Today it is difficult to imagine a player who has never played any game from the Grand Theft Auto series. She has a multi-million army of fans of different ages around the world. Total sales have already surpassed 125 million copies. This series is being criticized by politicians, lawsuits are being filed against its authors, but it continues to come out. GTA has come a long way from a 2D top-down action game to one of the most famous franchises of all time. Therefore, today, when the release of Grand Theft Auto V is just around the corner, and there seems to be no strength to wait, I suggest you plunge into nostalgia, or maybe learn something new about this wonderful series.

I draw your attention to the fact that, starting from the third part, there will also be fan modifications among the screenshots. On the PC, the series has formed a powerful community of modmakers, which is impossible to pass by. Screenshots with modifications tend to look better than the rest, or contain elements and brands of the real world.

Above you see art by Australian artist Patrick Brown, known for his work based on computer games. Grand Theft Auto is one of his favorite creative themes. Specifically, this art depicts the main characters from the games in the series.

Grand Theft Auto

• Developer: DMA Design
• Publisher: BMG Interactive

Platforms and release dates:

• MS-DOS and Windows: November 8, 1997
• PlayStation: December 14, 1997
• Game Boy Color: November 22, 1999

The first title game came out on personal computers back in 1997. The Scottish studio is responsible for the development DMA Design, which in 2002 acquired the name familiar to today's player - Rockstar North.

Could anyone at that time predict that in the future GTA become one of the most famous, popular and scandalous brands in the entire gaming industry? That its budgets and "box office" will compete with the loudest blockbusters in the world of cinema? Hardly. In fact, the first part bears little resemblance to its eminent descendants, and for its time it did not shine at all.

Grand Theft Auto is a 2D top-down arcade game. Many games at that time were already in 3D, so GTA was a dying genre. However, the game still managed to stand out and attract the attention of players. To understand why this happened, you need to understand one thing: the vast majority of games of that time were not ... violent. They were created with an eye on the fact that most potential players will be children. They certainly didn't feature teddy bears or pink ponies, but they didn't show any brutality against law-abiding taxpayers either. What can not be said about Grand Theft Auto.

GTA had a rare, for its time, age rating of 18+ and, to tell the truth, was a gangster simulator. That's right: under the guidance of the player turned out to be a deliberately bad character who was engaged in various criminal activities. First of all, this is theft of vehicles, for which the game got its name. As well as shootouts with other gangsters, police, and even attacks on ordinary passers-by on the street.

The second key feature of GTA is the freedom of movement around the city, which was even more unusual for games of that time. Here you could simply score on all tasks, steal a car and go wherever your eyes look. And during the missions, the city was also not locked: the player is free to choose the path to the goal. There were actually three cities: Liberty City, San Andreas, and Vice City, which are based on the real-life New York, San Francisco, and Miami, respectively. During the story, after collecting the required number of points, the player was transported to a new city.

The game begins with the choice of one of eight characters. Moreover, some of them are women, which is also not typical for subsequent games in the series. Despite all the scale, the levels in the game are still present. In order to move from one to another, you need to score a certain number of points. They are given for different actions - for the theft of wheelbarrows, for accidents, murders. But the main source is the obligatory story missions. In addition to them, you can also find a number of side missions, for example, rampage missions, during which you need to earn a certain number of points by killing people and blowing up cars using the issued weapons. Interestingly, the number of lives in GTA was limited: died several times - start again. It was impossible to save the game, just like in the old platformers.

The arsenal in GTA was not rich: a pistol, an assault rifle, a flamethrower and a grenade launcher. Yes, even a bulletproof vest that can withstand three hits. But with transport, things are much more fun: the game included cars, trucks, limousines, as well as motorcycles and the holy trinity - police cars, fire trucks and an ambulance.

Relations with the police in GTA have always been very interesting. As soon as you break the law, the cops immediately begin the pursuit. And the more you violate, the more aggressive they become. There are four levels of pursuit in total, the further you climb, the harder it is to survive and escape. To do this, you need to find a police badge, or repaint the car in a car repair shop. But if it was not possible to escape, the police will arrest you, take away all weapons and body armor, and the score multipliers you have earned.

The original game has been ported to Sony PlayStation and Game Boy Color. But the easiest way to get acquainted with it is by downloading its free version from our website:

Or from the official site Rockstar:classic R* games. You will need to enter your age and email address, where you will receive a link to download the game.

Grand Theft Auto: London 1969

London 1969 is an add-on for the original Grand Theft Auto. In it, as you might guess, the action moves to London. What is surprising, without the usual antics, like changing the name of the city to a fictitious one (like New York and Liberty City, for example). The stylistics corresponded to the sixties of the XX century. In the game you can find a lot of references to the events of that time. For example, outwardly the main character looked like James Bond, the first film about which appeared just in the sixties. Traffic in London, by the way, as expected, was left-hand.

Grand Theft Auto: London 1961

There was also a third addition to the game - London 1961 of the year. It was free, but required the installation of London 1969, which in turn requires the original Grand Theft Auto.

Grand Theft Auto 2

• Developer: DMA Design
• Publisher: Rockstar Games

Platforms and release dates:

• Windows: September 30, 1999
• PlayStation: October 25, 1999
• Dreamcast: July 28, 2000
• Game Boy Color: November 10, 2000

What is interesting: was translated and published in Russian through the efforts of Beeches, entitled GTA 2: Mayhem. The translation is pretty funny.

The English version of the game can be downloaded for free from the site classic Rockstar games

Although the second part received a three-dimensional engine, it still had a top view, which delayed world recognition a little more. Nevertheless, progress in comparison with the first part inspires respect. DMA Design correctly understood what the players want from them: more violence and lawlessness! GTA 2 Came out brighter than the first one. It had a switch in the menu between day and night. She had more and more of everything. But first things first.

The main character of the game has already been determined in advance - his name is Claude Speed. It's hard to say, the same Claude, who later is the main character GTA III, and appears in GTA: San Andreas- His last name is not mentioned at all. But the events of GTA 2 take place many years after these games - in 2013. It's funny, because this is the year. Presumably, in 1999, for developers, it seemed like something far away, which may not be due to the predicted end of the world. Now Claude has to make his way to the top of the city's underworld." Everywhere» ( Anywhere City). Presumably, with this name, the developers tried to disown any connection with reality, or from the need to more accurately model the city.

"Anywhere" is traditionally divided into three parts: Downtown, Residential and Industrial areas. As before, the journey goes from one area to the next. To pass, you must first accumulate $1,000,000 in the first district, then $3,000,000 in the second, and $5,000,000 in the third, to end the game. There is a new way to spend money: going to church. You can find it by getting into the news service minivan with the antenna always pointing towards the church. The cost of the hike is $50,000, but it's worth it: there will be an exclamation of “Hallelujah! Another soul saved! - and the game will be saved! But if during a visit to the church Claude did not have the required amount, the curse followed “Damn! No offering, no salvation!

A key role in GTA 2 is played by gangs that have launched their tentacles into the metropolis: the Zaibatsu Corporation appears in all areas. In addition to her, the first area was inhabited by: Yakuza and Thugs. In the second district: Scientists SRS (Sex and Reproductive Systems) and Hillbillies. In the third area: Krishnaites and the Russian mafia.

Each of the gangs has its own characteristics: corporate colors, logo, cars and weapons. But most importantly, they have tasks for Claude, which can be obtained from a pay phone. As you can see, the developers did not even suspect that by 2013 this type of communication would practically die out. But in order to get a job from a gang, you need to be on good terms with it. In the corner of the screen is a reputation meter with three gangs in the current district of the city. If the counter went to the left, then the tasks of the gang became unavailable. When the player killed members of the gang, he worsened relations with her, but improved them with other gangs. At the same time, a gang with a bad attitude towards Claude had a more powerful weapon (friendly ones are always armed with pistols). Also, each gang had a boss, and at the end of the events in the city area, these bosses decided to remove Claude, but he did it first.

In addition to representatives of groups, two types of independent bandits also met on the streets: car thieves and thieves. They could act both against ordinary citizens and against representatives of gangs, and even against the player! You could simply be pulled out of the car and thrown on the pavement, or robbed at a rate of $ 10 per second.

Generally speaking, the AI ​​in the second part is seriously improved. Some drivers armed with pistols, and after the player steals the car, they may try to get it back. Skirmishes between gangs, police and civilians can occur in the city - without any participation from the player!

Vehicles have also been improved. Now their physical qualities differ: the game has learned to take into account their mass. Taxis and buses began to pick up passengers. Claude was also now able to earn extra money as a taxi driver and bus driver. But for some reason, motorcycles were removed from the second part.

Relations with the law became even more interesting. Firstly, there are now 6 levels of wanted. At each subsequent level, the authorities are taking increasingly harsh measures to capture or kill Claude. They chase him, set up barricades, SWAT arrives, government agents, and then the army joins in - jeeps, armored cars, and even tanks bring in! In order to get away from the police, as before - you need to find the star icon, or repaint the car in the workshop. But you can also get out of sight, then eventually the search will stop.

The arsenal of the second part has become an order of magnitude richer: a pistol, dual pistols, an uzi submachine gun, an uzi with a silencer, a shotgun, a flamethrower, an electric shock, a grenade launcher, grenades, a Molotov cocktail! You can get a new gun by picking it up from the ground, or by killing the owner. Also, what is quite surprising, weapons can be installed on the car! Including: uzi, mines, engine oil and a bomb that explodes with the car. Weapons can already be installed on some cars: a heavy machine gun on an army jeep and a stationary flamethrower (alas, only in one of the missions). Yes, and you can still find a tank in the game!

Grand Theft Auto III

• Developer: DMA Design
• Publisher: Rockstar Games
• Localizers: Buka (2002) / 1C-SoftKlab (reissue 2010)

Platforms and release dates:

• PC: May 20, 2002
• PlayStation 2: October 22, 2001
• Xbox: October 30, 2003
• iPhone: December 15, 2011
• Android: December 15, 2011

Finally, we got to the first game in the series, which was 3D and had a third-person perspective. The engine called RenderWare allowed DMA Design(shortly after the release of the game renamed to Rockstar North) to take this small step for the series, which has become a big step for the gaming industry. Of course, there have been 3D open world games before, for example, or body harvest from the DMA itself. But Grand Theft Auto III is significantly different from everything else in that it ... well, it was simply the same GTA, that is, a reckless simulator of a thug-thug, who is given the whole city to be torn to pieces!

It's no exaggeration to say that GTA III has left its mark on history. Thanks to its three-dimensionality (I say this because "3D" - today, more associated with movies and red-blue glasses), it drew the attention of many more players than the previous parts. Not to mention, the game looks and plays much better this way. As a result, Grand Theft Auto III sold many, many millions of copies and gained a lot of fans. But the point is not only that. The game turned out to be so popular that it even formed its own genre, the representatives of which began to be called simply: “GTA clone”. For example, these are games and series such as: , , , , , , , and many dozens of others.

But not only this game is famous. And not even numerous Game of the Year awards, and an average rating in 97% out of 100 possible on the site Metacritic.com although it certainly had its effect. But much more interesting are the numerous scandals and public crusades against the game. She was accused of being too realistic cruelty, that it negatively affects the minds of children and even adults. In it, you can kill policemen and civilians, and also, which greatly outraged the public, you could shoot a prostitute who got into a car and, in fact, did her job. Allegedly, after playing GTA III, someone might try to repeat what they saw in real life. Some horrific incidents in the US have been attributed to violent games, and Grand Theft Auto in particular. Politicians talked about this, although scientists have not been able to prove any effect of cruel games on the human mind. What about the trial Jack Thompson I haven’t heard against Rockstar, probably only lazy. Needless to say, that all this played the game in favor? It's so interesting to see for yourself, but why so much noise? And most of the players were probably satisfied.

The popularity of GTA III, as well as the ease of decompressing files, has led to the creation of one of the most powerful modding communities in history. Everything was changed: models, textures, scripts. The number of new machines, including well-known real models, is many hundreds. Buildings, trees, models of passers-by and other little things were also changed. There were many global modifications, for example, bringing winter to Liberty City, or turning the game into a movie " Matrix", or the game "". And, of course, one cannot forget about Multi Theft Auto- multiplayer, which appeared in the game only thanks to the fans!

The main character of GTA III is a silent guy who does not say a word throughout the game. Why, we didn’t even know his name - everyone just calls him “guy”. True, looking ahead, the guy also appeared in gta san andreas, where did you meet Catalina in illegal races. And there Catalina calls him Claude. Not Claude Speed what was the name of the hero GTA 2, simply Claude. There is no good reason to believe that this is one and the same person, although there are no facts denying such a possibility either.

Grand Theft Auto III takes place in the city Liberty City based in New York. Let me remind you that he was also the first city in the first part of the series. Traditionally, the "City of Freedom" is divided into three areas: the islands of Portland and Stanton, as well as part of the mainland Coastal Valley. Initially, only the first of them is available - Portland. Later, in the course of the story (and not after collecting the required number of points, as before), two more districts open one after the other. Moreover, the forced relocation to the next district of the city did not close access to the previous one, as it was before. You can move between them by autotunnels, suspension bridges and even by metro. In each of the districts there is one apartment, upon entering which you can save your progress for free and indefinitely. The nearest one is always shown on the radar. Unlike previous games in the series, GTA III has a dynamic change in the time of day, as well as weather conditions. Interestingly, one day here is equal to 24 minutes.

Portland is mostly poor class, and the main attractions are: a small park, a port (hence the name), Chinatown and a small mansion on a hilltop, and only in Portland there is a railroad over the city with several stations. Roughly in the middle of Stanton, there is a business center, many skyscrapers, a stadium, a large construction site for the Stanton Plaza building, and a small marina. The "Coastal Valley" is dominated by private mansions, there is a dam, and most importantly - "Francis International Airport", in which you can find the only aircraft in the game that can be used. By the way, so that the players do not try to repeat the incident " 11 September”, the wings of the Dodo were shortened, which made it very difficult to control. Well, who cares?..

In fact, due to a tragedy that happened just before the game's release, its release was delayed by three weeks, due to the need to change some game moments in order to reduce the similarity between Liberty City and New York. For example, the white and blue colors of police cars were replaced with black and white. Also, children, school buses, female taxi drivers have disappeared from the game. Gone was a character named Darkel, who issued insane tasks that looked like terrorist attacks. The last reminder of him are four bums in the Portland tunnel, "guarding" the Molotov Cocktail. However, it is impossible to say for sure whether all the changes have been made in the last three weeks, the fact is that some of the content of the beta version has been cut. And it's hard to blame the developers for that.

GTA III begins with the fact that the same Catalina, who was with Claude for about 9 years (the events of San Andreas - 1992, GTA III - 2001), unexpectedly betrays him during a bank robbery, shoots him, and leaves with a Colombian named Miguel. So our guy ends up behind bars. He shines for ten years, but while being transported to prison, unknown persons attack a police convoy in order to free one of their own. At the same time, they at the same time free Claude and his fellow traveler with bandaged hands, and then the Callahan Bridge, where all this action took place, suddenly explodes, taking the raiders with it. So only Claude and the guy named Bald(in original - 8 Ball- eighth, black, ball in the pool). Together they leave the bridge and stop at Eddie's garage to change their prison clothes and sit out. After that, Claude, on the recommendation of Bald, goes to work for the Italian mafia. And then - a long road in the footsteps of Catalina.

