence trash lining the sidewalks for example will roll across the ground when kicked by characters and can even be picked up and tossed as a weapon weak surfaces and objects can be torn to shreds with automatic gun fire sometimes opening new points for attack and vehicles feature a soft body physics system allowing them to deform and contort in endless ways all dependent on the amount of force applied even the npcs have physics applied to them stumbling backwards when shoved and rolling across the ground when hit by a vehicle they even have a new injured state where they'll reach for wounds and try to crawl for safety even by today's standards the ai and grand theft auto 4 is impressive but it's not the only thing this game contributed to the series in keeping with the precedent set by san andreas grand theft auto 4's world offers plenty of fun activities to participate in outside of the main questline mini-games like arcade machines and billiards return along with new experiences like bowling darts and comedy clubs there's even a fully integrated internet browser accessible through computers at internet cafes with a full network of fictional websites all parroting things like dating sites politically fueled news outlets and nonsense conspiracies for players that just want a day off they can stay in their apartment and churn on a tv cranking up the volume and swap between different television programs all fully animated and flanked by commercial breaks and references to other locations in the grand theft auto universe gta 4 is also the first game in the series to make use of an on-screen cell phone menu now players can use it anytime to contact different characters read their text messages set up appointments and even launch seamlessly into an included multiplayer mode while further adding to the immersion which brings us to grand theft auto 4's most infamous new feature the friendships hey nico it's roman let's go bowling the friendship system is an evolution of san andreas girlfriend system where players need to maintain a relationship with the character by taking them out on dates and keeping them happy only this new iteration is a little bit more involved with 10 different characters each with their own preference and activities food clothing and vehicles to ride around in by regularly treating a character to their favorite things players will grow their relationship status with them and eventually unlock special favors that can be called upon using an option under the phone contact it's a very unique and ambitious feature that aims to further immerse players into nico's world though trying to consistently maintain all the relationships can be a bit much especially when certain characters keep calling at the worst possible times we should go and get trucks together roman i'm nervous enough about driving a truck full of explosives around the city for mikhail foster anyway i'm sorry but if i get drunk with you and then drive this thing i'll definitely blow myself up i'll catch you later cousin gta 4 also sees quite a bit of an overhaul to its core gameplay mechanics as well because everything was built from the ground up on the new rage engine the player model doesn't move quite the same as he did in the 3d era acceleration is now more gradual to simulate forward momentum and thanks to the implementation of the euphoria physics simulation nico can topple over in ragdoll just like the rest of the game's npcs which makes for some painful looking tumbles especially when hit by a vehicle the driving systems have received similar updates cars have a feeling of genuine weight now forcing players to think twice before drifting around corners and a new suspension physics system allows the body of the car to independently move based on the car's momentum while each tire responds to the various elevated surfaces the damage miles that i mentioned earlier can even impact the vehicle's tires making some cars unusable if they sustain enough damage other changes include new window braking and hot wiring animations when stealing parked vehicles a free aim drive-by button that is compatible with smg's handguns and grenades and even the ability to catapult niko through the windshield in a head-on collision discouraging reckless driving then of course there's the combat the combat was a major focus for the development team as they really wanted to clean up what has always been gta's weakest component and with gta 4 the series finally begins to resemble more traditional third person combat systems today the auto aim system from the past few games does return though enemy health is now represented by a series of circle-oriented notches that will deplete as more damage is dealt this is so far just like how the other games handled it but what sets gta 4's aiming apart is that players can now use the right joystick to fine tune their aim and move the circular crosshair along the enemy to target specific body parts shooting an enemy in the leg for example will cause them to trip and fall while shooting them in the arm may cause them to drop their weapon and shooting them in the head will always guarantee an instant kill assuming they aren't wearing protective headgear this system ensures that the game remains fully accessible for newcomers as they can still continue to easily target center max while also providing more nuance for players to master something that becomes extremely important during some of the more challenging combat encounters later in the game this is then coupled with a new cover system like most third-person shooters today players in gta 4 can tap the cover button to have niko rush for the nearest corner or low object to duck down behind from here players can move nico safely into position and either pop up to fire again or blind fire their weapon with reduced accuracy what sets this apart from other cover shooters though is that the system by which nico connects to cover is fully dynamic and procedurally