Grand Theft Auto (GTA) is a highly successful sandbox style video game series created by Dave Jones and primarily developed by Scottish company Rockstar North (formerly DMA Design) and published by Rockstar Games.
The gameplay consists of a mixture of action, adventure, driving, and occasional role-playing, stealth and racing elements and has gained controversy for its adult nature and violent
themes. The series focuses around many different protagonists who
attempt to rise through the criminal underworld, although their motives
for doing so vary in each game. The antagonist in each game is commonly
a character who has betrayed them or their organization or someone who
has the most impact impeding their progress.
The series began in 1997 and currently has nine stand-alone games with a tenth one on the way, and two expansion packs for the original. Film veterans such as Michael Madsen, Burt Reynolds, Dennis Hopper, Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Penn, James Woods, Joe Pantoliano, Frank Vincent, Robert Loggia, Peter Fonda and Ray Liotta have all voiced major characters in many installments in the series. The name of the series and its games are derived from grand theft auto, a term referring to motor vehicle theft. As of 26 March 2008, the franchise has sold over 70 million copies worldwide; according to Take-Two Interactive.[1]
[edit] Overview
The games allow people to take on the role of a criminal in a big city, typically a lowly individual who rises in the ranks of organized crime
over the course of the game. Various missions are set for completion by
the figureheads of the city underworld, generally criminal, which must
be completed to progress through the storyline. Bank robberies, assassinations, and other crimes feature regularly, but occasionally taxi driving, firefighting, pimping, street racing, or learning to fly an airplane
are also involved as alternate adventures, which can be done at any
time during the game, with the exception of the periods performing main
missions.
In later titles, notably those released after Grand Theft Auto 2,
the player is given a more developed storyline, in which they are
forced to overcome an event where they are either betrayed and left for
dead or experienced an unfortunate event, which serves as motivation
for the character to advance in the criminal ladder, and eventually
leads to the triumph of the character by the end of the storyline;
specific examples of this are the plots for Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.
The Grand Theft Auto series, belonging to a genre of free-roaming video games called "sandbox games,"
grants a large amount of freedom to the player in deciding what to do
and how to do it through multiple methods of transport and weapons.
Unlike most traditional action games, which are structured as a single
track series of levels with linear gameplay, in GTA
the player can determine the missions they want to undertake, and their
relationships with various characters are changed based on these
choices. The cities of the games can also be roamed freely at any point
in the game, offering many accessible buildings and minor missions.
There are exceptions: missions follow a linear, overarching plot, and
some city areas must be unlocked over the course of the game.
Grand Theft Auto III and subsequent games have more prevalent voice acting, and radio stations, which simulate driving to music with disc jockeys, radio personalities, commercials, talk radio, pop music, and American culture.
The use of vehicles in an explorable urban environment provides a
basic simulation of a working city, complete with pedestrians who obey
traffic signals. Further details are used to flesh out an open-ended
atmosphere that has been used in several other games, such as The Simpsons Hit & Run, which has less emphasis on crime or violence.
The series has courted a great deal of controversy since the release of Grand Theft Auto III.
This criticism stems from the focus on illegal activities in comparison
with traditional "heroic" roles that other games offer. The main
character can commit a wide variety of crimes and violent acts while
dealing with only temporary consequences, including the killing of
policemen and military personnel. Opponents of violent video games,
such as Jack Thompson, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Julia Boseman,
believe that players will try to emulate this behavior, while
proponents believe it provides an emotional outlet, as such actions in
real life would have serious consequences.
The success of the Grand Theft Auto series has resulted in Guinness
World Records awarding the series 10 world records in the Guinness
World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008. These records include Most Guest
Stars in a Video Game Series, Largest Voice Cast in a Video Game (GTA:
San Andreas), Largest In-Game Soundtrack (GTA: San Andreas), and Most
Successful Entertainment Launch Of All Time (GTA IV).
[edit] History
The Grand Theft Auto series may be divided into canons, based on the inclusion of a numbering after the recognizable title name (e.g. Grand Theft Auto III) after the original Grand Theft Auto's release, and to a certain extent, the type of graphics engine used.
[edit] Grand Theft Auto
Grand Theft Auto, the first title in the GTA series was released on PlayStation in 1997/1998 and also for Windows PCs.[2] The game is set in three different fictional cities, Liberty City, San Andreas, and Vice City. A reduced Game Boy Color port was later released. Subsequently, two expansion packs were offered, set in 1960s London.
