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Grand Theft Auto (series)
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Grand Theft Auto (GTA) is an award-winning video game series created by Dave Jones, later by Dan Houser and Sam Houser, and game designer Zachary Clarke and primarily developed by Scottish company Rockstar North (formerly DMA Design) and published by Rockstar Games.
The gameplay consists of a mixture of action, adventure, driving, and occasional role-playing, stealth and racing elements and has gained controversy for its adult nature and violent themes.
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Encyclopedia
Grand Theft Auto (GTA) is an award-winning video game series created by Dave Jones, later by Dan Houser and Sam Houser, and game designer Zachary Clarke and primarily developed by Scottish company Rockstar North (formerly DMA Design) and published by Rockstar Games.
The gameplay consists of a mixture of action, adventure, driving, and occasional role-playing, stealth and racing elements and has gained controversy for its adult nature and violent themes. The series focuses around many different protagonists who attempt to rise through the criminal underworld, although their motives for doing so vary in each game. The antagonist in each game is commonly a character who has betrayed them or their organization or someone who has the most impact impeding their progress.
The series began in and currently has nine stand-alone games with two expansion packs for the original and two expansion packs being released for the latest console installment. Film veterans such as Danny Dyer, Michael Madsen, Burt Reynolds, Dennis Hopper, Gary Busey, Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Penn, James Woods, Joe Pantoliano, Frank Vincent, Robert Loggia, Kyle MacLachlan, Peter Fonda and Ray Liotta have all voiced major characters in many installments in the series. The name of the series and its games are derived from grand theft auto, a term referring to motor vehicle theft.
Overview
The games allow people to take on the role of a criminal in a big city, typically an individual who rises through the ranks of organised crime over the course of the game. Various missions are set for completion by the figureheads of the city underworld, generally criminal, which must be completed to progress through the storyline. Assassinations, and other crimes feature regularly, but occasionally taxi driving, firefighting, pimping, street racing, or learning to fly fixed-wing aircraft are also involved as alternate adventures, which can be done at any time during the game, with the exception of the periods performing main missions.
In later titles, notably those released after Grand Theft Auto 2, the player is given a more developed storyline, in which they are forced to overcome an unfortunate event (e.g. being betrayed and left for dead), which serves as motivation for the character to advance in the criminal ladder and eventually leads to the triumph of the character by the end of the storyline; specific examples of this are the plots for Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.
The Grand Theft Auto series, belonging to a genre of free-roaming video games called "sandbox games," grants a large amount of freedom to the player in deciding what to do and how to do it through multiple methods of transport and weapons. Unlike most traditional action games, which are structured as a single track series of levels with linear gameplay, in GTA the player can determine the missions they want to undertake, and their relationships with various characters are changed based on these choices. The cities of the games can also be roamed freely at any point in the game, offering many accessible buildings and minor missions. There are exceptions: missions follow a linear, overarching plot, and some city areas must be unlocked over the course of the game.
Grand Theft Auto III and subsequent games have more prevalent voice acting, and radio stations, which simulate driving to music with disc jockeys, radio personalities, commercials, talk radio, pop music, and American culture.
The use of vehicles in an explorable urban environment provides a basic simulation of a working city, complete with pedestrians who obey traffic signals. Further details are used to flesh out an open-ended atmosphere that has been used in several other games, such as The Simpsons Hit & Run, which has less emphasis on crime or violence.
