Grand Theft Auto (game) Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Grand Theft Auto (GTA) is a video game series created by DMA Design (now Rockstar North) and published by Rockstar Games in 1997. It includes seven standalone games.The games allow the player to take on the role of a criminal in a city. Various missions are set for completion, such as bank robberies, assassinations, and other crimes.
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2 Sequels 3 Original 4 Footnotes 5 External links |
The game is made up of a series of levelss each set in one of the three cities in the game. In each level, the player has a target number of points to achieve, and you have five lives to attain the score. On obtaining the target number of points, the player must then drive to a certain location to complete the level, which allows progress to the next one.
Apart from that, the player is free to do what he/she wants. The player can just explore the city, cause death and destuction amid the traffic in the city, or steal and sell cars for profit, although completing a level, will almost certainly require the completion of missions. Even in missions there is still some freedom, as usually the player is free to choose the route to take, although the destination is usually fixed. This level of freedom is not found in most action-based computer games.
There are various ways in which to earn the points needed to complete each level.
Some points can be earned by committing various crimes, such as ramming cars (10 points each), and killing policemen (1000 each). The more serious the crime, the more points, but also the more the police will pay attention to the player. Another way to make money is to steal cars, and sell them at the many docks around each city, usually earning several thousand points.
These ways can give the player quite a number of points but this is not sufficient to earn the millions of points needed to complete each level (unless the player has a lot of patience), so it is neccesary to take on missions to complete a level. On successful completion of a mission successfully, the player gets 'paid', a large amount of points. A typical payment is in the region of 50,000 points.
Also after completing a mission, the score multiplier is increased by 1. The score multiplier is multiplied by the normal score for something, to get the points actually awarded. For example a multiplier of 3 will mean that the player gets 3*10 = 30 points for ramming a car, rather than the normal 10 points. This applies for anything points are awarded for, including the payment for completing a mission.
In most cases, missions are started by answering telephones, although some missions are allocated on the spot, or are triggered by finding certain vehicles.
At the start of each mission, the player will be given a series of instuctions that you must follow. The instructions are given in stages, so the objectives might change halfway through if the situation changes.
Many of the mission involve tasks that can be completed at the player's your own pace, so the player can take a leasurely pace, and observe the traffic laws, although there is always a temptation to cut corners. However, sometimes the game imposes time limits on mission completion, or there may be people giving chase, such as enemy gangsters, or the police, forcing the player to cut corners, to get to the destination on time and/or evade the pursuers. This means running red lights, driving on the pavement(risking running over paedestrians), and finding shortcuts.
Whilst the cities have other emergency services, as a criminal you are more likely to notice the local cops.
The police are constantly on the lookout for criminals. The player has a 'wanted' level, which reflects how much attention the police pay him/her. At the start of the game this is at zero and the player is ignored, but when the player commits a serious crime, the police pay the player more attention, and the wanted level increases, up to a maximum of four.
At one, the police tend only to give chase if they are in the area anyway, whereas at four, the police set up roadblocks on major roads, and shoots on sight, and send everyone available to the player's location. The more crimes are committed, the higher the rating goes. Also, sometimes the player automatically get noticed, if a mission lead to someone calling the police, or in the case of bank robberies that not suprisingly put the police on full alert.
The police's aim is in general to arrest the player, although they will not hesistate in shooting at , or trying to ram the player off the road, in the desperate attempt to stop the player, and they get more trigger happy the higher the wanted level. On arrest, the player is dropped off at the nearest police station, taking all the player's weapons and armour, and halving the score multiplier, but resetting the wanted level back to zero.
The police are very determined to catch the player, but they can be evaded. Dotted around each city are a number of respray shops, where your vehicle can be resprayed, or the licence plates changed, to disguise it. This makes the police think you are someone else, even if they see you enter the shop, although this does cost money (i.e. points).
In the game, there are a number of objects to pickup, that are contained in crates, and in fact this is where all the player's weapons are obtained.
The Pistol is a rather uninspiring weapon, but it is the most readily available. It fires shots one at a time, and whilst it is good enough against individuals, is not very useful in destroying vehicles.
A Machine gun is quite a step up from the pistol, allowing rapid firing, and can destroy most cars in seconds. The availability of machine guns is more limited than pistols.
The Flamethrower is very destructive, and highly effective, but it only has a short range. If it is used to destroy cars, this short range means that there is more risk of being caught in the explosion. The advantage of the flametrower, is that the played is a tripleing of the points awarded for killing people and destroying cars.
The Rocket Launcher is one of the most destructive weapons, that can destroy most vehicles in a single shot, as well as causing a large explosion that could kill more than just the original target. This can be a downside, as if the rocket hits something close to the player, he/she can get caught in the explosion.
Body Armor is not a weapon, but is very useful in combat. Normally being shot once is enough to kill the player, but body armour will protect from three shots before its power runs out.
Some of the powerups are self-explanatory, such as the extra life and (bonus)multiplier increase. However, there are some more interesting bonuses, that deserve more of a mention:
The Police Bribe is useful if the police are looking for the player, as it reduces his/her wanted level to zero, so they suddenly ignore him/her, in a similar manner to going to a respray shop.
