I always feel old when I read Reddit comments by people who say they feel old because they remember when GTA III came out. I played a lot of GTA I and II in the late 90s/early 00s. Admittedly GTA I felt a bit dated at the time but GTA II was great. The top-down view didn't age well I guess but made it feel quite distinctive. I feel like in a lot of people's minds the series only really began at III.
Similar effect with the Fallout series. A whole lot of the fanbase has never played any of the three 2D games (Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics). The series started, for them, with Fallout 3.
I’m kinda that way with Elder Scrolls. My first one was III (Morrowind) and I’ve still never played the first two.
I like how GTAⅢ is the only 3D GTA game (not 3D-era GTA game, because Chinatown Wars lol) where you can permanently select the oldschool top-down camera. It's kind of a trip to play it that way.
My first time playing anything in the GTA series was the GameBoy Color version of GTA 2. I borrowed it from a friend for a week or two, and enjoyed it quite a lot. My parents were pretty against me playing any kind of “violent” video games. So secretly playing GTA 2 on the GBC was kind of exciting due to that as well. Even though the “violence” in GTA 2 on GBC is of course very tame in terms of any kind of graphic realism or anything.
A few years later one of my friends was playing GTA III on the PS2 at his home. I also had a PS2, but there was no chance of my parents letting me play that, and I didn’t even play it at his house either.
Later still, Rockstar was giving away GTA 2 for PC for free on their website. So I played GTA 2 a little bit on PC too, after GTA III (and probably Vice City) was already out.
It took many years before I finally had a chance to play GTA III, GTA Vice City and GTA San Andreas. My first time playing GTA III and GTA Vice City was when I was an adult with an iPhone and they sold iOS ports of those games in the App Store. I ended up completing GTA III and GTA Vice City on the iPhone and have played a bit of GTA San Andreas on the iPhone as well, including completing the famous train mission.
And you could reach 1 million $ on those 10 mins, just had to put a bomb car south to the start point, get the orange guys to follow you, get inside the car, trigger the bomb and wait for detonation inside the car.
Additionally, you could go under the fences if you parked a heavy vehicle next to them and crawled below it.
Don't forget walking below the city entering the spot where the water was solid on northwest pier.
And finally, if you left the train in the precise spot, you could exit the train on top of the (eletrified) tracks and would not die.
Oh yes! I remember playing that at a friend's house when I was 5 years old and having my little mind blown. I couldn't believe you could just take any car and go anywhere you wanted.
I later got my hands on a copy of GTA2 and played that a lot, behind my parents' back of course
A couple of days ago a colleague of mine was talking about very old rts games he still liked to play , and mentioned red alert. It turned out he had never heard of dune 2, Warcraft 1 and 2!
I'm more than old enough to remember the original GTA and GTA II, and I have friends who played and loved both of them. For me, I thought the first GTA had graphics from the past (I'd got too used to playing 3D shooters on PC - along with Wipeout on the Playstation - so struggled to get past the top down presentation), and just felt janky to play. GTA II was more polished, but I still didn't love it. Yet people raved about them.
Anyway, the negative associations I had with GTA I and GTA II stopped me from playing any other GTA game until 4 came out in 2008, at which point I was like, OK, FFS, people won't stop banging on about this so I suppose I'll try it again. I ended up really liking it but, because I only played it on friends' consoles, and I started the game several times over, I never played it all the way through until 2018. I then played through both the expansions, along with GTA V in 2019. I've subsequently gone back to play III and Vice City, both of which I also like - as well as Vice City Stories on the PSP. I've barely touched San Andreas, but the few minutes I have played suggest that I'll also enjoy it.
I've even fired up GTA and GTA II again... but still don't really get on with either of them. I presume there must be others out there who were put off enough by them that it meant they've never touched the rest of the series, or only got into again several games later, but it doesn't seem to be a particularly common experience.
I played GTA after I played Carmageddon and I thought the graphics on GTA were kind of retro at the time, but in reflection, it does have some charm, I think.