At first, Claude is not very trusted, and is forced to do the most dirty and petty work, such as delivering prostitutes and stealing cars. But then, when he catches the eye of people occupying a higher position, he gradually acquires authority and receives the attention of the don himself. Salvatore Leone. However, as you know, being too close to the authorities is not only beneficial, but also dangerous. Claude will have to experience this rule in his own skin. Later, he will have to work for many very strange characters, such as a torture lover and a man who hides from the FBI in a public toilet. The whole thing is demonstrated through small cutscenes at the beginning and end of the mission. They don't start in a phone booth, by the way. Instead, Claude needs to come to the point marked on the radar (by the way, he first appeared in the third part), marked with a large red circle.

Although the "telephone missions" also remained in the game. Through them, Claude is called by representatives of the gangs and offered a job that is not related to the plot. There are three such phones in total, and at the end of the tasks of each of them, Claude will quarrel with one of the gangs, whose representatives will now always be aggressive. Also in the presence of the task "Rage", in which it is proposed to exterminate the bandits, or cars, from the proposed weapons. And if you sit in a van with the inscription "Serious toys" - the task began with the use of small radio-controlled cars filled with explosives, with which you need to undermine gang cars. And in several cars it is proposed to overcome uneven terrain, collecting checkpoints. It's a risky business, because Claude can fall into the sea, and by the way, he can't swim. There are 20 trampolines around the city, on which it is proposed to make "unique jumps" - when time slows down, and the jump is shown from a cinematographic camera. In the last area of ​​the city, you can find a garage into which you want to drive certain types of cars. As a reward, money is given (the more intact the car, the more), as well as the opportunity to order any of the previously stolen cars here. Well, of course, it remains to remember the "professional" missions - they can be activated by getting into a taxi, ambulance (now it's clear how they recruit drivers without a license), fire and police. The last of them, "vigilante", can also be completed on some other vehicles, for example, on army ones, and even on a tank!

If you think that GTA is played for the sake of completing some tasks, then you are mistaken. The main distinguishing feature of this game is in a living city. Here, passers-by walk the streets, cars drive along the roads, bandits shoot at each other, the police patrol the city. And they all follow the rules of the road: do not exceed the speed limit, stop at intersections. This idyll can last forever. Until someone, namely the player, decides to intervene. One shot is enough (if you just walk down the street with a Kalash at the ready - it doesn’t bother anyone) to start a chain reaction: passers-by raise a shout and rush away, armed bandits may start shooting back, and the police are trying to arrest the violator. But after all, the player does not stop there: you can shoot at the fleeing civilians, killing them and shooting off the limbs, from which blood is gushing like a fountain. Grand Theft Auto III is called a brutal game for a reason. An ambulance immediately arrives at the scene, and doctors try to resurrect the victims. If successful, they can get back on their feet and immediately try to take revenge by attacking Claude! But if the doctors do not have time (they are also mortals), then the bodies on the ground disappear, and chalk markings appear in their place, as if the police had visited the crime scene and taken the body.

But such crimes do not go unpunished. The police are ready to decisively attack the criminal, calling for help as necessary. In total there are 6 wanted levels: at the beginning it is only the police itself, from the third level a helicopter is added to help them, then special forces, the FBI and the US Army with soldiers and tanks. To lower the wanted level, you can hide from view, find the star icon, or repaint the car. However, the battle with the forces of law and order in itself can be very interesting! Cops can be killed, cars can be blown up, helicopters can be shot down, and tanks can be destroyed with a grenade launcher. And how long will you stay alive at the sixth level of the wanted list? I must say that instead of death, Claude ended up in the hospital, where they took away all his weapons and some money for treatment. And when arrested - similarly, adjusted for the police station and a bribe. There was no mention of an end to the game. And then, after all, no one forbids just downloading the game so as not to look for all these weapons again.

There were 50 cars in the game, as well as 3 boats and 1 Dodo plane. The most famous GTA III Easter egg is connected with the latter: the fact is that you can fly to the Dodo on the “ghost island” - the area with the bank from the opening video. Unfortunately, there were no motorcycles at all. But the cars, to be honest, were enough. Among them are family clunkers, simple coupes, pickups, minibuses, buses, trucks, limousines, sports cars and so on. All of them are fictional. The physical model is far from perfect, even by the standards of that time. The damage is only visual and does not affect driving performance. When the hit points run out, the machine lights up and explodes. The same happens after the coup on the roof.

The weapons in the third part were the following: own fists, a baseball bat (you can always find it near the save house), a pistol, an uzi, a shotgun, a Kalashnikov assault rifle, an M16, a sniper rifle, an RPG-7, a flamethrower, a lemon grenade, a Molotov cocktail and detonator for a car bomb. All of these weapons can be carried around with you, and the ammo cap is set to 9999. You could also find armor that gave the character an additional 100 points of damage, which he sustained until he turned off. All this goodness can be found on the street, bought in stores or received for free - if you collect hidden packages. For every ten packages found, a new weapon appears near each of Claude's apartments. There are a hundred packages in total, and to collect them it is better to use a map that can be easily found on the Internet.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

• Developer: Rockstar North
• Publisher: Rockstar Games
• Localizer: 1C-SoftKlab (2009)

Platforms and release dates:

• PC: May 09, 2003
• PlayStation 2: October 28, 2002
• Xbox: October 31, 2003
• iPhone: December 06, 2012
• Android: December 06, 2012

came out just a year after the third part. It's amazing, but Buka no longer translate the game. It had to be done by the fans and, frankly, they didn't do it very well. Official localization came out only in 2009, when 1C acquired the rights to the entire series.

If you remember vice city- also called the second city from the first part Grand Theft Auto. The game starts with a splash screen stylized as a computer command line Commodore 64. And soon after the launch, you realize that you are in the past - in Miami 1986. In the game, however, the city is called by a fictitious name - Vice City, but there can be no doubt which city served as a model. vice city is strikingly different from Liberty City: it is slightly larger and divided into only two districts, and much more colorful. Half-naked girls walk the streets, palm trees sway in the wind, yachts stand on the pier, the rich play golf, and the main character, Tommy Vercetti, judging by the clothes, just went on vacation. Everything here is saturated with the "eighties": music and conversations on radio stations, cars on the streets, clothes on random passers-by.

It is tacitly believed that the main inspiration for the creators of the game was the movie " Face with a scar» ( scarface). So, on the radio that you can listen to in the car, you can hear the songs from this film. In it, too, the action took place in Miami. On the airship in the sky you can see the slogan of the film: The World is yours. After acquiring a strip club, Tommy can wear the costume of the main character of the film - Tony Montana. The Malibu club is a copy of the Babylon club, Diaz's estate is very similar to the estate of Tony Montana, and the office is a copy of it, and the drug lord himself Ricardo Diaz, in its impulsive nature, it resembles the protagonist of the film. Needless to say, the final mission is reminiscent of the Scarface ending?

The basic mechanics have not changed much over the year, but the authors have focused on expanding the player's capabilities. So, it is now possible to buy real estate. Part of it is designed to create additional save points, and the other makes a profit. In the second half of the game, the player is tasked with acquiring especially important businesses: a taxi company, an ice cream factory (a cover for drug dealers), a Malibu club, a car dealership, and even a porn studio. There are also given assignments related to production and distribution matters. So that the player does not get lost in this huge city, in addition to the radar, a full-fledged map has finally been built into the game.

Unlike Claude, Tommy is not averse to changing his wardrobe from time to time, although the standard "Hawaiian" with jeans suits him very well. Many costumes become available after certain missions. Dressing up also reduces the police wanted rate.

Perhaps not the most important, but still quite an interesting innovation can be considered a change in the hotel room where Tommy is staying. After some story missions, he brings a "trophy" into the room - for example, a mask after robbing a bank. And, of course, you can find "infinite" weapons here - which still appear as you find hidden things - this time figurines, inside which drugs were transported. And for completing the game by 100%, a T-shirt appears in the issue with the inscription "I completed GTA by 100%, and all I got was this idiotic T-shirt."

Weapons have also been seriously reworked. First, it has now become much larger. In this regard, not everything can be carried with you - weapons are divided into several types: brass knuckles (instead of fists), close combat (bat, knife, chainsaw, as well as an assortment of tool stores) pistols (9mm pistol and revolver), shotguns and guns (shotgun, shotgun, automatic shotgun), machine guns (M4, Ingram, Tes 9, Kruger, MP5), as well as heavy weapons (M60, Sniper rifle, PSG-1. Gatling, Flamethrower, Grenade launcher). Taking another weapon from the same cell - threw out the old weapon from it.

In addition to hundreds of car models, Weiss has six types of motorcycles, seven aircraft (mainly helicopters) and five boats. Tommy, like Claude, cannot swim, but he flies perfectly. I must say that the transport has become more similar to its real prototypes.

Most of the side quests migrated from the previous parts. First of all, these are “professional” missions in city service vehicles. To them was added the task of delivering pizza, an insane duration - more than an hour. You can also steal cars according to the list, now he is in a car dealership. Fury missions have not changed. There are only more races, as well as various tasks with overcoming obstacles. The game even has a stadium where stunt competitions take place. To earn extra money, it was possible to rob the cashiers of stores, after which it was necessary to hide from the police, since a siren worked in the store. Instead of exploding toy cars, helicopters and planes, as well as "neutralized" racing cars, are now in vogue. Racing them is still fun. Back in the day, many players struggled through a story-driven mission in which they had to plant explosives using small but deadly radio-controlled helicopters inside a building under construction.

There are more modifications to Vice City than to GTA III. It's also a myriad of new vehicles, clothing, weapons, buildings, and even locations. Perhaps the most famous is deluxe- it contains a replacement for all (!!!) vehicles in the game, with real highly detailed models. Among them: Mercedes SLR Cabrio, Aston Martin Vantage, BMW X5, Audi RS6, Ferrari 360 Modena, Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VII, Subaru WRX STI, Nissan Skyline and others! Also, the new transport was given new physical characteristics. In addition, Deluxe redraws many of the buildings in the city. And what's more: it adds several new areas, including moto-parks for stunts. And finally, it produces over a hundred small changes. Naturally, the game will not be very comfortable to play. But for free play (which, in my opinion, is the most important thing in the Grand Theft Auto series) - just what you need!

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

• Developer: Rockstar North
• Publisher: Rockstar Games
• Publisher in Russia: 1C-SoftKlab

Platforms and release dates:

• PC: June 07, 2005
• PlayStation 2: October 26, 2004
• PlayStation 3: December 11, 2012
• Xbox: June 07, 2005

Not so long ago, the founder of the studio Rockstar Dan Houser, said: "the best games of a generation come out at sunset, not at dawn" - commenting on the fact that Grand Theft Auto V will be released on consoles Xbox 360 and PS3, just before the release of a new generation of consoles. These words have a weighty argument, in the form - so far the largest and most scandalous game in the series, released at sunset PlayStation 2.

The Russian version appeared quite recently - only in February 2010, almost five years after the release of the game. Traditionally, only subtitles were translated. However, fans have already managed to translate the game very well on their own. True, this does not apply to the very first machine translation, which produced phrases like “spent”, “cackling rooster is not ready yet”, “signs thrown out”, etc.

The game attracted a big public scandal: among the resources of the game, an erotic mini-game cut from it was found. Cut out so badly that folk craftsmen instantly returned it to working capacity - just throw a few files into a folder and press the launch combination in the game, after which you can go on a date with one of the girls. After a successful date, the girl could invite CJ"for a cup of hot coffee" (for which this episode received the name hot coffee). Without modification - the girl's house will simply be shown, from which unambiguous sounds are heard, while the camera staggers in different directions. With the modification, everything is much cooler: we can watch an erotic scene inside the house. During it, the girl completely undresses (although Carl for some reason remains in clothes), after which a mini-game begins with quick and frequent keystrokes, the purpose of which is to satisfy the girl. The result, by the way, influenced the final result of the date.

After the discovery of content on discs with the game, a big scandal erupted, because the game was sold with an age rating Mature in the USA (17+), which does not provide for such explicit scenes. The rating of the game quickly changed to adults only(18+, that is, you just had to wait a year ...), under which many stores were forced to move the game to the pornography section, or even return all copies to the publisher. Later, a new edition was released with the same Mature rating, which no longer contained controversial content. For the PC version, along with patch 1.1, which contains some game bug fixes, the functionality of the Hot Coffee modification was also disabled, due to which the patch is also known as "No More Hot Coffee".

Rockstar explained this content only as an experiment of its employees, which it was decided to abandon in favor of a lower age rating. In fairness, it should be noted that without the intervention of hackers in the archives of the game, this content would never have become available to the player. To activate it, you need to download a modification called Hot Coffee from the Internet and drop the files into the game folder. But, is the process very different from installing numerous erotic modifications for many other games? In both cases, the user was aware of what exactly he was installing and what changes would occur in the game.

A new scandal was soon added to the Hot Coffee scandal: in 2006, a well-known prosecutor and lawyer Jack Thompson, who opposes violence in games, drew attention to the GTA. He accused the game of instigating violence in reality, encouraging people to take weapons and leave the house with them. Similar episodes really were, and are still happening in the United States, but Jack Thompson was seriously convinced that the games were to blame for everything. He repeatedly demanded to ban the sale of the Grand Theft Auto series. However, already in 2008, the Florida Supreme Court revoked Thompson's attorney's license for misrepresenting facts, insulting, including the judge, after yet another dismissal of his lawsuit. This ended Jack Thompson's public career.

How did all this affect GTA: San Andreas and Rockstar? Oh, they have earned a unique reputation. And although the legal costs clearly cost the publisher dearly, their game received incomparable PR. Many bought the game simply to see for themselves what is so cruel and terrible in it. If you believe Kotaku, then according to information as of September 2011, the game was sold in a total circulation of 27.5 million copies. Perhaps comments are unnecessary.

GTA: San Andreas takes place in 1992 in a fictional state San Andreas. Presumably, it is named after the eponymous fault in the earth's crust in the state of California. If you thought that San Andreas, like the third city in the very first part of Grand Theft Auto, is based on San Francisco, then you are somewhat mistaken. The fact is that the game no longer has one city, but three: Los Santos, San Fierro and Las Venturas. Moreover, in addition to each of them, there is also a rural area (in the case of Las Vernturas - desert), which for the most part in the game are used as tracks for illegal races. Thus, the total area of ​​the game world of San Andreas is five times larger than in GTA III and at four than at GTA: Vice City. The cities and the surrounding area are separated from each other by a wide river, across which many bridges have been built. The railway runs between all three cities, where it has several stations. You can also quickly move between cities using airports.

Los Santos is based on Los Angeles. It has a lot of areas that are completely different from each other. It's full of references to the real Los Angeles. What are the walk of fame and the huge inscription " Vinewood» on a hill, behind which is also the district of the same name, consisting of rich celebrity villas. But there is also a dysfunctional ghetto, where dysfunctional families live, many of whom have been forced to steal since childhood in order to survive. Los Santos is torn apart by the confrontation of gangs consisting of blacks and Mexicans. In the business center of the city there are many skyscrapers, from the highest of which you can jump with a parachute. The stadium hosts miniature races in Nascar cars. The countryside around Los Santos is not very remarkable. Just farms, a factory, and a few small villages.