On picking up a Kill Frenzy, you a time limit starts in which the player must obtain a certain number of points, and is usually given a weapon to do this with. This encourages the player to cause carnage by blowing up cars and killing people, attracting the attention of the police. This increases the challenge, as the player has to avoid (or kill) the police whilst getting the points, although killing the police earns more points than killing civilians.
If the player is successfull he/she gets a reward, and the wanted level is reduced to zero, so the police ignore the player. This provides an incentive to complete the challenge, particular as a failure will usually lead to a high wanted level, due to the killings and destruction usually involved in an attempted killing spree.
These missions sometimes give you a vehicle to complete the frenzy. These include tanks, and remote control cars packed with explosives.
The Speed Up and Car speed up powerups are similar, in that the former allows the player to run faster, whilst the later speeds up any cars the player drives drives. Both of these are therefore useful if the player is in a hurry.
The Get outta Jail Card, unlike the other powerups, is not used immediately. Instead, it is used when the player is arrested, and means he/she keeps any items carried, as well as the score multiplier.
In the game, there are a large number of vehicles, each with their own characteristics, from fast sports cars, to slow but resiliant trucks. These can be stolen by throwing the occupant onto the street, or breaking into those that are parked. Some vehicles are also provided in missions, or hidden in various parts of each city. Also, each city has a train service, that lets you travel quickly around it.
Much of the traffic of each city consists of cars of various sorts. These vary considerably in speed. The more sensible cars are fairly slow, and have appropriate names such as the Bug. The sports cars however are much faster, and have names like Jugular1 which reflect their more adventurous nature. These are more suitable for high speed chases, whereas the slower cars are more suited to missions with no time-limit. vans also similar to cars as well, although they usually are at the slower end of the scale.
Some of the vehicles are longer, and more unwieldy than cars. These include limousines, buses and coaches, but the biggest of these is the tanker. Due to their bulk each one takes a long time to speed up, or slow down, and they have similar difficulties in turning, having a wider turning radius. This bulk also gives such vehicles more pushing power, making them ideal for ramming cars out of the way, and also makes them hard to ram. They also tend to be more resiliant, taking more damage before they are destroyed.
In contrast, motorbikes are small and much more manoevreable, with a smaller turning circle, and are able to speed up and slow down very quickly. They also tend to have high top speeds. Their lack of bulk, however, means that they are more vunerable. They can take less damage, and are easier to ram, whilst having very little ramming power of their own, and a violent enough collision can throw the player off the bike.
The emergency services also have vehicles, that can be stolen. Fire engines are large vehicles, similar in handling to tankers. They are called out whenever there is a fire, usually as a result of an explosion. Ambulances are similar to small vans, and are called out in the case of someone being injured. Both of these are frequently the result of the player's actions. Finally the police in their squad cars are called out to chase criminals, the player in particular. Unlike other drivers, the police cannot be simply thrown out of their vehicles, but their cars can be stolen if their driver is killed, or lured out of their vehicle. None of these vehicles can have their plates changed to reset your wanted level.
One exception to this is the tank. This, as would be expected, can simply drive over other vehicles on the road, and cannot be rammed by other vehicles. It can take a lot of damage before being destroyed, although it isn't quite invincible. The tank is very rare, and is usually hidden, on levels that have them.
There have been 5 sequels to the original Grand Theft Auto:
, the first GTA game with a full 3D environment]]
GTA3 is much more controversial than its predecessors. Unlike the two former games in the series this game is fully 3D and provides the player with a "third person view" rather than a "top down view". Vice City is set in a Miami-like city in the mid-1980s, and it is yet more controversial than GTA3. Due to the gang lifestyle portrayed by the Haitians, many Haitian-Americans actually attempted to boycott the game, and the original version included a final mission involving crashing an airplane into a building and bailing out at the last second (this was scrapped in the wake of 9-11). GTA: San Andreas is set in a California-like state, with '90s gang wars forming the backdrop of the plot. The series has been attacked as "morally ambiguous" at best and "immoral" at worst.
The Grand Theft Auto series is notable for the large amount of freedom given to the player in deciding what to do. Unlike most action games, which are structured as a single track series of levels, in GTA the player can pick and choose which missions they want to undertake, and their relationship with various powers are changed based on these choices. Players also often cite the music, humor, and "stress relieving factor" of the series in explaining its appeal.
Rockstar Games has since released an updated copy of the original Grand Theft Auto as a free download. An unofficial version of Grand Theft Auto 3 is under development for the NES.
The original game Grand Theft Auto was available for MS-DOS, Game Boy Color and Sony Playstation.
1 The name Jugular is the game's take on the Jaguar. Quite a few of the cars have such names, such as the Bug, a name based on the VW Beetle, and the Mundano, a take on the Ford Mondeo.Gameplay
Earning points
The Missions
The Police
Pickups
Weapons
Powerups
Vehicles
Sequels
GTA: London, 1969 was a continuation of original GTA, only it is set in London. GTA2 features better graphics and gameplay than the first installment, considering that some versions of GTA1 were DOS games, and GTA2 was made in Microsoft Windows.Original
Footnotes
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