I played a lot of GTA1 and a bit of 2 when it came out. I think we used to play it at LAN parties my friends and I had as well. For me that’s where it stopped and I never clicked with GTA3 and onwards!
Do you play other 3d games? I've seen a lot of difficulty for people not growing up with 3d games just managing the camera + movement. Kind of how I feel looking at high level Fortnite play where the rapid fire build play layered on top of usual fps gunplay is just one layer too much complexity for my experiences growing up with fps only video games.
I'm sure it was officially re-released for modern (of the day) PCs before this? I think I've still got it on discs somewhere, a set of the first trilogy, Vice City, and maybe San Andreas.
Check out Exodos for this type of thing. It's built on launchbox (an emulator front end) and just gives a huge listing of every game you might ever want to play. Those games aren't all installed (assuming you didn't do the full 500GB+ install) but you click the game and it quickly downloads, installs into dosbox and jumps into the game (takes seconds since these are old games).
I always feel old when I read Reddit comments by people who say they feel old because they remember when GTA III came out. I played a lot of GTA I and II in the late 90s/early 00s. Admittedly GTA I felt a bit dated at the time but GTA II was great. The top-down view didn't age well I guess but made it feel quite distinctive. I feel like in a lot of people's minds the series only really began at III.
Similar effect with the Fallout series. A whole lot of the fanbase has never played any of the three 2D games (Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics). The series started, for them, with Fallout 3.
I’m kinda that way with Elder Scrolls. My first one was III (Morrowind) and I’ve still never played the first two.
I like how GTAⅢ is the only 3D GTA game (not 3D-era GTA game, because Chinatown Wars lol) where you can permanently select the oldschool top-down camera. It's kind of a trip to play it that way.
My first time playing anything in the GTA series was the GameBoy Color version of GTA 2. I borrowed it from a friend for a week or two, and enjoyed it quite a lot. My parents were pretty against me playing any kind of “violent” video games. So secretly playing GTA 2 on the GBC was kind of exciting due to that as well. Even though the “violence” in GTA 2 on GBC is of course very tame in terms of any kind of graphic realism or anything.
A few years later one of my friends was playing GTA III on the PS2 at his home. I also had a PS2, but there was no chance of my parents letting me play that, and I didn’t even play it at his house either.
Later still, Rockstar was giving away GTA 2 for PC for free on their website. So I played GTA 2 a little bit on PC too, after GTA III (and probably Vice City) was already out.
It took many years before I finally had a chance to play GTA III, GTA Vice City and GTA San Andreas. My first time playing GTA III and GTA Vice City was when I was an adult with an iPhone and they sold iOS ports of those games in the App Store. I ended up completing GTA III and GTA Vice City on the iPhone and have played a bit of GTA San Andreas on the iPhone as well, including completing the famous train mission.
I remember the DOS (?) GTA demo that came on a PC Gaming magazine demo disk. I think it had a ten minute time limit?
Tons of fun on a friends dark green Acer Aspire.
And you could reach 1 million $ on those 10 mins, just had to put a bomb car south to the start point, get the orange guys to follow you, get inside the car, trigger the bomb and wait for detonation inside the car.
Additionally, you could go under the fences if you parked a heavy vehicle next to them and crawled below it.
Don't forget walking below the city entering the spot where the water was solid on northwest pier.
And finally, if you left the train in the precise spot, you could exit the train on top of the (eletrified) tracks and would not die.
It's fascinating how often it is really the tension against the unintended boundaries of virtual worlds that's the thing we remember most.
Yes! I remember it, it was around 1997/98, I was a kid and couldn't believe a game like that could exist lol! it was so crazy for that time
Oh yes! I remember playing that at a friend's house when I was 5 years old and having my little mind blown. I couldn't believe you could just take any car and go anywhere you wanted.
I later got my hands on a copy of GTA2 and played that a lot, behind my parents' back of course
A couple of days ago a colleague of mine was talking about very old rts games he still liked to play , and mentioned red alert. It turned out he had never heard of dune 2, Warcraft 1 and 2!