San Fierro is the name of the city based on San Francisco. Most of all, it is interesting for its hills - it’s very cool on them, you can jump from top to bottom in a fast car or on a motorcycle, but you can climb for quite a long time. It also has its own tram system. The tram cannot be destroyed or slowed down. There is a ship at the docks that buys stolen cars according to lists. San Fierro is the automotive capital of the state. There is an extreme driving school here, after which CJ is invited to take part in illegal races. As for the legal ones, a derby is held here at the stadium. The city is run by triad families, as well as pimps and thugs who have ties to the gangs of Los Santos. The countryside is interesting except for the presence of a real mountain - Chiliad, from the top of which the most difficult championship is held - the descent on mountain bikes.

Las Venturas, as you might guess from the name, is a local Las Vegas. The main and only attraction, like the famous prototype, is a very long main street, occupied by casinos and hotels. In the casino, by the way, you can play some games of chance, winning or losing up to a million dollars at a time. These same casinos are run by three families of the Italian mafia, Leone, Forelli and Sindacco, as well as triads familiar from San Fierro. There is also a stadium where two disciplines are held at once, depending on the day of the week: motocross and extreme motorcycle stunts. Not far from the city there is a huge mining quarry where you can earn some money on a dump truck (relevant if you just lost a couple of millions in a casino). But the most interesting begins further, in the hot desert. There is an abandoned airport turned into an airplane graveyard, a highly classified military base "Area 69" and a huge hydroelectric dam.

The main character in GTA: San Andreas is Carl Johnson, or just CJ ( CJ). He is black and grew up in a dysfunctional family in the Los Santos ghetto. The game starts with CJ flying in from Liberty City, where he lived for the last five years, for his mother's funeral. Upon arrival, he is immediately attacked by corrupt cops, accused of killing an officer (which they committed themselves) and thrown on the street by a hostile gang. Late for the funeral, Carl, however, finds his brother Sweet and sister Kendl in the cemetery, as well as acquaintances from childhood Ryder and Big Smoke. From them, he learns about the plight of the Grove Street gang, after which he decides to stay to help set things right. Further, several shocks await him, an escape from his hometown to the rural wilderness, and further through all three cities of San Andreas.

The plot may not have enough stars from the sky, but how else could it be possible to pull so many unique and dissimilar characters onto the stage! There is an old hippie here who sees government conspiracies everywhere, as well as a government agent who knows about so many things and has impressive connections. There is a strict boss of the Chinese triad, two black warring rappers, a 27-year-old genius who is afraid to leave the house, creates very dangerous toys, a casino croupier who changes his formal suit for latex at night ... you can go on and on.

Also in the game there are a lot of references to the previous parts of the series. In fact, GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas are often referred to as a trilogy as they take place in the same universe and their events often overlap. So, hot Mexican Catalina meets Carl for the sake of committing a couple of robberies, after which she leaves him for an illegal racer Claude who takes her to Liberty City. How this novel ended, we know from GTA III. One of the owners of the casino in Las Venturas will also go to the "City of Freedom" in the future, his name is Salvatore Leone, and in front of CJ at the Caligula casino, he meets a waitress Maria Latore, to whom he is married during GTA III. Salvatore also gives CJ a short visit to Liberty City at Marco's Bistro. And straight from vice city Lawyer arrives in Las Venturas Ken Rosenberg and record producer Kent Paul. And that's not all references.

For the first time since GTA 2, the ability to interact with the gang returned to the series. Los Santos is divided into four major cities: Groove Street"(this is a gang of CJ and his family)," Varrio Los Aztecas" (friendly), " Ballas" and " Los Santos Vagos". With the last two, the war is just ahead: Los Santos is divided into sectors, the colors of which are marked on the map depending on the gang that owns them. The ultimate goal is to completely "green" the entire map. You will have to start with a small piece, including the streets around CJ's home. To conquer at least one new piece, you need to unleash a war with the gang on it: kill several of its members, and then withstand three attacks from this gang, one more powerful than the other.

You can take a few comrades from the Grove Street gang to help you - the higher the authority (increased by capturing territories), the more fighters you can take. They can also climb into the car with Carl, or sit in the back seat of the motorcycle. After capturing the territory, members of the Grove Street gang begin to patrol it. It will also be possible to take the profits received from the held areas near the house of Karl. But not everything is so simple: enemy gangs often try to recapture their territories - you need to go and suppress the rebellion, otherwise the territory will be lost. But, when the whole map turns green, the riots will immediately end, and there will be no more Ballas and Vagos in Los Santos.

Interestingly, striptease clubs appeared in the game, which Carl can visit, and where he can even order a private erotic dance. Prostitutes, who can be "removed" while in the car, no one cancels either.

But what's even more interesting is that Carl can now have girlfriends. They are found both in cities and in rural areas. Two of them are found during the storyline, but the rest you need to look for on your own. Naturally, none of them suspects the existence of the others. The benefits of good relationships with girls can be obtained even without the modification of Hot Coffee. So, a girl from San Fierro has connections in a medical facility, thanks to which Karl will no longer be deprived of weapons if he goes to the hospital. The same goes for a girl from a desert village near Las Venturas who has similar connections with the police. In addition, each of the girls can allow Carl to take her car, and can also give a unique costume. CJ looks great in a police suit, next to the corrupt cops Tenpenny and Pulaski, and in a rustic suit only on a tractor and ride.

But in order to get these bonuses, you have to work hard. Each girl requires personal attention: you need to go on dates with her (for example, to a bar, restaurant, eatery, or a nightclub where you have to complete a mini-game with dancing), give gifts and drive expensive cars at a certain speed. All girls have different tastes and customs.

There are a lot more side quests than before, even though Fury missions have been lost. But the "professional" tasks have not gone away: ambulance, taxi, police, and firefighters are still waiting for their hero. They were also joined by pimps (delivering prostitutes to clients, as well as their protection) and even drivers of local trains (they can be stolen!). In addition, you can earn extra money as a burglar, trucker, courier, parking attendant, dump truck driver and automotor racer at stadiums. There are also amazing activities such as triathlon (swimming, cycling and running), jumping on a powerful motorcycle at the docks and a BMX bike at a construction site, and mountain biking down Mount Chilliad. Plus to all this - several dozen racing tracks, including flights on various aircraft.

The game also added in the number of mini-games. So, going to the bar, you can play billiards for money. There are several ancient video games that can be played on the slot machine, or the home console in CJ's house. Entering the basketball court, you can take the ball in your hands and try to set a record of hits from different points on the court. You can dance in the clubs, and some cars can be equipped with hydraulic suspension, after which you can participate in low rider competitions.

Gambling can be mentioned in a separate line. Already in Los Santos, you can find machines that accept bets on horse races. But the most interesting thing awaits Carl at the Las Venturas casino. Here you can play roulette, blackjack, poker, wheel of fortune and numerous "one-armed bandits". In the beginning, Carl is not allowed to play at the big stakes tables. First, you need to win or lose a lot of money, thereby gaining a reputation, after which it will be possible to bet millions. Of course, the risk of losing is very high, but no one has canceled the ability to load saves until fortune smiles on you.

It is worth noting that CJ knows much more than the heroes of previous games. Much was borrowed from the previous Rockstar game - (in San Andreas, by the way, there is one location from this game). The crosshair no longer hangs permanently in the center of the screen - it only appears when you hold down the right mouse button. Karl knows how to covertly move crouching, and sneaking up behind with a knife, he can kill the enemy by cutting his throat. Can jump and climb over obstacles, such as numerous fences. Carl can learn one of three types of martial arts from the masters in the gyms. He is also not afraid to fly on a jetpack, skydive, and even ... knows how to swim and dive!

Carl can expand his wardrobe by shopping at San Andreas's many clothing stores. Purchased clothes are immediately duplicated in the closets of all (well, almost) houses that can be purchased in the game. What is even more interesting: not costumes are bought, but individual elements: tops, bottoms, shoes, hats, glasses, watches and chains. They can be worn in any order, making Carl look like a clown, a cowboy, or a gentleman, for example. Or completely ridiculous - in panties with hearts, cowboy boots, a hockey mask and a chainsaw in his hands ...

There are two more ways to make your CJ unique (or just make fun of) - going to the hairdresser, where for a modest fee you can choose one of the many hairstyles, and also - the tattoo parlor, where you can cover most of Carl's body with different tattoos.

Well, once the houses were mentioned. CJ prefers to buy residential buildings for himself, personally for himself. Both luxury and cheap village apartments. All of them can be saved. Yes, during the course of the story, you can still get housing. But it is also very desirable to buy a new one: it is convenient, because the game world has grown a lot, and dragging through the whole city to a single save point is long and often dangerous.

Perhaps one of the most surprising innovations in GTA: San Andreas was the parameters of the protagonist. CJ has the following stats: Fat, Stamina, Respect, Lung Capacity, Appearance, Muscle, Driving Skills, Pilot Skills, Motorcycling Skills, Cycling Skills, as well as Gambling Experience and Weapon Shooting Skills!

If suddenly you imagine scattering skill points when you level up, like in some role-playing game, then immediately forget it. To build muscle and become more enduring, you need to go to the gym and do exercises that consist of pressing one or more keys very often. At this time, Carl is on the screen lifting dumbbells, or riding an exercise bike, losing fat. So that the fat does not end (it will pull the health indicator along with it), you need to go to the eatery and gorge yourself on junk food. This is done for a long time and tediously, but the results are visible: Karl becomes muscular. And if you only get drunk, then he will become fat, like Big Smoke. With other parameters by analogy. Part of the side quests gave bonuses to performance: the ambulance mission increased health, the burglar - endless running, and to improve driving skills, you need to visit special schools.

CJ's arsenal is almost the same as in GTA: Vice City. However, explosives now include things like a gas grenade and a C4 with a remote detonator. Some useful things appeared: a fire extinguisher, a spray can of paint and a film camera. In connection with the appearance of girls, gifts can be found for them: a bouquet of flowers, a cane, a dildo and a vibrator. For fun, they can be used in combat. And the last thing: a night vision device with a thermal imager, as well as a parachute (disposable).

As mentioned earlier, there is a separate skill scale for each type of firearm. The higher the skill, the more accurate the weapon shoots, and at the maximum level of one-handed barrels (9mm pistols, sawn-off shotguns, micro-ultrasounds and TES-9) - they can be taken one in each hand! The fastest way to improve your skills is in the shooting range, in the network of traditional Ammu-Nation weapons stores.

Instead of the usual hundred hidden items, San Andreas had many unique collectibles. So, in Los Santos, it is proposed to paint over 100 graffiti of enemy gangs, for which four types of weapons appear in CJ's house. In San Fierro, there are 50 photo angles - icons that are only visible through the camera lens, and four weapons appear behind them near the garage workshop in Doherty. In Las Venturas, 50 lucky horseshoes were scattered, for which four types of weapons appear near the Four Dragons casino, and luck in gambling also increases. Also scattered throughout the state were 50 shells (you need to dive for them, and the reward is an increase in lung capacity and attractiveness) and 70 unique jumps that pay money.

If it suddenly seemed to you that in the previous games in the series there were too few vehicles, then this cannot be said for sure about San Andreas. And it's not even about the banal addition of new cars and motorcycles, although the game is fine with this. The main thing is that there are whole new categories: two bicycles, many planes (including a huge passenger liner, a smaller passenger plane, a corncob, an airplane and a military fighter armed with homing missiles), trailers with trailers that detach and attach, a tow truck with a controlled crane, harvester, ATV, kart and even a train, even if you can ride it only on rails. And there is a wonderful thing called jetpack. Wearing it, you can fly, and even shoot, aiming as if you were outside the transport. To give you an idea, there are a total of about two hundred vehicles in San Andreas!

All transport is conditionally divided into the following categories: cars, motorcycles, bicycles and aircraft. Each category has a separate skill. The more you ride, the better Carl gets at it. This is most noticeable on bicycles, and in the case of cars and motorcycles, high skill is the key to entering stadiums. True, there is another category - swimming facilities, but there is no skill for them.

Starting from San Fierro, it will be possible to find special schools for extreme control of cars, boats, motorcycles and aviation. Performing tasks in them, CJ improves his skills. In each school you can get medals: bronze, silver and gold. If there is at least one bronze among them, then there will always be one wreck near the school. If there is no bronze, but there is silver, then something better will be added to the wreck. And for gold - you can get really cool transport. So, for gold in the driving school, you can get the only game copy " Hotknife", based on Ford Model A(1920-30s), of which there are only a few units left in the real world. And in the flight school you can get at your disposal a military helicopter.

In addition to the usual painting station, you can visit the workshop, where most cars can be "pumped" to the fullest. Body parts, rims, spoilers can be replaced, roofs can be installed on convertibles, hydraulic suspension is installed on some cars, nitro acceleration can be installed, you can choose a separate color for the interior and exterior painting, and even choose a vinyl pattern!

Carl's relationship with the police differs little from his "colleagues" from previous games. Unless now, to get rid of the chase, it is not necessary to look for stars - you can hide from sight, and then they will quickly go out on their own. Also, cops no longer use spiked tapes. But, generally speaking, thanks to the scale and expanses of San Andreas, the war with the forces of law and order here is sharp and interesting like nowhere else!

If there were just a lot of modifications to the previous games in the series, then to San Andreas - there are simply insanely many of them! More than a few thousand. And they are still out! Among them there are not only numerous replacements for cars, textures of everything and everything, but even new locations with their own stories! Of course, the vast majority of them are of very low quality, but still. There are many mods for other games and universes, such as numerous lightsabers. And the most interesting and original, in the opinion of the author, are modifications containing Russian content - Soviet and Russian cars, clothes, and so on.

In a separate line, I would like to mention a well-known addition called ENBSeries. This is a graphical improvement that adds many new graphical effects to the game, such as shaders version 3.0 (only version 2.0 is used in the game) and many others.

Nevertheless, the main achievement of craftsmen can be safely called modifications that add multiplayer modes to the game. The most famous of them: Multi Theft Auto and San Andreas Multiplayer, which are also used in website (gta.ru) and support up to hundreds (!!!) players at the same time! Fortunately, the scale of San Andreas allows this.

In the desert near Las Venturas, near a row of huge satellite dishes, not far from Site 69, you can find the eatery "Lil Prob's". Next to her, a flying saucer is spinning on a pillar, hinting at the contents of the tavern. Inside, the walls are adorned with numerous photographs of UFOs, and in the back room is a UFO-detection apparatus, as well as a map of San Andreas with points marked on it.

Presumably, from something like this, the idea was born that in GTA: San Andreas there really must be a UFO somewhere! Or something otherworldly, like Bigfoot and Nessie. Many players just started to make up stories about seeing this or that strange event in the game, forcing other players to spend time checking these ridiculous legends. But take my word for it: there are NO UFOs in San Andreas! It's all just fiction. Yes, and there is no “Zone 69” either, and there cannot be. This is true, otherwise the government would not hide such information from its taxpayers.

Grand Theft Auto Advance

• Developer: Digital Eclipse
• Publisher: Rockstar Games

• Platform and release date: Game Boy Advance: October 25, 2004

Grand Theft Auto Advance is a game designed for handheld console Game Boy Advance from nintendo.

