THE HISTORY OF GTA | BETA
A LINE IN THE SAND
HERE WE JOIN SAMHouser during the development of GTA III, moments before he realises that the game could well reshuffle the pop culture pecking order
It was a grey day inside Liberty City. Rain poured down on the Callahan Bridge, casting the buildings in a wispy haze. Cars streamed up and down the highway – the buses and the police cars, the sentinels and the patriots. Sam knew just which one he wanted, the blue banshee with the white stripe down the middle. He jogged up beside it, then tapped the triangle button on his controller as he ripped open the door and tossed the driver to the side. “He’s taking my car!” the driver cried, as Sam held down the X button, flooring it. Tapping the rectangular button with his left
pointer finger, he flipped through the stations. There were nine of them now, one for every mood. Click. The subtitle ‘Double Clef FM’ on top of the screen. The strains of opera. Click. Flashback 95.6 with Debbie Harry singing Rush, Rush. Click. Game Radio FM, underground hip hop. Royce rapping “I’m the King.” Sam tapped the X button and accelerated. He wasn’t just playing, he was observing.
This was his world and it had to be perfect. His eyes and ears scanned every detail rushing past him in the game. The hum of the accelerator. The squeal of the tires and little black tire tracks when he took a corner. The splat of pedestrians under the wheel. The way
the hood flew up off the front, exposing the metallically intestinal engine, followed by a terrible stream of smoke.
Something about GTA III just drew a
line in the sand between games and movies, and it felt like this is us taking over now.
Sam Houser, Rockstar The guys at DMA had coded the physics to
let players drive over lampposts, knocking them down to the ground so that nothing would stop their pace. Sam clipped the lampposts like pathetic sprigs, as his wheels jumped a curb for a short-cut through a green, tree-lined park. “I’m an old lady, for Christ’s sake!” shouted a ped as Sam raced by. Once he hit the highway, that’s when he did
it. Tapped the Select button to change the camera view of the action, which the DMA guys had coded for the first time into GTA. Click. First person POV, as if he were strapped on the hood of the car. Click. Third person, overhead looking down on the ride. Click. His favourite, Cinematic mode. It appeared as if the camera were saddled on the lower left side
of the car like a chase from a film. As Sam tore through the town, the camera automatically switched to other cinematic angles, as if some brilliant invisible William Friedkin was directing. “This is the future of moviemaking,” Sam
believed. “Because here’s my set, I can go anywhere and put my camera anywhere. I can do anything again and again and again from any angle I want.” The more he played GTA III, though, the more he felt something inside him change. He was twenty-eight now. A man living his childhood fantasy. Long after he first saw Michael Caine and his mom zooming down the streets in Get Carter, he had been fascinated by action films. Now as a pedestrian flew over the hood of his car, and the sun beamed down in its simulated brilliance, he was the star of his own revolutionarily cinematic game. He wasn’t merely watching a movie, he was inside it – and this realisation made him feel as if he’d never be able to watch a movie the same way again. Games weren’t about one person’s authorial vision. They were stories told by a new generation of creators and players in a language all their own. “To me, as a film nut, there was something about GTA III that just drew a line in the sand between games and movies,” Sam recalled, “ and it felt like this is us taking over now.”
Always controversial and never one for bowing to media pressure, the GTA series is one of the most influencial of the past 20 years
WANT TO READ MORE? These excerpts are taken from Jacked: The Unauthorised Behind-the-Scenes Story of Grand Theft Auto by David Kushner, available now from publisher Collins for £12.99.
www.harpercollins.co.uk
DEVELOP-ONLINE.NET APRIL 2012 | 37
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68