I'm more than old enough to remember the original GTA and GTA II, and I have friends who played and loved both of them. For me, I thought the first GTA had graphics from the past (I'd got too used to playing 3D shooters on PC - along with Wipeout on the Playstation - so struggled to get past the top down presentation), and just felt janky to play. GTA II was more polished, but I still didn't love it. Yet people raved about them.
Anyway, the negative associations I had with GTA I and GTA II stopped me from playing any other GTA game until 4 came out in 2008, at which point I was like, OK, FFS, people won't stop banging on about this so I suppose I'll try it again. I ended up really liking it but, because I only played it on friends' consoles, and I started the game several times over, I never played it all the way through until 2018. I then played through both the expansions, along with GTA V in 2019. I've subsequently gone back to play III and Vice City, both of which I also like - as well as Vice City Stories on the PSP. I've barely touched San Andreas, but the few minutes I have played suggest that I'll also enjoy it.
I've even fired up GTA and GTA II again... but still don't really get on with either of them. I presume there must be others out there who were put off enough by them that it meant they've never touched the rest of the series, or only got into again several games later, but it doesn't seem to be a particularly common experience.
I played GTA after I played Carmageddon and I thought the graphics on GTA were kind of retro at the time, but in reflection, it does have some charm, I think.
Loved carmageddon, and yes graphics felt far more modern than GTA. Still loved gta eventually though as it was more fun.
Dropped out of gaming before GTA3 came out, but was given a PlayStation and gta V last year, very disappointed there was no “gouranga”
Also available at; https://dos.zone/grand-theft-auto/ where WASM is used to emulate Windows 95 in your browser.
404 - I think you meant
https://dos.zone/grand-theft-auto-1997/
You might want to add [2022] in the title
Crap, you're right. But I can't edit anymore. Also that would exceed the character limit.
I played a lot of GTA1 and a bit of 2 when it came out. I think we used to play it at LAN parties my friends and I had as well. For me that’s where it stopped and I never clicked with GTA3 and onwards!
Do you play other 3d games? I've seen a lot of difficulty for people not growing up with 3d games just managing the camera + movement. Kind of how I feel looking at high level Fortnite play where the rapid fire build play layered on top of usual fps gunplay is just one layer too much complexity for my experiences growing up with fps only video games.
I absolutely adored the first 2 games, especially GTA2. "Damnation! No donation, nooo salvation!"
GTA2 also had a cool cinematic intro:
https://youtu.be/9Z5O29rLRnw
I'm sure it was officially re-released for modern (of the day) PCs before this? I think I've still got it on discs somewhere, a set of the first trilogy, Vice City, and maybe San Andreas.
Your memory is correct! They released GTA1 (all expansions) and GTA2 as free “Rockstar Classics” in 2003 and 2004 respectively: https://web.archive.org/web/20130116055920/https://www.rocks...
One can get those versions here: https://archive.org/details/rockstar-classics_202107
They're great on XP-era machines! I have both installed on my HITACHI FLORA 270HX
Those were GTA3 versions. The linked version is for the original GTA with the classical top view perspective.
I vaguely remember Grand Theft Auto being free to download from the Rockstar Games website about ten years ago.
Here is to hoping that Rockstar Games brings these two classics back.
Check out Exodos for this type of thing. It's built on launchbox (an emulator front end) and just gives a huge listing of every game you might ever want to play. Those games aren't all installed (assuming you didn't do the full 500GB+ install) but you click the game and it quickly downloads, installs into dosbox and jumps into the game (takes seconds since these are old games).
Slightly related, if like me you have gone far to far down the emulation rabbit hole and find that you are now onto FPGA emulation, you might enjoy:
https://0mhz.net/
https://amiga.vision/
I really want to get these working on my steamdeck too but it looks like a lot of work.
https://www.retro-exo.com/exodos.html
The best version - thank you.
Love GTA1, but IIRC my version at least is a 3dfx glide game which makes it quite hard to play on modern kit.
Will give this a try.