Normally on the Warp Pipe, we have a bit of a bit of a look at things affecting the current gaming environment, visit the games of days past and other obscure things, occasionally having a laugh or two along the way. For the last 10 weeks, I have been getting settled in and everyone seems pretty happy with the way things are going. It has taken a little bit of adjustment going from writing a column each month to writing one each week, but I enjoy the challenge.

We have always intended to deliver different types of content on the Warp Pipe, so to mix things up a bit, for the next two weeks - including a special mid-week edition - we will be doing a retrospective on the Grand Theft Auto series, just in time for the release of Grand Theft Auto IV on the 29th.

Fast Times in Liberty City: A Grand Theft Auto Retrospective

The Race 'n' Chase concept, in all its glory

The Grand Theft Auto story begins in Scotland, in the mind of one David Jones, founder of DMA Design, a studio he established while working towards his computer science degree. In 1988, the studio released its first game, Menace for the Amiga, DOS and C64, and enjoyed moderate success. DMA Design would find real success in Lemmings in 1991, a puzzler spawned by a simple animation test by programmer Mike Daily. Lemmings was DMA's bread and butter for years, but their work on the puzzler ceased after rights holder and publisher Psygnosis was purchased by Sony. DMA Design would later be invited to join the "dream team" of developers for the Nintendo 64 after releasing the impressive Uniracers for the SNES. The team began work on Body Harvest, a third person free-roaming action game where players save humanity from hungry aliens.

There was a clash of ideologies between Nintendo and DMA. Nintendo constantly meddled in the design of Body Harvest, with Shigeru Miyamoto declaring that the game needed more puzzles and less gore, while Jones felt the opposite. Development on Body Harvest was clearly troubled, so work began on a second project. DMA's programmers had been working on an engine that could simulate a top-down cityscape, giving Jones the idea of a cops and robbers game. That alone would not be enough; the city needed to be believable, filled with people and traffic, and the player needed absolute freedom. The original intention was to have the player control a police officer, but the team later decided to take the opposite approach, making the player control the robber. The game's title was Race 'n' Chase.

Jones needed to find a publisher for Race 'n' Chase  DMA's relationship with Nintendo was rocky, and the intended content was not the sort of thing the family friendly publisher would touch. He pitched the game to BMG Interactive, the video game publishing arm set up by the recording label in 1993. Two idealistic brothers, Dan and Sam Houser and childhood friend Terry Donovan were in charge at BMG, having jumped ship from the recording arm. Though the trio's development experience was limited to some bedroom ZX Spectrum meddling, they believed that games were going to be the next big thing, and they wanted a piece of the pie. Unfortunately, BMG's lineup at that stage was less than impressive, but Race 'n' Chase gave them renewed hope. In 1997, the brothers Houser signed Race 'n' Chase to BMG, later deciding to change the title to Grand Theft Auto.

Grand Theft Auto

Sweet land of Liberty

The development of Grand Theft Auto was not smooth. Jones had anticipated that the project would take a maximum of 18 months, but the team at DMA quickly found that the open ended gameplay was a complete nightmare for testing. They had to account for everything a player could possibly do in an open environment, causing development time to blow out to two and a half years. The game was finally released towards the end of 1997.

Players select one of eight felons and are let loose on Liberty City with one goal; make one million dollars. The game does not concern itself with how one gets the money; so long as you have the scratch, you can advance. GTA provides numerous ways of making money: killing innocent civilians, destroying cars, stealing cars and selling them at the docks, completing kill frenzies and taking missions for the mob. Four weapons; a pistol, machine gun, flame thrower and rocket launcher; are provided around the city to assist in bloodletting. Missions are the most lucrative way of making money gangland associates will have a number of calls waiting in phone booths or will beep the player, requesting assistance on different tasks such as chauffeuring and deliveries, escort missions and hired hits. Your bosses do not accept failure however; if the player blows the mission, there is no second chance.

