Over the following few months, I’m going to be having a look again at every of the core Grand Theft Auto video games and replaying them within the lead-up to the arrival of Grand Theft Auto 6. What we’ll be placing collectively gained’t be conventional re-reviews, they usually gained’t carry IGN’s typical rating out of 10, as a result of it actually wouldn’t be in any respect truthful to easily decide aside previous video games revealed a number of {hardware} generations in the past and make them sweat underneath the harsher requirements of 2026. What we will likely be doing, nonetheless, is re-examining what made every GTA outstanding upon the time of its launch, digging into what they achieved and the legacies they established, and rediscovering how a lot enjoyable every of them stay at the moment. We’ll even be figuring out each the components of the GTA expertise which have seen probably the most evolution and development, in addition to the components that stay fascinating, commendable, and timelessly spectacular. On the finish of the venture, utilizing GTA’s beforehand six-star wished stage, you must be capable to get an thought of the place every of those video games roughly sit in my long-term love for this collection. First cab off the rank? The unique Grand Theft Auto.
When the unique Grand Theft Auto arrived in direction of the tip of the Nineteen Nineties, it was like nothing I’d ever performed earlier than, but it surely by some means additionally felt like I’d been in coaching for it most of my life. On the one hand, it was basically the digitisation of a whole childhood looming over a 2D toy automobile mat – my diecast assortment scattered round me as I simulated numerous automobile chases from above. On the opposite, it felt immediately acquainted to play – like an intuitive but anti-social distortion of the top-down delights of Codemasters’ Micro Machines. Grand Theft Auto was daring and brash. It was additionally brutally unforgiving, commonly irritating, and cumbersome to regulate. However regardless of that, I used to be persistently drawn to it – like a moth to a flamethrower. Practically 30 years later, I used to be greater than just a little inquisitive about how I’d fare taking part in it another time, however I’ve discovered myself with a largely unchanged opinion – constantly stumped by its completely unsympathetic issue, but persistently charmed by its wanton silliness, various automobiles, hilarious sound results, and trendsetting unique soundtrack.
It’s very straightforward to look again on the unique GTA as a product of a special period, and that goes past its old fashioned, top-down aesthetic. Its arcade-style strategy to development, which is baked round making an attempt to maximise your total rating for every stage whereas juggling a really restricted set of lives, is nothing just like the GTA collection we’ve identified since its full reinvention on the daybreak of the century. There’s no significant story right here to talk of; simply 90-odd seconds of cutscenes the place a gallery of felony stereotypes both go on their thanks, or difficulty you direct threats associated to placing undesirable issues in your butt.
Nonetheless, GTA was already a product of a special period upon its preliminary launch in European territories in 1997 – and much more so by its North American launch in 1998. The flat sprites of its automobiles and pedestrians give it that 2D-adjacent look, even when individuals usually gloss over that the cities themselves are literally rendered in 3D. However GTA discovered itself sandwiched between stuff just like the debut of Gran Turismo and the arrival of Half-Life, Unreal, and Steel Gear Stable. We’re speaking Tekken 3, Thief, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. What I’m saying is that we knew the place the leading edge was within the late ’90s, and GTA didn’t actually really feel prefer it was on it.
And but it nonetheless works, and that’s actually because of the excessive stage of participant company it affords. The three maps will not be huge by trendy requirements, and the collection of weapons is admittedly slim, however GTA was unprecedented when it comes to the open-world freedom it allowed. It feels unlikely that anybody at developer DMA Design might’ve totally understood simply how stealthily revolutionary GTA would in the end be, but it surely nonetheless laid down the bedrock for sandbox motion gaming as a complete. Full duties as clinically or as chaotically as you select. Navigate Liberty Metropolis, Vice Metropolis, and San Andreas nonetheless you see match. Take no matter automobile you need, and tackle aims in no matter order works for you. Not all for finishing precise missions? GTA is engineered to let you ignore them totally. You’ll be able to merely steal automobiles, wreak havoc with pedestrians, and battle regulation enforcement.
