9

GRAND THEFT AUTO III (2001): THE CONSOLEJACKING LIFE

Although Rockstar Games’ 2001 Grand Theft Auto III, or GTA III, for the Sony PlayStation 2 (PS2) was by no means the first open-ended or “sandbox” game,¹ it was the first with a believable, fully 3D world that was designed with Western audiences in mind. This fact may account for part of its blockbuster commercial success over Sega's innovative Shenmue (1999; Sega Dreamcast), which—while an amazing achievement—played out at times like a slow-paced Chinese soap opera. GTA III impressed gamers with its realistic simulation of a modern city and its inhabitants, as well as its almost comical, over-the-top violence and tongue-in-cheek parody and satire. Gamers enjoyed exploring this vibrant virtual world that seemed to react so convincingly to their every decision, even when that meant rewarding criminal behavior. GTA III was able to achieve a degree of unprecedented verisimilitude, a feature that distinguished the game and its sequels from the competition. However, it brought with it a rush of antigame hysteria from people who felt its morally neutral (or immoral) gameplay threatened to corrupt young minds.

GTA III benefited greatly from the technology of its era, which far surpassed what previous sandbox games had at their disposal. Brilliant games such as 1984’s Elite (see bonus chapter, “Elite (1984): Space, the Endless Frontier”) and 1990’s Ultima VII: The Black Gate (see Chapter 23, “Ultima (1980): The Immaculate Conception of the Computer Role-Playing Game”) had offered amazingly detailed and interactive virtual worlds that gamers could spend weeks or even months exploring. Gamers marveled that they could plant seeds and sow grain in The Black Gate, actions that had no real effect on the game's plot. However, these optional activities were included in the game to make it feel more realistic; those seeds and tools weren't just there as decoration, but behaved the way we'd expect them to in the real world.

Grand Theft Auto III's gritty, realistic setting was certainly a big factor in the game's success.

However, these games—while certainly ambitious—were nevertheless rigidly limited by the technology of their time. In other words, the verisimilitude of these games only extended so far. Players of Elite found that they couldn't leave their spaceships except when docked in spaceports, which amounted to a series of menus for buying and selling. Only the spaceflight segments were immersive, and even there monochromatic wireframe graphics for ships and asteroids demanded plenty of imagination to bring to life. The Black Gate’s world was densely populated with functional virtual objects of all sorts, but they were flat, 2D sprites. You could click on a pair of pliers lying on a workbench to add them to your inventory, but their functionality was limited to very specific, predetermined usage. Despite the best efforts of the programmers, players of these games were constantly seeing the machinery at work behind the illusion.

GTA III's robust cause-and-effect physics engine and 3D graphics enabled players to interact with the game world and its objects like never before. Objects could be viewed from any angle. Furthermore, the game maintained the same level of detail during driving and flying segments as when walking or fighting hand-to-hand. Whereas previous games had switched to different modes and interfaces for driving versus walking, GTA III made these transitions seamless and much more natural. Although there were still limits on what a player could do, the options seemed limitless.

Box back from Shenmue II for the Microsoft Xbox. The technical accomplishments in the Shenmue series were impressive, but the games failed to inspire blockbuster sales.

As the roman numeral in its title indicates, GTA III's development did not take place in a vacuum. There were important prequels, expansion packs, and related games. These earlier games were made by DMA Design, now known as Rockstar North,² and included Grand Theft Auto (1997; Nintendo Game Boy Color, PC, Sony PlayStation), Grand Theft Auto 2 (1999; same platforms, plus Sega Dreamcast), and Body Harvest (1998; Nintendo 64).

Grand Theft Auto could be played in “free play mode,” or players could focus on fulfilling missions. Here, a mission has gone awry when a tanker blew up outside the building it was meant to destroy. Although the missions are often morally repugnant, the visuals and campy scenarios are typically more humorous than vile.

