GTA III turns 20: when Rockstar revolutionized the world of video games three times in a row

GTA III turns 20

There are those who were left speechless in front of Grand Theft Auto 3, and those who lie.

The Rockstar Games game, which just turns twenty today, is one of those that when you saw them for the first time you were stunned. Younger people, perhaps, are not used to experiencing videogame revolutions in real time: over the years, in fact, the much feared diminuishing return, that phenomenon that heralds a progressive thinning of the amazement linked to graphics as they become more and more realistic. finally come true. There were some amazing games, then mass VR arrived, however very little that can really compete with the numerous technical turning points that followed one another up to the 10s of the 2000s. After we have witnessed more than anything else a process of refinement of genres and logic already seen, we then worked a lot on the plots, raised the artistic level and more and more multifaceted, complex and in some cases, when required, human characters were introduced. . But the creative alphabet is largely what it was composed between 1990 and the following century, precisely the same period when Grand Theft Auto III debuted in stores.

A revolutionary open world

The anonymous and silent Claude was soon replaced by Tommy Vercetti, a miniature Al Pacino, and finally by the mammoth Carl Johnson Open worlds existed before GTA III , there are older ones everywhere, but they were different from what Rockstar offered almost all of a sudden twenty years ago. They too did it before GTA III, for example Body Harvest on Nintendo 64, a console where the open worlds have never been many, but most have made history. GTA III offered you things that simply weren't anywhere else: a huge city, full of life, capable of responding to player actions dynamically; a city where you were allowed to go anywhere, drive anywhere, fly anywhere. If you tried to swim, however, they were problems, you died immediately because not being able to do it was one of the expedients to divide the map into three and give the story the right progression.

GTA III, then, was not the usual game with a serious approach ... even Daggerfall, Skyrim's grandfather, had an open and huge map, it even promised almost infinite adventures, but it was from Bethesda and in 1996 , you can imagine, right? GTA III was as fast and responsive as an action game, it allowed you to drive like in a racing game, its missions could be approached in total freedom as in the most cerebral and demanding games.

The irreverent game

In the trio consisting of GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas there are also several secondary activities as typical at the time as they are forgotten today: entering a taxi you could work as a taxi driver, the same thing in ambulances and police cars As Dan Houser, one of the two founding brothers of Rockstar Games, recounts in a 2011 interview: "When GTA III arrived on PS2, it felt like something radically new. An environment full of content that can be accessed geographically or by facing the timeline of the game. history.

It may seem obvious today, but the idea of ​​being able to access mechanics and modes in full continuity at the time was incredibly advanced. a car, not because you entered driving mode. You shoot because you pulled out a gun, not because a level where weapons are compulsory has begun. You can do anything, anywhere, within reason. But it is a reason based on logic rather than technical limitation, if it makes sense, this is its greatest legacy. "GTA III was everything and it was new, mind-blowing, plus it could count on the charm of the beautiful and the damned: with its cheeky violence, bad language and just the right amount of sex, the Rockstar game was your parents' perfect enemy, forbidden software, hunted down by the worried media. A practically irresistible bad boy, not to be presented at home, but to sneak out with in the evening.

A graphics engine for the occasion

Unforgettable roads For some of us it is now impossible to get lost in Liberty City The popularity of Grand Theft Auto III is linked to another great success story, that of Criterion Games. Founded in 1993 in Guildford, England, as a subsidiary of Canon (the Japanese camera, printer and medical machinery) to experiment with 3D, Criterion pulled fu from his workshop in record time what turned out to be a perfect graphics engine for video games, moreover particularly similar to the PlayStation 2 hardware: the 3D RenderWare. Canon supported this natural affinity with the Sony console and Criterion soon began to develop games, also to test more and more the capabilities of the young 3D engine that year after year showed more and more quality. RenderWare reaches full maturity in 2001, when the first Burnout comes out and, a few weeks later, Grand Theft Auto III. The RenderWare went fast and with that combination of games convinces dozens of software houses from all over the world to request the license for use: Suikoden III and Persona 3 and 4 are created with RenderWare, like Mortal Kombat Armageddon and three different Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, plus many more.

Streaming to the limit

Of course, before turning off the console, every time you tried to hold out as long as possible causing panic in the city. .. weren't you doing it too? GTA III, like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, will squeeze the most of the Criterion engine features that often, longtime gamers will remember, couldn't keep up with the speed of gameplay. And at the time it wasn't just the textures that updated late, but the whole game world: if you launched yourself at full speed on the best performing machine, you had to slow down to allow the buildings and streets to reappear in their place. Today it may seem like an unsustainable problem, but twenty years ago we were willing to do anything to be able to live inside a GTA like that, even waiting for the graphics to catch up with us at the traffic lights. And anyway a minute of silence for all those DVD players that have had to endure such an effort and for so long, we say to you that you will never be forgotten and this article confirms it.

The rival disappeared

"No, if you can take the subway too!" my friend said with the pad in his hand as he tried the game for the first time. I still remember when the review code arrived in the editorial office. At that time, I mostly played it on PC and Dreamcast, postponing the purchase of a personal PlayStation 2 for as long as possible. I decided to buy one exactly five minutes after the start of GTA III, when everyone gathered around the screen we started that more boring version of the beautiful ... what was the name of the other Rockstar game, the one we were all really waiting for. instead of GTA III? The strength of GTA III was not immediately clear because the same family of developers had presented the year before another game that seemed much more fun, as well as technically absurd, called State of Emergency. Temperamentally the two games were very similar, but State of Emergency focused on an older style, reassuring gameplay, while the huge number of characters on screen made it extremely flashy, irresistible at first glance. In GTA III you had to give it time, which was only five minutes, but still too much to emerge among the lights, the music and the noises of the huge E3s of those years, among other things the last in which Rockstar Games will participate.

Three revolutions in four years

Ironic that today almost no one remembers State of Emergency, while Grand Theft Auto, GTA, is one of the most successful intellectual properties in the history of video games and beyond . And then, if you think about it, the story of GTA III does not stop with GTA III, which together with Vice City and San Andreas almost forms an ideal trilogy. The three games are linked by the same graphics engine (with GTA IV, Rockstar Games will switch to the proprietary Rage engine), as well as by the same incredible disruptive creativity that has led the series to disrupt the video game industry three times in just four years. . GTA III comes out in 2001, the public does not have time to recover that the following year comes Vice City and we all know what Vice City is like, in 2003 nothing and then the unsurpassed San Andreas.

In four years, Rockstar has recreated its old GTA completely in 3D, then temporally contextualized it with the 80's of Vice City and finally gave it an original protagonist in San Andreas, thus abandoning the quotationism of the previous titles that was wearing out quickly anyway. A trajectory of a missile fired into the sky, which Dan and Sam Houser plus the rest of the crew have been able to push even higher in the following years, up to break through that hyperuranium that leads to the final consecration. It hurts though, huh? I am referring to the fact that before, you could have brought a Vice City to stores in a year, and now after eight years of GTA V there is still no trace of a new chapter.

And finally. ..

Los Santos, San Fierro, Las Venturas, Vice City, Liberty City ... which one is your favorite? There is still too much to tell, too much to celebrate. Generational titles are infused with a unique magic, they are part of you and your personal story. GTA III for many is just that, a game whose musical attack is enough to travel through time and find yourself among the places and faces of those years, practically our us of 2001: young, with high hopes and raised in the worst alleys by Liberty City. Fuck off!

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