Home Gaming Grand Theft Auto: A retrospective – Part 1: The 2D Era

Grand Theft Auto: A retrospective – Part 1: The 2D Era

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This article was sponsored. The editorial and content is entirely created in-house, unless otherwise specified.

Crime doesn’t pay. At least, that’s what anybody in any sort of position of societal authority will tell you. It certainly paid for a little Scottish studio by the name of DMA Design. Founded in the 80’s by David Jones, the studio found its first big break with Lemmings, published by Psygnosis. It was a different game that would set DMA Design on its course to become a veritable development Rockstar.

GTA (3)

That game was Grand Theft Auto, a top-down open world crime simulator that would eventually become one of the biggest names in all of video games. Originally developed for the aging Amiga in 1996, the game was released on Pc in 1997, finding its way to Sony’s PlayStation One soon thereafter. It immediately became one of the most controversial games of its age. It may not have been technically impressive, but it made up for its top-down, 2-dimensional perspective and crude sprites with its scope and sense of freedom. It also allowed you to be a bad guy.

GTA (4)

Though it looks nothing like the games the series is now known for, all of the core ingredients that define the series are present in the very first game. Like just about every game since, Grand Theft Auto put you in the shoes of a small-time thief with larger-than-life ambitions. With three cities to be a degenerate scumbag in and over 200 mostly vehicle-based missions, GTA gave players the tools and the freedom to stray from the linear mission structure. When you were doing missions, they’d be fun, previously unheard of things to do like assassinate rival criminals or act as a getaway driver. Completing missions earned money, and earning enough money – $1,000,000 – moved you on to the next city, from Liberty City, on To San Andreas, and finally, Vice City.

GTA (5)

It’s a game that required you to learn its city if you expected any measurable success; short cuts to avoid the cops, which narrow side-streets to take to get away, where to find the best weapons, and where to find the fastest cars. It’s all delightfully, irresistibly immoral. Naturally, a game – even though rated for adults – of this ilk would court controversy, which GTA most certainly did. Despite the mature rating there were protests in the US, UK and Australia, while Brazil just outright banned the game, imposing harsh fines on any who attempted to sell it. In the UK at least, much of the controversy was cleverly manufactured, with publicist Max Clifford taking every underhanded opportunity to drum up public ire.

If you’re interested, the first GTA is now abandonware, and is freely available. You can download it here.

GTA London 1969 (4)

GTA was one of the top selling PlayStation games in its year of release. It spawned two expansion, this time set in a real world city. GTA: London 1969 and the later, PC-exclusive GTA London 1961 maintained the same gameplay, throwing in more missions, more cars and more weapons, adding in a delightful bit of cockney rhyming slang and other, rather English eccentricities. It was really just window dressing more than any sort of real sequel.

GTA 2 (2)

An actual sequel happened in 1999, with the release of Grand Theft Auto 2. Set now in a city that wasn’t really based on anywhere, in an indeterminate time. It was more of an iterative sequel, adding in small changes to the gameplay and the world it was all set in. The biggest change here was that you could interact and do missions for seven different gangs; Yakuza, Hare Krishnas, Russian Mafia, Rednecks, and other. GTA 2 also introduced the side missions that would carry through to the newer games: Stuff like being a taxi driver or bus driver. The game was met with mixed critical reaction, but was a commercial success. It was hardly a revolution.

That would happen with the third numbered game….

Last Updated: April 9, 2015

23 Comments

  1. RinceThis

    April 9, 2015 at 15:09

    Where’s the sodding jetpack in GATV!?

    Reply

    • ReaperOfSquirrels

      April 9, 2015 at 15:17

      lol! You still searching for that?

      Reply

    • Greylingad

      April 9, 2015 at 15:18

      Ssshhhh!!! It’ll come….

      Reply

  2. Pariah

    April 9, 2015 at 15:10

    GTA2. The last one I actually enjoyed.

    Reply

    • Geoffrey Tim

      April 9, 2015 at 15:15

      Play Chinatown wars, on a Nintendo DS. It’s one of my favourites.

      Reply

      • Admiral Chief asked for this

        April 9, 2015 at 15:38

        IT’S A TRAP!

        Reply

  3. Umar

    April 9, 2015 at 15:17

    Race n Chase! Game had a very interesting history.

    Reply

  4. ReaperOfSquirrels

    April 9, 2015 at 15:17

    Ah, GTA and GTA2… good times… good times.

    Reply

  5. Greylingad

    April 9, 2015 at 15:19

    These were Insanely cool games, truly the origins of open world gaming…

    Reply

  6. Hammersteyn

    April 9, 2015 at 15:20

    Want a new GTA back in the Vice City setting next please

    Reply

    • Geoffrey Tim

      April 9, 2015 at 15:21

      YES YES YES

      Reply

    • Greylingad

      April 9, 2015 at 15:22

      We.Need.This.

      Reply

    • Rock789

      April 9, 2015 at 15:31

      I actually bought Vice City on PS3 the other night on PSN – R29!!! Total steal! Looking forward to getting all nostalgic as I get to play it again. Also got original Max Payne. The nostalgia is strong with me at the moment.

      Reply

      • Greylingad

        April 9, 2015 at 15:34

        Aaah, the nostalgia actually beams from this post…

        Reply

      • Hammersteyn

        April 9, 2015 at 15:56

        NICE!

        Reply

      • Rage

        April 9, 2015 at 17:50

        That music was the best! Sadly I don’t think the rest of the game has survived the test of time (but at least with the PC version of anything else following that, like V next week!, I’ll be able to just slot that music in again for a majority of the good bits).

        Reply

      • Skyblue

        April 10, 2015 at 01:28

        Play it and enjoy it man. Some of those older titles are sooooo worth it.

        Reply

    • Shan

      April 9, 2015 at 16:05

      I tried to upvote you more than once for this but it didn’t work. Just mentally add 1000 upvotes to your current number

      Reply

      • Hammersteyn

        April 9, 2015 at 16:34

        XD

        Reply

    • Skyblue

      April 10, 2015 at 01:27

      Vice City was the best GTA game ever made, period (pun intended)

      Reply

      • B3ware_za

        April 10, 2015 at 12:32

        Tommy Vercetti, Lance-Vance-Dance and many more. From characters, to story, to the setting and era really a good game for its time. Would love to see Tommy Vercetti make an appearance in a GTA game. Or get to experience Vice City again (just not in DLC form, it would do justice to the game).

        Reply

  7. Shan

    April 9, 2015 at 15:59

    Thank you for writing this.

    Reply

  8. Shan

    April 9, 2015 at 16:00

    oh but if you find the time a video review of this would have been awesome.

    Reply

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