The best thing about GTA was that it provided players with freedom. The city itself was huge, filled with pedestrians and many types of vehicles (which have access to radio stations with an hour's worth of music). Players can kill any person, steal any car, and progress through the game the way they wanted; you are never bound to doing missions or anything linear. Of course, if players are killing everyone and blowing up cars, people are going to notice. The ambulance will come to revive the wounded, the fire service will put out the car blazes, and the police will do their best to end your felonious activities. If players continue to do bad deeds, the number of police will increase, to the point where they will start setting up roadblocks. The police are unrelenting  they will not give up until players die, or re-spray their car. A certain level of exhilaration comes from powering through the city in a fast car with cops on your tail. IPX network play allows you to enjoy all of the action (except the police chases) with up to 6 players.

GTA's critical reception was not quite as glowing as one would think. Some critics were put off by the PlayStation version's awkward control system; others felt the game's 2D graphics were dated, particularly with the rise of 3D graphics at that time. The sheer size of the cities tied with the lack of an in-game map made it easy to get lost. Finally, the game was perceived as being overly difficult; the player had a limited number of lives and could only take a small number of hits, yet you were expected to raise one million dollars in one sitting without saving. Though GTA averaged low-7 scores, gamers flocked to the title, resulting in sales of over two million units.

After the release of the PC and PlayStation versions of the game, a Game Boy Colour was commissioned. Tarantula Studios (now Rockstar Lincoln) managed to condense the game, pixel by pixel, into an 8 megabit cartridge. Due to the younger audience of the Nintendo portable, many cuts were made to the game's mature content, including the removal of all swearing and blood. Though an impressive technological feat, the GBC version was ravaged by critics due to its poor controls and other compromises made to squeeze the game onto the handheld. A Nintendo 64 port was also being worked on at some point, but was later cancelled.

The PC version of GTA is available for free at Rockstar's website.

In Between Days

Body Harvest nearly sank DMA

The release of GTA generated some controversy, the game being condemned by community groups and politicians in Europe, and banned in Brazil. Nonetheless, BMG had a hit, they wanted to make more. They purchased the long-term rights to the series, and DMA set about making more GTA. Unfortunately, DMA was in a little bit of a financial bind, mainly due to continued development on the heavily delayed Body Harvest. Body Harvest's European publisher Gremlin offered to buy the studio for £4.2 million, with David Jones joining the publisher as Creative Director. Relations with BMG became a little tense, but common sense prevailed, and their relationship continued.

Body Harvest was released in mid-1998 to mixed reviews and dismal sales. Consumer indifference put both DMA and Gremlin into dire straits. Gremlin had listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1997, and thus had to issue a profit warning after Body Harvest and other key titles tanked at retail. French publisher Infogrames snapped up Gremlin in 1999 for £24 million. David Jones was unhappy with the decision, and left Gremlin to join Rage Software. When Rage shut in 2002, he set up Real Time Worlds. Development on GTA games would continue at DMA with his blessing.

Not long after David Jones' departure, Take Two Interactive - formed by another idealistic youngster, Ryan Brant in 1993 - jumped on BMG Interactive. The Houser brothers and Terry Donovan packed up their team and moved them to New York City, renaming the division Rockstar Games, with the idea that the studio would work a lot like a record label. Rockstar struck a deal with Infogrames to acquire DMA Design for just £1, provided they assumed DMA's debts of $US12.3 million. Not a bad price for a company that would go on to make you over $2 billion  one of those "deals of the century."

Mission: London

GTA visits Old Blighty

The first game DMA released under Rockstar was Grand Theft Auto: Mission Pack #1 - London 1969. The PC version hit in March 1999, followed by the PlayStation version a month later (the system's first expansion pack). London 1969 was originally a total conversion for GTA, but was picked up for retail release (but still requires the original GTA to play). The add-on shifted the action from fictional American cities to real world London, with players taking control of a young criminal looking to work his way up the ranks. The map was based on real London streets, incorporating a number of famous landmarks, traffic running down the left and so on.

GTA: London 1969 made the most of the 1960s setting, offering many classic vehicles, and lots of humorous pop culture references, send ups of British society and heavy use of Cockney slang. This humour is best summed up with a character that pays homage to James Bond, as well as the group of unwashed hippies players can run over, rewarding the player with a cash bonus and triggering the message "KEEP LONDON TIDY!" after their apparent demise. Otherwise, the game is very much the same as the original Grand Theft Auto. While receiving a similar critical reception, the first London add-on did not enjoy the retail success of the original game. The London pack was available alone, or as part of the Grand Theft Auto: Director's Cut pack, which contained the original game.

