![]() ![]() It took them years to get there, but Rockstar eventually realised the dream of rampaging in San Andreas with friends, planning heists and accumulating supercars. Though its early months were a mess – you could tell the developer had never run an online game before, and the servers struggled to cope with demand in the first weeks, randomly deleting players’ characters and progress – it has since grown into one of the most profitable online games ever made. ![]() And that world would become home to tens of millions of players throughout the next decade thanks to GTA Online, the multiplayer mode that Rockstar launched shortly after GTA V’s release. It had the biggest game world we had yet seen anywhere, rendered in detail from the peaks of the mountains down to Michael’s local tennis courts. Cleverly, these three characters compartmentalised three aspects of Grand Theft Auto’s personality – satirical cinematic ambition, character-led crime drama, and violent mayhem – giving Rockstar an outlet for every kind of GTA mission from trying to assassinate toxic social-media moguls to car chases across the desert. The game returned us to San Andreas, Rockstar’s fictional California, and the city of Los Santos, this time in the company of three protagonists: reluctantly retired middle-aged gangster Michael, hustler Franklin, and hillbilly psycho Trevor. Where GTA 4 was a takedown of the American dream, this game took aim at every corrupt and hypocritical aspect of modern America. Originally released on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, GTA V would become a behemoth. The Haitian Centers Council criticised the game’s depiction of immigrants, and Rockstar became the subject of two multimillion-dollar lawsuits brought by the families of murder victims in cases in which the game was alleged to have influenced the killers.Ī prequel adventure, called Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, arrived on the Sony PSP handheld in 2006, featuring a cameo voice acting performance by Phil Collins. This was also when the controversy really hotted up. The 80s setting, with its accompanying soundtrack of contemporary pop, was a brilliant idea, allowing players to blow up speedboats and crash aeroplanes while listening to Flock of Seagulls. Yes, it’s basically Brian de Palma’s Scarface mixed with Miami Vice, boasting a similar blend of cool music, hot drugs and rampant violence. Now we get to what some consider the defining game in the series: the tale of gangster-on-the-make Tommy Viccenti, freshly released from prison and looking to rise up the criminal ranks of Vice City, a sleazy metropolis based on Miami. The following year, Rockstar Leeds released Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories on the Sony PSP, which brought 3D visuals to the handheld spin-offs. Later, two handheld titles would serve as prequels to the game: 2004 saw the release of Grand Theft Auto Advance on the Game Boy Advance, which owed much to the first two GTA titles in its visual style. GTA’s philosophy is that players should be able to do what they want, even if that thing is toe-curlingly amoral. Once again controversy followed when it was discovered that players could pick up sex workers for a health boost then kill them to get their money back – though, contrary to the outraged reporting of the time, the game never mandated such behaviour. This move away from the top-down view, together with the vibrancy of its game world, the interesting low-life characters and star voice acting performances from Debi Mazar and Kyle Maclachlan, made for a critical and commercial smash hit. Vitally, it was also the first game in the series to use a fully 3D environment: an overhauled take on the NYC-themed Liberty City. The concept of carrying out illegal jobs for criminal gangs remained, but now the lead character had a backstory: he was seeking revenge, having been double-crossed after a heist. ![]() Designed by new studio Rockstar North following the closure of DMA Design, this game marked the beginning of the modern GTA era.
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