Summary of Games
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| Era | Title † | Developer | Platforms | First released |
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| First | | DMA Design, Tarantula Studios | DOS, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation, Game Boy Color | 1997 | | London, '69 | DMA Design, Tarantula Studios, Rockstar Canada, Runecraft | DOS, PlayStation, Microsoft Windows | 1999 | | London, '61 | Microsoft Windows | | Second | | DMA Design, Tarantula Studios | Dreamcast, Game Boy Color, PlayStation, Microsoft Windows | | Third | | DMA Design | PlayStation 2, Microsoft Windows, Xbox | 2001 | | Vice City | Rockstar North | 2002 | | Advance | Digital Eclipse | Game Boy Advance | 2004 | | San Andreas | Rockstar North | PlayStation 2, Microsoft Windows, Xbox | | Liberty City Stories | Rockstar North, Rockstar Leeds | PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 2 | 2005 | | Vice City Stories | 2006 | | Fourth | | Rockstar North, Rockstar Toronto | PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows | 2008 | | The Lost and Damned | Xbox 360 | 2009 | | Chinatown Wars | Rockstar North, Rockstar Leeds | Nintendo DS |
† It is important to note that all of the games' titles begin with "Grand Theft Auto".
Games in green mark the beginning of a new era, and all those that follow in yellow are in the same era as the preceding green field.
History
The Grand Theft Auto series may be divided into canons, based on the inclusion of a numbering after the recognizable title name (e.g. Grand Theft Auto III) after the original Grand Theft Autos release, and to a certain extent, the type of graphics engine used.
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Grand Theft Auto
Grand Theft Auto, the first game in the Grand Theft Auto series, was released on PlayStation in 1997/1998 and also for Windows PCs. The game is set in three different fictional cities, Liberty City, San Andreas and Vice City. A reduced Game Boy Color port was later released. Subsequently, two expansion packs were offered, both under the name of Grand Theft Auto: London. Although the concept of eras was not formally implemented until Grand Theft Auto III, it can be inferred that Grand Theft Auto: London, 1961, the second of the expansion packs, is the last game of the first Grand Theft Auto era canon.
Grand Theft Auto 2
The fourth game in the series, Grand Theft Auto 2, was developed for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation and Dreamcast and released in 1999. Set in the indeterminable future, it featured updated graphics and somewhat different gameplay based upon the player's appeal to various criminal organizations. A reduced Game Boy Color port was also produced. Unlike the other games of the Grand Theft Auto series, Grand Theft Auto 2 was the only game released in its era. It is also the only game to have a "T" rating. It is also the only sequel to have a digit in the title instead of a Roman Numeral.
Grand Theft Auto III
Grand Theft Auto III was released in October 2001, and served as the breakthrough for the franchise. The game's setting takes place around that time, in fictional Liberty City, which is loosely based on New York City, but also incorporates elements of other American cities. Grand Theft Auto III brought a third-person view to the series, rather than the traditional top-down view of earlier titles (although the view is still made available as an optional camera angle). For the first time, the problem of navigating in the huge sandbox game was solved by implementing a constant GPS triggered mini-map that highlights the player's position as well as those of current targets. Graphics were also updated with a new 3D game engine. The gameplay engine expanded the explorable world of GTA III, using a mission-based approach. Multiplayer was discarded (third party mods were later released, allowing for multiplayer gameplay), but GTA III improved in many other areas such as voice-acting and plot (in previous games, there was speech only in short animated cut scenes between levels, while other communication was simply subtitles running on the bottom of the screen).
After the success of Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was released in 2002. This game was set in 1986 in Vice City, which was based on Miami. The game's plot focuses on the cocaine trade during the 1980s. Vice City was the first game to introduce fully functional flying vehicles that could be used by the player, such as sea planes and helicopters. It also featured a variety of new weapons and vehicles.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, released in October 2004, is set in 1992, focusing on California gang life and the awakening of the drug epidemic brought on by crack cocaine. The setting was in the fictional state of San Andreas, which was based on some California and Nevada cities, specifically Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Las Vegas. Their counterparts are Los Santos, San Fierro, and Las Venturas respectively. The game also included a countryside in between Los Santos and San Fierro and also between Los Santos and Las Venturas, and a desert in between Las Venturas and San Fierro. San Andreas also attracted controversy when a sex minigame that was cut from the game, but remained in the game code, was discovered in both the console and Windows versions of the game. Dubbed the "Hot Coffee mod", the minigame allowed players to have sex with their in-game girlfriends. As a result, GTA: San Andreas was pulled from a number of retail outlets and was re-rated from "M" (Mature) to "AO" (Adults Only) by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), making it the first game in the series to be given an AO rating. Rockstar has since released an edited version of the game for the Microsoft Windows, Xbox and PlayStation 2, and has reclaimed the "M" rating.
