Grand Theft Auto
In looking back to Grand Theft Auto IV in my previous post I started to remember about how much fun and how smart a game the original Grand Theft Auto really was. And although I never really put a ton of time into it, the time I did spend racing tiny cars around and splattering pedestrians all over the sidewalk was a memorable one. (Let's not read into that too much.)
Grand Theft Auto came out at a time where fully 3D games were becoming very popular and so it stood out for it's simplicity. GTA is pretty much one of the only top-down, fixed camera sandbox games. Looking down at your chosen misanthrope, you run around screen, able to shoot at anything around you, swing your bat and most importantly, steal and drive any car on screen.
The basic underlying game mechanic was simple. You're looking down at a map of a city in motion. You can walk up to any car and steal it, whether it means breaking into a parked car, or jacking a car stopped at a streetlight. You receive missions throughout the game, most of which involve stealing cars and dropping them off at set locations. Unlike the more modern versions of GTA, this first title really focused on the driving. Spending time outside a car was dangerous, especially since you had a limited amount of lives. In a car? You've got a metal shield. You can run guys over who are shooting at you and you don't have to worry about getting run over.
The game was released in '97, so a lot of these kinds of controls and the physics the engine had to handle where nothing entirely new. So while the game itself was fairly unique, it handled real well and ran great on most any machine. I remember someone always had a copy of this on a floppy disk when I was at highschool and you could most always catch someone playing it in the library when the staff wasn't paying attention.
But similar to the newer GTA games, the majority of the fun was had by simply driving around wrecklessly through this city, drifting around corners, darting around traffic and getting into high-speed chases with the cops. Simply enjoying the world and the game at it's most basic sense kept you entertained for hours.
I have a serious hankering to play this game now, too bad I have no idea where to find a copy. At least, a legit one.
In looking back to Grand Theft Auto IV in my previous post I started to remember about how much fun and how smart a game the original Grand Theft Auto really was. And although I never really put a ton of time into it, the time I did spend racing tiny cars around and splattering pedestrians all over the sidewalk was a memorable one. (Let's not read into that too much.)Grand Theft Auto came out at a time where fully 3D games were becoming very popular and so it stood out for it's simplicity. GTA is pretty much one of the only top-down, fixed camera sandbox games. Looking down at your chosen misanthrope, you run around screen, able to shoot at anything around you, swing your bat and most importantly, steal and drive any car on screen.
The basic underlying game mechanic was simple. You're looking down at a map of a city in motion. You can walk up to any car and steal it, whether it means breaking into a parked car, or jacking a car stopped at a streetlight. You receive missions throughout the game, most of which involve stealing cars and dropping them off at set locations. Unlike the more modern versions of GTA, this first title really focused on the driving. Spending time outside a car was dangerous, especially since you had a limited amount of lives. In a car? You've got a metal shield. You can run guys over who are shooting at you and you don't have to worry about getting run over. The game was released in '97, so a lot of these kinds of controls and the physics the engine had to handle where nothing entirely new. So while the game itself was fairly unique, it handled real well and ran great on most any machine. I remember someone always had a copy of this on a floppy disk when I was at highschool and you could most always catch someone playing it in the library when the staff wasn't paying attention.
But similar to the newer GTA games, the majority of the fun was had by simply driving around wrecklessly through this city, drifting around corners, darting around traffic and getting into high-speed chases with the cops. Simply enjoying the world and the game at it's most basic sense kept you entertained for hours.
I have a serious hankering to play this game now, too bad I have no idea where to find a copy. At least, a legit one.
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