[edit] Grand Theft Auto 2
The second game in the series, Grand Theft Auto 2, was developed for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation and Dreamcast and released in 1999. Set in the indeterminable future,[3]
it featured updated graphics and somewhat different gameplay based upon
the player's appeal to various criminal organizations. A reduced Game Boy Color port was also produced.
[edit] Grand Theft Auto III
Grand Theft Auto III was released in October 2001. The game's setting takes place around that time,[4] in fictional Liberty City, which is loosely based on New York City, but also incorporates elements of other American cities.[5] Grand Theft Auto III brought a third-person view
to the series, rather than the traditional top-down view of earlier
titles (although the view is still made available as an optional camera
angle). For the first time, the problem of navigating within the huge sandbox game was solved by implementing a constant GPS triggered mini-map that highlighs the player's position as well as those of current targets. Graphics were also updated with a new 3D game engine. While not the first of its kind, the gameplay engine expanded the explorable world of GTA III, doing away with a traditional game structure where the player faces a "boss"
at the end of the level and moves onto a new level, opting instead for
more realistic mission-based approach. Multiplayer was discarded (third
party mods were later released, allowing for multiplayer gameplay), but GTA III improved in many other areas such as voice-acting and storyline (in previous GTAs,
there was speech only in short animated cut scenes between levels,
other communication was simply subtitles running on the bottom of the
screen). Grand Theft Auto III sold very well and became the first blockbuster game in the series.
After the success of Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was released in 2002. This game was set in 1986 in Vice City, which was based on Miami. Vice City
was the first game to introduce fully functional flying vehicles that
could be used by the player, such as sea planes and helicopters.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,
released in October 2004, had its setting in 1992, focusing on
California gang life and the awakening of the drug epidemic brought on
by crack cocaine. The setting was in the fictional state of San Andreas, which was based on some California and Nevada cities, specifically Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Las Vegas. Their counterparts are Los Santos, San Fierro, and Las Venturas
respectively. The game also included a countryside in between Los
Santos and San Fierro and also between Los Santos and Las Venturas, and
a desert in between Las Venturas and San Fierro. San Andreas also attracted controversy when a sex minigame that was cut from the game, but remained in the game code, was discovered in both the console and Windows versions of the game. Dubbed the "Hot Coffee mod", the minigame allowed players to have sex with their in-game girlfriends. As a result, GTA: San Andreas was pulled from a number of retail outlets and was re-rated from "M" (Mature) to "AO" (Adults Only) by the Entertainment Software Rating Board
(ESRB), making it the first game in the series to be given an AO
rating. Rockstar has since released an edited version of the game for
the Microsoft Windows, Xbox, and PlayStation 2, and has reclaimed the "M" rating.
[edit] Grand Theft Auto IV
The latest installment of the series, Grand Theft Auto IV, was released on 29 April 2008, after a six month delay.[6] It was the first Grand Theft Auto game to be released simultaneously on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms. In November 2008 Rockstar has anounced that its going to publish GTA IV for PC. GTA IV's game engine is the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (also known as RAGE) used in Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis and the Euphoria physics engine . The game once again takes place in a redesigned Liberty City that very closely resembles New York City, much more than previous renditions.[7]
It has been confirmed that exclusive episodic content will be released for the Xbox 360. Microsoft officially announced a "strategic alliance" with Rockstar Games over the rights to some episodic content through their Xbox Live service at their X06 event. Times Online reported that Grand Theft Auto IV recorded 609,000 copies in first-day sales, in the UK.[8] In its first week, Grand Theft Auto IV sold approximately 6 million copies worldwide and grossed over $500 million.[9]
[edit] Handheld games
Grand Theft Auto for GBA was also released in 2004. Originally developed to be a top-down conversion of GTA III for the Game Boy Advance, it ended up becoming its own original adventure. Unlike the Game Boy ports of I and II, Grand Theft Auto Advance did not tone down the violence and adult dialog common to the GTA series. The game received an "M" rating from the ESRB. It was developed by an external developer, Digital Eclipse.
In 2005 and 2006, Rockstar released two games for the PlayStation Portable, both developed by Rockstar Leeds. Liberty City Stories is a prequel to Grand Theft Auto III set in Liberty City in 1998. A PlayStation 2 port was released by Rockstar on 6 June 2006.
Vice City Stories was released for the PlayStation Portable on 31 October 2006 and set in Vice City in 1984, two years before the events of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.
A PlayStation 2 port of the game was released on 6 March 2007. It was
the last installment of the third generation series, and the final game
set within the Grand Theft Auto III canon.
In 2009, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is set to be released on Nintendo DS, focusing on the triads and will be set in the Chinatown district of Liberty City.
