Grand Theft Auto

aka: GTA, Race 'n' Chase
Moby ID: 417
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

In Grand Theft Auto, the player takes the role of a small-time criminal trying to make it big with the mob. Stealing cars, doing jobs for the gangsters and behaving generally anti-social are the way to success.

The action moves through six levels spread over three different cities, each based on a real US city: Liberty City (based on New York City), San Andreas (based on San Francisco) and Vice City (based on Miami). To finish a level, a certain score must be reached. Stealing cars and crashing into traffic, driving over pedestrians and killing cops all raise the score, but the big points are made through jobs. Answering phones or entering special cars brings mission assignments, from simple "ditch-a-hot-car" jobs to supporting bank robberies or carrying out assassinations. Completing a mission will raise the score substantially and also increase the score multiplier, so that completing the next felony will gain even more points.

Criminal behavior comes with a price of course: if policemen witness a crime, the player's wanted level rises. At the lowest level, a single police car might give chase, whereas at the highest level whole car squads hunt the player, the police set up roadblocks and shoot to kill. The only way to evade the cops is to find a respray shop and get a new paint job with new license plates. This costs money which is deducted from the score, however. But even dying or being arrested are not the end. The player has several lives, and ending up in jail simply results in being stripped of all weapons and armor and the score multiplier being lowered.

The entire action is viewed from a top-down perspective, which zooms out while driving a car, for a better overview at high speeds. The cities are many screens large and can be freely explored. Crates are scattered over the cities, which might include weapons (from pistols to rocket launchers), armor or other bonus items: extra lives, police bribes (used to reduce the wanted level to zero) and get-out-of-jail-free cards (used to retain score multiplier and weapons when busted). Dozens of different vehicles are available for the taking, each with unique characteristics: a bus will handle very differently than a sports car.

Spellings

  • 侠盗车手 - simplified Chinese spelling
  • 俠盜獵車手 - traditional Chinese spelling

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Credits (DOS version)

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Team Leader
Lead Programmer
Lead Artist
Programming
Artwork
Map Design and Mission Programming
Writers
Music Written, Produced and Performed by
Audio Programming
Sound Effects
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 75% (based on 52 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 277 ratings with 13 reviews)

The one that started it all. Does it still stand strong after 17 years?

The Good
+ Three cities to explore
+ Full-fledged exploration of each city
+ Decent soundtrack
+ Great variety of cars
+ The "special" button


The Bad
- Questionable control scheme
- Some clunky game mechanics
- Modest graphics and unstable framerate
- Punishing save system
- Clunky camera


The Bottom Line
Presentation: 50/100
The game does not provide an introduction, or a real story, just you being a newbie criminal, climbing up the crime ladder.

Graphics: 70/100
The graphics aren't exactly the greatest looking. The buildings are in 3D and the characters and cars are 2D sprites, and when the camera gets close, these little guys are obviously not meant to be up close. The framerate is okay, but it drops when there are at least 5 cars on screen, and when the camera zoom out, the framerate is a chugging mess. The camera isn't exactly the greatest either. The camera does not always respond as quick as it should; such as when you are making a sharp turn, the camera would end up going too far to where you're turning, which can lead to a top of a building getting in the way of the view.

Audio: 80/100
The sound effects are adequate, and the soundtrack is decent, depending on preference. The radio stations are not very lengthy and a station will be set for each car; for example, a pick-up truck will play country music, while a sports car will play rock music.

Controls: 67/100
The controls are playable at best. X and Triangle moves your character forward and back, Square jack a car, and Circle fires your weapon. L1 and L2 cycles weapons, R2 is special and R1 is the brakes. Driving is a bit clunky to control, because the car physics aren't exactly as fully-fledged, such as the car might not stop completely, it just inches towards where it's facing, and pressing Triangle does not apply the brakes, R1 does. The controls will feel strange at first, but they will probably become second nature as you get into the game. The worst offender for the controls is aiming your gun, especially the pistol. It seems that the hit detection is not as fully-fledged, meaning you have to be pinpoint precise with your shots; if you're one pixel off and your bullets aren't going to hit anyone. If you want to know why I like that "special" button, try it out yourself. You'll laugh. Out loud.

