Grand Theft Auto Retrospect

If you are one for just sitting down and relaxing with a nice video game, not caring what the media says about it. Congrats, you are an upper minded person. Sadly though, the media likes to call any video game of questionable integrity "Bad", "Unlawful", "Terrible for the children" or even "turning our kids into killing machines.

All of these ideas are completely ridiculous, obviously... But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me explain. There was a time where "violent" games weren't thought of. Then Rockstar Games shocked the world with a game simply titled "Grand Theft Auto". By the title, it seems interesting. And, to be honest, it was. In police terms, grand theft auto basically means a stealing of a car. So..cars in a video game. Doesn't sound big today, but back then; cars, fully functional cars, were huge. And what you could do with those cars, well that depended on you. Drive to the store like a normal person, or run over innocent bystanders and massacre prostitutes.

Speaking of prostitutes, yeah, prostitutes. The lush ladies of the night. The people who sell themselves for money. The people of questionable hygienic nature. So, pretty different compared to these days? No.. But remember, no game was like this back in 1997. So people freaked out. And it was a video game, and kids like to play video games. So parents flipped their lids. Saying this game is "death simulator".

 This is obviously just parents being scared for their children, but the game is mostly harmless. Now that I have that whole "Video Games are bad, mkay argument" Let me get to the whole story of Grand Theft Auto. GTA (which many fans refer to the series as a shortened phrase) is a whole universe based on our own with a few tweaks. Businesses have slightly different names, entire cities have different names, violence is even more common. And drugs, drugs are legal, also animals are extinct. Go figure. But the first GTA game was made before Rockstar was even a legitimate company. So it was sort of sub par compared to what their games are like now. Sure, back then, it was crazy. But the game was in a top-to-down perspective. Sprites looked kind of wonky, and the story was almost hard to understand. Soon after GTA1, Rockstar made GTA2 and it was a huge improvement. Graphics weren't a slight bit of a mess, story was actually there, and the gore factor was upped a ton. But still it was slightly sub par.


Then, Grand Theft Auto 3 hit the shelves and it was a hit. This is when the games took a turn in the right direction. No longer were you in a city that didn't even have a name, you were in Liberty City (Based off of New York City), the story was interesting, (You were a bank robber with your girlfriend, Catalina, who double crosses you and you are sent to prison. The convey goes wrong and you escape, wanting revenge.) And, best of all, 3D! You can walk around the city and see the sights. You had a name and a face finally. Claude Speed, a guy who is mute and brutal. One that you'll see more than once in the GTA universe.

And Liberty City, the eye of the world, as said in the game, is huge! And best of all, an open world. You could go anywhere in this game, and do anything as long as you knew the code. This was also the first time cheat codes could be used in the game, something that would never change. With this came story missions that made the game memorial. How many games can you start as a small time criminal and in the next two hours you are stealing a tank from a military base and plowing through the streets? Combine the city with many characters of different backgrounds, morals, and way of life. And you have the entire criminal underground of Liberty City. Such a nice place to call home, right?

Well with all the trouble that the unsavory people cause you would think that the police kind of suck at their job. Wrong. The LCPD are tough and very hard on people. You jaywalk across the street and expect a bullet in the face. These guys don't mess around. And since the game is a free roam city, you can make your wanted level so high they will send the military against you. You. One guy really can get under their skin.

GTA3 was amazing in it's story and graphics at the time. And people thought. What could you do next? How about the cocaine induced 80's Florida? The game had a location but what was it called in Rockstar terms? Vice City. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City hit hard and made a staple in video game markets. The game was even bigger and better than GTA3. And, it had an all star cast. We had a new protagonist and a new story. Say hello to Tommy Vercetti. Tommy is an Italian-American that had humble roots. But sometimes life takes you through the loop and somehow you end up being in the Mafia. Oops. Tommy is brought to Vice City to escape Liberty City prison and the bad deeds he did there. Here, it's a new start with old friends. In the span of the game. Tommy goes from working in a family to making his own mafia. The Vercetti Crime Family and making the big money in the drug scene. This is also the first game where the main character actually had a personality more than a roast beef sandwich. Also, if it hasn't sunken in yet. Vice City, means Sin City. This sort of shows the humor Rockstar has, as you'll see when they name certain businesses and places. And yes, because it's the 80's and drug cartels were mentioned and seen in game. It stirred up some trouble in the media. Things never change.

But after this, little did we know that Rockstar would make possibly the best Grand Theft Auto game for a long time. One year later, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas shook the video game world. This game was what Vice City was on crack! It's story and gameplay was one to be rivaled in sandbox games. And, not to forget, this game was HUGE. This game takes place in the entire San Andreas state (the name is a spoof of the San Andreas Fault Line. Which goes through the state of California and Nevada. This is where the game happens. But it's all one state in the GTA universe.) You have three giant cities and with wilderness surrounding them all. With a new game comes a new protagonist. Meet Carl Johnson (CJ for short). CJ was once part of a gang called The Grove Street Families. But he left for Liberty City to put all of it behind him. Five years later he's back and he now has to help the gang and the entire state. The game starts in Los Santos, which is based on Los Angeles, more specifically downtown LA.

