GTA V – Page 2 – Little Bits of Gaming & Movies

Are Micro-Transactions And DLC, Killing Gaming?

There has been a bit of a gaming backlash recently in regards to games being released and then offering things like micro-transactions and DLC. So much so that there has even been a petition started to regulate micro-transactions specifically to have them fall under the same laws as gambling.

Now, there is a difference between micro-transactions and DLC content. But here in this article, I’m going to try to explain why I feel both are a bad thing for gaming and why they need to be stopped. In regards to micro-transactions, there have been two big offenders recently that have hit the gaming headlines for all the wrong reasons. Middle–earth: Shadow of War and Star Wars: Battlefront II. So much so that when EA tried to defend micro-transactions in Star Wars: Battlefront II recently via Reddit, it became the most despised post EVER with over 680,000 down-votes so far and still counting.

Micro-Transactions

First things, first. Micro-transactions are gambling as you have no idea what you will get in these loot boxes that you have to pay real money for. You could get an amazing 5 star, super rare item/character that is well worth the money you pay… or you could get something much less impressive. If you are paying real world cash for an item that you have no idea what you will receive – that is a gamble, it is gambling. Also, have you noticed how opening a loot box in a game is never a simple affair? They are always accompanied by sound effects, animations, flashing lights, etc – you know the same kind of things slot machines offer to entice people to play? But its not just the fact that these thing are a form of gambling that is the problem – its also the fact that they can give players an item/character that could provide them an edge over other players. Now if someone unlocks new abilities and upgrades through playing the game fairly, through their own skills then fine, I have no problem with that at all. But if you can just spend cash to get ‘better’ at a game giving you and advantage over others – then that’s a problem and by definition that is ‘pay to win’ in a big budget, high priced game.

I am strongly against micro-transactions in fully priced games. I mean, you go out and spend around £50 ($60) for a AAA, big budget game or even more for special editions… and then they try to entice you to buy ‘loot boxes’ within said game to unlock items in the game you have already paid for. AAA, big budget games should never have micro-transactions. These companies already make millions up on millions in profit from the sales – so micro-transactions are insulting to us gamers. Now there is a very different corner of the gaming world that rely on micro-transactions. Those ‘free to play’ games you can download and play without spending a penny. These games need micro-transaction because their games are ‘free’ – I get that. But big budget games? No, not at all. ‘Loot boxes’ within major game releases should never be a part of the game… ever. And its not just a matter of spending real world money to gain items within a game – its also a fact that doing so means missing out on gameplay of the game itself.

In Middle–earth: Shadow of War – you can pay to unlock orcs. But capturing orcs is a major point of the gameplay – its also one of the better aspects of the game too. It kind of like buying the new Forza game but then paying to have the races completed for you. Why would you do that? These things are a cancer of gaming and the fact that the recent fallout from Star Wars: Battlefront II is making gaming headlines – I hope this is the turning point, the era where gamers just get so sick of micro-transactions in gaming that future publishers/developers take serious notes and realise we do not want them.

One of the major reasons why Star Wars: Battlefront II is getting the bad press is due to the unlocking of characters. The aforementioned Reddit began with this:

Seriously? I paid 80$ to have Vader locked?

This is a joke. I’ll be contacting EA support for a refund… I can’t even playing fucking Darth Vader?!?!? Disgusting. This age of “micro-transactions” has gone WAY too far. Leave it to EA though to stretch the boundaries.

Yeah, you can understand the upset right, paying $80 for a game only to have one of the most iconic characters of the franchise locked away?

Now, the way you unlock characters in the game is via micro-transactions to gain in-game currency to then buy locked characters… or you can grind away playing the game over and over to gain in-game currency without spending any more cash. It sounds ‘fair’ right? Well not if you just handed over $80 for a single game. Plus there is also the fact that it had been worked out that you’d need to grind away playing Star Wars: Battlefront II for 40 hours just to unlock ONE character. You want both Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: Battlefront II? That’ll be 80 hours of your life thanks. Some games don’t even have a 40 hour gameplay campaign… so how does having to play for 40 hours for ONE character make any sense?

Now to be fair, EA have recently lowered the amount of in-game currency required to unlock the characters, so no need to play for 40 hours any more right? Well no – because along with reducing the cost of the characters, they have also reduced the amount of in-game cash you earn by 75%. They publicly announced the reduction of the cost of the characters to make themselves look like they have been listening to the negative feedback – but kept the drop in game currency quiet, creating an illusion. They’ve given with one hand and taken away with the other.

I like unlockables in game though, I like getting rewarded for the hard work I put into the game. Getting a new level, character or something else that adds to the gameplay is fantastic. But there is a way to handle them and a way not to. EA’s approach in regards to locking characters in Star Wars: Battlefront II is both a great idea – but also poison to the game itself. Why are they not learning for the past?

