Burn Rubber (Grand Theft Auto (PC))

Member Name: JRW

Product:	Grand Theft Auto (PC)
Date:	01/08/00 (33 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: gameplay

Disadvantages: graphics not brilliant

How dare they acknowledge that violence occurs in this computer game! Whether you see certain computer games as mind altering is your business. Max Clifford, in publicising Grand Theft Auto, certainly appealed to the destructive audience but whether or not you would term Grand Theft Auto as destructive, you’ve just got to admit that it isn’t a bad game.

In Grand Theft Auto you play and up-and-coming crook intent on rising in stature and influence in the criminal world. However before you visit the higher echelons of criminality, you must build your reputation and standing by committing certain crimes.

The tasks are allotted to your characters in different ways, but mostly you just answer the phone and are given a job to do. This may be stealing a car, assassinating an important person or blowing up a building. Sounds very destructive, doesn’t it? If you successfully complete your missions then your points total increases. There are three different cities within the game, and you have to complete two sets of missions in each if you are to progress to the next city and stage. Make sure you watch out for the police and rival gangs!

As the stages advance the difficulty increases, naturally. This allows a beginner to find their feet, enjoy the game and then progress as their “skills” increase. Also the controls are very straightforward with Grand Theft Auto demanding the use of the cursor keys and a couple of other buttons. Fortunately for you console wannabies, you can use a joystick to control your character and car.

For the most part of Grand Theft Auto, your character will find himself driving a car around the cities. There is a fairly large range of automobiles that you can choose from and each handles differently. The game play is pretty non-linear in that you can drive pretty much anywhere you want. However, the missions are inflexible and it seems that a random mission feature would have enhanced t
he already-excellent game play. The graphics are admittedly rather functional, as opposed to spectacular, though this ensures that a high-end PC with a trillion megabytes of memory isn’t required, fortunately.

If you can put up with the violent nature of the game which was very over-hyped upon release, then you will enjoy a game which shows that not all software companies have forgotten the idea of game play.

Summary: