Grand Theft Auto: Director’s Cut

GTA is a fast and addictive game that incorporates a very old style of gaming: the top-down, bird’s-eye view. I thought this would let the game down badly. How wrong I was. GTA is one of the most addictive games I have ever played. To begin with, you play a criminal, which is one of the reasons I love this game; you don’t play your typical good guy, this time you’re on the bad side and the cops are your enemies. You also have a choice of which criminal you wish to play, given a list of crims to choose from at the beginning of each mission, ranging from males to females and more, and each crim has their own attributes, e.g. some run faster than others, some can hijack quicker, and so on. You get more and more points to kill and wreak havoc. How cool is that? Anyway, the game is set in different cities, and within each city you’re given instructions or missions via your pager and public telephones. Your boss contacts you and tells you what to do, and you must follow his instructions to the letter in order to make it out alive. These missions vary vastly, which is what I love about it. For example, he might say, “CRAZY JIMMY HAS ROBBED A BANK AND DUMPED THE CAR IN SOUTH EAST PLAZA. FIND IT BEFORE THE COPS DO AND TRASH IT.” So you must find it and destroy it, which you can do by shooting it until it blows, or by rolling it into the ocean; whichever you do, you must get rid of it somehow. Other missions might be killing someone. For instance, once the boss told me, “MY BROTHER KNOWS I’M BANGING HIS WIFE. FIND THE SOB AND KILL HIM BEFORE HE FINDS ME.” As soon as he told me this, I quickly hijacked a car and ran him over. It is so satisfying seeing blood and dead bodies splat on the road. Great stuff.

The cities in GTA are alive in real time: there’s traffic flowing on the road all the time, pedestrians on the road, boats in the sea, and so on. One of the other great city features is the city railway system; you can access the whole city boundary via the free city train, though don’t stand on the rail or you get shocked to death. You can also hijack any vehicle you please in order to get a job done. All you need to do is stand in the middle of the road and listen for cars that beep at you to get out of the way, then walk up to the driver’s door and press the Enter key; you open the door, throw the driver out, and enter the car. It is simply brilliant, and utterly satisfying. As you’d expect, the cops don’t really appreciate people doing this, so as you perform crimes (stealing cars, killing pedestrians and so on) your WANTED level increases, and when it reaches a certain level, the cop indicator appears showing how many cops are after you, increasing as you continue to do more crimes. Cops are absolutely ruthless, and when they find you, get the hell out of there. They persistently chase you in their speedy cop cars, and if they trap you in your vehicle, they exit their car and apprehend you at the driver’s door. If they can’t bring you to a stop, they chase you and shoot at you until you give up or die from your car exploding from too much damage. It doesn’t stop there either: cops also set up roadblocks on the roads you’re travelling on. My favorite tactic when this occurs is to floor the car and try to go through it, though doing so severely damages your car and impairs its performance, and when your car takes too much damage, it blows. However, I usually enjoy exiting my car and waiting for the cops to come up to me personally, then shooting them dead and stealing their speedy cars. Boy, do those things fly, and they aren’t very prone to damage either, so you can imagine the great time you can have with them. If cops are all over you like a rash and you really can’t complete your mission, there are respray booths here and there; when you drive a car into these, your plates are changed and you lose your unwanted cop attention. It causes you to lose quite a few points, but it’s usually worth it.

The graphics in GTA are excellent. The top-down view works extremely well, and you’re always in the center of the screen, whether you’re on foot or in a vehicle. Sound is excellent as well, ranging from gunshots when you shoot your weapon to explosions when vehicles blow. You also hear other drivers scream out insults if you stand in their way, like “D**K WAD!” and “HEY, WHAT ARE YA DOIN’?” I love it. It makes me feel like I’m being a complete pain in the neck, which is what turns me on. Weapons in GTA vary, and you find them in crates scattered throughout the different cities. The most basic weapon is your fist, but as you’d imagine, your fists do very little; I mean, you try punching a cop that’s trying to arrest you, trust me, it won’t work. The next best weapon is a pistol, which is slow-firing but still better than fists. Next is the machine gun, which sprays out bullets like crazy. I love this weapon, it simply rocks; if a group of cops are trying to apprehend you, spray them with gunfire and watch ’em all die. You also pick up other useful stuff like bulletproof vests, which are useful when cops try to shoot you down, get-out-of-jail-free cards, which let you exit jail right away without losing any possessions or points if you’re arrested, and extra lives. Great stuff. Combine everything mentioned and you have a great game. GTA is one of those classic games that keep you playing over and over, and which only get released once every few years. I ain’t kidding. This game is simply amazing. I play it hours on end and get surprise after surprise when missions go wrong and I’m trying to still succeed. Buy this game now, otherwise you are an extremely stupid person. In one word: sheer brilliance.

GTA London is GTA all over again, but this time you’re in London in the year 1969, with all-new missions and cars. The game is definitely cool, but it leaves you wanting; like I said, it’s just GTA all over again. But it does feature over 30 multi-stage missions, new characters and maps, a garage of 30 classic cars, and a 60-minute soundtrack featuring ska and dance music. So go out and buy this. It’s not the sequel, but it’s good enough to hold us over till GTA 2.