GoldenEye on the N64 is a perfect example of just how to reward players. Aside for being one of the best and most influential FPS on consoles ever – it was also one of the most rewarding games ever created in terms of unlockables. From its extensive and hugely fun ‘cheats’ menu that added extra gameplay value with its ‘big head’ and ‘paintball’ modes to the extra hidden levels and characters you got for completing the game on various difficulty settings. Then to top the whole thing off, complete the game on its most hardest setting, and you unlocked a difficulty customisation mode where you could tailor the game in numerous ways. GoldenEye was the game that kept on giving and you didn’t have to pay extra for any of this, you didn’t have to grind away for 40 hours to unlock one character. So why could developers get it right two decades ago in 1997, but miss the point of unlockables today? Yes giving us players things to unlock is awesome – but you need to get the balance right and including micro-transactions along with stupidly long unlocking methods is a dark path that no one wants to venture down.

DLC

Okay, so this one is a little more tricky to handle than micro-transactions because while I can see zero point in micro-transactions for AAA games – I do understand DLC… but I still feel that its not needed in gaming.

Look, I’m an old timey gamer. I go back to the Atari 2600 days and I’ve been a gamer ever since. I’ve seen this industry grow, die, grow again. I’ve been massively impressed with just how games have evolved over the years – from the simplicity of Pong to the complexity of the games we have today. Cinematic stories to be engrossed in, engaging characters, in-depth gameplay. Its been a crazy roller-coaster ride and one I still enjoy. But when I was a young gamer growing up, we didn’t have DLC – you brought a full game and you got a full game, crazy I know. Anyone remember Combat on the Atari 2600? 27 games in one… okay so they were all variations of the same theme, but we did get 27 ‘different’ games back then built into one game. That would be sold as DLC now.

DLC is something I both enjoy and loathe at the same time, that’s because the quality of DLC varies so damn much its hard to paint it all with the same brush. I can give examples of both amazing DLC along side some absolute trash DLC… sometimes within the very same game.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a great pick here. From the awesome DLC that was Shivering Isles which offered an in-depth piece of story expansion which featured an all new main quest along with numerous side-quests to complete. Then the same game offered the now infamous Horse Armor. DLC is and always has been very uneven and sadly for every great piece of DLC – there’s dozens of crap ones. Some companies put little to zero effort into their DLCs just because they know the game will be massively popular regardless. By ways of an example: I got the season pass for Batman: Arkham Knight for free and even though I didn’t pay for it – I still felt I was robbed due to how lacklustre the whole package was. A handful of small gameplay expansions that last around 6-8 minutes each and the cosmetics of different costume skins – I almost forgot the shitty Riddler races that no one liked in the main game anyway. It was a beyond terrible DLC package and the only reason the developers Rocksteady shat it out was because they knew it would sell given the popularity of the Batman: Arkham franchise.

There there are other bad examples of DLC where developers purposely withhold content for the sole reason to get players to fork out more cash to play it. I recall when I first played Assassin’s Creed II and loving the hell out of it, enjoying the engrossing story along the way… but then there were two parts of the game where it missed out on the plot. Two chunks of the game and the story just missing. It was later revealed that these missing parts would be relased as DLCs. The first being Battle of Forlì and the second was Bonfire of the Vanities. Two big pieces of the plot just removed that you had to pay for later to find out what happened. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is another game guilty of exactly the same thing. The plot is ticking along nicely, then you get to a specific point and there’s a gap in the story… and of course this was released later as a piece of DLC via The Missing Link. They even had the balls to rub it in your face that something was missing with the title of the DLC itself. How about Mortal Kombat X? Made a big deal that you can play as one of the original characters – Goro… but you then find out that to play as Goro, you have to pay extra for the privilege and even more so, it turns out that Goro was already on the disc you’ve paid for but just locked away by the developers to squeeze out more cash from you. Things like this, extra characters, costumes and similar are the bane of the DLC world. Remember playing games and unlocking characters/levels/costumes or having to quickly insert a code via the joy-pad to unlock secrets? Now, you have to pay extra to get stuff like this.

Try to imagine if they did this with other forms of media. So you’ve just gone out and brought the latest Blu-ray of a film you’ve been looking forward to watching. You get it home and thrust the disc into your player, sit back in your favourite comfy chair and relax as you watch your film… only about half way through you notice there is a big chunk of the film missing or a character blocked behind a big black box – and then a message pops up on screen asking for for credit card details to ‘unlock’ the missing scenes or characters. We just wouldn’t put up with this shit in films or books, etc… so why do we do so with games?

Now the reason I wrote this article to begin with was due to a conversation I was having on a gaming forum where the subject of DLC was brought up. Without boring you with the details, basically someone said that DLC is (and I quote) “a requirement in gaming” because game companies “don’t make much money from the sale of the games alone”. They also said that “game prices have remained pretty much the same for the last 20 odd years” or so while “game development costs have continued to grow and grow”. Now, that all sounds pretty fair right? If games have remained the same cost for over two decades while development costs have increased – that says a lot about why DLC exists… except its not that black & white is it?

You see 20 odd years ago we were (mainly) playing games on cartridges as digital media was still in its infancy. Just going back to GoldenEye for a second, it would have set you back around $60-$70 back in 1997. A new game now will damage your wallet for around the same today… but it’ll most probably be on a Blu-ray disc and not a cartridge because cartridge games are more expensive to manufacture and that expense had to be passed onto the consumer. Notice how Nintendo Switch games are more expensive than the same game on PlayStation 4 or Xbox One? Because the SD cards Nintendo use are more expensive to produce.