The action takes place in Liberty City from GTA III, with minor changes such as the absence of ramps, tunnels and subways. That's because the game was two-dimensional, with a top view, like GTA and GTA 2. Well, what did you expect from the Game Boy Advance? However, the game should be interesting for fans of the third part. The action in GTA Advance takes place a year before GTA III. Among the characters there are old acquaintances, "Eight Ball" and King Courtney, as well as previously poorly disclosed gangs of Yardy and the Colombian Cartel, and others. You will play as petty criminal Mike, who, with his friend Vinnie, was trying to earn money to get out of Liberty City. The last thing was to be working for the mafia Salvatore Lyon, but Vinnie was killed, and Mike decides to take revenge on the killers. The game still had "outbursts of rage", hidden packages and springboards that were moved. And there were professional missions - police, ambulances and the rest. As well as an expanded set of weapons.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories

• Developers: Rockstar Leeds
• Publisher: Rockstar Games

Platforms and release dates:

• PSP: October 25, 2005
• PlayStation 2: June 06, 2006

The action takes place in Liberty City 1998, the game is a prequel to GTA III. The main character is Toni Cipriani, already familiar to GTA III players. There, in the future (relatively LCS), he held a high position under Don Lyon and gave Claude tasks against the triad. He was also a real sissy: an elderly mother scolded him even with subordinates. Interestingly, he seemed to be quite complete, although he had not yet been so in the LCS. Apparently, mom fed.

But back to Liberty City Stories. Here Tony just arrives in the city, where he enters the service of Don Salvatore Lyon and other mafia bosses. Generally speaking, the story campaign is quite long - 70 missions. In addition to Salvatore, there are other old acquaintances: Donald Love, Phil Cassidy, Maria Latore, « eighth ball" and Miguel(Colombian, future ally catalina).

Interestingly, Liberty City here is not the way we see it in GTA III. It's still three years apart. To the great horror, the districts of the city are still isolated from each other, but the tunnels and subways will not be completed during this game. As well as the Callahan Bridge, which can only be crossed on ski jumps. It turns out that the islands for quite a long time were strongly isolated from each other and from the mainland. In addition, many buildings and establishments that belonged to different owners at different times have undergone changes.

The LCS had the following side missions: a garbage truck driver (delivering bodies to a landfill), "Karmageddon" (Karmageddon, probably a reference to the famous game - ) - you need to make a mess on a fire truck, delivering pizza, selling cars (namely, selling, not stealing ), sale of motorcycles, a guide to Liberty City, "angel of revenge" - a costumed mission to catch violators of the order, shooting from a motorcycle seat at specified vehicles. In addition, old acquaintances have been preserved: professional missions, outbursts of rage, races, telephone missions, hijacking, unique jumps, collecting secret packages.

Generally speaking, it's amazing, but there are motorcycles in the LCS! Later, their absence in GTA III is also explained - the public insisted on a ban on motorcycles. The arsenal was practically copied from GTA: San Andreas.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

• Developer: Rockstar Leeds
• Publisher: Rockstar Games

Platforms and release dates:

• PSP: October 31, 2006
• PS2: March 6, 2007

- a prequel to the original GTA: Vice City. The action takes place in vice city in 1984, two years before the events of the original. To be played for Victor Vance, brother Lance Vance, familiar from GTA VC. What's more: Victor was one of the dealers in the opening cutscene of the original. He was killed by Diaz's men while Lance and Tommy Vercetti they leave, leaving drugs and money at the place of the transaction.

But it will be after, and in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories- Victor Vance - an honest guy entering the military service at Fort Baxter, under the command of a sergeant Martinez. Unlike Victor, Martinez is intimately familiar with Vice City's underworld. He even hires Victor to do some dirty work. At the end of the last task, Martinez sets up Victor, for which he is fired from the army. After that, he has no choice but to continue to merge into the criminal world of Vice City. At some point, he begins to build his own criminal empire with his brother Lance. They are involved in many activities together, including racketeering, loansharking, robbery, drug dealing, pimping, and smuggling.

In addition to the traditional missions of a policeman, ambulance, taxi and firefighter, new ones have been added: a medical helicopter, a firefighting helicopter, and the work of a beach patrol. You also had to deliver vehicles according to the lists, as well as collect 99 balloons to get free weapons, complete rage missions and unique jumps.

The city in the VCS is somewhat different from the original. Some of the buildings can be found unfinished or non-existent. There was an opportunity to ride on a Ferris wheel, visit the trailer park. A floating restaurant appeared in the port.

Grand Theft Auto IV

• Developer: Rockstar North
• Developer: Rockstar Games
• Localizer: 1C-SoftKlab

Platforms and release dates:

• Xbox 360: April 29, 2008
• PlayStation 3: April 29, 2008
• PC: December 19, 2008

The first thing that catches your eye when looking at is the graphics. At the time of release, the game was very technologically advanced and demanding on hardware. So, having recently bought a system unit for a thousand dollars, you had to put up with the fact that you could not see the maximum graphics settings. However, soon a lot of patches appeared for the game and the brakes, for the most part, disappeared, and dynamic shadows only became more beautiful.

What is surprising, because before the games of the series have always seriously lagged behind others in terms of technology, taking the scale and gameplay. This was due primarily to the weakness of the prefix PlayStation 2, and the scale was incomparable with other games. Now there were no such restrictions. PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 made it possible to make a much more detailed and technologically advanced game world. The game used a new proprietary development engine: RAGE (Rockstar Advanced Game Engine). He supported the technology DirectX 9 and used it to its fullest. Also, the game had an outstanding physics model of the behavior of vehicles, and even some destructible objects. For the first time in GTA the work of the suspension was felt, and the cars received very realistic external damage.

In addition, the game used innovative technology Euphoria on which the animation of the characters was made. For example, now in a head-on collision at high speed, you can fly out through the windshield, constantly hitting objects, gradually losing speed and health. What can we say about realistically knocked down pedestrians. Also, very high quality, a reaction to injuries from firearms was implemented.

The action of the game takes place again in Liberty City. Not in the one that was in GTA III. AT GTA IV a new "era" starts: the game no longer overlaps with the events of the previous parts. There are no old characters in it, not even mention of them. Although at the same time, the game retained many previously invented parodies of brands. Mostly these include the names of vehicles that are now unambiguously similar to some real models. Also preserved are fashion brands selling clothes, eatery names like Burger Shot or Cluckin Bell, beverages Sprunk and eCola, and much more.

New Liberty City is much more like the real one New York, than ever. It is traditionally divided into three parts: The Broker (based in Brooklyn), Algonquin (Manhattan) and Alderney (New Jersey). In addition to these, there are also "islands", such as Bohan (Bronx), the largest of them, as well as an island with " Statue of Happiness» (a parody of Statue of Liberty- she has a face in the game Hillary Clinton holding a glass of coffee in his hand). All together they are connected by numerous bridges, tunnels and a high railway. In addition, for the first time in the series, it was possible to take a taxi, which could take you to any object marked on the map (including player markers anywhere on the map). The main character got into the car, chose the route and speed (faster - more expensive), after which the taxi began to go, and the player could look at the streets around, throughout the trip. Also at the helicopter station you can book a tour of Liberty City from a bird's eye view. Well, or steal one, and inspect everything yourself.

The following problem became the subject of jokes and indignation of the players: only taxis could drive in the city. This happened with a lack of RAM, the diversity of traffic directly depended on the number of gigabytes. However, this way Liberty City became more like New York - there are also a lot of taxis there.

The main character in Grand Theft Auto IV was an immigrant from Eastern Europe - a Serb named Niko Bellic(Actually, the Serbian surname Bellic is spelled Belic, but Bellic is better for the English ear). He sails on a ship to the "Land of Great Opportunities" to start life from scratch. In the past, he happened to fight in a real war, where he had seen enough of everyone, after which he began to see the world very cynically. And when he returned to his homeland, Niko could not find an honest job - no one wanted to take a soldier. Then he had to deal with criminal cases - in particular, smuggling, transportation of illegal goods, and even ... slaves. But one of the enterprises failed, the ship sank along with all the goods. Niko miraculously managed to escape, but his boss, named Ray Bulgarin thought Niko owed him money. And then he had to go to Liberty City, where his cousin has been living in a luxurious mansion, surrounded by supermodels, and with many sports cars in the garage for ten years. Roman Bellic. At least that's how he described it in his letters.

After stepping off the ship onto solid ground in the port of Liberty City, Niko finds Roman, dirty, drunk and driving a taxi. Instead of a mansion, he lives in a dirty one-room apartment, and the only cars he has are taxis from his small taxi company. Yes, and he still only miraculously stays afloat: Roman owes money to a moneylender, and besides, he often plays cards. It is not difficult to guess that now Niko will have to take care not only of himself, but also of his unlucky cousin. The plan to start a new life quickly turns into the same blue dream as Roman's mansion. He would have to work for a loan shark, then for his boss, and then for drug dealers, the mafia...yes, anyone with money.

Rockstar loves to reveal topics that are often hushed up. This time they turned towards immigrants from Eastern Europe and Russia. The south of Bokhan, the first of the regions of the game, is completely given over to the Russians. There are places such as the Perestroika cabaret and the Comrades bar. Here, passers-by on the street often speak Russian, with Niko or simply on the phone. And in the first clothing store you can buy different types of sweatpants, and even a hat with earflaps with a hammer and sickle on the forehead. As Niko remarks, "these clothes look like they were brought from our homeland." A very nice feature of the game was the radio station Vladivostok FM, which plays only domestic songs! Ukrainian singer performed as a DJ Ruslana and a rapper Seryoga recorded an exclusive track for the game called "Invasion".

GTA IV took up quite a lot of gigabytes. To fit it, it took two double-layer DVD discs. In fact, the lion's share went to music for radio and ... television. In his apartment, Niko can simply sit in an armchair or sofa and start watching TV. It had several channels and TV shows, including historical chronicles, animated series, glamorous TV shows, and more. All this was performed on the game engine and voiced by the actors. Like everything else in the game, the TV programs were brimming with satire, parodies, and just plain fun humor.

Two more important innovations are the mobile phone and the Internet. If earlier it was only possible to receive calls on the phone (and Claude had only a pager at all), now there are more functions than an example. Firstly, now you can call all the familiar characters yourself. So you can invite a girl on a date, or a friend for a booze. The phone also has a camera, the pictures of which can be saved. With the help of a mobile phone, it was possible to enter the video editor and the multiplayer mode of the game. Oh, and enter cheat codes.

If GTA: San Andreas and previous games only brought new missions to the series, then GTA IV lost most of them. Of the professional ones, only the tasks of the police and taxis (for the Roman taxi depot) remained. There are still numerous (though not as unique as in San Andreas) races and car theft missions. The latter have now changed somewhat: Niko's phone receives a photo of the car and the name of the street where it stands. So the player had to first identify the place and the car, and then drive it to the garage. From the well-forgotten old, the missions received through the telephone box, which consisted in commission of contract killings, returned. That's all. Unless, there are unique jumps and hidden things, which this time are 200 pigeons (“flying rats” - flying rats - in the English version), cooing when approaching, and which need to be shot. To my great surprise, there is no bonus in the form of free weapons after the extermination of pigeons.

But not everything is so bad: there were many side tasks with a plot. There are many characters on the streets who need Niko Bellic's help. As a rule, tasks are monosyllabic - give a lift, or kill someone. What is more interesting: during the main storyline, it is possible to keep the “ordered” characters alive. In this case, you can find these characters somewhere in the city, and get a task from them.

To the dates from the last part, hangouts with friends were also added. Niko can meet friends during the course of the story. But the girls will have to look on the dating site. Both are practically the same, in fact, except for the beginning (each girl has different tastes in terms of clothes and Niko's car) and the final - Niko does not go home to friends for a cup of coffee. The purpose of these events is to win favor, in numerical terms. When it gets high, the characters begin to do favors for Niko: arrange a well-paid job, bring and sell weapons at a discount (because now there is practically no point in looking for them on the streets), load a car bomb, ward off the police, organize a discount in a fashion store and in in such a spirit.

To arrange a meeting, you need to call the character and indicate the place where you intend to take him (her). You need to meet different characters at different times, because everyone has a different life schedule, and if you wake them up, they are offended. They can also call and invite Niko to hang out. Dates and meetings can be held in the same places. In a diner, in a club, in a bar, in a cabaret where they show shows and even in a strip club where you need to order a lap dance. There were also mini-games: bowling, billiards and darts. In one meeting or date, you can visit several places, after which you need to take the character home.

The most beneficial, in terms of improving relationships, is going to a bar. There, Niko and a friend get drunk and begin to tell what they really think. Very interesting at times. And at the exit, both turn out to be so drunk that they begin to walk backwards and constantly fall. It is very difficult to drive a car in this state - the camera shakes, the car itself turns where it wants, and the police also start chasing if they see it.

Because of this feature, another small scandal erupted around GTA IV. Some people saw this as propaganda for drunk driving. Allegedly, the game teaches people how to drive a car while intoxicated. A video even appeared on the Internet: a man played GTA IV for two weeks, where he drove a car drunk Niko. After which he drank himself and tried to drive a car in the game. Result: The game does not provide any drunk driving skills at all.

In terms of customization of the protagonist, GTA IV is much inferior to San Andreas. There are no more hairdressers and tattoo parlors in Liberty City. And the assortment of clothing stores is not amazing. However, the hike in them is more interesting: you can go up to any product and try it on. All clothes are still available in the wardrobe in Niko's apartment.

In terms of arsenal, the fourth part is again inferior to San Andreas in quantity - there are only 15 weapons. Gifts and almost all types of edged and heavy weapons have completely disappeared from the arsenal. See for yourself what's left: a knife, a baseball bat, Glock 22 and Desert Eagle pistols, an Uzi and an SMG, a pump-action and combat shotgun, an AK-47 and an M4, two sniper rifles, an RPG-7, a Molotov cocktail and a fragmentation grenade.

But the combat system has undergone significant changes. First of all, this concerns the introduction of the increasingly popular system of shelters from. Niko and his enemies can land on almost any obstacle, including cars. Shootouts have become much more realistic, more tactful, although they have lost in excitement and dynamics. However, in your free time from missions, no one will stop you from taking an RPG and going to blow up all the oncoming cars and helicopters, although Niko will not live long in this case. However, it is no longer necessary to get out of the car to open targeted fire. Niko can break glass and stick out light weapons (pistol or submachine gun), as well as throw grenades and incendiary mixtures. But as for shooting: when you hold the button, a crosshair now appears on the screen, allowing you to shoot in 360 degrees, although before you could only left and right.

There are also fewer vehicles in GTA IV. All controlled planes, bicycles, amphibian hovercraft, parachute, jetpack and even the holy of holies - Tank have disappeared from the game! However, we still have: cars, motorcycles, boats and helicopters. In GTA IV, they are more than ever similar to their real prototypes. It became quite obvious where the Mercedes, Lamborghini or Ferrari are. The physics model has also become much more realistic, the suspension work is good, and crashes have never looked so realistic. And yet, tuning has disappeared from the game. But a car wash has now been added to the paint shop. Well, will it replace tuning and customization? Interesting features of transport in GTA IV include the appearance of GPS in cars. During missions, the shortest path to the target is marked on the radar. You can also set your own marker on the map. In expensive cars, GPS is even voiced, it can warn of turns in advance.

Together with the tank from the fourth part, the military forces also disappeared. However, the police are still assisted by FIB agents (the game analogue of the FBI) ​​and special forces. And the search system itself has undergone major changes. On the radar during the chase, you can see a circle measuring the search area. The higher the wanted level, the larger the area. To get away from the police, you need to get out of sight, leave the marked area and do not catch the eye of the law enforcement forces for some time. If Niko is spotted, the search area moves and centers on him. There are no more police stars, but you can still repaint the car. Now this action will rewind time by six hours.