Difficulty: Mostly challenging not by the challenge
Grand Theft Auto is overall a challenging game. Sometimes, the challenge isn't even by the challenge, the odd controls make driving weird. The lack of a health bar also adds to the challenge, meaning that you will die in one bullet, and there's a lives counter, so the amount of times you can die is fairly limited. The lack of a health bar and dying in one hit, can be inconvenient at first, but you'll learn how to dodge bullets. In each level, you have to collect a set amount of points to pass a level.

Gameplay: 80/100
Grand Theft Auto is a top-down action game, meaning that the action will be seen in helicopter view. The driving is okay, but could've been better. There are three cities in the game with two levels in each city. In each city, you are given a set score that you must achieve. Such as in the first level, you must garner at least 1,000,000 points to beat the level. In the later levels, the numbers increase, which wouldn't be a problem if the game allowed you to save during a level. You cannot save during a level, you can only save when you are not on a level, which can be a major issue, especially on the PlayStation. On the PC, you couldn't save either, but you could Alt + Tab out of the game and get back to it later. The punishing save system is the biggest offender here, especially considering that the later levels usually take an hour or more to complete. The camera is also sluggish in this game. Generally, the camera does not respond as quickly when you are driving in something like a fast car. The cars also have weird physics, such as how they cannot survive falls. If your car is falling, it will explode in the air. Also, you can only enter and exit from a car at the driver's seat; if your car is parked with its left side against a wall, your car is technically stuck unless if you push it with another car. Despite these flaws, the gameplay is great. The cities are for you to explore and there are no barricaders to block your path. The golden part of Grand Theft Auto itself is to cause destruction to the environment and make the cops go haywire about you. There are hundreds of missions in the game and these missions usually have two tasks; for instance, you must drive an explosive-rigged truck to a police station to blow it up, then when you're done with that, you must get to the guy who will pay you. The guy warns you that a rival gang leader's lawyer is going somewhere, you must follow him, which leads you to a large gang of men with guns. Obviously, your objective here is to kill all of them. While there are decently designed missions, there are missions that are either poorly-designed or borderline difficult.

Overall: 80/100
The game has quite a few flaws, but the game will last if you can overlook these. Grand Theft Auto 1 in general is a mixed bag in the ranks, some people like it, some people hate it. While it was a start of one of the most famous video game franchises, the not-so-fully-fledged driving physics and punishing save system would pop in some questions. The game is still overall great, with full exploration of each city without borders. If the game allowed you to save within a level, GTA would be even more recommended.

Score: 80/100

PlayStation · by StickFigures (167) · 2017

More of an idea than a complete game.

The Good
Grand Theft Auto is difficult to write about now, given its reception and more importantly its legacy to the gaming world. These factors overshadow the original game, its instant notoriety when first released helped to propel an otherwise simple and slightly behind the times game into the big league and secure room for the developers to capitalise and make vast improvements for the sequels, to become possibly the biggest gaming franchise ever.

The first game takes an interesting premise, and really it's all there is to it, you have a map much like the road play mats for children, and on this map cars and people move around with limited independence. You as a player have the freedom to walk anywhere and steal any car you like and drive around this map, running people over or shooting them, and smashing up the cars. On top of this premise a game has been grafted, with various phone booths around the city offering 'jobs' which try to extract the most from the game play premise, such as stealing certain cars, killing certain people, stopping certain people from being killed etc. That's it. All very fun and entertaining for the first half hour of play, but after that it becomes pretty mundane, and as with most action games the only way to secure interest is to make everything harder. I remember playing this for hours on end as a teenage, but as an adult it all seems too thin, variety is added in the various cities visited and cars but that's all. The game is shot through with dark humour, and is a relief that it doesn't take itself too seriously, down to the infamous running over of Hare Krishnas, surely the controversy that made the series name.

Technically the game looks older than what it is, though it can still be impressive that so large a world was programmed to function so smoothly that there's never lag as you speed across each city. The free-form aspect of play can cause some bugs to occur and several times I had to restart a level as it became impossible to complete.

The Bad
I found the top down view to be incredibly frustrating as it creates a claustrophobic feel after a while of playing, though I see this is a technical limitation not solved until the advent of GTA3 and compared to other 3D worlds around at the time, it's probably best they stuck to this, allowing for a detailed hand drawn world. The missions try to get every last drop from the game engine, and never really step outside of the bounds of it for the sake of story, and quickly become insipid runs that test the patience of the player rather than provide any motivation to continue the game.