Grand Theft Auto or GTA, features a top down, bird's-eye view of the action. Depending upon the platform, the player takes on the role of one of four or eight different criminals. Each of these criminals vary only in appearance, and players can give them new names if they don't like the default (certain names act as cheat codes). Although the character is tasked with missions, he or she can freely roam the levels of one of three cities in the game: Liberty City, Vice City, and San Andreas,³ each of which would become the settings for future titles in the series. In contrast to the greater flexibility in later games, here the player must attain a certain number of points within a set number of lives before moving on to the next level. The player has some freedom in scoring points, like stealing and selling cars or causing general destruction, but by far the quickest path, worth the most points, is to complete the missions. Although the end result of a multiobjective mission is always the same, the player can usually make choices along the way, such as killing the police chief or rescuing a kidnap victim. The player can move about on foot, in a variety of cars, or even in a tank and boat, and has access to a variety of weapons, including a machine gun and flamethrower.⁴

In Grand Theft Auto, whenever the player hijacks a vehicle, music or radio stations play. These infectious grooves add a great deal of value to the game.

Besides the general theme and fictional cities based on real cities, the original GTA established other series standards, including radio stations with original music, a police band, and the ability to play your own music.⁵ The PC version of the game had limited network multiplayer support, an option that wouldn't be seen again until Grand Theft Auto IV. An add-on mission pack that required the original game was released in 1999 for both the PC and PlayStation called Grand Theft Auto Mission Pack #1: London, 1969, with a second following shortly thereafter, entitled Grand Theft Auto Mission Pack #2: London, 1961, though this time just for the PC. Both of these expansion packs eschewed the previous cities and time period for a trip back to London in the 1960s, though gameplay was still based on a criminal's climb up the ladder of a mob family.

Grand Theft Auto 2 or GTA 2, takes place in an unspecified near future (“three weeks”) in an unspecified city (“Anywhere City”) that consists of three distinct areas: Downtown (for example, casinos, hotels), Residential (prison, trailer park), and Industrial (seaport, nuclear power plant). The player is cast as criminal “Claude Speed,” who wants to be “King of the City” by game's end.

Grand Theft Auto II had improved graphics, but still depicted all the action from a top-down perspective. Players could not only steal cars, but actually earned points for running down pedestrians. The game seemed to take every opportunity to encourage players to break the law.

Although GTA 2 plays and scores the same as the previous game, there were several key improvements. One was the option to work for different gangs; choosing sides inevitably brought hostility from the rival group. Furthermore, characters with a high enough “wanted” level garner interest from higher authorities than just the local police. City activity is a bit more robust, with pedestrians going about their normal activities, such as entering and riding in taxi cabs or buses—there is also more criminal activity going on than the player's own. One of the more popular additions is the option to carjack a cab or bus and then earn fares. Though still limited by its zoomed-out overhead perspective, all these additions (along with a greatly expanded selection of weapons and vehicle enhancements) made the game a much more realistic sandbox experience. GTA 2, like the rest of the series until the first downloads became available on Xbox Live for the Microsoft Xbox 360 version of Grand Theft Auto IV, did not receive any expansions or add-ons. However, a multiplayer patch for the PC version of GTA 2 was incorporated when both that and the original game were released for free on Rockstar's website in 2004.⁶

Body Harvest, though not part of the official GTA series, was nevertheless the first time the developers took the gameplay concepts into 3D, albeit with a larger emphasis on action. Despite being “cursed with delays and development problems”⁷ and the blurry graphics typical of all but the best games on the Nintendo 64, Body Harvest proved a critical success. Though limited to the capacity of the Nintendo 64’s cartridge format, the game still delivered a large, relatively open Sandbox experience.

Body Harvest was DMA Design's first attempt at a 3D sandbox. Note the fleeing bystander.

The player assumes the role of Adam Drake, a genetically enhanced soldier who must investigate and stop a time traveling alien attack force. Drake must battle in five different areas, covering Greece in 1916, Java in 1941, the United States in 1966, Siberia in 1991, and the alien homeworld in 2046. As players explore each of these time periods, they can talk to the locals and commandeer any vehicle they find. Like GTA, Body Harvest allows the character to move about on foot; drive various vehicles, including tanks, boats, and helicopters; and fire weapons. Unlike GTA, Body Harvest incorporates simple puzzles, such as finding parts to fix a boat, along with the usual rescue or assassination missions. In fact, Body Harvest is even more mission-based than the GTA games, requiring strict completion before opening up further levels.

