Grand Theft Auto - A brief history (Part 1)

1997, 'Grand Theft Auto' was released. Fast forward to 2015, a week before 'GTA 5' is released on the PC and the count is at eleven stand-alone games and four expansion packs. The series as a whole is up there with Mario and Pokemon when it comes to the best selling video game franchises and is the most successful game produced in the UK (It even beats Football Manager...I know!).


So where did it all begin? What happened along the way? Lets take a look.


Grand Theft Auto

After 'Lemmings' (which Rockstar also created), DMA hit it off with 'GTA'. It was praised for the amount of freedom players had and even knowing you had a set goal you could easily do side missions and generally cause havoc and destruction. It got generally good reviews and was praised for its soundtrack and use of radio stations (a GTA speciality) but also got into the press for its game play which included stealing, killing and most criminal activities. This spawned an expansion based in London which introduced 39 missions and 30 new vehicles.

Top-down perspective used in GTA and GTA 2

It was extremely easy to play and even without doing the missions you could have hours of fun creating mayhem and then evading the police.

The game was still available as freeware but may have been taken off now, you can keep an eye here.

At the time it wasn't touted as anything special but little did people know it was a the beginning of something very, very special.

Grand Theft Auto 2

'GTA 2' was released in 1999 to mixed/positive reviews, the game was still in 2D with the top-down perspective with the new element being that you could work for numerous gangs (Zaibatsu, Loonies, Yakuza, SRS, Rednecks, Russian Mafia and the Hare Krishna's) to gain reputation. This would effect the game world as when you completed missions for one gang and gained a higher rep, you would lose face with another. An added bonus to the sequel was the ability to save your game, in the original your game was saved when you completed a city, GTA 2 allowed you to save your progress by entering a church with a set amount of cash. The game also introduced 'side missions' which allowed the player to work as a taxi driver, bus driver and truck driver. This added to the sense of freedom.

Gang reputation was shown top right of the screen (GTA 2)

There isn't a lot extra I can add about the sequel, apart from minor game play tweaks and improvements it was generally more of the same. It was the next installment that really got things moving.

Grand Theft Auto III

Well what can I say, this is where things got interesting. GTA III was released in 2001 to critical acclaim and was the best selling game that year. Where the original was an underground hit, GTA III was a huge mainstream success and has been touted as one of the most important games of all time. Rockstar moved to a third-person perspective but kept the open world action game play. As well as the controversy that surrounded the original games, the third went a step further with its violent and sexual content. There were also lawsuits against Rockstar claiming their game was the reason for actual violent crimes.

The updated third-person perspective used in GTA III

Rockstar completely overhauled the game here, not only the look and feel but adding an actual protagonist into a story. The main character doesn't actually utter a word during the game but that doesn't stop the introduction of great characters and missions. This truly was landmark in the gaming industry, even if its average review score tied it with Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3, a great game within itself but on the same level as GTA III? Not a chance.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Vice City continued what GTA III started, it was the best selling game of 2002 and until 2006 was the greatest selling game in Playstation 2 history (what was it overtaken by?? answer at the end!). The game was set in Miami 1986 with the same third person perspective game play. The game was once again praised for its game play and music but again caused public concern with its violence and sexual content. The series still stormed on though.

Rockstar now had a winning formula and Vice City continued the hot streak. With a different time setting and new surroundings it gave the game fresh appeal. They added to what was already great additions to the previous game, new side missions (ambulance and pizza delivery to name a few) and the opportunity to purchase properties. This would give you extra missions and once completed gave you regular income. It has sold well over 20 million copies, I think that speaks for itself!

So these were the first set of major releases, keep an eye out for part 2. 

@Joe_Copson

PS

Gran Turismo 4 outsold Vice City.

Esports - Is gaming becoming a sport?

"esports is still an unknown quantity to most people – but as the world gets more tech-savvy, more people will accept it as sport."

In my mind the quote I found has hit the nail on the head, well kind of. Gaming has gone from sitting in your room (people still do it that way), to packing out sporting arenas around the world. I think whether people like it or not gaming has become a massive thing now and it will only continue to grow, but will it be accepted as a sport? Could we see it sitting a long side Football (soccer), Basketball and Baseball?

Lets look at how big it is at the moment, you would have had to have been living under a rock for the past 8 years not to of heard of Call of Duty. The series has sold roughly 175 million copies to date, on average one sold every two seconds. At the end of March the COD Championships took place in Las Vegas with the winning team banking a lovely $1 million, not bad for just sitting about playing games!

Yeah...this wasn't an actual match

 So we know the prize money is there, what about viewers/fans? League of Legends is an online arena battle type strategy game in which two teams of five champions battle it out. in 2013 the LOL championships attracted 32 million online viewers, that was double the viewers of the baseball world series and beat game seven of the NBA finals. The following year it attracted 40,000 to Sangam stadium in Seoul, the same stadium hosted a FIFA world cup semi final in 2002.