Grand Theft Auto Advance, for the Game Boy Advance, was also released in 2004. Originally developed as a top-down conversion of GTA III, became an original game. Unlike the Game Boy Color ports of Grand Theft Auto and Grand Theft Auto 2, Grand Theft Auto Advance did not tone down the violence and profanity common to the GTA series. The game received an "M" rating from the ESRB. It was developed by an external developer, Digital Eclipse.
In 2005 and 2006, Rockstar released two games for the PlayStation Portable, both developed by Rockstar Leeds. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories is a prequel to Grand Theft Auto III and set in Liberty City in 1998. A PlayStation 2 port was released by Rockstar on 6 June 2006.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories was released for the PlayStation Portable on 31 October 2006 and set in Vice City in 1984, two years before the events of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. A PlayStation 2 port of the game was released on 6 March 2007. It is the last installment of the third generation series, and the final game in the Grand Theft Auto III canon.
Grand Theft Auto IV
reintroduces an online multiplayer element to the series.]]
Grand Theft Auto IV was released on 29 April 2008, after a six month delay. It was the first Grand Theft Auto game to be released simultaneously for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles. In August 2008, Rockstar announced that it was going to publish GTA IV for PC. GTA IVs game engine is the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (also known as RAGE) used in Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis and the Euphoria physics engine. The game once again takes place in a redesigned Liberty City that very closely resembles New York City, much more than previous renditions. Times Online reported that Grand Theft Auto IV recorded 609,000 copies in first-day sales, in the UK. In its first week, Grand Theft Auto IV sold approximately 6 million copies worldwide and grossed over $500 million.
Microsoft officially announced a "strategic alliance" with Rockstar Games over the rights to episodic content through their Xbox Live service at their X06 event. This content was released as Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned on 17 February 2009, and it is available for download, exclusively for the Xbox 360. The expansion adds some new elements to the existing game and focuses on Johnny Klebitz, the vice president of "The Lost" motorcycle gang.
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is the first Grand Theft Auto game to be released on the Nintendo DS, and was announced at the E3 Nintendo Press Conference on July 15, 2008. This game has several new features, such as touch screen mini-games. The game is expected to be released on March 17, 2009 in North America and March 20, 2009 to Australia and Europe. The game is rated 18+ by the BBFC (UK, Europe) and M by the ESRB (North America).
Controversy
The series has courted a great deal of negative controversy since the release of Grand Theft Auto III. This criticism stems from the focus on illegal activities in comparison with traditional "heroic" roles that other games offer. The main character can commit a wide variety of crimes and violent acts while dealing with only temporary consequences, including the killing of policemen and military personnel. Opponents of violent video games, such as Jack Thompson, Hillary Clinton and Julia Boseman, believe that players will try to emulate this behaviour, while proponents believe it provides an emotional outlet, as such actions in real life would have serious consequences.
Critics have targeted the exploitative and violent attitude toward women in the series. Although not encouraged to do so in any of the games, players may utilize the services of prostitutes, and then subsequently murder and rob them.
The Grand Theft Auto series has been a source of considerable controversy since the release of Grand Theft Auto III. Some controversy can be attributed to publicist Max Clifford, who planted sensational stories in tabloids in order to help sell the game.
The fourth game in the series, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, also came under criticism. One mission in particular, in which the player must instigate a gang war between Haitian and Cuban gangs, has been controversial. Haitian and Cuban anti-defamation groups criticized the game. Jean-Robert Lafortune of the Haitian American Grassroots Coalition is quoted as saying that "The game shouldn't be designed to destroy human life, it shouldn't be designed to destroy an ethnic group," for this and similar scenarios, including lines in the game's script such as "kill the Haitian dickheads" during an altercation between the player and a Haitian gang. After the threat for having been sued by the Haitian-American Grassroots Coalition, Rockstar removed the word "Haitians" from this phrase in the game's subtitles.