This brings us back to the next game after Body Harvest, GTA III, released for Microsoft Xbox, PC, and PS2⁸. Despite the innovations of the previous games, no one expected all of the elements to come together as magnificently as they did in GTA III. The game garnered almost universal critical acclaim along with nearly unprecedented commercial success and numerous awards.⁹ Legendary developer, Will Wright (see Chapters 15 and 22), raved about the game, describing it “as such an open-ended world … you can actually be very nice in the world and drive an ambulance around saving people, or you can be very mean. The game doesn't really force you down one path or the other unless you're playing the missions. For me, it's not really about the missions, it's about the open-endedness … going out and living a life in this little simulated city. It's like a big playground.”¹⁰ Improvements ranged from the now-iconic art style on the packaging and load screens to the addition of a 24-hour clock that featured true day and night cycles. Although not totally without flaw, GTA III got a lot more right than it did wrong, and completed the developer's transition from 2D to 3D worlds in style.

The player is again cast as an unnamed thug¹¹ trying to move up the mob ladder in Liberty City. The plot involves double-crosses, revenge, and love triangles, all told through copious cutscenes that form the basis of the missions.¹² The game's design allows players to choose how involved they actually want to get in the various machinations, if at all. As Doug Perry of IGN put it in his review:

I spent the first three hours of playing Grand Theft Auto III choosing some primary missions, but found myself constantly being distracted by random missions, side jobs, and simply exploring. My own personal raison d'etre was just to find the impressive insane stunt jump sections and to test the cars to their limits. After I got my fill, I then went back to playing the story in a more linear fashion. Players essentially can play the game as fast and as linear as their skills allow, or as distracted and as random as they feel. It's just another way in which Grand Theft Auto III offers freedom, nonlinear gameplay, and variety like never before.

One advantage to completing the story's missions and side missions is gaining access to more of Liberty City's domain,¹³ which includes three large urban areas: industrial, commercial, and suburban. Each has a distinct look and feel. Even the demographics vary from area to area, populated with citizens of the corresponding demographic. Clearly, it is impressive stuff.

GTA III features cinematic opening credits that wouldn't be out of place in the latest Hollywood hipster gangster film. After the credit sequence and quick set of animated cutscenes, the player is immediately thrust into a fully playable tutorial—another hallmark of the series. The tutorial acts as a gradual introduction to the in-game controls and also sets the context for the story.

However, there are more signs of player progress than simply completing missions or advancing the story. The game tracks a seemingly countless number of statistics in real time. These stats are accessible any time, and let players know how much of the story they've completed and how many times they've attempted missions. Players can also find out how many people they've “wasted,” number of hospital visits, and even how much distance they've traveled by car or foot, among many other statistics. All of this information gives players insight into their play style and overall ability.

The audio has been significantly enhanced, with better and more abundant speech, sound effects, and music, which now includes both original and licensed works. The songs are announced by talkative DJs, and there's even an all-talk station. The radio commercials are often quite funny, complementing the game's blend of humor and mature themes.

Some of the gameplay is identical to that found in many third-person shooters, but GTA III also involves a great deal of driving. These driving sequences have a significantly higher learning curve and difficulty level than the shooter mode. Driving doesn't work like typical racing games, which usually offer pinpoint control (see Chapter 14, “Pole Position (1982): Where the Raster Meets the Road”). Instead, the vehicles seem purposefully designed to crash into things, causing random destruction wherever one turns the wheel. Even stopping at stop lights or maintaining a consistent, law abiding speed can be challenging. It takes a lot of practice to acquire the skills needed to drive properly, and even the best players often fail to stay off the curb. Fortunately for poor drivers, obeying traffic laws is not the fun part anyway.

Controlling a vehicle can be a real challenge in Grand Theft Auto III.