So that is one reason why game prices have not increased much (or at all) over the last 20 years… because they are cheaper to make now… unless you own a Switch. And if you don’t like that reasoning, then the games industry as a whole has exploded in the last 20 years too. Where once selling a couple of million units was considered a success – today, that would be seen on as a flop as more people now buy games than ever before and this too has helped keep the cost of games down because more are being sold. Then just to finish this point, my retort to companies don’t make much money from games – I’ll just go back to Star Wars: Battlefront II‘s publisher EA for a second. Their net worth as of 2017 is 1.210 billion dollars with 7.718 billion in total assets and an operating income of 1.224 billion dollars… yeah I can see they are struggling to make money. I bet their CEO struggles to put food on he table right?

I also used another line of defence to demonstrate my opinion that DLC is not needed in gaming via the use of a certain gaming company. One that is both guilty of offering micro-transactions and DLC but also made a hugely successful game with zero paid for DLC at all. A company that is both a prime example of why we don’t need DLC in gaming but also gave us some of the best DLC ever.

Rockstar are one of my all time favourite game developers/publishers. It has been recently announced that the eagerly awaited Red Dead Redemption II will feature micro-transactions. Bad Rockstar… except this was not their decision as it came from higher up with their parent company Take-Two. The mighty Grand Theft Auto V also featured micro-transactions via their Shark Cards for the multiplayer aspect of the game… again a decision from Take-Two not Rockstar themselves. I’ve already said my bit on micro-transactions and I hope they die a fast and painful death soon and with all the bad press they are getting right now – maybe Take-Two will reverse their micro-transactions decision with RDR II?

To get back to the point of DLC, Rockstar have given us three pieces of simply awesome DLC from their games. Grand Theft Auto IV‘s The Lost and Damned & The Ballad of Gay Tony DLCs were fantastic. Giving fans a continuation of the main story along with new gameplay features and mechanics. They were pretty big too adding dozens of hours of gameplay value. Then there was Red Dead Redemption‘s Undead Nightmare – which similarly to the GTA IV DLCs gave players a whole new story with new gameplay features and mechanics along with hours and hours of gameplay. These DLC were well worth the money.

Now let’s take a look the biggest game Rockstar has developed so far and the biggest selling game of all time – Grand Theft Auto V.

More than 800 million dollars in worldwide revenue, equating to approximately 11.21 million units sold in less than 24 hours of being released. Sales totalling $2,079,480,000 by March 2015 and around 52 million copies sold since its release in 2013… again these figures were accurate as of March 2015. The game is still selling now (hence why it still holds a decent price) and how much paid for DLC does GTA V have? None, yet it’s online portion has continually been updated with FREE content for several years now… FREE content. Some of that FREE content even carries over to the single player game… for FREE.

Yeah you can bring up Shark Cards if you wish and I’ll rebuttal with this…
They are not a necessity, anyone can play GTA: Online without spending anything and still get all the FREE DLC in both multi and single player. Also, GTA: Online didn’t exist when GTA V was first released and making 800 million dollars in the first 24 hours alone. So you can’t blame Shark Cards for that – it made its money on the game it was at the time. GTA V has been the most profitable game made so far and not a single piece of paid for DLC either… but loads of FREE DLCs and updates adding more content.

So please get out of here with all that ‘games are too expensive to produce and they don’t make profit’ when GTA V broke sales records in 24 hours, made more profit than any other game so far, gets continually updated with FREE content and features no paid for DLC. So if the most expensive game so far to be produced can bring in that kind of money in 24 hours alone with no paid for DLC or micro-transactions… then why can’t other games? Some people are still screaming for some story based DLC for GTA V – but here is the main point… it doesn’t ‘need’ it. Its a game that is 100% complete upon release (not including the online aspect), just how games used to be. Buy a game and get a full game.

DLC is most definitely not a requirement of gaming and if developers put all of the games out there from the get go like GTA V being 100% complete from day one, maybe they could see better sales minus the micro-transactions, DLC and other withheld content. You know, just what gaming used to be like. What a great future of gaming that could be… just like the past.

GTA V: Judgement Day

LBoG: Editorials

Who doesn’t love Grand Theft Auto V? And who doesn’t love the James Cameron flick – Terminator 2: Judgement Day?… well me. But that is not the point, because a fan of both with a hell of a lot of time on their hands had melded the two. Using a heavily modded version of Grand Theft Auto V to recreate Terminator 2. Okay, so its not the entire film which runs at a a little over 2 hours. This fan made GTA film is just over an hour long. But it does hit all the major scenes.

Using audio taken directly from the movie to tell a more condensed take on the film. This GTA version is pretty damn impressive and even recreates the opening credits and every memorable scene from the movie right up to the ending.

Full credit goes to Kramer’s Media for this impressive feat. You can watch GTA V – T2 right here…

Could Red Dead Redemption 2 Be Delayed Until 2018?