Once out of LS you hit Flint and Red County. The wilderness surrounding all of the cities are gigantic. You could spend maybe twelve hours just running around looking at the sights, sadly though, no animals. If you don't know how I'm getting around to saying the entire state of San Andreas just look at this map. It's CRAZY. So many things you could do in this game. And, with cheat codes, you will have even more hours of fun. San Andreas was a rave with everyone. It topped every game in sales in under a month. But with success comes bad things to have talked about. Everyone has heard of the "Hot Coffee" mini-game  Basically, this is for people of a mature mindset, "Hot Coffee" came into play with this game. In San Andreas you can date a certain number of people in the world. After dating them for a certain time, you can have -bleep- with them. This is said by asking them if you can come inside for coffee. And, when the game first came out. It had the "Hot Coffee" mini-game  And it was very  explicit, showing EVERYTHING save for a few body parts. This made the media flip their lids to no end. Rockstar had to take the game down and take it out. And, save for a few other issues, the game did amazing. Making Game of The Year 2004 and 2005. You begin as a nobody with just a few hundred dollars in your pocket. By the end you are a multi-millionaire relaxing in Las Venturas (Las Vegas in real life)

After the craziness of San Andreas Rockstar left the next game in the dark for some time. Having people guess where it could happen next. Hong Kong? China? Washington DC? Canada? Rockstar wouldn't tell anyone even a sliver of information. After two years, they showed one picture that got everyone hyped. IV. It got people guessing even more. At E3 2006, Rockstar showed us all a trailer for the game. The audience went nuts and they gave a standing ovation. People wanted more, a lot more. The trailer showed off amazing visuals and awesome sights of the city. Speaking of the city. We finally had a location. Liberty City again. Only this time they had the technology to make it look amazing. This Liberty City looks like a near match to New York City. With this came the updated physics in the form of rag-doll. Which, to me, makes a game even more fun. But, I digress. The graphics and skyline of the new Liberty City looked stunning and gorgeous. Another city comes another main character. Enters Niko Bellic. Niko is the first protagonist in GTA that isn't American. He's from Serbia, and he really hasn't had a great life.

Niko grew up in a bad place, and you make bad decisions. Niko fought in the Yugoslav Wars, and he was betrayed by someone in his team group. Niko soon comes to Liberty City, knowing that on of the three survivors (including himself) lives there. It's revenge for everyone who died and to "close the book" and to move on with his life. Niko is an amazing character, feeling like the most realistic protagonist in any GTA game so far. He has his strengths and his faults, something that is noticeable in real life. He served in a war, which explains his usefulness in gun fights. He can fly a helicopter, something else he did while in Europe. His emotions and depression from serving in the military is understandable considering what he's been through.

Though Liberty City isn't as big as San Andreas, there still is a lot of stuff to do. Combine that with the DLC The Lost and the Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony. Grand Theft Auto IV is an amazing time waster and worth whatever money you paid for it,

And now, since I kept you waiting for so long. Let me talk about Grand Theft Auto V. Now, let me clarify. If you actually read the entire post. You would know that I LOVE Grand Theft Auto, hence why I wrote so much. but if you didn't, I don't know what to say. Why are you still reading?

But, GTA V. Wow. Just wow.The trailer showed no gameplay, just a mellow voice telling us his story while we watch the scenery. The first trailer showed off everything just to get you wanting to know more. Who is this guy? Why did he move to Los Santos? Why is he rich? And what is that magic he's speaking about? So many questions! That is what I like in a video game. It makes you question until you get information. It makes you sort of make up back stories until you get the actual back story  And that was only the teaser trailer. We didn't get anymore insight until November 14th with the release of trailer number 2.

We have not one, not two, but three main protagonists for GTA V. The first one, Michael, is the slightly aged man in the suit that you saw in the first trailer. He is possibly my favorite out of all of them. Simply because he's aged and in a world of young people in a different time. I can't describe the certain humor they have for him. But I love it. It's old world against new world. He moved to Los Santos with his family to retire from his life of crime and live "like those families on TV". That doesn't happen. We find out in the second trailer that his family is disorganized. His daughter is bratty and spoiled. His son is a lazy slacker that tries to be like his father, using the term "Let's bounce." Which Michael returns with a look and says, "Bounce? We're bouncing now?" And his wife has a certain relationship with him, sort of like a love/hate scenario.

The next person is Trevor Phillips. Trevor is crazy. Literally. In the trailer he beats a guy to death, blows up a house with gasoline and a Molotov, and then jumps off of a moving train while it collides with another one. I expect we'll be getting more of the crazier missions with him. He is a total psychopath, yet he's funny in a morbid way. We do know that Michael and Trevor are old buddies. So far, that's all we know about him.

The final character is Franklin. Franklin is a gangster that doesn't like how the world is going. He wishes that the time of gangsters went back to the 80's when it actually meant something. He seems to have a girlfriend or wife that doesn't want him to be a gangster anymore. Trevor also has a friend in the same trade, but thinks that the new ways are gold, while Franklin says "Slinging dope and throwing up gang signs" isn't what it's all about. But, at the end of the trailer, they all meet to together with Michael introducing Franklin to Trevor. Michael says, "That's Trevor, my best friend. And that's Franklin, the son I've always wanted." Trevor then just looks at them all and says, "Your therapist has A LOT to answer for," thereby ending the trailer.

The trailer, amazing. That's all I can say. Everything in it is spot on, it hits every note just right. My advice? Look up anything you can find about Grand Theft Auto V. And as a treat, play some of the older ones. But if you want to start your GTA quest and want a new look. Do it with GTA V. Pre-orders are able to be made and it's release is sometime in the last part of 2013. I hope you enjoyed the post, if not, at least like the pretty pictures. Have a great day everyone, and keep on gaming.

All photos found by a basic Google Search. Grand Theft Auto and any GTA related symbols or names are copyrighted and owned by Rockstar Studios. Please don't sue me, Rockstar.