Paving the way for future criminals everywhere!

[edit] Finally Epinions have added GTA3 to their database, so I'll cut the GTA3 bit from here and put it over there. Continuing on: [end edit]

GRAND THEFT AUTO
A criminal for hire, free in an enormous city, with plenty of cars to steal, people to kill and jobs to take. Grand Theft Auto was one of the many games to cause a fuss upon release due to adult themes in an interactive videogame; taking on a top-down view similar to that of Death Rally, the player took on the role of a criminal who had absolute freedom in one of three towns, free to do whatever he wishes, including a multitude of crimes including murder, assault and of course, grand theft auto. The basic point to the game was to rack up enough points to satisfy the crime boss you worked for, to move on to a new city with a new crime boss to do harder and more rewarding missions. All you had to do for this was to keep above the law and avoid the cops, which, judging by the general stupidity of the men in blue, wasn't very hard.

The Controls

The controls were tricky to get ahold of at first - using up to move forward and the side buttons to steer with the game's screen stationary, the controls differed to those in regular 3D games, which left a few people annoyed, but once you got a hold of them they work wonders. It's simple to jump a speeding car, shoot at some cops chasing you then steel their car to commit mass murder running down a street full of people.
Driving the cars is easy with this control scheme, and makes it nice to run down people and steal more cars. Shooting, on the other hand, had it's own problems. For some reason, it's rather tricky to take shots at people, whose sprites are extremely small to get a good aim at with the controls. This makes life hard when there are police with machine guns chasing you. On the other hand, it works well enough with the rocket launcher, which takes out people, cars and everything else.

Graphics and Depth

The graphics are relatively simple, but work well enough. Everything, from stairs to people to cars to buildings is recognisable to give everything a nice sense of realism. The cars are each individually created and colored, so you'll eventually recognise the fastest and most useful cars (TIP: Cossie's are the fastest cars in the game easily, but the Cop Car has a fast engine and enough armor to keep from exploding quickly).
On the whole, Grand Theft Auto has a nice amount of depth. There is plenty of things to do, including over 100 missions, plus hidden things (like kill frenzies - imagine roaring across a City Park in a Tank!) and sub-missions and plenty of other fun stuff. All in all, it has a good play value, but things eventually get insanely difficult, and this might turn off the player. Some of the mission may also feel repetitive. But the game has an great multiplayer mode to keep interest alive, including an average 'race' type game, and a fun deathmatch, where you can find the best weapons and cars and race to kill your oponents before they hunt you down and take you out. Despite a slight slowdown in framerate, the game runs okay and is lots of fun, and adds fun to the whole affair.

The major appeal to the game was the crimes you could commit and things you could do in an entire living breathing city, some of them pretty incredible. Hijack a school bus and run it off the harbour, cops chasing you to their deaths. Run over a line of joggers in you're humvee for a big bonus! Kill whoever you want to, including the cops and crime lords for cash! In GTA, it's all good and it's all violent. Depite the lack of variety, it's still fun, and very enjoyable. All in all, I give Grand Theft Auto 4 stars out of 5. Recommended.