LBoG: Editorials

There are two games set for release this year that have got me salivating with an-tici-pation. Those two are State Of Decay 2 from Undead Labs and Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2. These two games share something in common (aside from a ‘2’ in the title), neither one of them have been given a specific release date yet and just a rough estimate.

State Of Decay 2 developers – Undead Labs have said that they will be revealing a lot more of their game and even a specific release date at E3 this June… and I can’t wait. Yet Rockstar seem to be much less revealing about Red Dead Redemption 2. So far – all we have is a very lose ‘Fall 2017’ release with many people assuming this will be sometime in October/November. But I have a question, what if Red Dead Redemption 2 is delayed until 2018? You see, Rockstar don’t really have a great track record of keeping their games release dates. I mean, lets look at some evidence…

Grand Theft Auto IV

This was Rockstar’s big anticipated game for the last generation consoles after a 4 year wait since Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Grand Theft Auto IV was slated for a late October 2007 release for around eight months of that year, but it was not released in October of 2007 at all.

With just 2 months before its scheduled release, Take-Two (Rockstar’s parent company) Chairman Strauss Zelnick made this satement:

With Grand Theft Auto IV, Rockstar is setting a new standard for next generation video games. Certain elements of development proved to be more time-intensive than expected, especially given the commitment for a simultaneous release on two very different platforms. We all recognise that perfecting the game is vital and I can assure everyone it will be worth the wait. We owe it to the game’s millions of fans, to our dedicated development team, and to our shareholders to make sure that Grand Theft Auto IV is a groundbreaking gaming experience that takes maximum advantage of next generation technology.

What that all meant was that Grand Theft Auto IV was delayed until April of 2008 instead of its planned October 2007 release date.

Red Dead Redemption

For pretty much the whole of 2009, Rockstar kept tight lipped about a release date for their recently announced Red Dead Redemption, but many assumed the game would see an early 2010 release. Then Rockstar revealed an official trailer with a firm April 27th 2010 date seemingly set in stone. You guessed it – the game didn’t make its April 2010 release date.

This time around, it was Take-Two CEO Ben Feder who said:

We shifted the launch of the game by several weeks into the third quarter. We believe this is the optimal time frame to release what is being hailed as the next generation of sandbox games.

So the delay this time was only a few weeks as Red Dead Redemption actually hit stores on May 18th, 2010 instead of April. But believe me – after reading up about the game and seeing the trailers. Those few weeks of a delay felt like several months.

Grand Theft Auto V

It was in October 2011 when Rockstar formally announced that Grant Theft Auto V was coming. The announcement was also very similar to that of Red Dead Redemption 2 with an early tease followed by a debut trailer soon after. Rockstar originally stated that Grand Theft Auto V would see a Q2 2013 release – with many thinking an early summer date.

Then on January 13th, 2013 on Rockstar’s official site, they posted this announcement:

Dear all,

Today, we have an official release date to share with you: Grand Theft Auto V will arrive in stores on September 17, 2013.

We know this is about four months later than originally planned and we know that this short delay will come as a disappointment to many of you, but, trust us, it will be worth the extra time. GTAV is a massively ambitious and complex game and it simply needs a little more polish to be of the standard we and, more importantly, you require.

To all Grand Theft Auto fans, please accept our apologies for the delay, and our promise that the entire team here is working very hard to make the game all it can be. We are doing all we can to help ensure it will meet if not exceed your expectations come September – we thank you for your support and patience.

Yours,

The GTA Team

The strange thing is that this delay came from nowhere after months of complete silence from Rockstar since the official Grand Theft Auto V reveal. You know, very much like how we have heard nothing about Red Dead Redemption 2 since its official announcement months ago too.

Summing Up

It seem to me that Rockstar have been making a habit of delaying games. Let’s not forget that they also delayed Max Payne 3 from its original March date to May 2012 too.

Some delays are a few weeks, some are several months. But there is no denying that Rockstar have had all of their major releases delayed over the last decade or so. Yet all of these delays share one thing in common – they all come about after not hearing anything about the game for several months. And we have heard nothing about Red Dead Redemption 2 since its official reveal trailer back in October of last year…

Grand Theft Auto: Part IV

LBoG: Retrospectives

Here is the final part of my retrospective of the GTA franchise where I offer my own personal views on the main games in the series and share hopes for the franchise in the future.

GTA as a whole has been one amazing and thrilling journey, from playing the original back in 1997 to getting lost (in a good way) in GTA V today. Seeing the evolution of this series has been as rewarding as it has been exciting.

From humble beginnings in the original GTA with it’s simplistic gameplay to today’s efforts and their much deeper and involved stories, characters and style. GTA has had plenty of ups and downs over the years.

Lets start at the beginning…

GTA: Back in 1997 when I first played the original GTA, it was a gaming experience that left a lasting impression on me. The game was very unique for the time with allowing us gamers to be a bad guy. But there was also that open world aspect giving us freedom to do whatever we wanted within the game world. It was not the first open world game…but it was one of the best and most detailed.
I still think GTA has some great gameplay even today and should rightfully be remembered as the game that started a worldwide popular franchise.