based meaning anything that looks like it might protect the player will protect the player this ensures that every environment is not built to look like an unbelievable maze of low walls and encourages players to experiment with each battle to find effective points of attack it's a huge step forward for the gta series with lots of exciting moments thrown in thanks to the increased amount of scripted set pieces during missions and when combined with a more immersive environment and more realistic driving model it really does feel like a true next generation leap but not everything from the 3d era made this next-gen leap property ownership for example is limited to pre-designated apartments and cars can no longer be customized save for the random paint job assigned when visiting a paint spray most of the vehicle-based side missions like firefighting and being a paramedic are also absent though the popular vigilante missions do return with a surprisingly robust police database system built directly into each cop car speaking of cops gta gta4 also redesigns how the police response behaves if the player is wanted by the police a flashing red and blue circle will appear around the player's cursor on the radar indicating where the police have made contact if the player can safely exit the zone without being followed then the search will be called off shortly after the catch to this is that with each additional wanted level the zone gets bigger with 6 stars covering up nearly a quarter of the entire map though even at 6 stars the police aren't quite as aggressive as they used to be and will no longer call in the army relying instead on lots of spot trucks helicopters and government agents to put niko down however considering the size of liberty city streets and the way players can duck into alleyways and play hide and seek with the cops the improvements seem to far outweigh the few items that were removed finally there's gta 4's online multiplayer this part of the game that has since been shut down previously allowed players to establish a peer-to-peer lobby with chosen parameters and launch into the world with their friends or anyone else that joined lobby options included game modes like races death matches cooperative missions and a special cops and robbers adversary match though the most common choice was the free mode option for players could just roam liberty city without any limitations stealing from npcs fighting the police and getting into unscripted trouble it was an incredible experience back in 2009 as online gaming on consoles had finally become the norm though it's understandably not as exciting by today's standards there was nothing to actually do in this multiplayer free mode outside of killing each other and the random npcs prayers couldn't even customize their character all that much with only a few clothing styles and body types available to select between in the menus though despite its age design it was still a revolutionary next step for the series that would help to set the stage for the series's future when all is said and done gta 4 was a masterpiece it received overwhelmingly positive reviews with scores across the board averaging at or above 98 and to this day still remains the highest rated entry to the entire grand theft auto franchise common praise included the game's compelling narrative its incredibly lifelike feel and its unprecedented attention to detail others specifically praised gta 4 for the quality of the voice acting and writing of its lead protagonist nico bellic whose hybrid of charming personality and vicious psychopath made him an instant fan favorite along with its positive reception gta 4 also saw an incredible amount of success in regards to its sales numbers selling well over 6 million copies within the first week and smashing records as the fastest selling video game of all time but despite all of its success gta 4 still had its fair share of criticism mostly directed towards the relentlessly annoying phone calls that interrupt the action another complaint brought up against the game was in regards to his depiction of drunk driving in which players could visit the bar get drunk and then choose to operate a vehicle under the influence but these complaints were all minor in the grand scheme of things as gta 4 still massively exceeded the expectations of both gamers and its developers alike immediately following the groundbreaking achievement that was grand theft auto 4 rockstar north put their nose back to the grindstone on a set of large expansion packs paid for in part by a new timed exclusivity deal with microsoft for the xbox 360. according to promotional material ahead of gta 4's release expansions for gta 4 were always planned as the game's main storyline has several narrative forks purposely built in to allow players to explore these events from different perspectives the first expansion titled the lost and the damned released only a year after the base game and follows the story of johnny and his biker gang the lost players take on the role of johnny who's forced into a leadership role after their club president billy gray was incarcerated but tensions rise when billy returns to the club and despite johnny's best efforts to return to the way things were a civil war breaks out testing johnny's loyalty and that of his friends it's a remarkably different type of story than what's been presented before with an emphasis on friendship and loyalty rather than a blind pursuit of power what makes it even more compelling is the way it's smoothly integrated into gta 4's main plot with actions performed by nico directly impacting how the lost biker gang reacts i just got word that jason's been killed i've been broken the loss in the damned also features a few of its own unique gameplay features not available in the base gta 4 experience in keeping with its biker theme a new ride formation feature has been added encouraging players to ride within a small zone