Rockstar finally took some common sense, and now they have developed a multiplayer mode for the game. It includes 15 interesting modes that support up to 32 players. These modes include deathmatches, racing, mafia missions, gangsters vs. cops, gangsters vs. SWAT, capture control points, hunting for "goods", industrial hijacking, planting a bomb on a ship, and finally, the good old "Free Mode".

The system was used as a platform for multiplayer Microsoft Games for Windows Live. And there was also a mandatory registration in an incomprehensible service Rockstar Games Social Club. As a copy protection SecuROM. The game also had built-in additional protection against NoDVD, nicknamed by the players only as "a drunken camera and a brick on the gas pedal." It consisted in the following: if the game decided that you were using NoDVD, then getting into the car, you would soon find it smoking and with the brakes turned off, while the camera staggered just like after taking alcohol! In fairness, all owners of licensed copies avoided a similar fate, in addition, they could download an alternative startup file that allowed you to run the game without a disc, while maintaining multiplayer. Registration of the game, however, remained mandatory.

It's no secret that the most frequently released fan-made additions have always been new cars. Many of them you can see here in the screenshots. And if the ones already in the game were very similar to real ones, then what can we say about fan models of transport, whose creators were not bound by any legal restrictions. For example, now, at the behest of the player, the car "Benshi" could become not just like Dodge Viper, she literally became her, as if it were so.

You can also remember the real tuning created by the craftsmen, with blackjack, vinyl and neon lights! Well, the most important thing is a huge number of graphic modifications. Often, looking at their screenshots, you seriously doubt - is this not a photograph?

Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City

• Developer: Rockstar North
• Developer: Rockstar Games
• Localizer: 1C-SoftKlab

Platforms and release dates:

• Xbox 360: October 29, 2009
• PlayStation 3: April 13, 2010
• PC: April 13, 2010

Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City are two big plot additions to the original Grand Theft Auto IV. The first of these is called The Lost and Damned, and the second - The Ballad of Gay Tony.

Episodes take place in the same Liberty City, which is GTA IV. The city is almost identical, except for some important places. Additions contain their own main characters, new characters and story missions. The link is a line about diamonds owned by Ray Bulgarin. They slip out of his hands, after which each of the heroes tries to take possession of them - Niko Bellic from gta IV, Johnny Klebitz from TLAD and Luis Lopez from TBOGT, for their own reasons. In addition, all three heroes are also connected to a large shipment of drugs, which are closely monitored by the police. Together, the three plots form one, shedding light on many white spots in each other's plots. In terms of the length of the storylines, each addition is approximately equal to 1/3 of the plot of GTA IV.

In addition, they add some new features to the game, such as mini-games, additional tasks, new weapons and vehicles. As well as new sites on the Internet, new programs on TV and new tracks on the radio, including several new radio stations. Interestingly, in Episodes all areas of the city are initially open and available for research, unlike GTA IV.

According to the author, Episodes from Liberty City is a great addition that eliminates most of the claims to the original. It greatly expanded its capabilities, diversified the arsenal and fleet of vehicles. In addition, GTA IV, together with the episodes, forms a common plot. Each of the characters has their own point of view on Liberty City. Niko Bellic is an immigrant who is trying to settle down in an unfamiliar world, having no friends and relatives here, with the exception of a cousin, and not owning a peaceful profession. Johnny Klebitz is a biker for whom the motorcycle and the well-being of his Lost gang are the raison d'être. The atmosphere in TLAD is so thick that you start to get used to the role - a tough biker who despises four-wheelers and Japanese fakes, and Liberty Rock Radio must be playing on the radio. Luis Lopez, in turn, sees Liberty City as one big glamorous hangout full of big boys, faggots and whores. Playing as him, you start to steal only sports cars and dress in expensive suits. The great thing about Ballad is that it brought the Tank back into the game!

It came as a surprise to many that Rockstar originally released the first episode, The Lost and Damned, exclusively for the Xbox 360. It wasn't until many months later that the announcement of a port to PC and PS3 surfaced. History repeated itself with the second expansion, The Ballad of Gay Tony. Two versions of Episodes editions were released in Russian: Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City - it contains two workable episodes, without the original GTA IV, and also as part of the "Full Edition", which included both Episodes and the original GTA IV. However, 1C again translated only the text, and besides, not in the best way, you can find much better fan-made localizations on the net.

Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned

The plot "" starts at a time when Niko Bellic starts working for Mikhail Faustin. This is evidenced by the story of one of the bikers that he is dating the daughter of some Russian, who is Mr. Faustin.

The protagonist of the game, Johnny Klebitz (yes, he is Jewish), is the Vice President of The Lost biker club. The Lost are a real gang of armed thugs who prefer chopper-type motorcycles. They are armed not with some clubs, but with real firearms. You need it to protect against other gangs, or to attack them, as it turns out. The gang has its own club The Lost Liberty - with booze, strippers, a pool table and other attributes of a biker club. Johnny sleeps right here on a mattress in the back room, which also has a computer and TV.

The president of the club and the gang is Billy, who is just getting out of prison after going through a rehabilitation course. Before his return, Johnny coped well with the duties of the manager: he negotiated peace with another powerful gang - the Angels of Death, and also kept the business afloat. But now, after the return of Bill, he again takes the reins of power, first of all declaring war on the Angels of Death. He also forces Johnny to do menial work for the Jewish mafia. Thus, the game focuses a lot on the confrontation between Johnny and Bill. Other members of the gang also have their own attitude towards both leaders.

The first and most important innovation in TLAD is the emergence of its own gang, ready to come to the rescue at the first call. These are not faceless clones, as in GTA: San Andreas. You will know the name of each of them, and even ... the level. Levels are accumulated for surviving raids on enemy gangs, which have also been added to TLAD. The deceased comrade is replaced by a newcomer, leaving behind a photograph on the wall, in the club of the Lost gang.

If the gang left, then Johnny's escorts will try to follow him in strict order of battle. Also, in some missions, Johnny himself needs to follow Billy, in which case he will restore health and armor, and will also be able to talk to other bikers riding nearby.

In addition to "comrades in battle", Johnny also has friends with whom he can spend time. They can also provide services from the very beginning - customize motorcycles and weapons.

Air hockey was added to entertainment and competitions. In addition, in the club you can play the card game "more-less" and compete in arm wrestling. And in the city you can take part in biker races, in which you can also use a baton. Interestingly, Johnny does not shop. It is impossible to change his club leather jacket, and why? It would be ridiculous. The interface has also undergone changes, it has “grown old” and acquired in detail. In addition, the palette of the city has changed a lot: now it is completely yellowish-gray, and there is little that disturbs it. And instead of pigeons, now you need to kill 50 seagulls, the Innovation motorcycle will become available as a reward.

The TLAD add-on is primarily dedicated to motorcycles. Therefore, it is not surprising that they were added the most - as many as 17 pieces. Near the club, Johnny is always waiting for his faithful chopper - "The Witcher" (Hexer). In addition, 4 trucks and 2 cars were added.

Johnny's signature and first available weapon was a sawn-off double-barreled shotgun, which was not in the original GTA IV. In addition to it, a pool cue, a new semi-automatic pistol, an assault shotgun that fires bursts, a real grenade launcher that fires 40mm projectiles flying in a parabola, and improvised explosives have also been added.

The add-on also affected the multiplayer mode, adding five new types of competitions at once: an armed helicopter chase after a motorcycle (in the English version here is a pun - Chopper vs. Chopper), a number of tasks for the club, "hunting for a wolf" - when all players try to kill one biker , a gang war for territories, and the last - the battle of the "Lost" against the police SWAT.

Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony

"" begins at the moment when Niko Bellic, along with the McReary family, robbed the bank of Liberty City.

"Ballad" is entirely devoted to everything glamorous and dirty. Gay Tony, aka Blue Tony, aka Anthony Prince, owner of two nightclubs in Liberty City, one gay and one straight. But we play, fortunately, not for him, but for his bodyguard and partner, Luis Lopez, a Latino of traditional orientation. Luis helps Tony by working as a bouncer in clubs and doing many illegal things at his behest. The fact is that Tony owes a lot of money here and there, and if he does not pay off, he may lose his business. In addition, Louis has to take care of his family and friends, who now and then get into trouble.

A distinctive feature of the "Ballad" is a bias away from realism. Unlike GTA IV and TLAD, she no longer tries to be serious. TBOGT in this regard is much more reminiscent of Vice City and San Andreas. It is bright, colorful and very funny. Finally, she brought back the Tank! Almost. An armored personnel carrier is an armored personnel carrier with a turret with a large-caliber gun mounted on it. It is much faster than any tank, and also has a high rate of fire, so it's just great for creating a rustle in Liberty City.

In The Ballad, Rockstar continued to actively make up for the lack of side missions in the original. So, "drug wars" were added - tasks for transporting drugs, for the completion of every ten pieces in which weapons were delivered to Louis' apartment. In Luis's home area, hand-to-hand fighting without rules is held, in which you can participate for money. There was an opportunity to play real golf. And the “triathlon” here is not the same as in San Andreas: first, Luis jumps with a parachute, then gets into a boat and sails on it to the car on which he finishes. Yes, the parachute is back. New tasks are also associated with it - you need to fly through the "crowns" marked in the air, and then land at the indicated place, or even on a moving truck. It is also worth mentioning the work in a nightclub. Louis can take over as bouncer. There is also a mini-game with drinking champagne, as well as dancing (again waving the San Andreas pen) where you can pick up a girl.

The weapon Luis initially carries with him is a very powerful .44 caliber pistol. Also added: a shotgun with explosive bullets, an assault submachine gun, a gold (!!!) uzi, a light machine gun, a new improved sniper rifle and sticky bombs. In addition to weapons, several dozen vehicles, music tracks have also been added to the game, and several changes have been made to the multiplayer mode.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars

• Developer: Rockstar Leeds
• Publisher: Rockstar Games

Platforms and release dates:

• Nintendo DS: March 17, 2009
• PlayStation Portable: October 20, 2009
• iPhone and iPod Touch: January 18, 2010
• iPad: September 10, 2010

is a handheld game originally exclusive to the Nintendo DS. Story Liberty City from GTA IV does not end with Episodes. Action GTA: Chinatown Wars takes place a year after the events of the fourth part, in 2009. "Chinatown Wars" uses Broker, Bohan, and Algonquin, but Alderney has been cut. Main character, Huang Li, flew to Liberty City by plane to give his uncle the sword of his deceased father, the former boss of the triad, to strengthen the family's position. But before he had time to go down the ladder, he fell into an armed ambush, was kidnapped and almost killed. A power war is brewing in Chinatown, in which Huang Li will have to take a direct part. The initial release of the game on the DS could not but affect the graphics and gameplay. So, although the graphics in the game were three-dimensional, the camera was isometric with a top view, but with the possibility of horizontal rotation by 360 degrees. In addition, outwardly the game looks very cartoonish. The plot was transmitted in the form of unvoiced comics. The gameplay of Chinatown Wars differs in places from other games in the series. So, in order to steal a car from a parking lot, you need to go through a mini-game, which varies depending on the age of the car. Once something similar was announced for GTA IV, but disappeared from the game by the release. I must say that the pay for the plot tasks is very poor. To appreciate the whole tragedy: Juan can dig through garbage cans for food, as well as money, weapons and drugs. Also, Huang is forced to go into the drug business, buying and reselling goods, finding other dealers with the help of PDAs. You can also try to win the lottery. In addition, the game featured ambulance missions, police missions, taxi missions, races, car thefts, and random encounters. The game has a multiplayer for two people (very little (nada istcho)). There are six modes (or twelve scored): ganks, racing championship, van theft (only one can get it), wars for territories, either on the same side or against each other and, finally, deathmatch but there are no divushek this scaffold. In addition, the game supported social features Rockstar Games Social Club.

Pour yourself a hot cup of coffee, sit back and get ready to embark on a journey through the world of GTA from its inception to the present day.

5 years ago, if you had said that the games of the GTA series would have a huge impact on the entire gaming industry, gain millions of fans around the world, they would be equal and imitate them, then hardly anyone would have believed you. In those days, GTA was only very controversial and not always brilliant, a kind of "bad boy simulator" on the streets of a big city. Simple sprite two-dimensional graphics even at that time looked somehow frivolous, but still people who understand good games saw a huge potential for almost unlimited freedom and fun behind this apparent simplicity. After all, only the hardware limitations of that time did not allow to show the full breadth of the game's creators. At the beginning, the development of the game was carried out by a small company DMA, which later changed its name to the well-known Rockstar North. It was these guys who were able to turn an ordinary arcade game into a great GTA III, which became not only a hit in the gaming world, but also a cultural phenomenon that sets the tone for games at the beginning of the 21st century! It has been a long and arduous journey at this stage, with the Grand Theft Auto series being considered one of the best in the history of PC gaming.

Grand Theft Auto - Beginning

On February 28, 1998, this day changed the world of video games forever, although it would take another 3 years before GTA was taken seriously. On this day, Grand Theft Auto was released on PC and later on Play Station. By that time, DMA had a wonderful Lemmings game in its assets, but the popularity of GTA increased over time, leaving small and funny creatures far behind, somewhere in childhood. GTA tried to show novelty in everything: a huge city in which there are a lot of different buildings, objects and roads, complete freedom in exploring this city, a large selection of transport and a lot of music. The city was divided into three large districts that bore painfully familiar names: Liberty City, Vice City, and of course San Andreas.

In the world of GTA, you could do anything, you could perform many interesting tasks, you could spit on the law, rush around the city in a stolen car and crush pedestrians without a twinge of conscience, you could grab a weapon and chase the townspeople on foot, making money on this fun entertainment a lot of money. Were in the game and the so-called mini-games, what is the pursuit of Hare Krishnas, with the inevitable execution of the latter! Although the first 3D games had already begun to appear in those years, DMA decided to go the proven route - GTA was completely two-dimensional with a virtual camera fixed somewhere in the sky. Hurricane gameplay, humor and a good plot fell in love with many gamers, and at the request of the public, on April 29, 1999, DMA released an add-on for PC and Play Station: GTA: London 1969. The game takes place in the capital of England in the specified period of time. The add-on contained 30 new missions, the same number of new vehicles, and of course, a new soundtrack in the style of the time.

GTA 2 - respect - everything

GTA became a worldwide hit and the DMA couldn't help but release a sequel, which appeared on October 29, 1999 on PC and Play Station. GTA 2 took the famous non-linear gameplay from its younger brother, greatly improved the artificial intelligence and featured a completely new and interesting storyline. Set in the near future, the game features seven different criminal gangs vying for dominance in the city. The main leitmotif of the game was to gain respect among these factions: for those who are respected, any door to success in this world is open. In the game, you can receive tasks from the leaders of the bandits, or you can just ride around the city, arranging brawls with whoever you like.

The developers still did not want to make the GTA world three-dimensional, and the player had no choice but to watch the game from a bird's eye view. The graphics of the game has undergone significant changes and looked much better than the original GTA. In 2000, GTA 2 was released on the famous Dreamcast console. The game sold well and the army of GTA fans was replenished with even more fans, but as it turned out, it was only a warm-up before an absolute hit - the great and terrible GTA III.

