A long time ago, there was a demo disc for the PlayStation that contained a top-down crime 'em up infamously known as Grand Theft Auto. I played that demo disc an awful lot - until it broke, in fact. No idea how, but it did. It didn't break while I was playing GTA, but GTA was the most played demo on that disc because GTA was so different from everything else out there.
You're dropped into the criminal underworld of a stylized America, performing missions picked up from payphones and pagers for various mob bosses across three cities based on New York, Miami and San Francisco.
Let's find out what frenzies we can whip up in Liberty City.
Fun Times
In the early days of the Grand Theft Auto series, the intricate plotlines and pastiches of the later games weren't really present. Liberty City isn't New York, but, like GTA III and GTA IV after it, it's inspired by the way the city looks and how its districts are named and so on, but that doesn't stretch far at all. For the most part, Liberty City is just one style of map in which you play an open-world arcade game in search of points and hi-scores, essentially.
You start the game with a prompt to go and answer a payphone somewhere in the city for a job. With a car in front of you and controls that are no more complicated than moving, entering vehicles and shooting any weapons you pick up, you can do whatever you want in an attempt to follow the little yellow arrow to your objective.
Stealing two taxi cabs for a bank job? A simple request which will allow me to get to grips with the driving controls.
Unfortunately, the stuttering that was continually taking place with the graphics, along with 'GTA has stopped working' messages almost as soon as I get into playing it meant I had to quit playing the PC version and approach it from another direction.
Frustrations
The good news is that there are fans out there who know how to fix things on modern systems, and so, switching over to the DOS version, I had a solid, playable Grand Theft Auto with which to realise how much it has aged and how many problems it has.
Vehicles are your primary form of transport around the map, both for their speed compared to running everywhere, and the safety of navigating the city in a protective metal shell, rather than a squishy yellow jacket.
Cars and bikes have their own handling characteristics, but all are controlled with tank controls that take a little getting used to, especially if you need to pull off some evasive manoeuvres, or anything involving reversing. They're not terrible controls, they fit the top-down nature of the game, but it takes a little time to get things done.
While you're trying to get used to the controls, the camera will zoom in and out depending on how fast you're going. The faster you move, the more space you need to look into in order to safely get somewhere, so the further the camera zooms out to allow you to see.
On paper, that sounds fine. In practice, every time you make a movement correction, or slow down, or hit something, the camera zooms back in, back out, back in again. As you move around the screen, your view wobbles up and down depending on where you are on screen too.
Up and down and in and out... if you are on a nice stretch of straight road, you're good. If you're hunting around the map trying to follow an objective arrow to lord knows where, good luck - your camera will be all over the place.
To its credit, it doesn't lose you at any point, and if you are obscured from you by a building, for example, you turn into an arrow yourself, so you know your facing and whereabouts.
Further Fun Times
Eventually, I delivered two taxi cabs to a crane for a bank heist. Maybe I'll be on that bank heist in the future. I don't know, but this is a game where you're the criminal and crime pays, so it would make sense.
My next mission came through via pager message, pointing me to a phone for more information.
This would be my first taste of the combat in GTA, but things didn't get off to the best of starts.
Further Frustrations
After getting shot and killed by my target - twice - I was then arrested while chasing him down the street. Each time you die or are caught by the police, you will respawn somewhere else on the map stripped of your weapons and items. When weapons are found dotted around the map in unmarked crates, your game turns into a to-do list: Get a car, drive around looking for a weapon, find the objective (preferably in one piece, without attracting the attention of the police), successfully complete the mission without dying and having to do it all again...
This particular mission surprised me because, on attempt number four, I noticed that my target wasn't where he usually was but was still running away from the events of the last attempt, where I killed what I presumed to be his buddy, before getting busted.
Eventually ending the mission by running him over, I then accidentally drove into a Kill Frenzy side mission, which tasks you with killing a certain number of people in however many seconds it was. I don't know because I did nothing until the clock ran out. I wanted closure from the previous mission.
When it came time to find another payphone, I found - somehow - a way to glitch underneath the map, thus ending my pretty poor run.
Final Word
So Grand Theft Auto is not without its problems. The controls are basic, but get used to them and you'll be a much better player. You'll have to be a much better player because bumbling around enemies armed with any kind of weapon will likely land you in setbacks of one kind or another.
I don't know if it's a difficult game, but it's one of those games where you ought to have a bit of knowledge beforehand, especially in terms of knowing the map, even roughly. Getting lost is not the best of experiences, and getting lost with a time limit is nobodies idea of fun.
For all the niggles you can find, you can also see so much of the DNA that DMA Design has developed through GTA. Multiple radio stations accompany your driving. Police radio chatter informs you of your actions. Pay 'n' Spray shops are your ticket to an easier life in escaping the cops... There's actually a lot here that you can find in later GTA titles.
But it's still a different game, merging points with the plot, loose though the plot may be. Blowing up vehicles gets you points. Shooting people gets you points. Completing missions get you points. In later titles, you could argue that points are simply replaced with money, but then there aren't any high score tables in the later games either.
Playing the origins of a series is often an eye opener, and I'm glad to have revisited the game after twenty years, but I know that I'm not going to get through much of it.
I always wanted to play it because, as I said, it was so different. Back then it was a game that you shouldn't play because it was violent and morally wrong and what have you. Now, it sticks out a little and perhaps isn't what you expect of a series that has produced GTA V.
Is it worth playing? Most definitely, but playing until completion is not one of my plans.
Fun Facts
Influences you might not have thought of for Grand Theft Auto include Elite and Pac-Man. The former for its mission structure and open-world approach to it, and the latter for scoring points while running over people and being chased by the police. As I said, you might not have thought of them...
Grand Theft Auto, developed by DMA Design, first released in 1997.
Versions played: PC, 1997.
DOS, 1997, via emulation.
Demo, PlayStation, 1997, via childhood memories.
Version watched: PC, 1997 (R3dlineR6)