GTA 2: This was pretty much more of the same, but with a few bells & whistles. The gameplay remained pretty much untouched as did the (now dated) graphics. GTA 2 never really impressed me as much as GTA did, but I still found it a great game overall.

GTA III: Probably the game that most people will remember playing. When GTA dropped the 2D sprite based graphics and went 3D for the first time, people began sit up and take notice. Not my personal favourite game in the franchise, but it is the one that made the gaming world take notice and set in place the future of open world games from that point on.

GTA: Vice City: Still to this day this my own personal favourite of the franchise so far. It just seemed to have nailed everything. From it’s awesome 80’s soundtrack, timeframe and attitude. To it’s glorious sun kissed city that was a stark antithesis to that of GTA III’s grittier Liberty City. The characters felt like they were right out of a cheesy 80’s TV show. The plot was a simple “rise to the top” inspired by Scarface. GTA: Vice City got it all right out of the box.

GTA: San Andreas: Often cited as the big “fan favourite”, but for me…not the best. This is where Rockstar seemed to have lost their way and just decided to go for a “bigger is best” attitude. While I did enjoy this game, for me it never felt like a true GTA game and more like someone trying to copy Rockstar’s style. I thought the map was too big and often lifeless and the writing was just flat. It was an ambitious idea, but I think the technology just was not there to make GTA: San Andreas the game it deserved to be.

GTA: IV: I recall the backlash from fans when they found out that not only would there be only 1 city after GTA: San Andreas had 3, but also the fact it was going to be Liberty City…again. Even I felt a little “cheated”, not by the 1 city thing as that did not bother me. But more by the fact the game was to be set in Liberty City…again. However, my worries soon disappeared when I played the game. GTA: IV was a work of genius and just what the franchise needed after the overblown GTA: San Andreas. GTA: IV was not only a palate cleanser, but it also grew in terms of writing with a more grounded style after the OTT GTA: San Andreas. Just like GTA III before it, GTA: IV showed the franchise evolve and grow.

GTA: V: There really is not much I can say that has not already been said about GTA: V. If GTA: Vice City is my favorite of the franchise so far, GTA: V is really not too far behind. With it’s immersive and detailed world GTA: V brought the very best gaming environment I have experienced so far. It’s characters were well written, acted and even believable. GTA: V seemed to have merged to more “grounded” elements of GTA: IV with the more fun aspects of GTA: San Andreas and made them work to perfection.

But what is left for the franchise?
After 15 years and 15 games in the series (including spin offs and DLCs), I still think there are plenty of scenarios and characters to explore. GTA always has been such a diverse franchise that Rockstar could delve into.
But I hope they keep to the more “grounded” reality of GTA: IV and GTA: V, and I would really like to see them play around with different timeframes as they used with GTA: Vice City and GTA: San Andreas. I think my biggest complaint about the latest generation of GTA is that they have played it safe and stuck to the modern era. Why not got back to the 80’s again? Maybe even a 60’s set Vegas inspired GTA, or even a 1930’s/40’s classic gangster Chicago concept. The possibilities are endless.
Another notion I enjoyed was the multi character angle from GTA: V and hope to see this return and expanded on in future titles. Or even include and advancing timeline where you play over years within the narrative of the game and see characters and the environment age and alter.

I hope the GTA franchise continues for many years to come, as long as Rockstar keep churning out quality titles as they have done for the last 15 years…I’ll keep on playing.
I simply can not wait to see what the next generation of GTA will bring, but if GTA: V is anything to go by then we are in for a thrilling and interesting 4th generation of GTA.

Thank you for reading my retrospective of the GTA franchise, I know it’s been a long read but I hope you enjoyed it.
Please feel free to send me comments/feedback and hope you’ll join me in my next retrospective soon.

Grand Theft Auto: Part III

LBoG: Retrospectives

Here we are at the most recent (hopefully not last) generation of GTA.

GTA IV: So here we are after having to wait until 2008 we finally got GTA IV…wait IV? The sixth full, proper title in the series (not including expansions/spin offs) is the “fourth” game? Errrrrrr, OK.
Anyway, this was the first GTA title on the the newest generation of game consoles. GTA IV was a long time coming…but was it worth the wait?

After the huge, expansive map from GTA: San Andreas with it’s 3 cities, numerous townlets plus even a countryside and desert area. People we already speculating at how big GTA IV could be, especially on the newer and more powerful machines. What would we get, 6 cities, 12…more?
What we would get was 1 city and just any city but Liberty City…again for the fourth time in the franchise already. However, this was not just a HD update of Liberty City from GTA III. No, this was a whole new city built from the ground up. Liberty City it may be…but it was not like any Liberty City was had experienced before in GTA.

Playing as immigrant Niko Bellic, you come to Liberty City to pursue the “American Dream” after your cousin Roman bragged about all the riches and huge mansion he now owns. Being in Liberty City also allows Niko to search for the man who betrayed his unit in a war fifteen years prior. Upon arrival to Liberty City, Niko discovers that Roman’s tales of riches and luxury were all lies concealing a cover up for his struggles with gambling debts and loan sharks, and you discover that Roman lives in a dirty, flea infested apartment rather than a mansion.