More recently, four teens in New York decided to go on a crime spree, claiming inspiration from Grand Theft Auto. The four teens beat and robbed a man outside of a New Hyde Park supermarket. They then went to a train station, encountering other teens they knew from their high school and recruiting them. The mob, now numbering six, armed themselves with a baseball bat, a broomstick and a crowbar. They stopped a woman driving a black BMW, stole her cigarettes, then her car. They then smashed a van with the baseball bat they carried. Both the driver of the BMW as well as the van called the police, and the teens were arrested shortly after.
In 2009, a six-year-old boy, who claimed he had learned to drive from the game, took his family's car on a 10 mile trip before he crashed.
According to the The Guinness World Records 2009 Gamer's Edition, it's the most controversial videogame series ever, with over 4,000 articles published about it, which include accusations of glamourizing violence, corruption gamers, and connection to real life crimes.
Hot Coffee mod
After the release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, hackers managed to find unused code in the game and released unofficial patches for the Windows & Xbox (with a modchip) version enabling the player to engage in sexual mini-games (dubbed "Hot Coffee" in reference to a euphemism for sex used in the game). These mini-games were never intended to be playable in the final version of the game, but were left partially intact in the game's code. This prompted application of an Adults Only (AO) ESRB rating to the version of the game containing the leftover code. Take-Two Interactive was forced to re-release the game in order to restore the Mature (M) rating. A class action lawsuit against Take-Two was also filed as a result of the "Hot Coffee" code.
Jack Thompson lawsuits
Lawyer Jack Thompson has been involved in a number of attempts to get families of murder victims to hold the Grand Theft Auto series accountable for the death of their loved ones. Due to his conduct in this and related cases, Thompson was disbarred in 2008, and was fined more than $43,000 by the Florida Bar Association.
On 20 October 2003, the families of Aaron Hamel and Kimberly Bede, two young people shot by teens William and Josh Buckner (who in statements to investigators claimed their actions were inspired by GTA III) filed a US$246 million lawsuit against publishers Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive Software, retailer Wal-Mart, and PlayStation 2 manufacturer Sony Computer Entertainment America. Rockstar and its parent company, Take-Two, filed for dismissal of the lawsuit, stating in U.S. District Court on 29 October 2003 that the "ideas and concepts as well as the 'purported psychological effects' on the Buckners are protected by the First Amendment's free-speech clause." The lawyer of the victims, Jack Thompson, denied that, but failed in his attempt to move the lawsuit into a state court and under Tennessee's consumer protection act. Two days later, the plaintiffs filed a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal, and the case was closed.
In February 2005, a lawsuit was brought upon the makers and distributors of the Grand Theft Auto series claiming the games caused a teenager to shoot and kill three members of the Alabama police force. The shooting took place in June 2003 when Devin Moore, 17 years old at the time, was taken in for questioning by police in Fayette, Alabama regarding a stolen vehicle. Moore then grabbed a pistol from one of the police officers and shot and killed him along with another officer and dispatcher before fleeing in a police car. One of Moore's attorneys, Jack Thompson, claimed it was GTAs graphic nature - with his constant playing time - that caused Moore to commit the murders, and Moore's family agrees. Damages are being sought from branches of GameStop and Wal-Mart in Jasper, Alabama, the stores from which GTA III and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, respectively, were purchased and also from the games' publisher Take-Two Interactive, and the PlayStation 2 manufacturer Sony Computer Entertainment. The case is currently being heard by the same judge who presided over Moore's criminal trial, in which Moore was sentenced to death for his actions.
In May 2005, Jack Thompson appeared via satellite on the Glenn Beck program on CNN's Headline News. Thompson mentioned Devin Moore and said regarding Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City "There's no doubt in my mind [...] that but for Devin Moore's training on this cop killing simulator, he would not have been able to kill three cops in Fayette, Alabama who are now dead and in the ground. We are suing Take-Two, Sony, Wal-Mart, and GameStop for having trained Devin Moore to kill. He had no history of violence. No criminal record."