5-George-Ok
Make no mistake: GTA is a considerably clunky recreation to play. This was true in 1997, and much more so now. To be clear, I don’t personally have main issues with the driving. Sure, it suffers a bit from the jerkiness of the digital camera zooming out and in. Sure, you’ll stumble upon different automobiles commonly as they seem on display too late to keep away from. Sure, some automobiles are too quick for their very own good, with the digital camera unable to zoom out quick sufficient (or far sufficient) to avert spearing into high-speed crashes. Sure, motorbikes are fairly pointless, and I spend extra time getting again on them after wiping out than I do driving them within the first place.
Broadly, nonetheless, I imagine the driving is kind of enjoyable – and I believe loads of that in all probability stems from my background with Codemasters’ Micro Machines collection. For context, the Micro Machines collection was one of many most-loved racers of its period – and positively one in every of my very own favourites as I grew out of rolling round on the ground making engine noises. Its top-down perspective was actually the proper coaching zone for a recreation like GTA, and I’d counsel that – within the late ’90s – there’s an extremely sturdy probability {that a} participant of GTA would’ve had some sort of earlier muscle reminiscence from Micro Machines nestled someplace of their fingertips.
I can respect that with out that prior expertise there are parts of GTA’s driving controls which may be just a little onerous to hurdle. As an illustration, when automobiles are headed down the display, from high to backside, the controls stay constant. That’s, stab left, and your automobile will flip to its left – and instantly head to the proper of the display. It’s in the end a automobile, so it’s totally logical that left is at all times left; it’d be untenable to have the controls flip mid-corner. However this type of factor is printed into my mind. It’s second nature – if not from Micro Machines, then from a wholly analogue childhood of racing R/C automobiles and shortly studying every part is mirrored once they’re racing again in direction of you. Nonetheless, I can anecdotally report this was initially a little bit of a braintwister for a few of my children, so I can see how the controls may appear just a little obtuse at first. I really feel like they have been initially treating the automobile’s path like a cursor, slightly than the automobile as a discrete object.
The lack of an in-game map spun them out just a little, too. Fortunately, I nonetheless have precise fold-out paper maps of those cityscapes, that are genuinely important to finish sure missions (like shortly discovering the closest bomb store earlier than a strict timer runs out). They proved to be a neat novelty for teenagers from a technology who’ll by no means know what it’s prefer to navigate your method to an unknown location by leafing via a dog-eared road listing that smells like petrol and moist socks. My GTA maps are just a little flimsy as of late however, contemplating GTA 6 and future PlayStation video games normally gained’t even be getting a disc, they’re additionally a enjoyable if now bittersweet footnote within the story of bodily gaming media.
Busted
It’s on foot the place GTA falls down and, unsurprisingly, the identical issues that pissed off me about it within the late ’90s proceed to take action at the moment. For context, the tank-like on-foot controls are a facet impact of the truth that this was a time earlier than twin analogue controllers grew to become the default. Whether or not you’re on PC with a keyboard or PlayStation with a controller, all you are able to do is flip left and proper, and transfer ahead or backwards. Don’t consider it like a primitive model of a contemporary, twin-stick shooter like Hotline Miami – you’re actually only a tiny, sluggish automobile with legs. The Micro Machines-style controls make much less sense on foot, they usually’ve positively dated.
The upshot is fight is tougher than a $2 steak. It is harder to cope with clunky controls when only one hit will kill your character. Physique armour pickups can be found, however they’ll solely defend you from three hits. It’s additionally extremely troublesome to line up photographs from lengthy distances, and never a lot simpler at shut quarters. It’s significantly difficult to show and shoot at pursuing police since, by the point you do handle to pivot 180 levels, there’s sometimes solely time to get one or two photographs off.
The pistol is a largely ineffective weapon total, on this case. The machine gun is way simpler, since you’ll be able to spray a burst in an arc and get a minimum of one spherical to hit. The flamethrower is probably the most trusty choice, however you gained’t see quite a lot of it with out resorting to cheats.
I cheated like hell after I performed GTA as an adolescent, and I’d actually be stunned if that wasn’t the case for most individuals of my classic. The motion is much more enjoyable with 99 RPGs in your again pocket. Cheats are very a lot an integral a part of GTA’s legacy. Whereas cheats have turn into depressingly uncommon over the past a number of generations, the GTA collection – up till GTA 5, a minimum of – stays one of many final bastions of enjoyable, foolish, and helpful cheats.
Gouranga!
Whereas GTA invariably discovered acquainted methods to frustrate me, there’s nonetheless a pile of issues about it that convey a smile to my face in 2026.