League of Legends Championship, Seoul 2014

I am starting to get the idea that professional esports teams are like Formula 1 teams. Teams can train up to 14 hours a day, working on strategy, technique and the opposition, this is then put in to action in regional leagues and tournaments. Individuals are earning past the £1 million per year and with more sponsors investing this will surely grow.

Now the more difficult part, while doing my research I saw a lot of people making the claim that gamers are athletes. There is no doubt in my mind that the top pros work incredibly hard to get to where they are today but an athlete, for me, is someone who takes part in a sport which requires great strength, speed or endurance (or a mixture of the three). 

I also believe that we don't need to compare though, gaming is so big now it has grown into its own world.  

"esports has earned the right to be whatever it wants to be. It doesn’t matter how people want to define it, it is simply a remarkable phenomenon."

Regardless of peoples views, esports is here and I can only see it getting bigger. Who knows, we may find events televised soon. Whatever happens, the future is bright for esports and for gaming as a whole.

@Joe_Copson

Has Kickstarter Kickstarted?

I picked up my copy of 'Pillars of Eternity' yesterday and played about an hour to get a feel for it. If you have read a previous article of mine you would have seen I am a massive fan of the Black Isle games, which at the time were a massive success. PoE was developed by Obsidian Entertainment, who were founded in 2003 after Black Isle studios were closed when parent company Interplay had financial troubles.

Anyway, enough game developer history. One reason PoE is hitting the headlines is because it was crowd funded using Kickstarter.com, the site gives people the opportunity to share their ideas with the public giving them the chance to pledge money towards developing the idea into a final product. Obsidian obviously done something right as the asked for $1.1 million....and ended up with almost $4 million! The game has since been released and is picking up rave reviews. So my question is, are crowd funded projects the way forward?

September 14th 2012 - March 25th 2015, that was the time period from the announcement of the project to release date. During that period Obsidian gave constant updates to how things were looking, showed concept art and told people that pledged what rewards they would be getting their hands on. Obsidian did have a major advantage though, they are already an established development team. They already have Fallout: New Vegas, Neverwinter Nights 2, Dungeon Siege 3 and South Park: The Stick of Truth on their CV, gamers were more than likely to trust them with their hard earned cash.

So who else has profited from crowd funded projects?

Before PoE, the highest funded project was 'Broken Age' which was developed by Tim Schafer, who rose to fame working at Lucasarts games and then was the mastermind behind the highly successful 'Grim Fandango' (recently remastered, absolutely give it a go if you like your point and click adventures).

If I said the name Takashi Tateishi, how many of you would know where I am going next? (I wouldn't have...) If I said the name 'Mega Man' does that turn on a few light bulbs? Well he is another person who is involved in a kickstarter campaign (Takashi, not Mega Man) with the upcoming release of 'Mighty No.9'. Described as the spiritual successor to 'Mega Man' fans jumped at the chance to plow their money towards the game. Only 900k was requested, it pulled in a massive $4 million.

By the looks of things it seems crowd funded projects are becoming more and more popular, these were just two games that gathered a massive following and were hugely popular. I guess it is easier for fans to get behind projects they feel a part of, we are offered incentives for putting more money in. PoE gave you chance to name a weapon or non player character. The remastered Carmageddon offers you the chance to have your face in the game.

So for experienced teams of developers it seems like a logical choice to get funded, I think only time will tell if this will rub off onto teams starting out in the game making world.

The big boys will still release the blockbuster games regardless but I think if you fancy something different take a look at the crowd funded projects. You may find that bit of nostalgia you're after.

@Joe_Copson

Games and their unique game play

I spent the last week finishing off Max Payne 3, which really is a great game (I also got it for a lovely £4 on Steam). Very good story line and pretty much constant action, Max even turns into John McClane for a portion of the game! What I had the most fun with though was the 'Bullet Time' slow motion game play effect.

This got me thinking last night, with the gaming world constantly changing and new ideas being thrown around, where did some of these unique game play effects start? And which games have made the most use of these effects? Lets take a look.

Yippee ki-yay!

Max Payne (Series) - Bullet time

I will start with what I just finished. Max Payne pretty much revolves around bullet time, in simple terms, slow motion. When activated time slows down to the point where the player can see individual shots fired at them and also enables Max to go on the offensive. The advantage is that even knowing time is slowed, Payne can still aim in real time giving you the chance to get those satisfying head shots. To add the the effect, when you down the final enemy in the area you are treated to bullet camera which shows your winning kill.

The Matrix films were famous for using the slow-mo effect but in the video game world Requiem: Avenging Angel was one of the first to use it. You can get a glimpse of it here (starts about 2:45).

Gears of War (Series) - Cover system

GOW, released in 2006, was I think when the cover system really got its acclaim. The games selling point was its cover based combat game play, you can easily jump behind cover at the touch of a button and used it to tactically take down the Locust horde. You could pick enemies off by peaking from cover to get a well aimed shot or use the non risky blind fire approach. This was improved for GOW 2 thanks to an improved Unreal engine when cover would take damage from gun fire.