[edit] Controversy
- See also: Criticism of Grand Theft Auto IV
Critics have targeted the exploitative and violent attitude toward
women in the series. Although not encouraged to do so in any of the
games, players may utilize the services of prostitutes, and then
subsequently rob and murder them.
The Grand Theft Auto series has been a source of considerable controversy since the release of Grand Theft Auto III. Some controversy can be attributed to publicist Max Clifford, who planted sensational stories in tabloids in order to help sell the game[10].
The fourth game in the series, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, also came under criticism. One mission in particular, in which the player must instigate a gang war
between Haitian and Cuban gangs, has been controversial. Haitian and
Cuban anti-defamation groups criticized the game. Jean-Robert Lafortune
of the Haitian American Grassroots Coalition is quoted as saying that
"The game shouldn't be designed to destroy human life, it shouldn't be
designed to destroy an ethnic group," for this and similar scenarios,
including lines in the game's script such as "kill the Haitian
dickheads" during an altercation between the player and a Haitian gang.
After the threat for having been sued by the Haitian-American
Grassroots Coalition, Rockstar removed the word "Haitians" from this
phrase in the game's subtitles.[11]
More recently, four teens in New York decided to go on a Grand Theft Auto–inspired
crime spree. The three teens beat and robbed a man outside of a New
Hyde Park supermarket. They then went to a train station, encountering
other teens they knew from their high school and recruiting them. The
mob, now numbering six, armed themselves with a baseball bat, a
broomstick and a crowbar. They stopped a woman driving a black BMW,
stole her cigarettes, then her car. They then smashed a van with the
baseball bat they carried. Both the driver of the BMW as well as the
van called the police, and the teens were arrested shortly after.[12]
[edit] Hot Coffee mod
After the release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, hackers managed to find unused code in the game and released unofficial patches for the Windows version
enabling the player to engage in sexual mini-games (dubbed "Hot Coffee"
in reference to a euphemism for sex used in the game). These mini-games
were never intended to be playable in the final version of the game,
but were left partially intact in the game's code. This prompted
application of an Adults Only (AO) ESRB
rating to the version of the game containing the leftover code.
Take-Two Interactive was forced to re-release the game in order to
restore the Mature (M) rating. A class action lawsuit against Take-Two
was also filed as a result of the "Hot Coffee" code.[13][14]
[edit] Jack Thompson lawsuits
Lawyer Jack Thompson has been involved in a number of attempts to get families of murder victims to hold the Grand Theft Auto series accountable for the death of their loved ones. Due to his conduct in this and related cases, Thompson was disbarred in 2008,[15] and was fined more than $43,675.35 by the Florida Bar Association.[16]
On 20 October 2003, the families of Aaron Hamel and Kimberly Bede,
two young people shot by teens William and Josh Buckner (who in
statements to investigators claimed their actions were inspired by GTA III) filed a US$246 million lawsuit against publishers Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive Software, retailer Wal-Mart, and PlayStation 2 manufacturer Sony Computer Entertainment America.[17][18] Rockstar and its parent company, Take-Two, filed for dismissal of the lawsuit, stating in U.S. District Court
on 29 October 2003 that the "ideas and concepts as well as the
'purported psychological effects' on the Buckners are protected by the First Amendment's free-speech clause." The lawyer of the victims, Jack Thompson, denied that and is attempting to move the lawsuit into a state court and under Tennessee's consumer protection act.[19] Two days later, the plaintiffs filed a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal, and the case was closed.
In February 2005, a lawsuit was brought upon the makers and distributors of the Grand Theft Auto series claiming the games caused a teenager to shoot and kill three members of the Alabama police force. The shooting took place in June 2003 when Devin Moore, 17 years old at the time, was brought in for questioning to a Fayette
police station regarding a stolen vehicle. Moore then grabbed a pistol
from one of the police officers and shot and killed him along with
another officer and dispatcher before fleeing in a police car.[20][21] One of Moore's attorneys, Jack Thompson, claimed it was GTA's
graphic nature - with his constant playing time - that caused Moore to
commit the murders, and Moore's family agrees. Damages are being sought
from the Jasper branches of GameStop and Wal-Mart, the stores from which GTA III and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, respectively, were purchased and also from the games' publisher Take-Two Interactive, and the PlayStation 2 manufacturer Sony Computer Entertainment.
The case is currently being heard by the same judge who presided over
Moore's criminal trial, in which Moore was sentenced to death for his
actions.