in order to continue conversations with characters in the game [Music] additionally much like in san andreas players can call upon their fellow gang members to assist in missions can even fight for control at new gang war locations marked on the map that will subsequently increase each gang members combat stats to improve their effectiveness other new features include a bunch of new bikes to bride several new weapons like shotguns and grenade launchers the much needed mission checkpoints and a large clubhouse to explore complete with new mini-games and even a memorial to any fallen lost members throughout the player's journey it's a competent albeit brief addition to the gta 4 experience and its unique tone great storytelling and well implemented new mechanics were received extremely well by audiences it too received highly positive reception with reviewers praising the game for its clever twist on the newly established hd formula but rockstar weren't done yet and a few months later rockstar north released their final expansion for gta 4 the ballot of gay tony again for the xbox 360 first and then the ps3 and windows platforms several months later in this expansion players take control of luis lopez an ex-drug dealer turned bodyguard for a reckless nightclub owner known colloquially as gay tony the story explores luis's relationship with tony as they deal with managing and expanding a nightclub empire in liberty city although due to tony's ambitious nature he often gets himself into serious trouble with local criminal outfits forcing louise to consistently come to his rescue along the way louise also assists his two neighborhood friends in completing amateur drug deals helps brucey stand up to his even more obnoxious brother mori and is forced to deal with the absurdly rich youssef amir that doesn't very well understand the value of pretty much anything unlike lost in the damned and even gta4 the ballot of gay tony storyline is significantly more lighthearted missions regularly border on the insane with players needing to base jump off of buildings fly golden helicopters and rampage down a freeway using an apc it almost seems to be paying homage to old gta games with an increased emphasis on fun action as opposed to a dark character-driven story though it does strike a steady balance as the brotherhood between louise and his troublemaking boss tony does make for a compelling narrative like with the previous expansion the ballot of gay tony also incorporates a number of new features into the gameplay there's new vehicles new weapons and several new activities to enjoy instead of a biker clubhouse this expansion lets players explore the ecstasy fueled nightlife of liberty city with dancing drinking and even an underground fight club the ballot expansion also adds in a new job completion screen giving players incentive to replay missions to earn higher ratings and new base jumping missions that let players explore the city's untapped vertical potential overall the ballad of gay tony is a solid addition to an already phenomenal package delivering more of what old school fans wanted to the experience while also wrapping up loose ends in the story it was received with similar praise from critics especially for its more realistic take on an lgbt video game character and earned positive reception for its enjoyable new gameplay systems but more importantly the ballad of gay tony finally closed the loop on the central theme of gta 4's narrative allowing rockstar north to finally press forward with their next groundbreaking experience but before we get to the next mainline title there was another grand theft auto that released around this time following their success with their psp gta games the team at rockstar leads began to shift away from portable game development creating ports for games like table tennis but when take 2 was approached by nintendo to create a grand theft auto title for their new nintendo ds handheld the job was given to rockstar leeds hopeful that they could deliver something along the lines of their past psp successes though this time leeds couldn't port over the engine and its assets from the work rockstar north were doing the rage engine was already incredibly complex and trying to dumb it down to work on a handheld would inevitably result in something less appealing than what audiences expected so leeds developed their own engine based strongly on elements introduced in rage and transitioned the gameplay style back to its classic top down roots using gta 4's version of liberty city as a backdrop the resulting game was 2009's grand theft auto chinatown wars the last portable entry and the last top top-down entry to the grand theft auto franchise chinatown wars as the title clearly hints at tells the story of rival chinese gangs in liberty city engaged in open warfare with each other over territory disputes and general power the player takes control of a spoiled punk kid named huang li who returns to liberty city after hearing of his father's death to pay his respects and deliver a valuable sword to his uncle but immediately after getting off the plane huang is jumped by a group of unknown assailants who shoot him and steal the sword after he recovers huang makes it his mission to hunt down his attackers recover the sword and restore his honor in the process the narrative from this point strongly resembles classic grand theft auto games huang working his way up through the criminal empire accumulating power and contending with constant ambushes from either the police or rival gangsters though the added asian-american cultural twist does help the title story stand out along with its new still-motion comic book art direction that seems to have been inspired by the comic book collage box art featured in the past several gta games as i mentioned before chinatown wars returns the series to its top down roots once more though there's a few tweaks to how this functions with some aspects feeling