The cover system was used well before Gears of Wars time, you could go right back 1986 when 'Rolling Thunder' was released to get your first glimpse of cover based game play. 'Kill Switch' was the first game to base its game play on cover, you also have the first two Metal Gear Solid games and Uncharted: Drakes fortune which used the system just before Gears was released.

Mirrors Edge - Free running

Mirrors Edge really is in a league of its own when it comes to uniqueness. It is based on Parkour and truly is a first person experience, the use of cameras and being able to see Faith's limbs while performing sprints and big jumps helps create the feeling of performing free running moves. The game also uses 'Runners Vision' which highlights pieces of scenery you can interact with to perform your moves. 'Bullet Time' also features in a slightly different variance, 'Reaction Time' slows time down to enable the player to plan our the next move without losing speed and momentum.

Like I said, Mirrors Edge really is one of kind. The only game that kind of comes close is 'Prince of Persia' for his ability to run along walls but even that is really clutching at straws.

Those are the three that jumped at me while thinking about this, there are probably loads more examples out there. If you can think of any then please feel free to comment below. Meanwhile, I will sit back and wait for the next game to utilise or possibly even revolutionise a new game play mechanic.

@Joe_Copson

DLC, Expansion packs, Pre order bonuses and all that s**t

Gaming is an expensive hobby, fact. Console games now cost £49.99...but that isn't the final cost for most games anymore. If you're relatively young DLC is probably the norm for you but us slightly older ladies and gentleman remember a more simple time. Let us go back in time.

Late 1998 I was introduced to one of my favourite games of all time, Baldurs Gate on the PC. At the time I believe it cost me about £30, If I was being truly honest my PC wasn't good enough to run it so I played it at a friends house. I won't go into detail about the game but it was engaging, difficult, full of things to do and had a decent sized campaign. This was my first introduction to an expansion pack (I guess early name for DLC), Tales of the sword coast was released in April 1999 and added roughly 30 hours extra game play to the original game. The key point I want to make here is that it didn't directly impact the main storyline/campaign.

Fast forward to 10th April 2015. Evolve was released to absolute uproar when DLC was available the day of release. Gone are they days games cost only the amount you pay for the actual game. At the time of writing, buying Evolve with all add-ons and passes would cost you a massive £68.68 (two and fraction a Baldurs Gates for you budding mathematicians!). Almost £70 for a game that, if truth be told, isn't technically finished. Are developers under too much pressure to meet a deadline that they throw out an unfinished product? Or do they know we will lap up everything they throw at us and see the big £££ signs?

I can't just pick on Evolve, pretty much all new releases do it now. Battlefield: Hardline has been released with a standard and a deluxe edition, the latter giving you access to more equipment. Mortal Kombat promises you bonus characters if you preorder and has DLC ready to sell on release date.

I don't necessarily have a problem with new content but some games now push for you to buy the content by locking parts of the game down, my previous article about Destiny is a key example. Call of Duty gives us maps from previous games, Rock Band/Guitar Hero bleed us dry with extra songs.

The way things are going it seems to me that if you don't get the content you put yourself at a huge disadvantage. Not just because you miss out on new features but in some games spending more money gives you an advantage over the competition.

Whichever way you look at it DLC is here to stay and will more than likely keep growing in price but what can we do, stop playing games in protest?

@joe_copson

Destiny - BAFTA game of the year 2014?

So, it's been a while (May 8th 2014!) but I have finally found some time to start up again.

September 9th, 2014. I shot home from work hoping that my copy of Destiny was in my mail box. To my obvious delight it was there and from then on I thought I had found the next game to keep me company for months on end...or so I thought.

I will admit I was hooked, played it every day and night at every spare moment I got. I loved the premise, looked great and sounded great. So where did it all go wrong?

Getting to Level 20 and the constant searching for legendary and exotic gear was quite addictive at first but once that was achieved you were forced to do the Daily, Weekly and Nightfall Strikes.This became disgustingly boring once they started to recycle them over and over again. Even the Crucible became repetitive with the low number of maps and game modes.

Still I stuck with it thinking the first DLC (Ergh, I hate that word) would burst new life into a stale story. My friend and I refused to buy it at first, we wanted to wait until we had maxed out our levels...but then this hit us

Wow, we were pissed. It pretty much forced our hand to buy the DLC otherwise we had to wait a week for the missions to recycle. We were addicted at that point, they had won this round!

It took us a matter of days to finish 'The Dark Below' extra story missions. After that I slowly stopped playing. If you missed a few days you fell behind, missed out on doing Raids etc. You then missed out on better equipment, which then got you shouted at when doing a Raid with more experienced players!

In conclusion, I though it had mega potential and you never know it might fulfil it one day but I have come away disappointed. It was named BAFTA game of the year and has roughly 13 million active players so it is doing something right....isn't it?

Ps here is my scientific Destiny enjoyment chart

Feel free to comment below

@Joe_Copson