Grand Theft Auto (PS1) Review - Humble beginnings

By Sam Coles:

In the 90’s games with splashes of red pixels or extreme violence where condemned because at point in history they were considered to be children’s toys, so games like Doom and Carmageddon where not looked upon lightly. Then a game stirred up the pot again in 1997 made by a small studio in Scotland called DMA design and that game is called Grand Theft Auto. Today Grand Theft Auto is a million dollar franchise that is a satirical look at the American life, but GTA back in the day was nothing more than an arcade crime spree game with fun mindless violence.

Grand Theft Auto when it first started out was a top down game with graphics that were not too impressive with a simple concept get a million points by performing various contracts for clients and then move on to the next level then do the same in the next level. All the GTA locales that you know and love today all started here because you’ll move through Liberty City aka New York, Vice City aka Miami and San Andreas aka Los Angles. All the levels have a similar grid format and layout but the visual differences give that little bit of a variation.

This game was slammed by the people who had no idea about video games because of the gameplay because you play as a criminal who had to various illegal activities such as stealing cars to use them in bank robberies to assassinating your client’s enemies. It was criticised with the violence as you could go on a rampage at will at any time by running over or shooting pedestrians with blood everywhere although the violence is very crude by today’s standards compared to games like Mortal Kombat X. There was also a small mini game called “Kill Frenzy” which the sole purpose was to shoot innocence’s and blow up vehicles with the weapon that is given to you. This gameplay is fun if you are looking for a time waster and want to burn half an hour as you can have so much fun with the arcade gameplay with all weapons and levels unlocked although the gameplay is sluggish on the Playstation version, I would recommend getting the PC version.

The game came with two expansions title Grand Theft Auto London 1969 and 1961 which gave the same gameplay a cockney vibe set in the UK’s capital in the 60’s by adding in the music and the stereotypical accents for from films such as Get Carter.

Grand Theft Auto is a fun little game, but don’t expect too much depth walk into this game with your brain turned off because it’s great mindless action. This game is very cheap and very easy to find along with its expansion I would recommend buying it if you own a PS1 or PS2.