In September 2006, Jack Thompson brought another lawsuit, claiming that Cody Posey played the game obsessively before murdering his father Delbert Paul Posey, stepmother Tryone Schmid, and stepsister Marilea Schmid on a ranch in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The suit was filed on behalf of the victims' families. During the criminal trial, Posey's defense team argued he was abused by his father, and tormented by his stepmother. Posey was also taking Zoloft at the time of the killings. The suit alleged that were it not for his obsessive playing of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, the murders would not have taken place. Named in the suit were Cody Posey, Rockstar Games, Take-Two Interactive, and Sony. The suit asked for US$600 million in damages.
Similar games
Critics sometimes treat the release of Grand Theft Auto III as a revolutionary event in the history of video games, much like the release of Doom nearly a decade earlier. Subsequent games that follow this formula of driving and shooting have been called Grand Theft Auto clones. Some reviewers even extended this label to the Driver series, even though this series began years before the release of Grand Theft Auto III.
Grand Theft Auto clones are a type of 3D action-adventure game,i. ii. ; iii. iv. ; v. where players are given the ability to drive any vehicle or fire any weapon as they explore an open world. These games often incorporate violent and criminal themes. Notable games that are sometimes seen as Grand Theft Auto clones are the Saints Row series, The Godfather, The Getaway, The Getaway: Black Monday, Crackdown, Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven, Mafia II, Wheelman, True Crime: Streets of LA, Total Overdose and True Crime: New York City, Scarface: The World Is Yours and The Simpsons Hit & Run, which uses the GTA style of gaming.
Future
Ever since 2001, the Grand Theft Auto series has become a gargantuan success, both critically and financially, generating perfect or near perfect reviews and scores on almost all of the games, and selling over 70 million copies worldwide.. The series has broken several records, and many of them resulted in the Guinness World Records awarding the series 10 world records in the Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008. These records include Most Guest Stars in a Video Game Series, Largest Voice Cast in a Video Game (GTA: San Andreas), Largest In-Game Soundtrack (GTA: San Andreas), and Most Successful Entertainment Launch Of All Time (GTA IV). Because of its universal acclaim, the Grand Theft Auto series is believed to be one of the greatest video game franchises of all time, akin to others such as Super Smash Bros., Gran Turismo, and other well known franchises such as Final Fantasy, Mario, Need for Speed, Tekken, Metal Gear Solid, The Legend of Zelda, Resident Evil, Call of Duty, and Soul Calibur.
Following the release of Grand Theft Auto IV, Rockstar Games has released Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned and is developing Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars and a second downloadable pack for the Xbox 360 version of Grand Theft Auto IV. After the release of Grand Theft Auto IV, rumors began circulating that the next complete console installment would be released in 2009. However, in January of 2009, Rockstar confirmed that this was untrue. Many video game experts now believe that the next console installment will be released in 2010. On the 20th episode of GameTrailers' "Bonus Round", Wedbush Morgan Securities’ video game industry analyst Michael Pachter said, “I actually think they already have a story in mind. GTA5 is already in the planning stage and my guess is you’ll see [the next GTA] in two and a half years. In fall of 2010, there’ll be Grand Theft Auto 5.”
See also
Soundtracks
Grand Theft Auto soundtrackGrand Theft Auto 2 soundtrackGrand Theft Auto III soundtrackGrand Theft Auto: Vice City soundtrackGrand Theft Auto: San Andreas soundtrackGrand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories soundtrackGrand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories soundtrackGrand Theft Auto IV soundtrackGrand Theft Auto: Vice City Official Soundtrack Box SetGrand Theft Auto: Vice City OST - Greatest HitsGrand Theft Auto: San Andreas Official SoundtrackGrand Theft Auto: San Andreas Official Soundtrack Box SetThe Music of Grand Theft Auto IV
Other
External links
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