Contemporary critics of GTA III tended to be very forgiving, overlooking many of its flaws and harping on its litany of groundbreaking features. For instance, few criticized the repetitive missions, particularly those of the “drive from point A to point B” variety. These repetitive missions would show up (and be lambasted) in nearly every other open-world sandbox game, such as the otherwise inspired The Simpsons Hit & Run (Vivendi Universal, 2003; Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, and others). This game placed more focus on its driving and platforming elements, but infuriated gamers with an excess of timed and very frustrating driving missions.

GTA III suffered the same standard technical issues seen in most games of the time, such as pop-in (objects suddenly appearing) and variable frame rate (smoothness). However, GTA III also had a surprising lack of variety in its character models: a startling omission, given the otherwise diverse world. It's disconcerting, for instance, to see small groups of the exact same hooker on different sidewalks—it's as though there's a city-wide clone convention. Furthermore, as is typical of 3D gaming (see Chapter 18, “Super Mario 64/Tomb Raider (1996): The Third Dimension”), even with a choice of multiple viewpoints, players could have difficulty finding just the right camera angle to view the action. Blind spots could affect everything from backing up in a car to being surprised by a police officer just out of the player's sight.

Despite these flaws, GTA III is still as playable today as it was back in 2001. However, Rockstar North didn't rest on its laurels, releasing a steady stream of improved sequels, starting with 2002’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, or GTA: VC (same platforms).

GTA: VC mined the rich pop culture references of the 1980s, going the Miami Vice ¹⁴ route, though with plenty of nods to iconic mob films like Scarface.¹⁵ The player is cast as Tommy Vercetti, a mob hitman who is released from prison after serving 15 years for killing 11 men, and who is promptly sent to Vice City to undertake a series of cocaine deals. Naturally, complications arise. Tommy's ultimate goal is to become the crime kingpin of Vice City. Though GTA: VC retains the series reliance on mob themes, Vice City's more upscale, summery landscape is a pleasing contrast to Liberty City's drab and dirty environments.

Besides featuring a large selection of period music,¹⁶ GTA: VC expands on its predecessor in several other areas, including both a larger weapon selection and a greater variety of law enforcement. The character can now steal and operate helicopters and fire trucks, the latter of which can actually be used to douse fires in the game. Players can also purchase building for hideouts or business purposes.¹⁷ As expected, GTA: VC was another huge critical and commercial success, selling 15 million units as of September 2008, three million more than its predecessor.¹⁸

Jacking a car in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

Hand-to-hand combat with hookers in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

Rockstar North finally replaced the gangster (mob) theme with a similarly gritty gangsta (gang) lifestyle in 2004’s Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, or GTA: SA (same platforms). Cast as gang member Carl “CJ” Johnson, it's up to the player to unravel the plot behind his mother's murder. Achieving this goal requires reestablishing CJ's gang and expanding his business ventures. Although GTA: SA offered expanded environments, improved artificial intelligence, and a series-first ability to swim, the biggest innovation was the introduction of role-playing/character building elements.

Not only could CJ's hair, clothing, and tattoos be purchased and modified, these changes could also have a significant impact on his in-game relationships, both positive and negative. CJ's body is affected by diet and exercise; riding a bike instead of driving in a car, for instance, makes CJ increasingly muscular, whereas overeating can make him overweight. CJ can also acquire skills in various disciplines, such as driving, firearms, and martial arts. Finally, CJ can meaningfully interact with most pedestrians, who will react accordingly.¹⁹

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas protagonist CJ riding a bike.

Even with all of these impressive features, perhaps GTA: SA's biggest claim to fame is the infamous “Hot Coffee” incident. Normally, when the player takes CJ's girlfriend home, she asks him to come in for “some coffee” and he walks inside. The camera, however, remains outside and comically sways back and forth as moaning sounds emanate from within. Enterprising hackers were able to either modify the game in the PC version or use cheating devices on the console versions to access unused game assets, which included a crude but blatant sex scene as a minigame sequence. Even though the content was not accessible by ordinary means and the game itself was already rated M for Mature by the ESRB²⁰, the usual public outcry over the content reached dizzying heights, with politicians looking for an easy cause to latch onto and calling for action. In response, publisher Take-Two gave stores the option of relabeling the game as AO, or Adults Only, a game designation most don't allow, or to send their remaining inventory back for replacement with an M version, with the offending content removed. Despite (or perhaps because of) the controversy, GTA: SA went on to sell over 20 million copies as of September 2008.²¹