more immersive while others feel even more arcady breaking into cars for example sometimes triggers a hot wire mini-game that requires players to rotate the screws to a panel and twist the wires before the car will turn on but the driving has been simplified to account for the new camera style with cars that auto center more reliably in enemy vehicles that can be instantly disabled if knocked off the road with enough force the combat system also features a new lock-on aiming system making firefights easier to control and a new immersive drug dealing system has also been incorporated that lets players steal drugs stash them and trade them with different dealers around town there's a lot of great ideas thrown into this game that have still yet to be replicated but unfortunately chinatown wars would ultimately fail to live up to its potential sales numbers fell well below expectations prompting take two to follow up the nintendo ds release with the psp port a year later but even then sales still didn't line up with the sales that they had enjoyed during the series heyday in the portable market which is unfortunate because chinatown wars received exceptionally high praise from critics and fans alike it was praised for its clever hybrid of 3d graphics and it's cartoony aesthetic and many appreciated the increased amount of interactivity meant to complement the nintendo ds's dual screen when all is said and done chinatown wars is another fine entry to the grand theft auto franchise that builds strongly in the established formula but it's lackluster sales and rockstar leads increased disinterest with portable gaming would make it the last entry in the series to be made available in handheld form as the grand theft auto series matured into its teenage years its impact became even more apparent across the video game world by now practically every major project across the industry was aiming to deliver their own interpretation of rockstar's groundbreaking open world model with massive level environments light rpg mechanics and an emphasis on world interactivity activision's tony hawk series for example broke away from its two-minute skate session formula with its fourth entry giving players a chance to explore large open-ended environments and accept jobs to progress the storyline other games like just cause crackdown and saints row took things a step further and incorporated their own tiered wanted level system while upping the insanity in hopes of appearing more exciting and fun but quite possibly one of the most successful adaptations of gta's formula came from within rockstar itself with rockstar san diego sequel to their wild western shooter red dead revolver using the same engine that they had initially built rockstar san diego decided to return to their spaghetti western adventure and expanded outwards mirroring the highly immersive worlds of grand theft auto the game took several years to produce with take two investing millions of dollars into the project in fact it was so ambitious that take two even had both rockstar north and rockstar leads pulled in to help assist in its development finally in 2010 their efforts paid off phenomenally as red dead redemption would release to unbelievably high critical acclaim even more positive than gta 4 before the game took everything fans loved from the grand theft auto series like its high attention to detail its unlimited freedom and immersive atmosphere and applied it into the western setting and coupled that with some of the best writing ever to come out of the world of gaming but its most important contribution at least where gta and rockstar are concerned is that it proved rockstar san diego's worth within the company and moving forward major aaa productions released under the rockstar banner will continue using this collaborative multi-studio model development for the seventh mainline title to the gta series began before gta iv had even started to arrive on store shelves the series's long time writer dan hauser saw serious potential in the interconnected storylines that started to materialize throughout the 3d era and the gta 4 collection and he sought to incorporate that concept as a fundamental part of the next title's narrative structure in designing these interwoven plots dan decided to base each of the new characters around the personalities of what he considered to be typical mentalities of gta players there's the hearted veteran criminal who's seen it all and made it big then there's the complete sociopath he was more interested in causing utter chaos and mayhem whenever possible and finally there's the classic rookie starting from nothing and working their way to the top parking back to the design of practically every gta protagonist before him with these core character attributes now established the next step was deciding on a location returning to liberty city had proven to be hugely successful with gta iv as the new tech allowed rockstar to completely reimagine the city and deliver something fresh and unique but its urbanized setting also restricted the scope of the gameplay experience making vehicles like airplanes unreasonable so with this in mind they decided to return to the west coast again as it offered more than enough space to work with after work had finished on red dead redemption rockstar north began to send out research teams to los angeles to capture hundreds of thousands of photographs and videos just like before upon the return the art team commenced work on the level design planning out roadways sculpting buildings and erecting recognizable landmarks but unlike with san andreas they agreed early on that this reimagining of california would need to focus solely on the los angeles area as the increased level of detail required for the new hd era would not realistically allow for three entire cities to be recreated in a reasonable time frame the programming team now much more familiar with the rage engine's capabilities spent