When the original Grand Theft Auto was released in 1997, few would have guessed what was coming. Sure, the game was a fun romp through America’s seedy underbelly. But it was not, by any means, a masterpiece. It was only when the truly groundbreaking GTA3 hit the shelves in 2001 that the public really started to take notice of the series. Suddenly kids were quoting lines from Tommy Vercetti from GTA: Vice City, and Hillary Clinton was planning all out warfare against anyone who even touched a PS2 controller. This is when the GTA legacy was truly born.

Still, the series had its humble beginnings in 1997. And for this Retro Roadtest, I thought I would revisit where it all started. GTA1 is set across three locations that should be familiar to any gamer: Liberty City, Vice City and San Andreas. Unlike every other game in the series, however, GTA1 has no back-story, and very little plot. The game begins with your character standing in a grotty back-alley somewhere in Liberty City, with almost no direction or purpose, and wearing a terribly unfashionable yellow sweater. One can probably assume that your character is a career criminal, but his clothing is so un-gangster, it’s hard to be sure.

From this quite unimaginative starting point, you have two basic options: either start a mission, or strap-on a semi-automatic weapon and go on a violent killing spree. In GTA1, both paths are rewarded. Unlike the linear missions of the other games, the only way to complete a stage in GTA1 is to rack up points. Lots of them. This can be achieved either by completing missions, or, if you are so inclined, gunning down an entire battalion of Liberty City’s finest.

The game is played in top-down view, much like GTA: Chinatown Wars. The graphics of GTA1 weren’t exactly groundbreaking when it was released 12 years ago, so the blocky, basic visuals are really showing their age today. You can increase the resolution on the PC version by hitting the F11 key; but it’s still a fairly ugly experience.

While the game remains fun to play, GTA1 is definitely a basic, no-frills experience when compared to its successors. The missions are rudimentary, normally requiring you to pick up object A and deliver it to location B, and the characters are uninspiring. Sometimes there are unexpected twists in the formula, like when you’re asked to plant a bomb in a police station, but mostly you’ll be acting as a taxi driver, ferrying drugs and nameless criminals from one location to another. Then picking them up again, and driving them somewhere else.

Thankfully, the driving mechanics of the game are top-notch, and this taxi-driver style of gameplay remains fast-paced and enjoyable. However, the same cannot be said for combat. There is no way to properly target enemies, meaning that you will often fire wildly and sporadically without hitting anyone, and get wasted soon after. This is a serious problem in GTA1, because you actually have lives.

But despite all these flaws, GTA1 is still a game to be enjoyed. And there is a lot of nostalgia value here. Many features we now take for granted in GTA games had their humble beginnings in the original. Features like kill frenzies, multiple radio stations, and ambulances and fire trucks that actually work. There are also some features that were so controversial they never made it into the later editions, like the notorious Gouranga! kill-spree, achieved when you mow down a bunch of Hare Krishna monks.
For those who are interested in a reboot, it’s actually quite an easy exercise. Both GTA1 and GTA2 are available as free downloads from the Rockstar Games website. That’s right, absolutely free. Many out there may accuse Rockstar Games of being the spawn of the devil, but no-one can accuse them of not being generous. The downloadable version is designed for Windows XP, but it still works on Vista (with a few minor issues - you may need to head over to GTA forums to sort it out).

One final word of warning: this game was definitely not designed for today’s 24inch mega-monitors. I had to take regular breaks between sessions to avoid severe motion sickness. So just like all things gangster, take GTA1 in moderation.