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Grand Theft Auto Trilogy 
Release date: 17 Oct 2005
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Three's Company
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Rockstar Games is about to release the mother of all compilations for the Xbox, the Grand Theft Auto Trilogy. All three games, which are masterpieces of interactive entertainment in and of themselves, are now packaged together for the gaming enjoyment of the millions of fans that the franchise has under it’s gangster thumb. Rockstar one-ups their GTA Double Pack by including the recently controversial, and highly acclaimed, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. There won’t be any new additions to the games, but why mess with perfection? If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
Grand Theft Auto III, the video game that started so much, including the often imitated sandbox gameplay, superior voice acting, a brilliant story, a genius blend of very mature violence and humor, superb music compilations, and a never-ending sense that this game could easily be a movie that would rival the likes of Casino, Goodfellas and Carlito’s Way. Grand Theft Auto III marked the franchise’s first venture into the 3D gaming realm, and with that venture millions of gamers fell in love with the bad boy anti-hero and the go-anywhere-do-anything mechanics. Gamers across America turned GTA III into an instant classic and one of the best selling franchises in video game history.
Players were dropped into the first console game that contained a huge town, called Liberty City, which felt like it was truly alive. Liberty City was based on present day New York City. Everything in the city happens like in real life, police chase criminals, pedestrians fight each other, and there are traffic jams, functioning traffic lights, airports, and ships. The city goes on without you. At any time, if you wanted to, you could just stand still and watch the insanity that would ensue as a result what people could do to each other in the town. But what fun would that be? The main focus of the game is to steal whatever vehicle you want (tanks, cars, busses, boats), and kill whoever you want (old women, cops, gang members), on your way to becoming a made man. The gameplay in GTA for the most part is however you want it. If you want to just play around in the city, there are many things to occupy your time. Police vigilante missions, taxi missions, firefighter missions, rampage missions, chop shop missions, and the list goes on. Or you could just rob/kill people for their money, and spend your whole day with hookers. You even have freedom to an almost insane degree in the story missions. For example, if you are assigned a mission to assassinate someone you could go all “Rambo” and kill everyone in sight, but then you would have to make a daring escape through wave after wave of the gunfire being blasted at you from the target’s henchmen. On the other hand, if you think about the assignment, you could go about completing the mission in a totally different way. If you want to be a professional, you could get to the mark’s place early, steal a few cars to park in front of your target’s vehicle so he’s unable leave quickly, and make your way to the top of a nearby building, pull out a rifle and snipe him from afar, and then make your way to the street and walk away as if nothing ever happened. It’s this kind of freedom that propelled GTA to the stardom it now relishes in.
The second game in the package is Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, which is loosely based on the city of Miami in the 1980s. Vice City revolves around the life of Tommy Vercetti in another mafia movie-like tale with a Miami Vice-ish flavor. This game received critical praise largely because of the sharper graphics, shorter load times, new gameplay maneuvers, a bigger city, and the ability to enter and own properties. Vicy City sported a much better draw-in distance. Vehicles popped up much less, which cut down on frustrating crashes. Cars and people had more detail. But the more important improvement was the gameplay. Vercetti could dive out of still moving cars, he could fly helicopters, drive motorcycles, take cover when in fire fights, aiming was slightly better, and you could now change clothes. Owning different buildings and properties was another very nice touch. No longer did you have to drive all the way to the other side of the city in order to save the game. You really felt like you were becoming big time by buying big houses and businesses. Entering malls, construction sites, clubs, and small businesses was extremely pleasing for fans seeing as being able to enter buildings was one of the most requested upgrades for the next GTA. The music was once again excellent with licensed songs from artists like Run-DMC, Motley Crue, Michael Jackson, and Judas Priest. The soundtrack was also put on the market as a CD which sold very well.
The most recent edition, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, rounds out the infamous trilogy. San Andreas, which has stirred up much debate across the United States due to its hidden “hot coffee” sex mini-game, will be given an “M” rating which means the “hot coffee” mod will no longer be available to access in the game. Even before the politicians, news media, and hackers found out about the mini-game and got it plastered all over the news, GTA: SA was a chart topping behemoth. This game marked the first time the franchise featured an African American protagonist. Gamers were placed in the 1990s as they took on the role of Carl “CJ” Johnson, who comes back to San Andreas to pay his respects to his murdered mother, and is thrust back into a way of life he tried to leave behind.
With no load times for switching cities, the ability to recruit gang members (and have them back you up where ever you go), custom soundtrack support, the ability to fly planes, ride bikes, the opportunity to have multiple girlfriends, playing in a humongous state (which was a mixture of California and Nevada), the chance to take over gang turf, and so much more, made this game a dream come true for the millions of fans that Rockstar Games has won over. Some of the best additions to the GTA universe were the high levels of customization and the incorporation of RPG elements in the way your driving, individual weapon shooting, competence, and flying skills could be enhanced depending on your use in each category. CJ could select a multitude of hair styles/colors and tattoos. You could pimp out certain rides, put together a plethora of clothing and apparel to make your own unique outfit, and determine the physical look of CJ himself. You could now eat and work out in the game, so if you wanted your character to be a cake-loving fat tub of lard then all you had to do was make him eat a lot at the different restaurants that were now in the game, and never work out. If you wanted him to be a lean, mean, gangsta machine, then all you needed to do was make him hit the gym everyday. It was that simple. The audio was yet again a masterpiece of licensed music and phenomenal voice acting.
Many fans and critics believe San Andreas has the best storyline and music of the trilogy, which is giving high praise to the creative forces over at Rockstar for the fact that they can keep producing top tier gameplay and storytelling time after time.
Preview by Travis Johnson on 4 Nov 2005
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