In May 2008, Jack Thompson appeared via satellite on the Glenn Beck program on CNN's Headline News. Thompson mentioned Devin Moore and said regarding Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
"There's no doubt in my mind [...] that but for Devin Moore's training
on this cop killing simulator, he would not have been able to kill
three cops in Fayette, Alabama who are now dead and in the ground. We are suing Take-Two, Sony, Wal-Mart, and GameStop for having trained Devin Moore to kill. He had no history of violence. No criminal record."[22]
In September 2006, Jack Thompson brought another lawsuit, claiming that Cody Posey
played the game obsessively before murdering his father Delbert Paul
Posey, stepmother Tryone Schmid, and stepsister Marilea Schmid on a
ranch in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The suit was filed on behalf of the victims' families.[23] During the criminal trial, Posey's defense team argued he was abused by his father, and tormented by his stepmother.[24] Posey was also taking Zoloft at the time of the killings.[25] The suit alleged that were it not for his obsessive playing of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, the murders would not have taken place.[26]
Named in the suit were Cody Posey, Rockstar Games, Take-Two
Interactive, and Sony. The suit asked for US$600 million in damages.[27]
[edit] Similar games
- See also: Grand Theft Auto clone
Critics sometimes treat the release of Grand Theft Auto III as a revolutionary event in the history of video games, much like the release of Doom nearly a decade earlier.[28]
Subsequent games that follow this formula of driving and shooting have
been called Grand Theft Auto clones. Some reviewers even extended this
label to the Driver series, even though this series began years before the release of Grand Theft Auto III.[29]
Grand Theft Auto clones are a type of 3D action-adventure game,[30] where players are given the ability to drive any vehicle or fire any weapon as they explore an open world.[31] These games often incorporate violent and criminal themes. Notable games that are sometimes seen as Grand Theft Auto clones are the Saints Row series[32], The Godfather, The Getaway, The Getaway: Black Monday, Crackdown, Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven, Mafia II, True Crime: Streets of LA and True Crime: New York City, [33][34] Scarface: The World Is Yours and The Simpsons Hit & Run, which uses the GTA style of gaming.[35]
[edit] See also
[edit] Soundtracks
- Grand Theft Auto soundtrack
- Grand Theft Auto 2 soundtrack
- Grand Theft Auto III soundtrack
- Grand Theft Auto: Vice City soundtrack
- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas soundtrack
- Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories soundtrack
- Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories soundtrack
- Grand Theft Auto IV soundtrack
- Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Official Soundtrack Box Set available on Epic Records
- Grand Theft Auto: Vice City OST - Greatest Hits also available on Epic Records
- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Official Soundtrack available on Interscope Records
- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Official Soundtrack Box Set also available on Interscope Records
- The Music of Grand Theft Auto IV also available on Interscope Records
[edit] Other
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ "Recommendation of the Board of Directors to Reject Electronic Arts Inc.'s Tender Offer" (PDF) 9, 12. Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (2008-03-26). Retrieved on 2008-04-01.
- ^ The actual release date of Grand Theft Auto is not clear. While Rockstar Games asserts in its official website that the game was released in October 1997, GameSpot and IGN indicated that the game was only released on February or March 1998, respectively.
- ^ Grand Theft Auto 2's
manual uses the phrase "three weeks into the future", and phrases such
as "X weeks into the future" or "X minutes into the future" are common
phrases meaning "near future"; fictional journal entries on the game's
official website, however, suggest 2013 [1]. - ^ According to the final entry of the official Liberty Tree "online newspaper", Grand Theft Auto III is implied to be set around the first release of GTA III, specifically, October 2001.
- ^ "GTA IV: Building a Brave New World". uk.xbox360.ign.com (2008-03-28). Retrieved on 2008-04-23.
- ^ MCWHERTOR, MICHAEL (2 August 2007). "Take-Two Execs Explain GTA IV Delay". kotaku.com. Retrieved on 2007-08-02.
- ^ Totilo, Stephen (2007-03-29). "'GTA IV' Revealed: Game Returning To City That Made It Famous". MTV. Retrieved on 2007-04-01.
- ^ Sabbagh, Dan. "Grand Theft Auto IV records 609,000 first-day sales", The Times, 1 May 2008
- ^ Franklin Paul (2008-05-07). "Take-Two's Grand Theft Auto 4 sales top $500 million". Reuters. Retrieved on 2008-05-08.
- ^ Grand Theft Auto in the dock over US road killing | The Register
- ^ "Take-Two self-censoring Vice City". GameSpot. Retrieved on 2008-05-02.