The game does commit one my pet hates of computer games, probably as a legacy of being developed for the Playstation as well as PC, in that you cannot save during a level, it took me several evenings to complete a level, often due to technical bugs.

The Bottom Line
Freely available from the developer's website, Grand Theft Auto is really little more now than an historical curio of what would late develop into one of the idiosyncratic game series.

The later games are much more worthy of attention and this provides a view of how it all became. The much vaunted free-form play and mature humour which made it so regarded and scandalous on release has now been copied and brought into the common game experience so much that the original game seems limited by comparison and empty, and instead seems the spark of idea that would lead to the much fuller sequels.

Windows · by RussS (807) · 2009

The best

The Good
Hilarious! Great humour, lots of fun, cool missions, and great driving physics- better than some racing games!

The Bad
Pretty bad framerate considering the graphics, crude language could be hard on little kids ears.

The Bottom Line
One of the best games ever. As someone else said, "If you don't have a Playstation, get one so you can play this game". Well, he speaks the truth- you must play this game!!!

PlayStation · by Ben Fahy (92) · 2001

[ View all 13 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Weird bug: Endless chases Daniel Saner (3503) Oct 27, 2008

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Grand Theft Auto appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Banned

Grand Theft Auto was banned from stores in Brazil.

Cities

The game takes place in the cities Liberty City, Vice City and San Andreas. These cities are also the showplaces of the following 3D games of the series.

Cover

When Take2 bought BMG Interactive, they re-released Grand Theft Auto in Europe with another box-cover, which looked more attractive than the previous one, which was quite boring.

Development

The original concept for GTA was that the player was supposed to be the police and he had to go around catching car looters, robbers, gang members and so on. In the late design stages, the team argued among themselves that it would be better if the players role be reserved. After a heated battle they all agreed on reversing the players role.

Doubled Player Glitch

Go to a bike, without weapons.

Press "ENTER" and hold "Ctrl" at the same time.

Take the car behind and smash the bike.

Now you will see a copy of your self.

Dont drive over him, you'll just die :)

Freeware Release

As a way of saying thank you to the many fans of the series, Rockstar released a freeware version of GTA on its website, http://www.rockstargames.com/classics/, updated to support the latest operating systems and Direct X software.

German version

When playing the game with German language settings, it is not possible to choose the female protagonists.

Police Trick

The streets of GTA maintain a finite supply of police cars in the face of escalating crime levels (largely thanks to the singlehanded effort of the player); an ex-roommate discovered that if you can put aside the gratification at delivering the coup de grace, blowing up their vehicles, and instead leave the coppers with barely-functional, heavily-damaged wagons, you can move through traffic largely with impunity -- whenever a police presence would be triggered, instead of dashing to the scene of the crime in powerful cruisers they would stagger on to the screen in the same fleet of dented Chitty-Chitty Bang Bangs you mercifully spared.

Should the police cars blow up, the department appears to instantaneously replace the exploded car with a brand new one with everything in top condition; cultivate their deprivation, however, and you can cause the entire force to limp along while you cruise by in the fastest ride that you can grab.

References

  • In Vice City, you often see clothes that have been hung out to dry above alleyways and roads. Some of the blankets say "GTA" or "CM" - the initials of artist Craig Moore who worked on the game's textures.
  • In San Andreas, one of the missions assigned to the player by Uncle Fu's crime syndicate is the killing of mob boss Don Traegeri. This is most certainly a reference to Don Traeger, who was involved in establishing publisher BMG Interactive in 1995.

References to the Game

The cover of heavy metal band Megadeth's album Rude Awakening features vehicles from Grand Theft Auto.

Awards

  • PC Gamer
  • April 2000 - #50 (tied with Caesar III) in the Reader's All-Time Top 50 Games Poll

Information also contributed by Daniel Saner, Itay Shahar, Kartanym, Karthik KANE, PCGamer77, Pseudo_Intellectual, Steve . and Zovni

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by robotriot.

Game Boy Color added by Brolin Empey. PlayStation added by Grant McLellan.

Additional contributors: Erwin Bergervoet, Unicorn Lynx, Apogee IV, Paranoid Opressor, Sciere, Havoc Crow, DreinIX, Paulus18950, Cantillon, Patrick Bregger, Victor Vance, FatherJack.

Game added November 12, 1999. Last modified March 6, 2024.