Grand Theft Auto (video game)

Infobox VG| title = Grand Theft Auto


developer = DMA Design, Tarantula Studios
publisher = BMG Interactive, ASC Games, Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.
released = PC October 1997

PlayStation: May 1998

Game Boy Color: 1999

Download (Steam): January 4, 2008
genre = Action
modes = Single player, multiplayer
ratings = BBFC: 18
ESRB: M
ESRB: T (GBC)
OFLC: MA15+
OFLC: M (GBC)
platforms = DOS 6.0, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation, GBC
media = CD-ROM, cartridge, download
requirements = 486 DX4/100Mhz CPUcite book |title=Grand Theft Auto PC Edition Manual | page=4 | date=1997 | publisher=Take-Two Interactive | author=DMA Design] 16 MB RAM 1 MB Video RAM

"Grand Theft Auto" ("GTA") is a computer and video game created by Scottish company, DMA Design (now Rockstar North) and published by BMG Interactive in 1997. The game allows the player to take on the role of a criminal who can roam freely around a big city. Various missions are set for completion, such as bank robberies, assassinations, and other crimes. It is the first in the "Grand Theft Auto" series that has thus far spanned nine standalone games, and two expansion packs. The game was originally intended to be named "Race N Chase". [cite web | url=http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=12190 | title=Playing Catch Up: GTA/Lemmings' Dave Jones | date=21 December, 2006 | author=Wallis, Alistair | work=Gamasutra | format=HTML] GTA was succeeded by "Grand Theft Auto 2" and both games were made available for free download by Rockstar Games on their website in 2004. [cite web | url=http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/735/1759/view.phtml | title=Rockstar give away GTA2 for free | author=Miles, Stuart | date=2004-12-23 | accessdate=2007-10-29]

Gameplay

"Grand Theft Auto" is made up of a series of levels each set in one of the three cities in the game (Liberty City, Vice City and San Andreas). In each level, the player has a target number of points to achieve, and five lives to attain the score.

Possibilities

The player is free to do whatever he wants. The player can gain points by causing death and destruction amid the traffic in the city, or steal and sell cars for profit, although to get to the large target money amount to complete a level, players will usually opt to complete missions which will gain them multiplier for every success and losing one for every failed mission. The multiplier multiplies the amount of points scored for anything. Thus with a higher multiplier it is possible to reach the target score by only doing less worthwhile stuff.

Freedom

Even during missions there is still some freedom as most of the time the player is free to choose the route to take, but the destination is usually fixed. It is this level of freedom which set "GTA" apart from other action based computer games at the time. [cite web | url=http://uk.gamespot.com/ps/adventure/grandtheftauto/review.html | title=Gamespot describes the freedom of the game as its best attribute | date=6 May, 1998 | author= Mac Donald, Ryan | work=GameSpot | format=HTML] The PC releases of the game allowed networked multiplayer gameplay using the IPX protocol.

Characters

Players are able to choose to play as eight characters in the game: Travis, Kat, Nikki, Divine, Bubba, Troy, Kivlov and Ulrika. The Playstation version only lets players choose four characters. In actual gameplay, there is no real difference, since the characters all wear the exact same yellow sweater. You may also name your character, which, with the correct name, acts like a cheat code and enhances gameplay. However, these characters have never been seen in any other GTA game to date and are relatively unknown, as in the case of the characters from Grand Theft Auto but one of the characters Troy shares many similarities to Carl "CJ" Johnson from GTA San Andreas.

Cover art

The cover art (see above) for "Grand Theft Auto" is a photograph of a New York Police Department 1980's Plymouth Gran Fury rushing through the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 56th Street, with Trump Tower in the background of the picture. The same cover art was also an alternative cover for "Grand Theft Auto 2" in selected markets.

Locations

The three cities in which the game is set are modelled after real cities, in terms of landscape and style. They are Liberty City (New York City), San Andreas (San Francisco) and Vice City (Miami).

These three cities would later become the settings of "Grand Theft Auto III", ', ', ', ', "", and "Grand Theft Auto IV".

oundtrack

Grand Theft Auto has seven "radio stations", plus a police band track, which can be heard once the player enters a car, however each vehicle can only receive a limited number of these radio stations.cite book | title=Grand Theft Auto PC Edition Manual | page=13 | date=1997 | publisher=Take-Two Interactive | author=DMA Design] In the PlayStation port each car only had one station.

PC players can remove the CD once the game is loaded and replace it with an audio CD. The next time the character enters a vehicle, a song from the CD will randomly play. This can also be done in the Playstation port.

The game's main theme is "Gangster Friday" by Craig Conner (who played all instruments on this track), credited to the fictitious band "Slumpussy", and is played on Head Radio.With the exception of Head Radio FM, the names of songs or the radio station names are never mentioned in-game. However the soundtrack is listed in the booklet which comes with the game.

The Collector's Edition of the PC version included the soundtrack on a separate CD. The tracklisting gives the names of the fictional radio stations, bands and their tracks, and for some of them the fictional album that they are from.

Ports

The original "Grand Theft Auto" was developed in DOS, and then later ported to Microsoft Windows (using SciTech MGL), Sony PlayStation, and Game Boy Color. The Game Boy Color version was technologically unabridged, which was quite a technical achievement due to the sheer size of the cities, converted tile-for-tile from the PC original, making them many times larger than most Game Boy Color game worlds were because of the handheld's limited hardware. To cater for the target younger generation, however, the game was heavily censored, with gore and swearing removed.

The PC version comes in several different executables for DOS and MS-Windows, which use single set of data files (except for the 8-bit DOS version which uses different but similar graphics)

Grand Theft Auto was to be released on the Sega Saturn, but due to the console's rapid decline in popularity before development was finished, the project was halted and the game was never released. After the Playstation's very successful release, development began on a port for the Nintendo 64 dubbed "Grand Theft Auto 64", rumored to have graphical enhancements and new missions, but was cancelled without ever having a public appearance. [cite web | title = Grand Theft Auto 64 Preview | url = http://ign64.ign.com/articles/131/131436p1.html | date = 1999-03-29 | accessdate = 2007-07-31 ]

See also

*""
* Grand Theft Auto soundtrack

Notes

External links

* [http://www.rockstargames.com/gta/ Grand Theft Auto official site]
* [http://www.rockstargames.com/classics/gta.html Free download of "GTA" and "GTA2" as "Rockstar Classics"]
* [http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/07/13/earlyshow/living/parenting/main708794.shtml Grand Theft Auto Under Fire]