Grand Theft Auto IV, or GTA IV, which bore no subtitle, was released in 2008 for the Microsoft Xbox 360, PC, and Sony PlayStation 3 (PS3). It takes place in a redesigned Liberty City. The player stars as Niko Bellic, an Eastern European war veteran who comes to the United States with grand ambitions, but soon finds himself embroiled in a seedy criminal underworld. Besides the huge audiovisual leap expected for the move to the next generation of systems, GTA IV distinguishes itself from its predecessors with the long-awaited inclusion of an integrated online multiplayer mode, which consists of 15 different game types. For the creative (and dedicated), the PC version even allows players to modify the game well beyond what was possible with any of the previous games. It's hardly surprising that the game arrived amid a flood of positive reviews and sold more than six million copies in just a week after its release, earning Take-Two over $500 million—and that was just for the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions.²²

In the years since GTA III's release, several canon titles for portables were created, including Grand Theft Auto²³ (2004), for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance, an unevenly received variation of GTA III that mostly returned to the overhead perspective of GTA 1 and 2. The PSP saw Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (2005) and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (2006),²⁴ both of which maintained much of the look, feel, and scope of the console games. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (2009) for the Nintendo DS uses an isometric perspective²⁵ and takes advantage of that platform's dual-and touchscreen functionality.

Of course, besides its own impressive list of sequels and offshoots, GTA III's success inspired many other developers to build their own sandboxes. Examples include Sony's The Getaway (2002) for the PS2, which painstakingly modeled a portion of the city of London for its gangster-themed setting; Electronic Arts’ The Godfather: The Game (2006; Nintendo Wii, PC, PS2, and others), which is based on the movie of the same name; Microsoft's Crackdown (2007) for their Xbox 360, a futuristic third-person shooter that casts the player as a cybernetically enhanced agent; Electronic Arts’ Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (2008; PC, PS2, PS3, Xbox 360), a third-person shooter set in Venezuela that features destructible environments; and THQ's Saints Row 2 (2008; PC, PS3, Xbox 360), a sandbox game with many similarities to the GTA series, but placing a greater emphasis on gang life and related customization. The various Rockstar studios would take inspiration themselves with the 2006 release of the imaginative Bully (PS2, PC, Xbox 360, and others), casting the player as a teenage rebel trying to survive a boarding school. However, though many of these are good games in their own right, none lived up to Rockstar North's creations in either critical or commercial success.

Box back for Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories.

Screenshot from Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, showcasing the destructible environments.

GTA III's influence extends beyond sandbox games, with its open-world elements being incorporated into other genres, like racing games. These include Atari's Test Drive Unlimited (2006; PC, PS2, PSP, Xbox 360), which uses the modeled Hawaiian island of Oahu for its racing environment; and Burnout Paradise (2008; PC, PS3, Xbox 360), which is set in the fictional Paradise City. Both games allow players to challenge opponents, either offline or online, to a race at nearly any point in the game.

The sandbox, open-ended, or open-world format has a lot of future potential as programming for realism (physics, destructible environments, and so on) continues to improve alongside the hardware. Although most critics praise Rockstar for making games with such rich possibilities for interaction, others—concerned but uninformed citizens—condemn it, blaming it for corrupting youth and valorizing violent crime and misogyny. Whereas Garriott's The Black Gate allowed players to commit unethical deeds, these were often cleverly (and decisively) punished later in the game; indeed, Garriott had long insisted that games should actively promote ethical behavior and strong moral values. Rockstar, conversely, seems to show no remorse for its products or how people play them, and it's hard to argue that “the public” disapproves of games that reap such enormous commercial rewards. There's perhaps an argument that allowing players to engage in virtual crime will make them less likely to commit actual crimes, though no legitimate psychological or sociological study to date has compellingly proven or disproven such claims. The lack of mutually acceptable evidence has in no way silenced critics of either camp, and we've certainly seen similar unscientific diatribes raised over other pop-culture icons like the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons and comic books.