a great deal of time fine-tuning the dynamic lighting and shadow rendering to function within the confines of the aging ps3 and 360 hardware meanwhile the gameplay designers also look to improve as much as possible taking lessons learned from max payne 3 and red dead redemption while also backpedaling on the more realistic mentality incorporated into gta 4's design additionally the designers wanted to account for hauser's unique three character story direction and incorporated ways to seamlessly swap between the characters during select missions after seeing how well this new concept worked they then decided to expand the idea further and started to incorporate the swapping feature outside of the missions requiring them to build hundreds of unique scripted moments that would aim to trick the player into thinking that the characters were all living out their own virtual lives even when the player wasn't watching them as the game neared release the hype mounted more than ever before with every screenshot every small minute long trailer every ounce of information blowing up the internet until finally after three years of deafening anticipation rockstar north in collaboration with practically every other studio under the rockstar name released grand theft auto 5 exclusively for the ps3 and the xbox 360. grand theft auto 5 takes place in present-day san andreas and follows the story of several criminals as they pull off a series of major heists on the los santos and blaine county area players take control of three different characters each with their own distinct personalities skills and motives the first character is michael desantis or townley depending on who you ask michael is a highly skilled ex-bank robber who enters the witness protection program after selling out his crew during a bank job in the game's prologue while this seems to go exactly as planned michael finds himself tormented by persistent guild over what happened and frequently takes it out in fits of rage often directed towards his cheating wife his desperate fame chasing daughter and his lazy ungrateful son jimmy i mean why do i have to hold your hand through this whole midlife crisis bull on the other side of the city we have our second character franklin clinton an ambitious young repo man raised in the hood and desperately looking for a way out tell you what my boy you tell me exactly what you want and i will very carefully explain to you why it cannot be what after failing to repo a car from jimmy michael decides to take franklin under his wing and after a violent outburst gets them both in deep trouble with a local crime lord the two are forced to take down a jewelry store downtown to pay off a debt this is your moment please don't make me ruin all the great work your plastic surgeons have been doing on the floor now which inevitably attracts the attention of the third playable character trevor phillips trevor is simply put a psychopath he's incredibly unstable unpredictable and highly volatile animal do you take me for no i didn't kill him but i did kidnap his wife oh no oh sh did you do and serves a dual purpose through the story as both the protagonist and the antagonist after seeing that michael his former partner in crime has somehow miraculously survived the bank job from the prologue trevor decides to pay him a visit to get some answers and is infuriated to find out that michael had betrayed him adding an uneasy tension between the characters that persists throughout the course of the campaign my job my score get your own but that's just the tip of the iceberg as each character's actions set off a chain of events that result in the trio having to pull off various odd jobs for the us government kingpins and powerful investors pushing all three characters to their breaking point as they work together to pull off the biggest heist imaginable sweet the heists are a critical component of grand theft auto 5 marking a steep departure from themes explored in the past games many of the missions throughout the game involve sourcing material for the jobs like gathering costumes ids and necessary intel once everything's in place players can then tackle the heists themselves which can differ depending on the choices the player makes early on players can for example go in quiet knocking out the customers with gas and escaping before the cops know what happened or alternatively they can go in loud and dumb with epic shootouts in the streets highly reminiscent of popular heist films but it's not just the heights that deliver these high octane moments practically every mission in gta 5 is filled with exciting scripted action set pieces with crazy over-the-top car chases firefights and enough explosions to impress michael bay the tone is somewhat similar to what was established in the ballot of gay tony only the dependency on replicating famous action movie scenes has never been clear with countless references and homages sprinkled all throughout the 20-plus hour campaign [Music] and while yes this main campaign is technically shorter than gta 4 the incredibly large and dense open-world environment more than makes up for it gta 5's map offers the biggest playable space of any grand theft auto game in fact it's so big that it can fit the maps of gta 4 red dead redemption and even san andreas within it its land mass is naturally divided up into two regions each with their own distinct look and feel the southern region and the one that sees most of the action is the city of los santos that like in gta san andreas is an exaggerated interpretation of the los angeles area however this version gets much closer to capturing the incredible scale and density of the real thing the city stretches for miles all around with practically all the most iconic areas represented in one way or another there's hollywood boulevard downtown venice beach santa monica beverly hills the la river and compton that happens to include a cul-de-sac that bears a striking