I respect the number of automobiles, and I drastically admire the best way they give the impression of being. Certain, these 2D sprites are sometimes fairly tiny on display, however every automobile has been crafted with sufficient care that they’re not simply blobs of pixels that look vaguely like automobiles. They’ve terrific depth, and the curves of an off-brand VW Beetle are noticeable and distinctly distinction the flat and angular traces of a boxy American sedan – regardless of the actual fact each are easy 2D photographs.
I additionally take pleasure in that the combination adjustments up between cities. Vice Metropolis has extra unique supercars which might be distinctive to its beachside streets. San Andreas is the one place you’ll discover the floral-painted Love Wagon. Every metropolis has bespoke cop automobiles with completely different liveries and siren layouts. There’s effort to make every place distinct, and the automobiles are an enormous a part of making that occur. The seeds the studio planted right here on this regard would actually germinate in 2004’s GTA: San Andreas, although it’s loopy to suppose this occurred simply seven years later.
Furthermore, I really like the resemblance that most of the automobiles should Matchbox automobiles of the ’80s, to the purpose the place it’s totally apparent the group have been merely turning pictures of precise fashions into in-game sprites, wholesale. Certain, it’s truthful sufficient to argue that GTA’s F40, Diablo, 911, or Viper lookalikes might have been simply as simply gleaned from images of the true issues than toys, however you then spot stuff just like the orange-roofed ambulance, which nonetheless sports activities an an identical E on high from its equal Matchbox mannequin. Hell, GTA’s Flamer has the entire livery from the Chevy they sourced it from – squint actual onerous and it nonetheless says 57 Chevy on the deck lid!
Much more than the automobiles, I vastly respect the soundtrack. A lot effort was made to construct a collection of radio stations stuffed with credible-sounding music. Credible is definitely an understatement contemplating what number of of those tracks are real earworms. You would really put GTA’s PlayStation disc into a regular CD participant and easily play the music. This performance wasn’t really distinctive to GTA on the time, but it surely’s nonetheless nifty. Did I do this? Hell sure, I did. I even recorded it onto a cassette so I might play it in my automobile.
Past that, GTA’s utterly foolish model of squelching hit-and-runs and over-the-top violence keenly jogged my memory of how efficiently it weaponised controversy as a free advertising and marketing instrument across the time of its launch. It actually wasn’t the primary recreation to trigger a ruckus for gratuitous vehicular violence. In precise truth, that distinction is owned by an arcade recreation known as Demise Race, launched approach again in 1976, which induced an enormous fuss within the mainstream press for permitting gamers to run over and kill crude-looking pedestrians on display. However the hullabaloo round GTA was hefty on the time, even within the rapid wake of Carmageddon – which induced a big fuss of its personal just a few months earlier than GTA’s launch.
Now, even again within the late ’90s I did suppose the response was just a little overblown. That’s, 1996’s Die Exhausting Trilogy predated GTA by a yr, and that featured pedestrians getting completely splattered left and proper – full with a wiper animation clearing the blood from the display when driving in first-person. However, sure, there’s no denying the unique GTA pushed the envelope in methods not even the fashionable collection would try at the moment, whether or not that’s mowing down a line of Hare Krishnas, blowing up a college bus, or certainly assassinating the ‘Excessive Priest of Babylon’ – who seems to be none aside from the President of the US himself. GTA’s low-fi aesthetic makes loads of these things really feel fairly goofy and innocent right here, however actually a minimum of a few of it could be just a little too grim to sync with the satirical sensibilities of the fashionable collection.
Verdict
Like a Stone Age axe, Grand Theft Auto is tough, primitive, and – actually – greater than just a little cumbersome. Nonetheless, like mentioned axe, it’s nonetheless a worthwhile artefact that maintains an efficient edge to it. Fearless however flawed and endearing however unnecessarily troublesome, the unique Grand Theft Auto could also be difficult to wholeheartedly advocate to anybody who didn’t beforehand play it throughout its second again within the late ’90s, however I can’t deny how fascinating it’s been to re-experience its prehistoric model of open-world freedom within the context of every part that’s come since. It simply calls for endurance, precision, and a paper map by your facet.
Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN opinions group. You’ll be able to monitor him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him issues about stuff.