A second lesser known add-on pack for the game was released in June, Grand Theft Auto: Mission Pack #2  London 1961. It was a PC exclusive; freely available from Rockstar's website. In order to play the game, the player must have both GTA and the London 1969 add-on. Further complicating matters, it only works with the original London 1969 release, not the 2004 Classics Collection reissue. The game is, obviously, set 8 years before the events of the 1969 add-on, and adds 22 vehicles, a stack of new missions and a new Deathmatch map based on the city of Manchester. The release was not heavily promoted by Rockstar, resulting in it being the least known iteration of the GTA series.

Grand Theft Auto 2

GTA2 didn't quite get the love it deserved

Grand Theft Auto 2 landed on the PC and PlayStation in October 1999. Set in Anywhere City around the turn of the millennium, players take control of Claude Speed, a thug recently released from prison, where he was in cryonic freeze. Claude's goal is to become king of the city, no matter what it takes. A short film, produced by Sam Houser and written by Dan, sets up the events of the game, showing Claude stealing drugs from the Zaibatsu and rescuing some Hare Krishna, before being shot in the back by a Zaibatsu assassin. A condensed version of the film serves as the game's intro.

GTA 2 retains the 2D overhead perspective, but features much better graphics, particularly on the PC which has coloured lighting, shadowing and the option to play during day or night. GTA 2 significantly boosts the city's artificial life; pedestrians now use cabs and get into fights  some even mug others and steal cars. The city's law enforcement capabilities are dramatically expanded, incorporating SWAT teams, FBI agents and in extreme circumstances, the National Guard. There are more cars, a significantly boosted arsenal of weapons, and more radio stations. There is one city-wide radio station, one station exclusive to each of the three areas of the city, and one station run by each gang.

Players have the same basic objective  to make a million dollars in order to move on to the next part of the city. Like the original game, the method for raising these funds is entirely up to the player. However, the game's mission structure is a lot better; seven gangs (Zaibatsu, Loonies, Yakuza, SRS, Rednecks, Russian Mafia and Hare Krishna) are vying for control of the city, and the player has the choice of which one to side with. Each gang's attitude towards Claude is measured on screen  complete a lot of jobs for one particular group or kill members of a gang they don't like, and they will start to like you, to the point where some of those gang members will follow you around and defend you from threats. Conversely, the gangs that you do missions against or kill en masse will attack on sight.

GTA 2 addresses a number of the originals shortcomings by adding mid mission save points (at the cost of a $50,000 donation to the church), improving control and adding a life meter. Despite the improvements, many critics at the time wrote the game off as "more of the same", with both the PC and PlayStation carrying average review scores in the high 60% range. Gamers didn't care  GTA2 was a bigger success at retail than its predecessor, with over 3 million copies sold.

Ports to the Dreamcast and Game Boy Colour followed in 2000. The Dreamcast version was ported from the PC, though use of the system's WinCE toolset had the unfortunate side effect of slowdown and other inefficiencies, leading to a less than ideal experience. The Game Boy Colour port was again a tile-for-tile conversion from the original GTA2 down to the GBC hardware, but unfortunately suffered from the same uncontrollability and emptiness that hurt the port of the first game.

The PC version of GTA2 is also available for free at Rockstar's website.

Up Next

In the special, mid-week edition of the Warp Pipe due Wednesday, you'll get the second part of our Grand Theft Auto retrospective, looking at the development of Grand Theft Auto III, its sequels, Vice City and San Andreas, and the major controversies these games have caused.

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The Warp Pipe Grand Theft Auto Retrospective Part 1: Fast Times in Liberty City - Grand Theft Auto / Mission: London 1969 + 1961 / GTA2 Part 2: Adding a New Dimension - GTA III / Controversy / Vice City / Jack Thompson / San Andreas Part 3: GTA In Your Pocket - GTA Advance / Hot Coffee / Liberty City Stories / Vice City Stories / GTA IV