resemblance to grove street north of the city limits is blaine county a massive open-ended wilderness that includes winding canyons a desert airfield rolling vineyards thick forests and the mysterious mount chiliad that serves as the tallest point in the game and quite possibly the entire series there's a ton of sights to see throughout gta 5's 75 square kilometers and to supplement them further a lot of these locations offered unique interactive activities to discover players can for example ride a roller coaster at the pier look through telescopes at the observatory or take a bus tour along vinewood boulevard and all this accompanies returning aspects of grand theft auto level environments including a diverse population of dynamic ai lots more storefronts to visit some of which can be robbed at gunpoint an extension to the in-game cell phone menu with a more robust internet browser built in and a seemingly endless amount of more structured activities to participate in like golf tennis yoga scuba diving and bounty hunting i could go on for another hour detailing each new feature incorporated into gta 5's open world but it's something that really just needs to be experienced firsthand to understand fully and it's not the only aspect of the gameplay design worth mentioning gta 5 also sees a big improvement to its combat and vehicle designs as i mentioned previously rockstar took lessons to learn from their time working on max payne 3 and midnight club to tweak gta's core features making combat snappier and more responsive and driving faster tighter and easier to control the euphoria physics systems from before are still at play though they've been toned down a bit allowing players to more easily identify when a target's been killed and preventing cars from unknowingly flipping over the smallest curb gta 5 also sees a big return for player customization allowing players to freely modify their guns at ammunition upgrade their cars with engines body kits and custom paint jobs and even get a fresh haircut at the barber player stat progression also returns albeit with more fundamental stats like shooting driving and flying and no actual visible change to the character like weight gain in fact gta 5 removes the ability to eat food at restaurants entirely limiting health replenishment to the occasional wall mounted health pack candy bar soda or long nap to help emphasize the game's signature three character design gta 5 also introduces new special abilities that can be activated after a brief cooldown each of these abilities is tailor made for their respective character playing into their personal strengths michael is a talented shooter so he can trigger a slow motion bullet time effect much like max payne franklin is a good driver so he can slow down time when behind the wheel allowing him to perform unbelievable maneuvers and trevor well trevor is insane so he can enter into a rage mode and turn his enemies into a red base finally gta 5 sees yet another change to how the police function reducing the max wanted level to 5 stars and adding in new cones of vision to each officer on the radar giving players the option to actively hide from the police within the search radius and lose their wanted level if they're careful enough gta 5 is simply put a masterpiece within only the first day gta 5 obliterated past sale records becoming the fastest selling video game in the history of the industry even now it remains the second highest selling video game of all time with over 140 million copies sold since its initial release in 2013 but it wasn't just the hype that helped to sell it gta 5 was also met with near-flawless reception with scores meeting and exceeding that of its predecessor some outlets like ign even went as far as to say that gta 5 is the best video game ever made and it's hard to make a counter argument against that gta 5 really does check all the boxes at least in regards to what it's trying to accomplish all the series's best aspects have been reintroduced in one way or another and the game world offers more variety and detail than anything the series has attempted before but despite gta 5's insane amount of content this was only the beginning as rockstar had simultaneously been working on a complimentary online multiplayer mode that would change the franchise forever less than a month after gta 5 hit door shelves rockstar unlocked an additional multiplayer functionality to the game called grand theft auto online that takes the world of gta 5 and repurposes it to allow for persistent player progression in a constantly evolving multiplayer space in it players assume the role of a mute custom character that with the help of various characters featured in gta 5 and gta 4 need to rise through the ranks of the criminal underworld earning cash weapons vehicles and respect as they seek the ultimate american dream the narrative technically takes place prior to the events of gta 5 often shedding light on what some side characters were up to prior to meeting up with the trio of protagonists in the main story unbrilliant brilliant i love you in an appropriate way i mean i did it you would be dead of course though since its release evidence suggests that the plot of the online mode has moved past the events of the 2013 narrative making it the most recent point in the hd era's chronological timeline pretty much everything offered in gta 5's gameplay is carried over for this online mode including the controls the weapons the vehicles and the various new customization options los santos has to offer though thanks to years of continual content drops the online mode features vastly more features than anything in the series's history making it to many the ultimate grand theft auto experience there's nearly 700 vehicles players can drive more than double the cars first offered in gta 5. countless firearms to choose from thousands of clothing options and some of the most flat out absurd methods of transportation