While GTA IV only gave us 1 city over GTA: San Andreas with it’s huge map of 3 cities and more previously. GTA IV offered the most detailed and rich GTA map yet. Using Rockstar’s own new game engine (RAGE) along with the Euphoria animation engine, this allowed the developers to really create a truly amazing gaming environment.
With pedestrians a plenty filling the sidewalks and streets, talking on phones, looking in shop windows, interacting with each other each one seemed to have their own life to lead and felt much more organic than ever before.

Diversity is the word to use when talking about GTA IV. While only 1 city, that city was so beautifully crafted and designed that each and every part of it felt so vastly different. From exploring the dock area where you start, to going to the slums. Even going to GTA’s version of Times Square, Central Park, etc all re-created from New York in that district GTA style.
Everything about this city felt “alive” and it was a huge playground with plenty to see and do. I honestly felt like a tourist the first time I played GTA IV full of wonder and amazement, taking in the sights of the city.

There was plenty to distract you in this new Liberty City. Go bowling at your local alley, play darts in a pub and even play pool. GTA IV also brought the internet into the game with plenty of sites to explore with some being story based and others just there for fun or even use dating sites to get girlfriends. The in game internet could also be used to buy ringtones and wallpapers for your phone and so much more.
You could go to one of your safehouses and watch some TV. If you wanted you could go to a comedy club and watch Ricky Gervais and Katt Williams “live” as it were.
There was just so much to do in GTA IV outside of the story and missions.

GTA IV was more than worth the wait and really showed what could be done with the new generation of consoles.
But as with previous games, GTA IV met with controversy with figures including George Galloway, Jack Thompson and Hillary Clinton have criticised the game before it was even released…yeah thats fair.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) asked ESRB to change the rating of the game from “M” to “AO” due to the player’s ability to drive under the influence of alcohol. But shooting people in the head was perfectly fine?

Six teenagers were arrested in June 2008 after engaging in a crime spree in New Hyde Park, New York, assaulting and robbing several people, and attempting a carjacking. According to police, the teens claimed that they were “inspired” by Grand Theft Auto IV.

GTA IV’s release was met with universal acclaim, Metacritic’s average score was 98 out of 100. Many reviewers commented on the games open world and attention to detail as well as praising the game’s narrative and well written dialogue.

GTA IV certainly was a well made title, but there was still more to come in the form of DLC.

GTA: The Lost and Damned: Released in 2009 was the first piece of story expansion DLC for GTA IV. While still in Liberty City from GTA IV, we got to see a different side to the city and the game even offered new features.

With the player controlling Jonathan “Johnny” Klebitz, Johnny is the vice-president of The Lost Motorcycle gang, but has been the acting president for a year because the club’s president, Billy Grey, has been in rehab after being arrested for narcotics possession.
As acting leader, Johnny has established The Lost throughout Liberty City by making truces and deals after suffering several financial troubles. Mainly caused by Billy’s poor leadership before being sent to rehab. The most notable truce is with The Lost’s biggest rivals, The Angels of Death. Which has allowed The Lost to operate their drug deals and gun running operations more freely.

Once released from rehab, Billy immediately reverts to a life of crime and tensions quickly grow between Billy and Johnny, who cannot agree in which direction to lead The Lost. Johnny wants to keep the gang running smoothly, deeming war with other gangs as immature and bad for business. But Billy prefers acts of random violence and mayhem. As such, Billy quickly leads the Lost to assault the Angels of Death Clubhouse, breaking the truce set up by Johnny and beginning a gang war against the Angels of Death.

GTA: The Lost and Damned gave the player a chance to revisit missions from GTA IV, but playing them from a new angle. The title also brought a few new additions over GTA IV aside from new weapons and vehicles, GTA: The Lost and Damned also offered the player the ability to call on your gang members to help by providing weapons and armour or even bringing you a new bike.
Also included were gang wars; Once the player has completed 10 gang wars a new weapon would spawn in the clubhouse/safe house. Every subsequent 10 gang war up to 50, a new weapon will spawn. During some missions and gang wars, Johnny is accompanied by a team of bikers. As each biker takes part in more missions, they will gain experience and become better over time.
The game included mid-mission checkpoints for the first time in the GTA series as previously if you failed a mission, you’d have to start from the beginning. This title allowed you to start from the last reached checkpoint.

GTA: The Lost and Damned was a welcome addition and expansion to GTA IV and was well received upon initial release.

With one more piece of DLC, GTA IV was almost at an end.

GTA: The Ballad of Gay Tony: Was the second piece of DLC for GTA IV and released in 2009. Just like GTA: The Lost and Damned before, GTA: The Ballad of Gay Tony was also set in Liberty City from GTA III.

