Grand Theft Auto-video game
Grand Theft Auto (GTA) is a computer and video game created by Scottish company, DMA Design (now Rockstar North) and published by ASC Games in 1997/1998. The game allows the player to take on the role of a criminal who can roam freely around a 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 eight standalone games, and two expansion packs. The game was originally named “Race N Chase”. Along with Grand Theft Auto 2, GTA was made available for free download by Rockstar Games on their website in 2004.. It was suceeded by Grand Theft Auto 2Gameplay
Grand Theft Auto is made up of a series of levels each set in one of the three cities in the game. In each level, the player has a target number of points to achieve, and five lives to attain the score. 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 some missions. 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. The PC releases of the game allowed networked multiplayer gameplay using the IPX protocol.
Cover art
The cover art (see above) for Grand Theft Auto is a photograph of a New York Police Department 1990’s Chevrolet Caprice 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.
Locations
Screenshot of Grand Theft Auto showing the top down view in Liberty CityThe 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, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Grand Theft Auto: Advance, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, and Grand Theft Auto IV.
Soundtrack
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 amount of these radio stations. 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.
The game’s title track is “Gangster Friday” by Craig Conner (who played all instruments on this track), credited to the fictitious band Slumpussy, and doesn’t appear on any of the radio stations. 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 Grand Theft Auto game.
Ports
The original Grand Theft Auto was developed in DOS, and then later ported to Microsoft Windows, Sony PlayStation, and Game Boy Color. Surprisingly, the Game Boy Color version was 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 8 bit dos version which uses different but similar graphics)
A port was in development for the Nintendo 64 but was quickly cancelled without ever having a public appearance. It was essentially a port of the PlayStation version, with enhanced graphics and extra levels. In addition to this a port for the Sega Saturn was also considered but never came to light.
