Grand Theft Auto

The Good
There is one part of GTA, which I think, is really great: The audio. This game has a great soundtrack, with all sorts of music (70's funk, 80's hard rock, gangsta rap etc.) and weird samples all mixed into one great musical melting pot. Each type of music has it's own radio station. By default different cars have their radios tuned into different stations. You'll hear techno music in a sports car and country music in a pick-up. You can switch channels while you are driving. I recommend you listen to the CD in your audio player at least once, so you can hear all those funny samples that have been mixed in between the songs. The sound effects are not bad either, the developers paid a lot of attention to tiny details (police scanner, things people say when you walk around with a gun, the little beeps you'll hear when you put a truck in reverse). Too bad there's so little speech in the game, cause the accents are great.

You have a lot of freedom in this game, you can play the missions or just mess around and do some very, very bad things. You can almost wreak havoc without limitations: slam your car into a police barricade, participate in high-speed car chases with the police, hijack, steal and assassinate.

Some of the missions are really cool (like using radio-controlled cars to assassinate somebody), others seem to be included into the game for the single purpose of making you race from one end of the map to the other. Once you reach San Francisco and Miami the missions become rather difficult and some of them are pretty annoying. Before the real meat of the mission starts you'll first have to make a couple of phone calls... great stuff when you have about 30 seconds to reach a public phone on the other side of the map in order to make the call :-<. Somehow I got the impression that the missions were a bit of an afterthought to the open ended crime simulator idea. Hmm, seems like I'm talking about the bad stuff already.

The Bad
Well, like Tomer says, the graphics are really bad. Of course great graphics are nice but I don't consider GTA's lack of graphic polish as a major problem. However there are some other things that took some of fun away from playing this game. I think I would have really enjoyed this game if:

• You could save your game. I think you should have been able to save your game after completing, for example, three missions. It can take you a couple of hours to reach the multi million score you need to progress. Moreover, sometimes you have to complete a pair of missions (up to 5 or 6 missions) before some other missions become available. It's frustrating to play those first five missions over and over again, but you'll have to, if you want to see what the other missions are like.
• There was a background story. Games like Star Control 2 offer a lot of freedom to the gamer, but you have the feeling something big is going on in the background. GTA has no background story. Consequently there is no build up of suspense, no "working towards a higher goal". You're just playing for the sake of collecting points. The levels and missions don't really seem to be tied together. I think it would be a great idea to add some RPG aspects to the game and let the player rise to the top of a crime syndicate (I've always liked big, over-ambitious games). But hey, Rockstar fixed that with the release of Vice City.

**The Bottom Line**
A highly explosive piece of software with more f***s per minute than a Tarantino movie. The use of cheat codes doesn't spoil the satisfaction you'll get from this game and saves you from a lot of frustration. It's the open-ended nature of the game that makes it great, not the missions.

The Good
This is for me the most original game I ever have played. Everything runs smooth, even on a slow computer. The gameplay is more then excellent, the mission are great and fun to play several times. It is possible to drive a car and squash people or run and shoot at them. It fun to drive fast and avoid every other car and lose the cops. And every time you get in n other car, the music will change, just like a radio.

The Bad
What is good for the game, is also the bad side of the game it kept you playing for hours, what do I say, I ment for years. The fun will never stop.

The Bottom Line
The best part of the game is, you can decide how to play it. Or you do the missions or you driving around and make a big mess in town. Every gamer who respects himself must have played GTA.

The Good
+ Three cities to explore
+ Full-fledged exploration of each city
+ Decent soundtrack
+ Great variety of cars
+ The "special" button


The Bad
- Questionable control scheme
- Some clunky game mechanics
- Modest graphics and unstable framerate
- Punishing save system
- Clunky camera


The Bottom Line
Presentation: 50/100
The game does not provide an introduction, or a real story, just you being a newbie criminal, climbing up the crime ladder.