the series has ever seen but this took years to cultivate and in its earliest days gta online was pretty simple oh no how many times in one month in fact it was criticized for being too simple once players were able to log in following nearly a month of poor network stability it became clear that gta online really didn't deliver anything more than some death matches races and some repetitive small-scale cooperative missions the entire experience is built around earning as much money as possible in order to purchase assets like property and vehicles to play around with in free mode but because there was nothing to actually do in free mode other than fight the cops and rob from liquor stores gta online started to gradually develop a mixed response from audiences a big point of contention was the unexplained absence of the promised heist missions shown in the mode's reveal trailer that would allow players to rob banks with their friends just like the single player campaign but rockstar ran into a few snacks during the development of these heist missions admitting that they underestimated how difficult they would be to put together and to hold fans over they released several smaller content updates throughout the course of 2014 that would give players more vanity items to save up and gain cash for to support these continuous updates rockstar introduced a new in-game purchase system called shark cards that can be used to convert real life money into the game's fictional cash useful for skipping mission grinds to unlock access to new content sooner the shark cards have since become one of rockstar's most crucial points of revenue for the online service enabling them to continue providing players with years of new features without requiring players to pay directly for dlc though it has unsurprisingly developed a negative reputation for influencing every aspect of the online modes design usually making what should be simple tasks more difficult to entice players to purchase cards instead while fans frustratingly waited for rockstar to release their promised heist content rockstar then announced that e3 a new and improved version of gta 5 built to take full advantage of the then new ps4 and xbox one this version includes a plethora of changes chief among them being improved graphics new weapons and vehicles new missions and the biggest change of them all a brand new first person perspective allowing prayers to experience the entire grand theft auto experience up close and personal following this next-gen release rockstar north turned their attention back to gt online and finally released the long-awaited heist update in march of 2015. the heist update added five sets of cooperative missions to play through each with extended story cinematics setup missions and big finales usually incorporating unique gameplay mechanics not at all seen in the core gta 5 campaign along with it players were also treated to tons of new clothing options vehicles and weapons completely transforming the way players interacted online making vehicles like the armored kuruma almost mandatory in order to avoid getting gunned down randomly but the heist update's most notable contribution to the gta online experience was its potential to earn players lots of in-game cash reliably players were no longer forced to prey on randomly spawning armored trucks or spam replays of rooftop rumble but instead could participate in exciting bank robberies or prison breaks all accessible through a special heist prep room hidden in the player's apartment the heist update still continues to be a major component of the online experience though as rockstar would soon prove this was only the beginning a few months later after rockstar leads released a pc port of the game with even more impressive visuals gt online saw its second major expansion the free mode events update aimed to inject life into the stale free mode experience now players can participate in random competitive challenges across free mode lobbies often requiring players to complete stunts with vehicles or fight to stay within a continuously shrinking zone it was a big step for the online mode providing an excuse to stay within a single lobby it's also notable for being the first update to not be made available for players on old gen platforms effectively leaving ps3 and 360 players behind the next big update to gta online was the lowriders update that aimed to reintroduce the hood life vibe of 90s san andreas back into the world of grand theft auto with this update players could customize select vehicles with a huge selection of new cosmetic enhancements and also participate in several new gangster-style cooperative missions with returning single-player character lamar then there was the executive and other criminals update with this edition players can now create free mode based groups called organizations that function a lot like the posses first introduced in red dead redemption using this system players can more easily combine forces and take on rifle players together using an assortment of new vehicles like armored limos with mounted machine guns to help keep their vip alive this vip system was then expanded upon a year later in the further adventures in finance and felony update that adds in new high-rise office buildings and free mode base delivery missions giving players new yet tedious ways to earn money outside of the traditional heists it was with the next update that things in gta online really started to take a weird turn with cunning stunts players can now race in wacky over-the-top race courses using brand new larger-than-life track pieces that can send players boosting and flying across the city this mode has since become a hugely popular addition to the series with content creators and streamers regularly posting content of new more difficult courses enhanced further by an additional stunt race editor really shortly after because of its popularity rockstar has continued to