GTA 3 - everything that is not done is done for the better

With the release of a new generation of consoles, a new era of three-dimensional games has come. This phenomenon did not pass by the developers from the DMA company (whose staff was significantly increased, and now the company has become known as Rockstar). The long-awaited release of the game on Play Station 2 took place on October 23, 2001 (the release was delayed due to the tragic events of September 11 in New York, as the game could cause a negative reaction from people). The game was released on PC on May 21, 2002. Fully three-dimensional world, even more freedom to explore the world around, a huge selection of vehicles and weapons, a very interesting and thoughtful plot and memorable characters. All this provided the game with huge popularity, the game was bought very well, thereby setting a record for the PS2 in the number of copies sold. Many players played the game for several months, completing additional tasks and finding many interesting places in the huge city of Liberty City. All this splendor was flavored with excellent and sometimes even cynical humor, and what a soundtrack the game had!

Another important factor that influenced the popularity of the game is the ability to make various modifications to the PC version of the game and change many game parameters as you please. A huge number of Fan sites appeared, from which you could download your favorite skin, vehicle model or modification that changes the world beyond recognition. All this together made GTA III a trendsetter in the world of games of those years, even a special genre appeared: “GTA-style game”.

GTA: Vice City - success is money

Rockstar Games did not expect such a success from GTA III and of course they released a sequel, but what a sequel! GTA Vice City went on sale October 29, 2002 for PS2 and May 13, 2003 for PC. Vice City was very different from GTA III, if it was always cloudy in Liberty City, then the sun almost always shone in Vice City, and this is not surprising, because according to the developers, the action of the game takes place in sunny California in the 80s of the XX century! The unique atmosphere of the resort town, girls in bikinis, nightclubs and reckless residents of the resort, constantly stoned mafiosi, luxury cars and motorcycles. The game world has become even larger, the gameplay has become even more interesting, and the graphics are more beautiful. Rockstar has signed a contract with Sony to bring even more quality and beloved music to the game. No wonder the soundtrack for the game is called the best soundtrack in games, it was released separately on 7 CDs!

The protagonist Tommy Vercetti, finally gained the charisma that the heroes of previous games in the series lacked so much, voiced by the great actor Ray Liotta, Tommy spoke, not forgetting to joke and sarcastically communicating with no less interesting characters in the game. Another interesting feature of the protagonist was the ability to change clothes depending on where he was going to go - to a party or to a booze with his friend - Phil Cassidy! Tommy can now buy property that generates a stable income and can be used as a safe house, i.e. to save the game. All this was very much enjoyed by the players who fell in love with Vice City more than the unforgettable GTA III.

Grand Theft Auto: Double Pack is fun doubly

It was still 2 years before the next GTA game, but Rockstar did not let the fans take a breath, and soon released a licensed version of GTAIII and GTA: Vice City in one box, not only on Sony Play Station 2, but also on X-BOX. Now fans of the creations of Bill Gates were able to see - what is GTA! And the owners of the X-Box appreciated this gift from Rockstar: the game sold very well on this platform. Everyone wondered what would happen next, because Vice City squeezed everything technologically out of the PS2 that this console was capable of, and many believed that Rockstar would wait for the next generation of consoles to come out in order to create a new world in the GTA universe. But as it turned out, great developers work at Rockstar, they managed to create this world on PS2, as it turned out, it was too early to write off the old PS2 woman.

GTA: San Andreas - the invention of the bicycle

When Rockstar officially announced the creation of a continuation of GTA, but did not provide facts, regarding the name of the future game, a lot of rumors appeared on the Web regarding the continuation of GTA. Someone said that the game would be called GTA 4. Someone claimed that the action would take place in Sin City or Sin Sity, someone foaming at the mouth argued that the game would take place in Tokyo in 2010 ... And only experienced fans understood perfectly well that if there were Liberty City and Vice City, then it is logical that the next city should be San Andreas. And these people were absolutely right, only it was no longer a city, it was a whole state - San Andreas. San Andreas consisted of 3 huge cities plus the countryside, which is located between these cities. The territory of San Andreas had an unprecedented size, it is 5 times larger than the territory of Vice City, and each area of ​​the vast world is unlike other areas and is unique in its own way: In San Andreas, forests are replaced by deserts, deserts by small towns and farms, and those, in turn, are spacious city ​​streets. It seems unbelievable but such a huge world fit on a single-layer DVD without any problems, including traditionally a large amount of music and conversations of the inhabitants of the state. And all this splendor works without problems on PS2! The game was traditionally released first on Play Station 2 on October 26, 2004, and on X-BOX and PC on June 7, 2005.

It is impossible to briefly list all the innovations that were included in the game: these are bicycles, and the ability of the main character to swim, in general, a lot of RPG elements were introduced into the game - such as food, attractiveness, pumping up, possession of weapons and martial arts, and much more. The ability to change any clothes, hairstyles, tattoos made it possible to make a completely unique character out of the main character, unlike others. In addition, the main character was a black boy named Carl Johnson or CJ. In general, the plot of the game is written very well and allows you to feel the atmosphere of a real American ghetto, filled with fun and hopelessness, criminals and honest people. In general, CJ is the most charismatic and memorable character in the games of the GTA series, and not only him: the corrupt policeman Frank Tanpenny, superbly voiced by Samuel L Jackson, fits well into the atmosphere of the game. It seems surprising, but the new part of GTA again made a sensation in the world of games and proved that every time it gets better and better. Even the famous "Hot Coffe" mod scandal didn't stop the game from becoming one of the best games of the decade.

Recently, Rockstar released a special edition of GTA: San Andreas for PS2, which includes, in addition to the game itself, the Sunday Driver documentary.

Grand Theft Auto Advance - GTA in your pocket

In the fall of 2004, a rather unexpected release took place: GTA was released on the Game Boy Advance pocket console. Of course, the capabilities of this unpretentious console were not enough to port GTA III to it, but the ported Grand Theft Auto looks pretty good on it. The game takes place in Liberty City, a new story was written specifically for this game, and some additions were made. The game is still 2D, but at some points in the game you can turn on the pseudo-3D mode. So it's fun to play even now. Having released the game on the GBA, Rockstar was convinced that it was doing a good job of making GTA for this segment of the gaming market, the company decided to continue working in this direction and set about porting GTA III to the then-unreleased next-generation pocket console - PSP.

GTA: Liberty City Stories - Return to Liberty City

The capabilities of the PSP are impressive, this small handheld console supports fully 3D games with a relatively large game world, can play high-quality music and much more. But so far, only GTA: Liberty City Stories has unlocked the full potential of the PSP. The game was released quite recently: October 25, 2005 and has already won recognition around the world. Judge for yourself a completely three-dimensional Liberty City from GTA III, repeating it almost completely, the only difference is that some objects have not yet been completed, because the game takes place several years before those shown in GTA III. The famous bridges have not yet been completed and residents use the ferry to move between the islands. Now you can ride motorcycles around the familiar city, a lot of new weapons, a lot of music, a very interesting plot, many characters are familiar to us from GTA III, the game has multiplayer and a lot of other interesting things. Add here the ability to listen to your favorite MP3s, despite the fact that the soundtrack for the game is very extensive and varied. So for now, GTA: LCS is the perfect game for the pocket console, many people bought it just for the sake of GTA!

The medal has 2 sides

Despite all the splendor of GTA, the game is often criticized. From the very first games, the series has been accused of excessive cruelty and lack of political correctness. GTA III is accused of instigating murders, you probably remember the story of that Japanese boy who outplayed GTA III who killed his parents and blamed GTA III for this terrible crime. The game was banned from sale in some prefectures in Japan. Vice City was accused of calling for nationalism and almost fascism, representatives of the Haitian and Cuban nations living in the United States made such a statement. GTA San Andreas was accused of having pornography in it because of CJ's explicit sex scenes with his girlfriends hidden, but opened with a special modification, the result of this high-profile scandal was that the game was banned from being sold in Australia, and Rockstar suffered multi-million dollar losses and was forced to release a special version of the game that lacks these scenes. People forget that a game is just a game and should not be treated as something more. Don't forget that GTA games don't encourage violence or drug use, they just give you a chance to feel like a bad guy in the game, which is much better than doing all these things in real life.

Despite everything, each new part of the series gets better and better, and despite everything more and more people of all ages play it, few games can boast that they managed to interest so many completely different people. We wish Rockstar continued success in creating a new GTA on the next generation of consoles, we already know that it will be a Sony Play Station 3 with truly fantastic features. We wish Rockstar to learn from the mistakes of the past, not to repeat them in the future and not to make new ones.

Play GTA games and have fun, because these games are made with soul and professionalism.

Popularity is different not only in show business, but also in the world of computer games. Civilization forever went down in history thanks to clever gameplay. DOOM was remembered by everyone as the first network and the first three-dimensional game (although this is not entirely true). The Sims and its many add-ons grabbed the palm in terms of the number of copies sold. And the most scandalous popularity in the history of the industry won, of course, Grand Theft Auto. Moreover, unlike the aforementioned “champions” GTA became famous and popular not immediately. Before getting into the gaming charts, light up on the pages of newspapers, cause litigation and fall under a flurry of puritanical criticism, she had to go, albeit not very long, but very entertaining way. The path from the ugly two-dimensional "duckling" to the hardened black "swan".

20 million lemmings can't be wrong

“Preparation” for the greatest game car theft began in the Scottish town of Dundee back in the early 80s. Despite the fact that the history of MS at that time was only a couple of years old, and Dundee itself was not at all considered the center of civilization, there was even a computer club in this small town. This place was called KACC (Kingsway Amateur Computer Club), and it was located on the territory of the local technical college Kingsway ( Kingsway Technical College).

Its regulars were not only college students, but also quite adult uncles, such as, for example, Dave Jones- company member timex which supplied components for Sinclair Research Ltd. Boys often visited KACC, including a fourteen-year-old Mike Daly. Despite the difference in age, Dave and Mike were united by one hobby - computer games. Moreover, both of them were more interested not in games as such, but in their development. Two more regular visitors to the club were addicted to the same thing - Russell Kay and Steve Hammond. All this “magnificent four” met each other at the KACC club, and by 1984 they managed to become bosom friends.

Interesting fact: at Ebertey University ( University of Abertay Dundee), located in their hometown, at the time opened one of the world's first courses in game programming. Jones, who went straight out of high school to work for Timex without graduating, decided to take the chance. After some deliberation, he quit his job and enrolled at Ebertei for the courses mentioned above. The preparation was not in vain: not yet finished training, Dave set to work on the development of his first projects. His first gaming experiments in the early 80s - arcade moon shadow and a couple of other similar games Commodore 64 and Amstrad- were nothing remarkable. However, they made it possible to earn some good money and gain the most valuable thing - experience.

At the same time, Mike Daly also took the first steps in game development, but his achievements were even more modest - the game Freek out, black and white clone of the famous Arkanoid.

Finally, Jones decided that it was time to move on from artisanal experiments to serious business. And in 1987, he opens a company called DMA Design(with the money that he earned by selling his first projects), the initial composition of which, in addition to him, includes Kay and Hammond. A little later, Mike joins them. DMA originally stood for Direct Mind Access(“Direct access to the brain”), thus playing on the well-known technical term Direct Memory Access. However, a few years later, DMA Design employees began to decipher the name of their company even more amusingly - as Doesn't Mean Anything(“Doesn’t mean anything at all.”)

The first DMA games were the games Menace and blood money- classic space-themed side-scrollers. Gamers have appreciated the graphical appeal of these unpretentious shooting games, but quite rightly criticized them for their brutal complexity.

The first fame came to DMA already in 1990, with the release of the game Lemmings. The original strategic gameplay with interesting puzzles and a healthy sense of humor did not leave the players indifferent, and in the first year the game sold over 60,000 copies in the version for Commodore 64. You can read more about “Lemmings” in the previous issue “ gambling addiction” under the rubric game over? let's just say that with all the sequels and re-releases, this game has sold a total circulation of more than 20 million copies. We can rightly say that until the mid-90s, DMA earned its main money (and name!) It was on Lemmings.

Key to start!

Grand Theft Auto

At the end of 1994, with the filing of Dave Jones, DMA Design begins work on a new project - Grand Theft Auto, or, for short, GTA. It was developed immediately for two platforms (PC and PlayStation ) almost three years. And in November 1997, the game went to the “gold”. On this day, one of the most important revolutions in the gaming industry took place. True, no one has noticed this yet, including the “revolutionaries” themselves. What was the very first GTA?

Run fresh GTA: San Andreas, switch the camera to top view. Now remove a good half of the features from the game, lower the resolution to 640x480, and replace the 3D graphics with a typical mid-90s sprite engine. This is the original GTA.

Nominally, GTA was considered an ordinary arcade game, but in fact it was mixed with many different elements: 2D racing, action, quests, and even (an unprecedented thing for an arcade!) a non-linear campaign. For the most accurate description of the newborn genre, the term “gangster simulator” would fit. But this definition is lame on both legs, because the reckless arcade of what is happening has been preserved even in the latest versions of the game, not to mention the first part.

The main highlight of GTA from the very first part of it was freedom, and most of all it was in the first part of the game. There was not even a plot, just a set of loosely connected missions that could be completed in almost any order. Moreover, it was possible to give a damn about tasks and earn money in any convenient way. And money in the first GTA was given out for everything. Stole a car? Get a cash bonus. Sold the car? Get even more. Run over a pedestrian? Keep your pocket wide - literally. Two pedestrians at once?! Open even wider!

After a certain amount was collected as a result of paid lawlessness, access to a new city was opened. By the way, do you know what the cities were called in the first GTA? Liberty City, San Andreas and vice city.

Unfortunately, the graphics in GTA were far from perfect even by 1997 standards. The only significant achievement of the engine was the ability to change the scale depending on the speed of movement, which made it possible to expand the field of view at high speeds (by the way, the mini-map works exactly the same way in GTA III and later versions). There were obvious problems with the visualization of everything else: flying bullets were displayed in tiny piles of pixels (just like in prehistoric shooters), crushed pedestrians most of all resembled cockroaches slammed with slippers, and the animation was simply terrible. The sound was not impressive either: the effects were made on a C grade, there was no speech at all - it was replaced by a meaningless muttering in one of the Sims gibberish dialects. The only thing that was good was the soundtrack, which included more than an hour of music from the most popular trends of those times: techno, funk, hip-hop, industrial, country and heavy.

But, despite the technical backwardness, GTA fascinated. It was a game from the “love at first sight” series - you either didn’t like it at all, or liked it right away, and then you could forgive all its shortcomings. And simple graphics, and the lack of voice acting, and high complexity, and inconvenient navigation in a huge virtual world, and much more.

Gaming publications greeted GTA quite predictably - with coolness. In times of total insanity in 3D graphics, it was customary to meet games by clothes, or rather, by the engine. However, the “drain” of GTA was also “not counted”, noting its original gameplay, black humor and perfectly seasoned style. At the same time, a stable community of fans began to form around the game, without which not a single more or less worthwhile project can do. And no one doubted that GTA was a successful project, and therefore worthy of continuation.

While a part of the DMA Design staff was engaged in finishing the PlayStation version, the rest set to work on the development of the first add-on - GTA: London 1969 - and a sequel Grand Theft Auto II.

At the same time, another significant event took place. The publisher of the first GTA was bought by one of the giants of the industry - Take2 Interactive. And the rights to GTA, respectively, passed to her. Take2 was not going to stop there and openly expressed interest in buying DMA Design itself. Dave Jones, who did not understand what kind of diamond he found in a pile of ... uh ... lemmings, decided that it was a sin not to take advantage of such a tempting offer, and in 1999 he sold the company. DMA became the property of Take2 and was included in the studio Rockstar Games.