- ^ "Cops: Grand Theft Auto video game inspired crimes.". newsday.com. Retrieved on 2008-06-27.
- ^ "IGN: Hot Coffee Lawsuit Finally Mopped Up". IGN. Retrieved on 2008-05-02.
- ^ "Take-Two Announces 'Hot Coffee' Lawsuit Settlements". Gamasutra. Retrieved on 2008-05-02.
- ^ "DISBARRED!", GamePolitics.com, 25 September 2008
- ^ "Judge's report recommending Permanent disbarment for Jack Thompson", Gamepolitics.com, 9 July 2008
- ^ "Lawsuit filed against Sony, Wal-Mart over game linked to shootings". CNN. Retrieved on 6 May, 2006.
- ^ "Families sue over GTAIII-inspired shooting". GameSpot. Retrieved on 6 May, 2006.
- ^ "Rockstar seeks to dismiss GTAIII lawsuit". GameSpot. Retrieved on 6 May, 2006.
- ^ "Suit: Video Game Sparked Police Shootings", ABC News (2005-03-07). Archived from the original on 2005-03-07.
- ^ "Grand Theft Auto sparks another lawsuit". GameSpot. Retrieved on 18 August 2006.
- ^ CNN Headline News - Grand Theft Morality Pt.2 YouTube. Retrieved 2008-05-07
- ^ "Video-game maker blamed in '04 killing". The Albuquerque Tribune. Retrieved on 27 September 2006.
- ^ "Jack Thompson Lawsuit to be Filed in Albuquerque". Game Politics.com (2006-09-25). Retrieved on 2007-07-11.
- ^ "Vera Ockenfels, the Cody Posey defense team's mitigation specialist, discusses his conviction (transcript) (Feb. 8, 2006)". Courtroom Television. Retrieved on 27 September 2006.
- ^ "Antigame Crusader in ABQ". ABQnewsSeeker. Retrieved on 27 September 2006.
- ^ "Jack Thompson becomes boring". Joystiq (2006-09-27). Retrieved on 2007-07-11.
- ^ Game Informer Issue 138 p.73
- ^ Jeff Gerstmann (2006-03-14). "Driver: Parallel Lines Review". GameSpot. Retrieved on 2008-07-24.
- ^ Sources that refer to GTA style games as action-adventure games include:
i. Jonathan Parkyn (2006-04-18). "Review: The Godfather 3D action game". Personal Computer World. Retrieved on 2008-07-25.
ii. Steve Tilley (2007-04-01). "Wii 'Godfather' for newbies only". CANOE. Retrieved on 2008-07-25.;
iii. Sam Bishop (2003-05-16). "E3 2003: True Crime: Streets of L.A. Update". IGN. Retrieved on 2008-07-25.
iv. Will Tuttle (2006-08-30). "GameSpy Review - Saints Row". GameSpy. Retrieved on 2008-07-25.;
v. Blake Snow (2008-01-30). "Just Cause 2 announced for Xbox 360, PS3, PC". GamePro. Retrieved on 2008-07-24. - ^ "Crackdown Community Q&A". EuroGamer (2007-03-27). Retrieved on 2008-07-25.
- ^ Douglass C. Perry, Saints Row Review, IGN, 28 August 2006
- ^ True Crime: Streets of LA, IGN, 31 October 2003
- ^ Gameranking PS2 Average 77%
- ^ Chris Roper, Scarface: The World is Yours Review, IGN]], 6 October 2006
[edit] External links
- Official Grand Theft Auto website
- Grand Theft Auto series at MobyGames
- Grand Theft Auto series at the Open Directory Project
- Download Grand Theft Auto 1+2 from Rockstargames.com!
- Grand Theft Auto article on Grand Theft Wiki
| [hide] Grand Theft Auto series | |
|---|---|
| Games | Grand Theft Auto (London Mission Packs) · Grand Theft Auto 2 · Grand Theft Auto III · Vice City · San Andreas · Advance · Liberty City Stories · Vice City Stories · Grand Theft Auto IV · Chinatown Wars |
| Protagonists | Claude · Tommy Vercetti · Carl "CJ" Johnson · Mike · Toni Cipriani · Victor Vance · Niko Bellic · Huang Lee |
| Characters | Grand Theft Auto III · Vice City · San Andreas · Advance · Liberty City Stories · Vice City Stories · Grand Theft Auto IV |
| Locations | |
| Soundtracks | Grand Theft Auto · Grand Theft Auto 2 · Grand Theft Auto III · Vice City · San Andreas · Liberty City Stories · Vice City Stories · Grand Theft Auto IV |
| Other | |
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