Luis Fernando Lopez is the playable character in this title and after witnessing the heist of the Bank of Liberty (carried out by Niko Bellic and Packie McReary in GTA IV), Luis goes to see his employer, the titular “Gay” Tony Prince. Owner of the successful clubs Maisonette 9 and Hercules, Tony is in serious financial trouble having taken out massive loans from the Ancelotti crime family and Mori Kibbutz in order to keep his clubs running.
Tony asks Luis to work for Mori and Rocco Pelosi, an Ancelotti gangster, in order to satisfy his debts.

The game’s plot intertwined directly with the events and characters of GTA IV.

GTA: The Ballad of Gay Tony brought plenty of new features to GTA IV with new weapons and vehicles, but also the parachute allowing you to base jump and skydive which itself had it’s own set of challenges to complete. The game also introduced a new driving range activity. As well as the ability to visit Tony’s nightclubs, where you could participate in drinking and dancing-based mini games and also manage the club’s security. Players could also enter an underground fighting tournament.

GTA: The Ballad of Gay Tony had metascore of 89 on Metacritic. Plus at the 2009 Spike Video Game Awards, Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony was awarded the Best DLC award.

Both DLCs were offered separately or even as as a standalone compilation called: Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City.

There was an all new GTA title released for the Nintendo DS.

GTA: Chinatown Wars: Was originally released on the Nintendo DS in 2009 and later ported to the PSP. The title takes place in the Grand Theft Auto IV rendition of Liberty City, with the exception of the Alderney district.

Playing as Huang Lee, the spoiled son of a recently murdered Triad boss. Huang arrives in Liberty City with Yu Jian, a sword that Huang’s father won in a poker game and has decided to use as an heirloom. Huang decides to deliver the sword to the new patriarch of the family, Huang’s uncle Wu “Kenny” Lee.
Shortly after arriving in Liberty City, Huang’s escorts are killed by assassins and he is shot and kidnapped. The assailants steal the sword and, thinking Huang is dead, dump his body in the water. Huang survives and informs Kenny that the Yu Jian sword has been taken. Kenny explains that he had intended to offer the sword to Hsin Jaoming, the ageing Triad boss in Liberty City, as a means of securing a position as his replacement. Kenny is dishonoured and reduced in power due to the loss of Yu Jian, leaving him and Huang working to keep their businesses afloat.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars took a leaf from the original GTA games and decided to opt for a top down view, but still using a 3D graphical style, and also uses cel-shaded polygons with black outlines to produce a comic book-like aesthetic.

The game brought with it a few new ideas not used in a GTA title before. The player can disable police cars as possible means to escape the police instead of leaving a “wanted zone.” like in previous GTA titles. The more stars the player has, the more police they have to take out for each level. For example, for a six star level, they have to take out six police cars to get down to a five star wanted level, and so on.
There is also a drug dealing sub game which allows players to peddle heroin, acid, ecstasy, marijuana, cocaine and antidepressants around the city. Players can make a profit by recognising market conditions and demands based on geography and plying their wares accordingly making it a trading mini game. Destroying CCTV cameras decreases the chances of being caught while making a drug deal.

The Nintendo DS touchscreen was also utilized well by controlling the PDA, GPS, the radio, access to the people and places on the map or even using Molotov cocktails and grenades. You could also draw tattoos and even using tools to unscrew car panels. Also by whistling into the DS microphone could also hail a taxi.
Stealing a moving vehicle is similar to that of previous GTA games, however Chinatown Wars uses a different system for stealing parked/locked vehicles. Depending on the car, it can be started in one of a few ways. Older cars require a few turns of a screwdriver in the ignition, while other cars require hotwiring. Newer, more expensive cars require the player to “hack” the computerised immobiliser, all done via the touchscreen.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars received widespread critical acclaim. On GameRankings, it is the highest rated Nintendo DS game ever. The game holds a 93 aggregate score on Metacritic which is the highest score on that site for a DS game.
At the 2009 Spike Video Game Awards, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars received the Best Handheld Game award. It also won the Best Nintendo DS Game of 2009 Award from GameSpot.

But of course, this is a GTA title so it has to have a bit of controversy attached. Because of a drug dealing mini game that includes heroin and ecstasy. Protesters against the game include Darren Gold of the anti-drug abuse charity Drugsline, who stated: “Anything using drug-dealing as entertainment is sending out the wrong message. Glamorisation doesn’t help our work trying to educate kids of the dangers of substance misuse.”

This generation of GTA was coming to an end, but would it end with a bang or a whimper? We had to wait until 2013 to find out…

GTA: V: This is the juggernaut of the GTA franchise, the one that broke all those records mentioned in part I, the one that is still selling millions of copies (as of writing) due to the remastered re-release on the Xbox One and PS4 plus of course the long awaited PC version. From 1997-2015 and still going, the GTA franchise shows no signs of slowing down.

This time around you do not control 1 character but 3. All with their own backgrounds and stories that intertwine with each other throughout the main story.
Nine years after a botched robbery in Ludendorff, North Yankton. Former bank robber Michael Townley is living under witness protection with his family in Los Santos, San Andreas, under the alias Michael De Santa.
When Michael discovers his wife Amanda in bed with her tennis coach, he chases the coach to a mansion and destroys it out of anger. The mansion’s owner is Mexican drug lord Martin Madrazo’s girlfriend. Madrazo demands compensation, so Michael and his accomplice Franklin Clinton perform a jewellery shop heist to pay the debt.
Michael’s sole surviving partner in the Ludendorff robbery, Trevor Philips, hears of the jewellery heist and realises that it was Michael’s handiwork. The two reunite after Trevor tracks Michael down in Los Santos.