If Jones could appreciate the genius of the gameplay he invented himself, then now he would already be a millionaire. But Dave bet on the wrong horse by founding a new company in 2002. Real Time Worlds, which released only one mediocre shooter Mobile Forces. Meanwhile, a game engine called GTA was picking up speed.

Three huge virtual cities.

Countless roads, highways, boulevards and streets with a total length of almost 10,000 kilometers.

Hospitals, banks, strip clubs, military bases, police stations, ports.

20 types of cars in each city, all with their own unique behavior and speed.

Availability of urban services: police, firefighters, doctors and public transport.

Different levels of police aggressiveness depending on the player's actions - from complete disregard to hunting for complete destruction.

Support for up to four players when playing via network or modem.

Over an hour of techno, dance, funk, hip-hop, industrial, heavy metal and country music.

Over 200 different missions, including auto theft, drug smuggling, kidnapping, terrorist attacks, contract killings and robberies.

Blood!

Weapons: pistol, machine gun, grenade launcher, flamethrower.

Game bonuses: armor, extra lives, police bribe, “excuse” from prison, “multiplier” (all money received is multiplied by the coefficient), accelerator (running, riding and shooting become faster).

GTA: London 1969

A whole virtual London, including the Tower, Big Ben and other architectural sights.

Over 20 new cars in the style of the 70s.

New soundtrack, also in the style of the 70s.

New missions, even more diverse, even harder.

Blood! Bigger and more realistic!

Between the first and second - a small break

The first addon for GTA appeared just a year after the release of the original game. Innovations in London 1969 could be counted on the fingers of one hand: a new virtual city (almost an exact copy of London), 20 new cars, crushed pedestrians wallowing in pools of blood began to look a little more believable, the soundtrack was completely updated. Everything else has not changed one iota.

In 1999, GTA III came out - already with the Rockstar logo on the cover. However, in the sequel, the dosage of innovations was more than modest: the graphics got a little prettier, sound effects improved, new musical accompaniment appeared again. In GTA II, there were no longer three cities, but one huge metropolis of three parts with a unique set of cars in each area. In total, there were 40 cars in the game's fleet.

Unlike the first part of GTA II, it was received much more hostilely by both the press and the players. The effect of novelty was already absent, and the main shortcomings of the series - inconvenient navigation and backward video sequence - were never eliminated. Carried away by criticism, almost everyone overlooked another interesting innovation of GTA II - the presence of six different and often warring criminal clans, each of which the player could join at will.

Grand Theft Auto: London 1969

Grand Theft Auto II

After the second part, it became completely clear that the ingenious concept is simply cramped in the existing technological framework. Free-spirited gameplay needed another degree of freedom - visual. And Rockstar set about developing a new, fully 3D Grand Theft Auto III. Its release was scheduled for 2001 ...

To be continued...

Hello friends, today I will tell you about how the GTA San Andreas game was created, touch on the history, and also draw conclusions about what the game has achieved throughout its existence.

Perhaps, let's start with the fact that the game is an Action "Action" genre, which was developed at the Rockstar North studio, famous for such games as: "Grand Theft Auto (1997 - 2013)", "Manhunt", "Wild Metal", "Red Dead Redemption", "Agent", "Tanktics" and many others, numbering dozens.
The first version of the game was released on October 26, 2004 in North America and on October 29, 2004 in Europe on the Play Station 2 game console. of the year.

In Russia, for its localization into a "partial" translation, the company "1C" took over the duties, which at the moment has a leading position in the field of translations of games into various languages ​​of the world. I would also like to note that the company has been on the market for quite a long time, its successes and achievements still state that no company on the Russian market is capable of such great achievements. In other matters, we will not deviate from the topic and continue the conversation about the history of the creation of the Grand Theft Auto game.

Most recently, namely in December 2013, the game became available for mobile versions of iOS and Android (this will be discussed in detail in the next article).

The world seemed to come to life as in those days when the game was valued in all its qualities better than those games that came out several years later. There are still people who are devoted to her, namely the players of the SA:MP project (more in the next article).

The game is the sixth in the line of GTA games developed by Rockstar North, which is preceded by such versions as:
Grand Theft Auto (1997)
Grand Theft Auto: London 1969 (1999)
Grand Theft Auto 2 (1999)
Grand Theft Auto III (2001)
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002)
Of course, fans of this genre in games will undoubtedly recognize the "hits" from this list, which were quite popular at one time.

Many people wonder why the well-known cities of the “San Andreas” state are referred to as: “San-Fierro”, “Las-Venturas” and “Los-Santos”? The answer is simple! As strange as it may seem, the names were almost copied from such famous cities in America as: Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas.

We will continue to talk with you about the history of GTA San Andreas in the next chapter, stay with us, watch, download and read the information project - www.site.

Greetings to all readers. Today I would like to talk about, perhaps, the main game series on the planet. About the game, invariably sold in huge numbers even in the most severe financial crisis. About a game whose developers can afford to spend tens of millions of dollars and several years on one new series. About a game with three cherished letters in the name, and I really hope that not three letters written on the fence in Call     of duty 4: Modern Warfare . G.T.A. or GrandTheft Auto. The story of the development of the great game series.

I understand that the idea of ​​such a feature is, to put it mildly, unoriginal. In many gaming magazines, with the release of each new part of the series, a list of previous series was compiled, supplemented by pleasant memories of innovations and dozens of hours of exciting gameplay. Here I will not burden the reader with details, but will simply tell a little about each part of the series and about my attitude towards both the main games of the series and G.T.A. generally.

I will start, of course, with the very first parts, the existence of which, as it turned out, many young players did not even know, sincerely believing that the series started with a super-successful and revolutionary G.T.A. 3 loved by the whole world. So let's go.

G.T.A. - the very first

And by and large there is nothing to tell about it. The gameplay here hasn't changed at all. Only the city has changed. It was still fictional, but now the names of the districts in it repeated the names of real-life places in London, like the famous Hyde Park. Because “Storyline” game was transferred several decades ago, then motorcycles disappeared from the range of vehicles. Everything else remained in place. Cars were still fictional, some even had funny names like

(if someone is not strong in English - this is a diminutive name for ahem ... products of human life). Missions have become a little more difficult, but in general their meaning has remained the same. A squeaky cartoon voice urged you on, and the text of the task, as in the first part, was displayed as a running line on the pager screen. Side quests from the first part moved to

1969. It was nice to sit in an almost impenetrable tank and start blowing up everything around it and crush cars for a while. Subsequently, similar tasks were encountered in three-dimensional

Also, the game has noticeably prettier, made friends with higher resolutions, and in general, it was much more interesting to play. Plus, of course, the soundtrack has changed. Yes, even in those distant times

took care of the musical accompaniment of the game.

In the same year, another add-on called . I don’t see the point of writing a separate paragraph about him. As I do not see the point in the addon itself. Apart from the new story campaign, the city of Manchester, visually indistinguishable from London, and cars, there was nothing at all in it. By the way, with the physics of transport, the developers are a little too clever. Some cars cut through the air through the streets of London at such a speed that the eyes began to hurt from the flickering of the picture on the screen. But, it was a PC-exclusive.

G.T.A. 2, being nominally the same game, made a tangible qualitative breakthrough. Behind it, my friends and I could sit for several hours, and the gameplay did not bother us at all. The thing is that in the sequel, Rockstar improved every aspect about a hundred times. G.T.A. 2 was a project on a completely different level. It was obviously made on a new 2D engine, it looked fantastically bright, beautiful, detailed, with excellent special effects. Plus, with a new lighting system. At night (the time of day had to be turned on separately), street lights were lit up on the streets of the city, and headlights were lit up by cars. In general, looking at it, one might think that this is a 3D game in which the camera was placed under the very sky for some reason. There were a lot more weapons, grenades and a Molotov cocktail appeared. Cars have become much more detailed, diverse, with normal physics. In the second part of G.T.A. already became much more like what we play now - there were groups for which the player could complete quests. Moreover, working for one of them inevitably worsened relations with the other. Normal radio stations appeared in the cars. Minor innovations in G.T.A. 2 had plenty, but the main thing was the varied gameplay. Dozens of entertainment for every taste apart from the story campaign. The ability to install upgrades on vehicles like airborne machine guns. Even just running and shooting at everything alive was still interesting. Stylistically, the game was reminiscent of the near future, and among the groups there were even Russians, in which your employer called you "comrade". By the way, in one of the quests for the Russians, it was necessary to collect a full bus of passengers and bring them to the factory for the production of meat pies, as a filling. Do you feel? There was no such fun even in the last parts of G.T.A. In general, the sequel turned out to be perky, lively and bright. In addition to the main game mode, there were completely crazy tests like “ Blow up 15 ice cream trucks in 5 minutes". And yet, the game finally has the ability to save: for this it was necessary come to the Church and leave a donation of 50 thousand dollars there ...

In general, in G.T.A. 2 is quite possible to play today, thanks to the efforts of "" it was officially released in Russian.

G.T.A. 3 in 2002 (actually - in 2001, but let's agree here and continue to count down the PC versions) made the erotic dreams of millions of players around the world come true, giving the opportunity to participate in all the same chases, shootouts and other lawlessness, but in full 3D. I still remember that indescribable feeling that the first sight of a fully three-dimensional city and cars passing by caused. Any of them could be stopped, thrown out the driver, giving him a couple of hits with a baseball bat after him, and rolled off over the horizon. Despite the fact that the main entertainment was still the opportunity to arrange total mayhem, the game now had a normal story campaign, which aroused no less interest. We played as a petty criminal with no name (it was not called in the game, but in one of the subsequent parts you could accidentally find out that his name is Claude), who gradually began to work for the more and more powerful personalities of the city of Liberty City. The city clearly hinted at New York in a modern setting - people familiar with the city could recognize the neighborhoods of Manhattan and Brooklyn. The plot story itself was already quite twisted, but by and large there was nothing to tell the developers. Many characters were present, cutscenes appeared between missions. At the same time, no attention was paid to the hero himself at all - he was even deprived of his voice. In cutscenes, you just looked at his employers or partners, who, exchanging gangster words, had highly intelligent conversations in the spirit of " take your trough, go to that area and bring us three prostitutes - have fun!» All the most interesting things in the story campaign happened at the beginning, when the main character and his friend were released from the prison van, and at the end, when you had to kill your former accomplice. In the game itself, there was no special plot development or relationships between the characters.

However, it was not the plot that was strong G.T.A. 3. The main thing in it was, of course, the gameplay, which then unsuccessfully tried to repeat many clone projects. Free exploration of the city (at the beginning, some of its parts were closed, but with the passage of story missions, access to them was opened), skirmishes (the hero could shoot from light weapons on the run, as well as from a car window) and chases (the physics of cars was very pleasant and simple, doing tricks was not difficult). All the most interesting happened in the story missions, however, there were also side quests, as well as work as a taxi driver, a policeman, an ambulance driver and a fireman. The idea was about the same - to quickly get from point A to point B and perform a certain action. Also, there were special places in the city where the player was given money for car tricks. Well, for dessert - on the street it was possible to use the services of courtesans for a small fee. It was enough to take the priestess of love to a deserted place, after which the car began to characteristically twitch and creak, just like the bed of the newlyweds. And the camera bashfully moved lower and lower, under the wheels of the car, in order to hide spicy scenes from the fragile gamer's minds. However, it was more of a joke from the developers, because. with a certain rotation of the camera, it was possible to see that the process of all this disgrace was not even animated - the prostitute continued to sit motionless next to the main character. By the way, many players then killed the unfortunate woman and took their money back. This feature was the cause of one of the dozens of scandals associated with the game. And also, from the second G.T.A. groups moved in. Each with its own style of clothing, vehicle and weapons. For some of them, the player could work according to the plot, but there was no longer any reputation system.

Graphically G.T.A. 3 did not stand out for anything special at that time, but the RenderWare engine itself, at one time became almost a living legend. It was used in console versions Max Payne 2, racing series Burnout(in fact, it was created by its authors), in fun fighting games and, and even in domestic action " A fight with a shadow and its sequel. Rockstar itself also actively used it in their projects, like Manhunt and PS2 versions Bully. A complete list of games on it can be viewed in the table on this. Thanks to this engine G.T.A. 3 was very easy to modify. The number of cars, aircraft and weapons models created for it was very close to the population of China. For example, many Russian players did not like the fact that the M-16 in the game was three times more powerful than the Kalashnikov assault rifle. However, even without special programs, any student could correct this universal injustice by correcting the characteristics of the necessary barrels in the "notebook" file with a description of the weapon.

In G.T.A. 3 played for a long time. A very long time. This game rightfully deserved a long life, and not so long ago, it was revived on portable platforms. The game's average score hovered between 9.5 and a solid ten. In 2002 G.T.A. 3 was quite rightly nominated for the "Game of the Year", but even then she had the strongest opponent - Mafia: the City of Lost Heaven. Both games performed great, but "Mafia" performed extremely poorly on consoles due to perceived complexity, leaving good memories only for PC players. As a result, the main computer and gaming magazine of the country, ““, gave the honorary title of “Game of the Year” to both projects.

P.S.: In Russia, thanks to the efforts of Buka, an English version of G.T.A. 3.

G.T.A. Vice City is the most stylish

A year later, another part of Grand Theft Auto came to us from consoles. She came and in the same unceremonious way pushed all other projects into the background, forever remaining in the hearts of the players. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was exactly the same game, with the same gameplay, with the same mechanics and on the same graphics engine. No numbers were even added to it, making it clear that this is an addition to the G.T.A. 3, and not a full-fledged fourth part. However, this "add-on" managed to grab the same rave reviews and enviable ratings. The action took place in the subtitled Vice City, decommissioned from Miami, in the mid-eighties. The main character was exactly the same petty bandit who got into trouble. Only now he had his own name and voice. Our protagonist Tommy Vercetti, came to the city of Vice City after a long prison sentence to make a deal for his boss. However, in the best traditions of crime cinema, everything broke down at the last moment, and left without support and with a huge financial debt, Tommy started life from scratch in Vice City. After the tie, the same scenario followed as in G.T.A. 3 - new acquaintances, betrayals and attempts to break through as high as possible in the criminal world.

Despite the similar plot scheme and absolutely identical G.T.A. 3 gameplay, Vice City compared to the third part was a completely different game with a different mood. In it, Rockstar proved to be people with excellent taste and sense of style. The era of pop music and cocaine was sustained on the "five". The city itself turned out to be bright and sunny. It wanted to live. It was small and cozy. From all sides - beach, sea, sand. Residents, of course, walked around in T-shirts, shorts and swimsuits. Radio stations and music were just as bright and sunny.

The gameplay remained the same, but was supplemented by a thousand pleasant little things. Tommy could buy various real estate. In some buildings it was possible to save the game, others brought a constant cash income. There are more side quests, and the main ones have become much more original. Also, Tommy learned how to change clothes - there were about a dozen costumes in the game (however, with the possibility of modifying the game, the bill went to tens of thousands). The number of available weapons has increased, now Tommy can carry one type from each class. Cars also became much more, helicopters and motorcycles were added, which were so lacking in G.T.A. 3. In addition to the standard side missions for a fireman, policeman, taxi driver and ambulance doctor, the ability to deliver pizza to customers for a while was added.