support the mode adding additional mechanics like vehicle transformation to help enhance it further though the wacky colored ramps still remain separate from the costly evolving free mode experience following the stunts update there was the bikers update the bikers update brings back lots of aspects first introduced in the lost and the damned and reconfigures the biker clubhouse and rider formation to function within the confines of a multiplayer setting just like with the organizations pers can start up a biker club at any time in the free mode lobby and then invite their friends to join in where they can then cultivate various criminal enterprises by delivering product and defending against rival gangs and then after the biker update there was the import and export missions adding high-end vehicle theft to the list of illegal activities that players could participate in in 2017 grand theft auto online underwent yet another major transformation putting an increased emphasis on military hardware and explosive combat above all else new updates like gun running and smuggler's run added in massive military facilities to the game allowing players to cultivate weapons trade businesses and acquire a fleet of powerful military aircraft at their own hangar this idea was followed up with the doomsday heist that introduced a second type of massive underground layer while also adding in a new robust cooperative heist and a ton of high-end top-secret hardware to play around with by this point the grand theft auto online lobbies had turned into a confusing urban war zone with players flying around in jet packs rocket cars back to the future deloreans and world war ii bomber planes so to sort of reel it in rockstar released the long rumored nightclub update called after hours adding with it the ability to purchase night clubs and dance with your friends it's highly reminiscent of the dance clubs and ballad of gay tony in fact gay tony himself even makes this series return with this expansion and offers players an all new set of cooperative missions to play through tony yeah i don't think you can say gay tony anymore it's not pc the internet will go crazy by 2019 and 2020 the amount of content releases for gta online had slowed to a trickle rockstar san diego sequel to red dead redemption once again required all hands on deck leaving a skeleton crew behind to maintain gta's multiplayer experience and upon its completion focus shifted strongly towards the ever mysterious next entry to the grand theft auto series a few big updates have found their way to los santos including a massive casino letting players gamble with their earned money and rob the vault with a new set of missions along with the ambitious kaio-perico heist that takes place on a new small island but since then things have gotten extremely quiet in the world of grand theft auto which finally after over two hours brings us to now where on earth does the series go from here the most obvious answer to some may be a reimagined version of vice city closing the loop and setting the stage for another generational leap but with gta 5 and its online counterpart still to this day dominating the sales charts it's likely take 2 and rockstar have completely reevaluated how they treat the property another important thing to bear in mind here is that following gta 5 long-time producer behind the grand of the auto series leslie benzies has left the company along with long-time lead writer dan hauser leaving veterans aaron garbett rob nelson and andrew semple to take over with these major departures it's very unclear where the series will go next or what it will look like though what we do know is that following the massive development process of gta 5 and red dead redemption 2. rockstar has acknowledged that moving forward they would like to work on smaller scale titles that are more focused and more polished outside of that there's really no telling what new incredible experiences the grand theft auto series has in store for us for the past 20 plus years gta has been a staple of the video game industry letting players explore massive sprawling cities without restriction while simultaneously pissing off every politician that's ever laid eyes on it and it's this constant balance of incredible gameplay experiences and the unnecessary controversy that will continue to drive grand theft auto's unrivaled reputation as one of the greatest video game franchises ever made but what do you guys think which grand theft auto experience has been your favorite and where do you think the series should go next let me know in the comment section i also wanted to give a special shout out to my supporters on patreon including b-man uriel thomasoff and chad trotwine thank you all so much for continued support if you enjoy the work i do here and want to see more quality content like this in the future please consider joining the growing list of patreon supporters where you can get early access to new projects behind the scenes content shout outs and access to our private discord to chat and play games with us your support is hugely appreciated also if you want more regular updates on my projects you can always follow me on twitter i'll have my link posted below and as always don't forget to like and subscribe for more reviews comparisons and documentaries posted every week [Music] you

Channel: Nick930

Views: 7,967,422

Keywords: Grand Theft Auto, GTA, History of, Rockstar, DMA, Take Two, Review, Comparison, Documentary, History, Analysis, Retrospective, Review of every, Story, Gameplay, Features, Impression, Behind the scenes, Development, Summary, Full, Fan, Favorite, Best, Professional, High Quality, GTAV, GTAOnline, GTAIV, GTA5, GTA4, GTA3, Vice City, San Andreas, Los Santos, Liberty City, Niko Bellic, Trevor, Franklin, Michael, Claude, Tommy, Classic, Rockstar North, GTA Retrospective, History of GTA

Id: poKPUS7pu5Y

Length: 137min 4sec (8224 seconds)

Published: Sat May 15 2021