back to article It's Grand Theft Auto 5 day: Any of you kids remember GTA the First?

Grand Theft Auto 5 – one of the most keenly anticipated video games ever – was officially released today, although a few people apparently got their packages a few days ago. The preview videos show it to be stunningly accomplished, and no doubt it will sell phenomenally well. Yet many of the young adults who make an excited …

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    1. Norphy

      It was back in 1849,

      At the Springfield Golden Nugget Mine,

      That my great-grandma Dolores saved the day,

      When she propped the shaft and saved the lives,

      Of the other forty other Springfield wives,

      When all ma grandpa's buddies ran away

      The menfolk found their women scary,

      Cos they were so big and hairy,

      They thought of dynamite to seal them in

      Gramps was known as 'Chapped Lips Calhoun',

      He was in the local saloon,

      In came Billy-Joe Walton through the door,

      He said "They're blown the Golden Nugget!"

      My grandaddy said "Oh f....darn it!"

      "You've buried my Dolores, my sweet little golden 'ore"

      Swing it, son

      Now my grandaddy jumped up from his table,

      Finished his jug,

      And he got up to that mine just as lickety-darn-split as he could,

      Stopped off to fetch a shovel,

      Feed the dogs,

      Brush his teeth,

      Clean the John and give his hoss one final rubdown

      Cos a cowboy's life ain't easy and a cowboy's life is hard,

      You can take him from the saddle,

      But he'll be forever scarred

      Cos my grandpa was a man in love,

      Called Dolores his 'prairie dove',

      And he told her that he loved her with every sigh

      Cos she never once forgave him,

      Even underneath the cave-in,

      But he knew she would forgive him,

      In that goldmine in the sky

      Goldmine in the sky

      :)

      1. DaneB
        Mushroom

        Drivin' in a 5 point O with my rag-top down so my hair can blow?

  1. Tom_

    Parameters

    I remember looking through the data files and finding that it was dead easy to adjust all the driving and handling characteristics of the cars.

    Out came the indestructible 900mph taxi of doom.

    1. DaneB

      Re: Parameters

      Ha! Gaming as it should be!

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Re: Parameters

        Yep! As recommended by PC Zone, I bought Nascar Racing, set my car to 'indestructible' and went the wrong way round the track. Apparently, the true purpose of the game was to sit there for fifty laps without making a mistake, but I couldn't see the fun in that...

        A 'null modem cable' only made things more fun between mates.

  2. Chad H.

    Where did those nice boys who made lemmings go wrong?

    I kid, I kid...

  3. Shrimpling

    London 1969

    I haven't liked any of them since London 1969...

    I'm sick of games where I have to drive on the wrong side of the road.

    1. phuzz Silver badge

      Re: London 1969

      If you pinch a tank you can drive on whichever side of the road you bloody well choose :)

    2. GrantB

      Re: London 1969

      Back in PS2 days, I really liked 'The Getaway' / Black Monday games which were Sony attempts at a European GTA.

      Quite liked having realistic central London as a setting, Range Rovers, round-a-bouts and British gangsters for a change.

      Never popular and the PS3 version which I was looking forward to never happened.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: London 1969

      My favourite moment in gaming history - blowing up the Rangers bus with a rocket launcher, pure joy :)

  4. MalPearce

    MOLOTOV COCKTAIL!

    Best bit about this game was legging it down to the docks, nicking the tank and then spending the next hour or two just destroying every police car, SWAT van etc in sight. With good timing you could drive a whole stretch of road flattening one car after the next but just about leaving them intact; one shot from the tank would then create a daisy chain of destruction. Happy days!

  5. noboard

    Ahh fun times

    I remember getting as many cars as I could on screen (go to far and they dissapear), then blowing them up and see how high the score would go. Played a linked game with a friend and I clocked the score. 10 minutes later my friend did his and broke the score, it just kept going round and round for the rest of the game.

    Never really liked doing the missions.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Early LAN gaming

    I remember late 90s I had a friend who had 2 PCs - a gaming PC with a Voodoo 2 (GTA looked great in 3DFX mode) and a 'workstation' PC but could run GTA on software graphics.

    He hooked them to a LAN (domestic LANs in the 90s weren't that common) and we had a network game of GTA. Was my first experience of LAN gaming (never tried Doom multiplayer) and it was great fun.

    Quake was the next big LAN / multiplayer game, but I was never really good at the keyboard - mouse gaming combo, kept up with GTA and bought GTA: London (was chuffed as this was one of the few games released at the time that could actually run on my lowly 233mhz Cyrix machine).

    Tried GTA2 but never really got that far into it. Went to university.

    I remember the guy in the room next door, his parents bought him a new Dell PC for his studies. It came with GTA3. I was blown away. GTA - in 3D! Yes I'd played Driver before that, but it seemed a little more on-rails / linear compared to GTA3.

    His PC was the best specced on the corridor and frequently got used as the gaming PC. The football fans mostly played Championship Manager ('Champy') which to me was as fun as looking at a spreadsheet.