In terms of my personal experience, Vice City has always been my favorite part of the series. Bright, beautiful, sunny. Behind this game, I, like many players, spent several years, even after passing. Once, having killed several evenings in a row while playing, I realized with horror and at the same time - with a feeling of deep satisfaction that for a whole week I had only been engaged in taking people by taxi to the music of the radio station and it didn't bother me at all. After all, every five passengers the player was given a cash bonus!! Seriously, even now I would install the game and could just work as a taxi driver for seven nights in a row and listen to music. The city was compact and beautiful, the physics of cars was simple and pleasant. The game literally saturates the player with its mood. There was a lot of humor in the videos, and Tommy himself, as mentioned above, found a voice (the actor did his best) and could talk to the characters, as well as on a mobile phone that replaced the pager from the previous parts of G.T.A.

G.T.A. Advance - the most unknown

Between Vice City and the next three-dimensional part, in 2004, the developers decided to remember the GameBoy, which was once one of the platforms for the very first part of the game. Grand Theft Auto, like any project released on the GBA, received the Advance prefix and was, in fact, a two-dimensional version of G.T.A. 3, with the same city, GUI, weapons. She told a rather unoriginal story of another criminal named Mike, who had to endure the loss of a true friend and join various groups in search of retribution, performing missions for them. Due to the technical limitations of the console to developers (it was not made by one of the Rockstar studios, but by some Digital Eclipse) had to significantly modify the city.

G.T.A. San Andreas - the largest and most diverse

And the next step in development was Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas 2005 release (and, accordingly, 2004 on consoles), which qualitatively improved the mechanics of G.T.A., adding to it many interesting little things. The game, in fact, did not bring any innovations, however, it gave the player about twenty tons of content, the variety of which made the eyes dizzy at first. In this regard, even the fourth part did not surpass it subsequently.

So the new game told the story of a young

... an African American named Carl Johnson. For friends - CJ. He came to the city of Los Santos after a long absence, for the funeral of his mother. Already at the very beginning, after getting off the plane, fake policemen were waiting for CJ, who were obviously happy to meet the guy so much that they wanted to give him a ride in their car, taking away his things and wallet along the way. And then - throwing it out for a laugh on the territory of a group hostile to CJ. This is how San Andreas started. Returning to the parental home, the main character found out that his old gang had almost collapsed, and hostile scumbags and corrupt police ran the city. The whole storyline is dedicated to resurrecting your gang, getting more money and achieving everything you can. All. Further, the plot can not be told, because. traditionally, until the finale, he showed almost no signs of life, and the cutscenes here still acted as a humorous glue between missions. Stylistically, the game sometimes resembled "black" comedies like "". The soundtrack, of course, was chosen completely different and consisted mainly of works by prominent representatives of hip-hop and gangsta rap. Although music of other genres was also present.

So, the first change in San Andreas was the scale. The action took place in the huge state of San Andreas, where the developers stuffed as many as three cities (one of them is the same Los Santos, the prototype of which was the City of Angels), several villages and large open spaces. The territory was really huge, and it seemed that the new game world had no boundaries at all. You could travel around the surrounding meadows and enjoy nature.

Also, the developers have introduced pumping and customization of everything possible into the game. Stunts on cars and motorcycles increased driving skill, making the controls smoother and more manageable. The constant use of the same type of weapon led to the fact that CJ fired from it without any recoil. And so on. Part of the pumping was tied to the physical condition of the hero. The fact is that the food in San Andreas not only served to restore energy, but also added extra weight to CJ. I had to visit gyms to bring the figure into a more or less decent look. CJ started the game skinny and bony, and with such a complexion it was almost useless to pump muscles. But with a normal figure and developed lungs, CJ could run and swim underwater for a long time, and also hit harder. All this only added points to the game. After all, the player had something to do in isolation from missions.

However, even without gyms, there were enough optional entertainments in San Andreas. Strip clubs (which appeared in Vice City), bars with billiards, discos, cafes - there was much to go. There was also an opportunity to go on dates with girls. After the relationship developed up to a certain point, a friend invited CJ to come to her house for coffee, which invariably led to unambiguous sounds of hot love, which the player left on the street was forced to listen to without being able to observe. However, the most stubborn modders managed to correct this shortcoming and released a modification of Hot Coffee, which makes it possible to see spicy scenes with your own eyes and even take an active part in their development by pressing buttons in time. And the funny thing is that the moderators didn't even have to do anything themselves. As it turned out, this mini-game was originally built into San Andreas by the developers, but out of harm's way blocked by them. Thus, for people who understand the resources of the game, it was enough to change the program code a little, and voila! Of course, this modification made a lot of noise and still caused trouble for Rockstar, however, it also attracted even more attention to their already scandalous project, which was they are only at hand.

CJ, unlike the heroes of the previous parts, learned to swim, shoot with two hands, call his gang mates as partners and much more. The action in the game has become a little better, although it still remained primitive. The cars had visible gas tanks, firing at which instantly led to an explosion. It would seem a trifle, but sometimes it significantly influenced the outcome of the shootout, because. hostile gangs sometimes came to the place of the "arrow" in cars and used them as shelter. By the way, one of the important additions to the game was the war of factions for territory.

For me, San Andreas came out as the same long-playing record as Vice City. It was a game that, in principle, could not be deleted from the hard drive at all. Even after going through the story campaign, it was interesting to shoot, drive and explore the world in it.

G.T.A. Liberty City Stories

The next part of G.T.A. was officially announced by the developers as a completely new project and announced only for the then unreleased Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. However, it was clear that fans wanted more and would swallow the new series of their favorite game in any form. Therefore, Rockstar on the same engine, only with simplified graphics, collected two spin-offs and released them on the PSP portable console (and then on the PS2). Released in 2005 Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, in which the player had to return to the city from the third part of G.T.A. and play as one of the secondary characters - Toni Cipriani. The gameplay of the project was no different from the "large" versions, adjusted for the control of the console, which did not have a second analog stick. Players were waiting for a new story campaign, several new features and a couple of new types of side quests. The weapons arsenal moved to the game from Vice City, and the radio stations from G.T.A. 3. The game received excellent reviews and became one of the best-selling games for the handheld console. And a few years later, in total with sales of the PS2 version, she overcame the barrier of eight million copies. Didn't show up on PC.

Six months later, a similar story repeated itself with Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, the events of which took place in the already mentioned Vice City two years before the beginning of the story of Tommy Vercetti. The main character was an army corporal Victor Vance, brother of one of the heroes of the original Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. The gameplay in the game was the same. Like Liberty City Stories, the new game offered the player familiar scenery, weapons, and factions. She also missed her date with the PC, but it came out on PS2 a year later.

Projects are still available today. They are more than a worthy reason to buy a PSP, which in recent years, and even now - with the release of the PlayStation Vita - has significantly fallen in price. The games themselves also fell in price in the PlayStation Store. Also, they can be run on a PlayStation 2 emulator.

Grand Theft Auto 4. A new round in the development of the series. Development is on a completely different level. The game the whole world has been waiting for. A game that, as expected, broke all sales records in the very first days of its release and repeatedly returned the millions invested in it. Almost until the very release, Rockstar kept deathly silence and was not very willing to share the details, as if leaving the public with more surprises for self-acquaintance. In April 2008, the owners of the current generation consoles, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, were the first to try the game. The game was released on a completely new graphics engine. In the winter of that year, G.T.A. 4 unexpectedly quickly knocked on the door of PC players.

So, the new Grand Theft Auto told another gangster story. The main character was a Serbian named Niko Belic, who came to his brother Roman in the States, in the city of Liberty City, which had already appeared in previous games, after reading his letters about a good life and great opportunities. Oddly enough, the game did not begin with the gangster setup that has already become commonplace. The brothers calmly met and went to Roman's apartment, which turned out to be a dirty, shabby kennel infested with cockroaches. Niko was convinced that all his brother's letters to him were nothing more than the fruit of Roman's pipe dreams. However, everything was not so bad. It turned out that Roman owns a small taxi fleet and from this he has his own modest bread. Niko decided to help him in business, and after that he found himself embroiled in an unpleasant story with one of the local bandits who kept Roman under a hood. It was only the introduction of the game, but already it came out incredibly elaborate and interesting. And ahead of the player was waiting for an equally interesting story. Yes, nominally it was built on the same schemes as before: new acquaintances, betrayals and friendship. But Rockstar took his delivery and level of drama to a completely different level. The cutscenes in the game have ceased to be a set of jokes and references to the classic gangster movies. Some really creepy things happened there. Even a simple conversation between the characters “for life” was perceived in a completely different way.

Another qualitative change was the graphics. G.T.A. 4 was based on the new RAGE engine that Rockstar had previously used in their sports project. Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis. The game looked fantastic, from the models of cars, people and weapons, to sunrises, sunsets and very beautiful water. But at the same time, a computer for its time required a very powerful one. About 5-6 times more powerful than what was required to run Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. And, obviously, having already been taught by the bitter experience of software piracy, on the PC, the developers washed down some completely sadistic protection system into the game. And this is not about the service (although many had little difficulties with it), but about the fact that the hacked G.T.A. 4 slowed down unbearably, lost objects on the map, and the camera in it was constantly shaking, as if Niko planted a couple of bottles of strong beer. Of course, it was impossible to play it. However, the pirated patch, which eliminates the software consequences of excessive alcohol consumption, arrived quite close in time. Nevertheless, all this allowed to increase sales of the PC version, which in Jewel cost, in general, little money and worked quite well.

The physical one, called Euphoria, previously used, for example, in Star Wars: the Force Unleashed. Thanks to him, the bodies of opponents adequately reacted to shots and blows, and also very effectively rolled down inclined surfaces like stairs. Before G.T.A. could only dream of such a thing.

Traditionally, Rockstar has never had any problems with sound, and the fourth part was no exception. About a dozen radio stations with music of various directions. On one of them, with a romantic name Vladivostok.FM, even played songs of Russian performers, among which were, for example, even the group "". Used to imagine this in G.T.A. was impossible.

Yes, the game has made a significant bias towards the topic of Russians and everything connected with them. Here was the Hove Beach area, in which our compatriots who emigrated to Liberty City lived mainly. You could meet all of them on the streets, hear their native dialect, go to a clothing store where, among other things, hats with earflaps were sold.

According to the gameplay of G.T.A. 4 was a completely different game. Instead of once again screwing in a dozen new features and quadrupling the amount of content, Rockstar decided to deepen and improve the quality of what is already there and cut off everything superfluous along the way. Pumping, scuba diving, two-handed shooting, car tuning and some other things went under the knife. But in return, the fourth part gave the players a high-quality action, more complex and realistic car physics (now their weight was really felt) and a lot of opportunities to have an interesting time. Gunfights have always been the weakest part of the series, and G.T.A. 4 fixed this annoying miscalculation by giving the player a cover system and the ability to shoot on the move or on the run, as well as from a car (this could be done before, but only in the fourth part it became possible to aim normally - in San Andreas you had to use the code , the reverse effect of which was a crippled animation).

Hand-to-hand fights were also made more detailed - the camera moved sideways so that the player could better see the process, and Niko had several punches and kicks in his arsenal (CJ from San Andreas could learn one of three fighting styles - this was removed by the developers here).

The mobile phone, which previously served only to receive calls from accomplices prescribed by the game, has now become a full-fledged interactive element of the game. With it, you could call Niko's friends yourself, make an appointment or take a screenshot. And the meetings with friends themselves, as well as dates with girls, have now turned into a much more interactive process than before. You could play bowling, play billiards, go to a strip club (this feature was tweaked and improved), and thanks to the new graphics, the stripper girl models now at least looked decent). Also, the game has an almost full-fledged Internet, a cabaret with theatrical performances and much more. In G.T.A. 4, it was really interesting to spend free time in isolation from the story missions.

Also, the game has multiplayer. If in San Andreas it was subsequently added by modification, then it was originally sewn into the fourth part. A team of police opposed a team of bandits and had to catch them.

If we talk about my impressions, then I certainly do not regret the time spent playing the game. Some of her innovations were not to my liking. For example, some crazy missions in the spirit of the old G.T.A. like " mine the ice cream van and bring it to the base of the enemy group dressed as a clown". However, I understand that this was part of a program to bring G.T.A. 4 to a full-fledged crime drama, so I do not consider this a particular disadvantage. Moreover, since then the genre " G.T.A. for those who like to play the fool» firmly occupied series Saint's Row. Also, I didn’t really like the color palette of the game chosen by the developers, there weren’t enough bright colors, but again, it worked for the atmosphere. Although, I kept dreaming that after G.T.A. 4 developers will revive Vice City on modern technologies. Well, it was a little upsetting that even in 2008 the main character did not learn how to automatically regenerate health.

G.T.A. 4 Lost and Damned

Some time later, the Xbox version of G.T.A. 4 got two full-fledged addons, called Episodes from Liberty City. In terms of mechanics and graphics, they were no different from the original, except for a couple of new features, mini-games, weapons, and an updated radio playlist. The Lost and Damned told the story of biker Johnny Klebitz, who was in the Lost gang and had disagreements with its leader because of his desire to make peace with a hostile group. In some places, the addition plot echoed with G.T.A. 4. Some of the innovations were checkpoints on missions and the need to ride a motorcycle next to comrades, respecting the formation. The game was highly acclaimed. The next addition was Ballad of Gay Tony about a young Latino named Luis Lopez who works for his boss, Blue Tony, in the nightclub industry. Here, Liberty City has already been shown from the other side. From the side of luxury, glamor and debauchery. Louis had to deal with the opponents of his hapless boss and even work for them. The game was attended, among other things, by the Russian mafia. The list of weapons, cars, mini-games and music tracks has been replenished again, missions have been added to manage the affairs of the club. Both additions extended the life of an already super-successful project. And by and large, Rockstar could continue to rivet add-ons on the same engine and get paid for it, but, nevertheless, the experiments continued.

P.S.: Both expansions then came out on PS3 and PC.

G.T.A. Chinatown Wars - the most yellow

Because the developers in the course of the development of the series tried not to deprive any console of attention and constantly experimented, in 2009 it was the turn of the Nintendo DS to play a gangster story with car theft on its small screen. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars moved the player to Liberty City again, this time to Chinatown. The main characters were predominantly Asians. The technical capabilities of the console did not allow displaying the city with the already familiar third-person view, so in Chinatown Wars the series returned to its roots again - it was necessary to play, watching the hero from above, and even in cartoonish cell shading graphics. The video inserts were replaced with stylized comics, and the controls were entirely touch screen. The player had to perform many actions with the movement of the stylus. The story this time revolved around the Chinese Huang Li, who came from Hong Kong to give his uncle, the head of one of the clans of the Liberty City Triads, a family treasure. And as has long been customary in G.T.A., big troubles start small, then lead to a dramatic denouement, during which Juan had to find out the names of his father's killers and, no less, become the head of all the Triads of the city. The game received very good reviews and sold well, visiting PSP, iPad Redemption, in the G.T.A. 5 animals will migrate, such as dogs, which could be seen in the game's November trailer. I look forward to when the change of seasons and the visual change of the city from another game of their authorship, the school action Bully, will move into the series.

P.S.: There is still no official release date for the game.

In general, this is the Grand Theft Auto series. Bright, daring, scandalous, not afraid of prohibitions and sharply ridiculing the pressing problems of modern society. A game that intoxicates with its freedom. A game that leaves no one indifferent: it is equally loved and hated by millions of people. A game that replaces all possible genres. The game, every episode of which is expected, not for a second doubting the success of Rockstar. The brightest gaming phenomenon, which has long been known outside of our beloved industry. A game that invariably causes only one interjection. WOW!! Great Auto Theft.