Graphics: 70/100
The graphics aren't exactly the greatest looking. The buildings are in 3D and the characters and cars are 2D sprites, and when the camera gets close, these little guys are obviously not meant to be up close. The framerate is okay, but it drops when there are at least 5 cars on screen, and when the camera zoom out, the framerate is a chugging mess. The camera isn't exactly the greatest either. The camera does not always respond as quick as it should; such as when you are making a sharp turn, the camera would end up going too far to where you're turning, which can lead to a top of a building getting in the way of the view.

Audio: 80/100
The sound effects are adequate, and the soundtrack is decent, depending on preference. The radio stations are not very lengthy and a station will be set for each car; for example, a pick-up truck will play country music, while a sports car will play rock music.

Controls: 67/100
The controls are playable at best. X and Triangle moves your character forward and back, Square jack a car, and Circle fires your weapon. L1 and L2 cycles weapons, R2 is special and R1 is the brakes. Driving is a bit clunky to control, because the car physics aren't exactly as fully-fledged, such as the car might not stop completely, it just inches towards where it's facing, and pressing Triangle does not apply the brakes, R1 does. The controls will feel strange at first, but they will probably become second nature as you get into the game. The worst offender for the controls is aiming your gun, especially the pistol. It seems that the hit detection is not as fully-fledged, meaning you have to be pinpoint precise with your shots; if you're one pixel off and your bullets aren't going to hit anyone. If you want to know why I like that "special" button, try it out yourself. You'll laugh. Out loud.

Difficulty: Mostly challenging not by the challenge
Grand Theft Auto is overall a challenging game. Sometimes, the challenge isn't even by the challenge, the odd controls make driving weird. The lack of a health bar also adds to the challenge, meaning that you will die in one bullet, and there's a lives counter, so the amount of times you can die is fairly limited. The lack of a health bar and dying in one hit, can be inconvenient at first, but you'll learn how to dodge bullets. In each level, you have to collect a set amount of points to pass a level.

Gameplay: 80/100
Grand Theft Auto is a top-down action game, meaning that the action will be seen in helicopter view. The driving is okay, but could've been better. There are three cities in the game with two levels in each city. In each city, you are given a set score that you must achieve. Such as in the first level, you must garner at least 1,000,000 points to beat the level. In the later levels, the numbers increase, which wouldn't be a problem if the game allowed you to save during a level. You cannot save during a level, you can only save when you are not on a level, which can be a major issue, especially on the PlayStation. On the PC, you couldn't save either, but you could Alt + Tab out of the game and get back to it later. The punishing save system is the biggest offender here, especially considering that the later levels usually take an hour or more to complete. The camera is also sluggish in this game. Generally, the camera does not respond as quickly when you are driving in something like a fast car. The cars also have weird physics, such as how they cannot survive falls. If your car is falling, it will explode in the air. Also, you can only enter and exit from a car at the driver's seat; if your car is parked with its left side against a wall, your car is technically stuck unless if you push it with another car. Despite these flaws, the gameplay is great. The cities are for you to explore and there are no barricaders to block your path. The golden part of Grand Theft Auto itself is to cause destruction to the environment and make the cops go haywire about you. There are hundreds of missions in the game and these missions usually have two tasks; for instance, you must drive an explosive-rigged truck to a police station to blow it up, then when you're done with that, you must get to the guy who will pay you. The guy warns you that a rival gang leader's lawyer is going somewhere, you must follow him, which leads you to a large gang of men with guns. Obviously, your objective here is to kill all of them. While there are decently designed missions, there are missions that are either poorly-designed or borderline difficult.

Overall: 80/100
The game has quite a few flaws, but the game will last if you can overlook these. Grand Theft Auto 1 in general is a mixed bag in the ranks, some people like it, some people hate it. While it was a start of one of the most famous video game franchises, the not-so-fully-fledged driving physics and punishing save system would pop in some questions. The game is still overall great, with full exploration of each city without borders. If the game allowed you to save within a level, GTA would be even more recommended.

Score: 80/100