GTA: V takes us back to San Andreas from GTA: San Andreas, but like GTA: IV over GTA: III. The whole area has been completely redesigned and built from the ground up. This time around, San Andreas was not 3 cities and only 1, but you still had a lot of places to explore from the mountains, to a desert and again smaller towns/villages alongside the main city of Los Santos.
Considering the game was originally released in the twilight of the Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles lifespan, the development team really managed to squeeze out every bit of processing power out of those machines and make a game that was not just simply stunning to look at. But looking a bit closer one would find a 101 tiny little details within the world of GTA V that I’m still seeing new things even today. This was most definitely the most detailed, diverse and rewarding GTA game so far. It was/is a creative masterpiece.

GTA: V’s world was/is so full of life and detail it’s almost unreal and really showed what could be done within an open world environment. From real time reflections in wing mirrors on vehicles and even reflective sunglasses, those little “tink tink” cooling off sounds cars make when the engine is turned off, sweat will seep through clothing if you run or exercise for an extended period of time or don’t change clothing for a while, after being discharged from the hospital, your character will still have cuts and bruises and many, many other details that just make everything feel “real”.

GTA: V was a vast improvement over GTA: IV, not just graphically but also from a character, story and dialogue perspective. The game would also feature plenty of easter eggs to find from returning characters from GTA IV and many references one can miss easily if you do not pay attention.
This was much more than “just a game”, it was an experience and one that rewards you if you played around a bit. With so much to do in terms of minigames and distractions…
You can go to a cinema and watch films, play full games of tennis (with better game physics than most proper tennis games), play golf, buy businesses, play the stock market, use the internet, go skydiving, explore the ocean and seabed in a submarine, go to a strip club, get drunk at a bar, go hunting, find aliens (yes aliens), uncover a murder plot…plus so much more.
You could even bump into people that need help like returning a stolen wallet or giving them a lift somewhere. Some of which would lead to gaining people to help out with future heists…yes you can pull of robberies. While there are the simple “point a gun at a clerk” style robberies. There were also more intricate and detailed full robberies in the story where you would have to hire help, make a plan, etc.

One of GTA: V’s best additions was the aforementioned ability to play as 3 characters. Some missions in the game would allow you to switch to the characters on the fly, giving you the option of playing the same mission differently and see the events from a different perspective. Even better was the ability to switch characters when in free roam where you would jump into the character that goes about their everyday life even if you are not playing. Switch to Michael and he might be sitting poolside enjoying a nice cool drink or just sitting at home watching some TV. Change to Franklin and you could find him washing his car or playing with his dog (yes you get an interactive dog too). Then switch to Trevor and find him waking up on a mountainside in a dress (don’t ask) or in the middle of a police chase.
Each character had their own lives lead by their personalities and events in the game that they would live even if you were not controlling them. Plus another great feature was the ability, when controlling one character, to bump into one of the other 2 and dialogue would start and you could chose to hang out together maybe play a round of golf or go to a bar, etc.

In addition to the pedestrians all over the place which all have even better AI then before, GTA V also brought us wildlife. From birds flying around to mountain lions. There is plenty of animals to admire…and even hunt if you like.

There is just so much to do in GTA: V, I could probably write a whole article on this one game alone.

Returning once again is Rockstar’s polished and well done writing. Whether it be from the script and dialogue or the radio stations, every line seems to have been done just right. The story is even really well done and believable with twists and deceit being weaved into the plot. There is also great use of humor form the radio stations or the characters themselves.

Of course a new GTA title means new controversy.
Australian department store Target pulled the game from their 300 stores following a petition against depictions of violence toward women in the game. (But violence toward men is fine?)
“Actress” Lindsay Lohan filed lawsuits against Rockstar in allegation that a character in the game was based on her likeness.
A mission that requires players to use torture equipment in a hostage interrogation received criticism from politicians and anti-torture charity groups.

GTA: V is an amazing and creative piece of art, so rich in texture and density. Us fans just can not wait to see what Rockstar do with the franchise now the next generation of consoles is here. If they can make a game this diverse and deep now, and on age old hardware at the end of it’s life…what can they do with a proper GTA game on the Xbox One and PS4?

Released at the end of 2013, GTA V is already a year and a half old…but rumors abound say Rockstar are not done with the game yet with the possibility of story some based DLC and the welcome return of Michael, Franklin and Trevor. GTA V could be around for a while yet…

So that is my retrospective on the GTA franchise as it stands as of writing.
Please join me in my final part IV where I do a quick look back on my personal favourite games and parts of the series and share my memories and even hopes of the franchise in the future.

Micro-Transactions

DLC

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Grand Theft Auto IV

Red Dead Redemption

Grand Theft Auto V

Summing Up

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