    After graduation, finally got a PS2 and caught up on the GTA series - 3, VC, LCS, VCS then San Andreas.

    GTA4 a couple of years later prompted me to take the plunge on an Xbox360.

    An xmas gift of a PS3 and I've got GTA5 for it today (the comparisons said that the textures are marginally better than the 360).

    Here's to Rockstar!

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: Early LAN gaming

      In the mid nineties, network cards in PCs weren't too common - and certainly not built into the motherboard as they are today. A null modem cable was a cheaper way of playing two-player Doom.

      1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

        So true. I remember my first LAN experience was at uni in 1994. It was the first time in my life that I saw networked PCs. DOOM was the game of the day, and we booted the machines with specially-crafted floppies in the lab rooms after hours. It was all rather hush-hush, of course, but hey, that was part of the fun !

        1. Danny 14

          NE2000 with T piece monster. Ahh the days of dos network drivers.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "free-reign gaming experiences"

    Free *rein*. No, there's no "post corrections" link.

  8. Grogan Silver badge

    Sadly, it is not yet GTA V day for me. I must await the PC version and I think it will be some months.

    However, I do play games with a friend on his XBox360, and he will have already pulled the $60 from his tight fisted arse and bought it :-)

    (I tend to go visit for coffee on Wednesday nights, so hopefully I'll get to see some of it. Been looking forward to seeing this game in action)

  9. DaneB

    Why no download?

    Anyone know why you can't get an official download of GTA 1 and 2 at the moment?

    Because of GTA5?

    http://www.rockstargames.com/classics/

  10. Oddb0d

    The Guardian apparently had the same idea: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/video/2013/sep/15/making-grand-theft-auto-video

    Extra train-spotter points for anybody who recognises a former Zzap! staffer (I certainly had no idea he was involved in GTA).

    "Apparently, it was originally developed on the Amiga, but as the Amiga market died, they moved to the PC."

    I doubt it, firstly, most game developers were already moving away from the Amiga before Commodore went bust those that could afford to had already jumped to the Playstation, N64 & Saturn, secondly, it isn't mentioned in the design brief (http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/92277/RaceNChase.pdf) which does include mention of the never finished (started?) N64 & Saturn versions.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Evolutionary, maybe... Groundbreaking Nah!!!

    A change of theatre to Italy or France ala the film Ronin / Italian Job etc would have been nice. Or even Space as someone else suggested, as the city still looks too much like every other IMHO. I'll still buy it. But I think the gameplay is going to be repetitive and boring again (see below) and after about half an hour I'll be tempted to just play it like the latest-guy-to-go-postal (on the Navy base).... From TheGuardian.com

    "Rockstar North has also developed a slightly irritating narrative trope that I'll call "the exposition expedition": there are a lot of long journeys that just seem to be there so that the lead characters can chat about back-story, or engage in meandering expletive-drenched conversations on pop culture and psychology – something we probably have Tarantino to thank for.

    Furthermore, the designers don't always make the rules of the system clear. Some missions will only end successfully if you carry out the correct action after a specific prompt, while others don't provide a prompt at all and then fail you if you miss the mandatory sweet spot. The game also has the habit of simultaneously providing mission instructions via in-game dialogue and an on-screen text prompt, which at the very least means you miss plot details, but at the worst means you can be left wondering what the hell you're supposed to do next because you paid attention to the wrong thing. Or at least that was my experience; others may be better at ludological multitasking."

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Evolutionary, maybe... Groundbreaking Nah!!!

    A change of theatre to Italy or France ala the film Ronin / Italian Job etc would have been nice. Or even Space as someone else suggested, as the city still looks too much like every other IMHO. I'll still buy it. But I think the gameplay is going to be repetitive and boring again (see below) and after about half an hour I'll be tempted to just play it like the latest-guy-to-go-postal (on the Navy base).... From TheGuardian

    "Rockstar North has also developed a slightly irritating narrative trope that I'll call "the exposition expedition": there are a lot of long journeys that just seem to be there so that the lead characters can chat about back-story, or engage in meandering expletive-drenched conversations on pop culture and psychology – something we probably have Tarantino to thank for.

    Furthermore, the designers don't always make the rules of the system clear. Some missions will only end successfully if you carry out the correct action after a specific prompt, while others don't provide a prompt at all and then fail you if you miss the mandatory sweet spot. The game also has the habit of simultaneously providing mission instructions via in-game dialogue and an on-screen text prompt, which at the very least means you miss plot details, but at the worst means you can be left wondering what the hell you're supposed to do next because you paid attention to the wrong thing. Or at least that was my experience; others may be better at ludological multitasking."

  13. asdf

    because nobody will possibly say this

    At the time GTA first came out the game it reminded me most of was Ghost Busters on the old Atari home computers. It was kind of a sandbox top down driving game as well if I remember right.

  14. Electric Panda

    I always cracked up when I heard and saw "BUSTED!" accompanied by the "awww" sound from an invisible audience. It was properly hilarious in a weird way.

    My copy of GTA V sits in its cellophane waiting for me, as I bought it yesterday at lunchtime but didn't have any time to play last night.

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