Although it's tempting to view the less savory aspects of the GTA series as evidence of its developer's immorality, we might also see it as rather cynical social commentary. Given the choice, would most people prefer to play the game as a Christian or a criminal, a Jesus or a Machiavelli? Rockstar can always fall back on the position that they merely create possibilities—it's up to the player to enact them. If living the life of a criminal is more fun than being a law-abiding citizen, what does that say about our society?

¹ In this case, a sandbox game is defined as one that allows the player to move about a large environment and perform a wide range of typically realistic activities, but with a primary focus on accomplishing various goals and activities over creative or artistic production. Compare this to the primary goal of a “software toy,” like in the Pinball Construction Set bonus chapter, “Pinball Construction Set (1982): Launching Millions of Creative Possibilities,” which is to provide either the parts or allow the creation of the parts to build a game in a typically creative manner, and a “virtual playground”, like The Sims in Chapter 22, “The Sims (2000): Who Let the Sims Out?,” where the primary goal is to essentially play with or manipulate premade elements, with less focus on creativity and creation.

² Rockstar Games is a development division of Take-Two Interactive and presently comprises nine studios, all named for their respective locations, that is, Rockstar North (Edinburgh, Scotland), Rockstar Toronto, and Rockstar Japan.

³ Loosely based on New York City, Miami, and Los Angeles, respectively.

⁴ The player also has the basic, nonlethal ability to punch.

⁵ Features depended upon the version, with the PC having everything, the PlayStation having less, and the Game Boy Color having the least, with significant censoring of violence and language.

⁶ Each game also received necessary tweaks to run on most modern systems.

⁷ http://ign64.ign.com/articles/150/150405p1.html; a reoccurring concept through out the increasingly complex GTA series.

⁸ The first version was released for the PS2 on October 22, 2001, giving DMA Design time to make minor cuts and modifications in deference to the series of coordinated suicide attacks by al Qaeda upon the United States on September 11, 2001, particularly on New York City, on which Liberty City is loosely modeled. A few other titles were affected around this time, as well, including Sega's promising air racing game, Propeller Arena , for their Dreamcast, which was never officially released in part due to the system's weak market position and in part because it featured a race that took place between skyscrapers.

⁹ See http://tinyurl.com/42c8da for a small sampling.

¹⁰ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26630611/?pg=3#games_top5_080909_WillWright.

¹¹Later revealed to be Claude in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, where he appears as a nonplayer character.

¹²GTA III has a notable voice cast, including veteran actors Frank Vincent, Michael Madsen, Michael Rapaport, Joe Pantoliano, Debi Mazar, Kyle MacLachlan, Robert Loggia, and Lazlow Jones. Future games in the series would follow suit.

¹³GTA III’s excuse for initially limited access to certain parts of the city is that the particular access subway or bridge needs to be “repaired,” which ties back into the believability aspect; that is, if a gamer is given a reasonable explanation for being restricted from going somewhere that they would easily be able to reach in real life, immersion in the gameworld is retained.

¹⁴A popular 1984–1989 NBC television series starring Don Johnson as a cool and stylish cop, drawing influence from and defining 1980s fashion and pop culture.

¹⁵A violent film from 1983 starring Al Pacino as Tony Montana, who becomes a gangster against the backdrop of the 1980s cocaine boom.

¹⁶A hit multi-CD companion music compilation was sold separately.

¹⁷These properties can also generate missions of their own, such as eliminating certain competition.

¹⁸See http://tinyurl.com/4da24g.

¹⁹CJ can make more than 4,200 comments, which are separate from the 3,500 scripted comments and lines in the over two hours of motion-captured cutscenes. See http://tinyurl.com/475xfz.

²⁰The Entertainment Software Rating Board.

²¹See http://tinyurl.com/4da24g.

²²http://tinyurl.com/5vfqmd.

²³Also known as Grand Theft Auto Advance.

²⁴Both were later ported to the PS2 as budget titles.

²⁵This perspective features a similar overhead view like the first two GTA games, but with more 3D elements.