Grand Theft Auto: A Retrospective

The GTA series has always been like a jack of all trades, master of none. Taken individually, the graphics sucked, the shooting sucked, the driving sucked, and the overall controls sucked. But when you put them all together it somehow makes for the greatest game ever made! Yes, even better than this one!

What fools game developers were! Trying to refine one gameplay type to perfection is now an outdated concept in the video game industry. The key all along was making six shitty games and smashing them together like nearly used up slivers of soap to create one big bar of soap, a bar of soap that would go on to generate critical acclaim, massive revenues, and a whole lot of suds.

If You Think Vice City is Better Than San Andreas You Are Gay

A sequel was inevitable. With all the cash earned from Grand Theft Auto III Rockstar was able to include licensed music tracks and big name actors to lend their voices to the game. Unfortunately none of them were able to program free aiming into the game.

There seems to be a growing movement on, no surprise here, the Internet, that believes Vice City was better than San Andreas. This camp is mostly divided into those who like black people and those who do not. You know, I think modding PC games is great and all, but was a mod turning all the characters white really necessary?

If the entirety of the game took place in Los Santos then we would have been happy, but Rockstar went above and beyond crafting an entire "state" to explore.

It was the first time it really felt like a game did the phrase "open-world" justice. It was always jarring in other free-roaming games when you'd explore to the end of the map and there would just be an invisible wall impeding your progress or a sign that said, "TURN AROUND, STUPID. THE GAME IS THAT WAY." Sure, San Andreas is just one big island but you'd hardly ever notice. For this reason, Vice City drools and San Andreas rules.

For the record, the Pennsylvania Primary is actually on April 22nd.

And Here Come the Clones!

After the success of Grand Theft Auto III it seemed like no game could feature linear progression through a set of levels or stages. Unless you could play Crazy Taxi to earn money between level 1 and 2, gamers rejected it.

One of the first GTA clones was True Crime: Streets of LA. Its feature set included 240 square miles of Los Angeles lovingly recreated in-game. Even the street names were accurate, which is odd because the game world didn't look a thing like Los Angeles. I rented it and tried to find my workplace on Wilshire Blvd but in it's place was a tree and a sign that said, "To be completed: Our video game".