<\/td><\/tr>Then in 2001 Rockstar came out with GTA III and more or less conquered the PS2 with it. I still can’t believe the technological jump they took from the 1999 GTA II to the 2001 GTA III. It was like they got hold of some strange alien technology. The game went from being a simplistic, lo-tech excuse to blow up cars to one of the most cutting edge 3d worlds ever<\/em>. Even six years later I don’t think anyone else has really matched them for spacious, realistic urban landscapes. I don’t know what happened that enabled them to take such a huge leap forward. Did they harvest some of John Carmack’s blood and make themselves a clone? Or an army of clones? Since then they have churned out games at an amazing pace. Five titles in six years. Putting out new GTA titles differs from printing money only in the fact that it’s legal, so I can understand the motivation. I just don’t understand how they’re doing it. Compare this with the hit Half-Life, which had six years between the first title and the sequel, or with Tomb Raider, which managed to release countless sequels of rapidly declining quality. GTA managed to release new games nearly annually while at the same time improving both the game and the technology that drove it. Again, I have no idea how they are pulling this off. The clone army explanation is starting to sound plausible. <\/p>\n What is interesting is that the games are not sequels in a storytelling sense. The chronology of the series is all backwards and sideways, with the timeline jumping backwards and forwards and following intersecting narratives like a Quintin Tarantino movie, only on the scale of a couple of decades. What makes it really crazy is how the various stories overlap. Characters appear in multiple games at appropriate ages. The main character from one game will be a minor character in another. <\/p>\n GTA III: Takes place right around the year 1999. I’m currently working on GTA: Liberty City Stories. The protagonist in this one is not very compelling so far. We’ll see how the game itself shapes up as I get a little further into it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m writing about Grand Theft Auto this week. I’ve remarked on this series before. The series turns ten this year. The game has an odd history. Most of the press surrounding the game focuses on the graphic content and outrageous gameplay, but the thing that has amazed me the most about the game is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[39],"class_list":["post-1087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-videogames","tag-gta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1087\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nI find this jump to be astounding. They didn’t just come up with one of the most impressive engines to grace the PS2, but they must have invented a bunch of other in-house tools as well. They went from wiggling 2d sprites to motion-captured animations on 3d figures. They went from pictures of cars to realistic cars with interiors, doors, hoods, and trunks that would open and close, individual damage zones, believable physics and probably a dozen other details I’ve overlooked. They went from all-text to quality voice acting. They went from a bland overhead view of the world to a huge 3d city that used one of the most impressive level-of-detail systems I’ve ever seen. GTA III had nothing in common with its predecessor, except for its premise. <\/p>\n
\nGTA Vice City: Takes place in “1986”, although it draws from iconic music and television from all over the decade like an 80’s highlight reel.
\nGTA San Andreas: Takes place in the early 90’s. 1992-ish.
\nGTA Liberty City Stories: Takes place in (I think) 1996.
\nGTA Vice City Stories: Takes place in 1984.<\/p>\n