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GAME REVIEWED: Grand Theft Auto
RELEASED BY: Codemasters
PRICE: £19.99
REVIEWED BY: Cheezy Knob
REVIEW: -
Grand Theft Auto is an arcade style crime game. The game is set in three different full size, living cities, that each have their own characteristics. The cities, San Andreas, Liberty City and Vice City are loosely based around San Francisco, Miami and Los Angeles. The main objective of the game is to get to your target score which depends on the city you are in and the episode you are doing. There are two episodes for each city and they all have very different objectives and missions. To get points you have to kill, rob, steal and do missions which are got by answering pay phones around the city. This game is enormous fun and very addictive once you get into it and become a proficient driver.
Each city is absolutely huge and very lifelike. There are many pedestrians walking around which are great fun to hit and they get you points but remember not to hit too many or you will get the cops on you, but more on that later. The cities each have there own type of road system which takes a good bit of getting used to but is great when you know roughly where you are going. The cities all have there very own working police force, ambulance service and fire department. This means that if you kill too many people the police will be after you to a certain degree ranging from one to four. This is also the case for the fire department, if you blow some thing up like a car for instance then along will come a fire engine to put out the fire. Incidentally these fire trucks can be stolen and make very good pedestrian bashers. The same thing happens with the ambulances so when you kill someone they will be mopped up by a medic sooner or later.
While I am writing about cars, I should warn you that if you step out into the road in real life you will get mown down by a large truck or similar. In Grand Theft Auto the cars will stop. Thinking all cars will stop in real life is potentially hazardous for your health as I very nearly found out last week. Luckily the driver saw me from quite far away and stopped in time. In the game though there are a huge amount of cars ranging from Itali’s (Ferraris) to juggernauts. The cars can all be stolen and all drive differently and some go faster than others. This is a very good thing as you can pick a vehicle according to the job you are doing or a faster one maybe just to cruise the highways. There is also a wide array of kill frenzys that involve killing people to get points with a weapon or vehicle provided. These can range from ordinary machine gun frenzys to tank frenzys.
In between the cities and the chapters in each city there is a short video sequence which keeps the plot flowing. The game’s top down view has been criticised heavily by the media but I think it is wonderful because it really gives you a sense of speed and shows you everything going on around you which is important in this game because police men and others trying to kill you come at you from all angles.
In short, this game is very violent, gruesome and politically incorrect in all the ways it can be. The game gets criticised about this a lot but not by me, oh no. This game is absolutely wonderful and I think it should be given to everyone with a PC or Playstation to see how great it is themselves. This is why I give it such a high score and recommend it to you thoroughly.
SCORE:
92%
MINIMUM HARDWARE REQUIRED:
CPU: 486+
RAM: 8MB
?MB HD Space
Windows 98\95\NT
LINKS: www.gta.com