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About the Game

Minecraft is a sandbox video game created and designed by Swedish game designer Markus "Notch" Persson, and later fully developed and published by Mojang. The creative and building aspects of Minecraft enable players to build constructions out of textured cubes in a 3D procedurally generated world. Other activities in the game include exploration, resource gathering, crafting, and combat. Multiple gameplay modes are available, including a survival mode where the player must acquire resources to build the world and maintain health, a creative mode where players have unlimited resources to build with and the ability to fly, an adventure mode where players can play custom maps created by other players, and a spectator mode where players can fly around and clip through blocks, but cannot place or destroy any. The PC version of the game is noted for its modding scene, where a dedicated community creates new gameplay mechanics, items, and assets for the game.

Minecraft has received praise from critics, and won numerous awards and accolades. As of February 2017, over 121 million copies have been sold across all platforms, making it the second best-selling video game of all time, only behind the various releases of Tetris. In September 2014, Microsoft announced a deal to buy Mojang and the Minecraft intellectual property for US$2.5 billion, with the acquisition being completed two months later.

Gameplay

Minecraft is a three-dimensional sandbox game that has no specific goals for the player to accomplish, allowing players a great amount of freedom in choosing how to play the game. However, there is an achievement system. Gameplay by default is first person, but players have the option to play in third person mode. The core gameplay revolves around breaking and placing blocks. The game world is composed of rough 3D objects—mainly cubes—arranged in a fixed grid pattern and representing different materials, such as dirt, stone, various ores, water, lava, tree trunks, etc. While players can move freely across the world, objects can only be placed at fixed locations on the grid. Players can gather these material blocks and place them elsewhere, thus allowing for various constructions.

At the start of the game, the player is placed on the surface of a procedurally generated and virtually infinite game world. The world is divided into biomes ranging from deserts to jungles to snowfields. Players can walk across the terrain consisting of plains, mountains, forests, caves, and various water bodies. The in-game time system follows a day and night cycle, with one full cycle lasting 20 real-time minutes. Throughout the course of the game, players encounter various non-player characters known as mobs, including animals, villagers and hostile creatures. Non-hostile animals—such as cows, pigs, and chickens—can be hunted for food and crafting materials, and spawn in the daytime. By contrast, hostile mobs—such as large spiders, skeletons, and zombies—spawn during nighttime or in dark places, such as caves. Some Minecraft-unique creatures have been noted by reviewers, such as the Creeper, an exploding creature that sneaks up on the player; and the Enderman, a creature with the ability to teleport and pick up blocks.

A few of the hostile monsters displayed in Minecraft from left to right: Zombie, Spider, Enderman, Creeper, Skeleton The game world is procedurally generated as players explore it, using a map seed which is obtained from the system clock at the time of world creation unless manually specified by the player. Although there are limits on movement up and down, Minecraft allows for an infinitely large game world to be generated on the horizontal plane, only running into technical problems when extremely distant locations are reached. The game achieves this by splitting the game world data into smaller sections called "chunks", which are only created or loaded into memory when players are nearby.

The game's physics system has often been described by commentators as unrealistic. Most solid blocks are not affected by gravity. Liquids flow from a source block, which can be removed by placing a solid block in its place, or by scooping it into a bucket. Complex systems can be built using primitive mechanical devices, electrical circuits, and logic gates built with an in-game material known as redstone.

Minecraft features two alternate dimensions besides the main world—the Nether and the End. The Nether is a hell-like dimension accessed via player-built portals that contains many unique resources and can be used to travel great distances in the overworld. The End is a barren land in which a boss dragon called the Ender Dragon dwells. Killing the dragon cues the game's ending credits, written by Irish author Julian Gough. Players are then allowed to teleport back to their original spawn point in the overworld. There is also a second boss called "The Wither", which upon defeat drops a specific material needed to build a placeable beacon that can enhance certain abilities of all nearby players.

The game primarily consists of four game modes: survival, creative, adventure, and spectator. It also has a changeable difficulty system of four levels; the easiest difficulty (peaceful) prevents hostile creatures from spawning.

Survival Mode

In this mode, players have to gather natural resources (such as wood and stone) found in the environment in order to craft certain blocks and items. Depending on the difficulty, monsters spawn in darker areas outside a certain radius of the character, requiring the player to build a shelter at night. The mode also features a health bar which is depleted by attacks from monsters, falls, drowning, falling into lava, suffocation, starvation, and other events. Players also have a hunger bar, which must be periodically refilled by eating food in-game, except in "Peaceful" difficulty, in which the hunger bar does not drain. If the hunger bar is depleted, automatic healing will stop and eventually health will deplete. Health replenishes when players have a nearly full hunger bar, and also regenerates regardless of fullness if players play on the "Peaceful" difficulty.

There are a wide variety of items that players can craft in Minecraft. Players can craft armour, which can help mitigate damage from attacks, while weapons such as swords can be crafted to kill enemies and other animals more easily. Players may acquire resources to craft tools, such as axes, shovels, or pickaxes, used to chop down trees, dig soil, and mine ores, respectively; tools made of iron perform their tasks more quickly than tools made of stone or wood and can be used more heavily before they break. Players may also trade goods with villager mobs through a bartering system involving trading emeralds for different goods. Villagers often trade with emeralds, wheat or other materials.

The game has an inventory system, and players can carry a limited number of items. Upon dying, items in the players' inventories are dropped, and players re-spawn at the current spawn point, which is set by default where players begin the game, but can be reset if players sleep in a bed. Dropped items can be recovered if players can reach them before they despawn. Players may acquire experience points by killing mobs and other players, mining, smelting ores, breeding animals, and cooking food. Experience can then be spent on enchanting tools, armour and weapons. Enchanted items are generally more powerful, last longer, or have other special effects.

Hardcore Mode

Players may also play in hardcore mode, this being a variant of survival mode that differs primarily in the game being locked to the hardest gameplay setting as well as featuring permanent death; upon players' death, their world is deleted. When a player dies on a server set to hardcore mode, the player is banned from that server.

Creative Mode

In creative mode, players have access to all of the resources and items in the game through the inventory menu, and can place or remove them instantly. Players, who are able to fly freely around the game world, do not take environmental or mob damage, and are not affected by hunger. The game mode helps players focus on building and creating large projects.

Adventure Mode

Adventure mode was added to Minecraft in version 1.3; it was designed specifically so that players could experience user crafted custom maps and adventures. Gameplay is similar to survival mode but introduces various player restrictions, which can be applied to the game world by the creator of the map. This is so that players can obtain the required items and experience adventures in the way that the mapmaker intended. Another addition designed for custom maps is the command block; this block allows mapmakers to expand interactions with players through certain server commands.

Spectator Mode

Spectator mode allows players to fly around through blocks and watch gameplay without interacting. In this mode, the hotbar becomes a menu that allows the player to teleport to players in the world. It is also possible to view from the point of view of another player or creature. Some things may look different from another creature's point of view.

Multiplayer Mode

Multiplayer on Minecraft is available through player-hosted and business-hosted servers and enables multiple players to interact and communicate with each other on a single world. Players can run their own servers or use a hosting provider. Single-player worlds have local area network support, allowing players to join worlds on locally interconnected computers without a server setup. Minecraft multiplayer servers are guided by server operators, who have access to server commands such as setting the time of day and teleporting players around. Operators can also set up restrictions concerning which usernames or IP addresses are allowed to enter the server. Multiplayer servers offer players a wide range of activities, with some servers having their own unique rules and customs. Player versus player (PvP) can also be enabled to allow fighting between players. Many servers today have custom plugins that enable the player and the server to do many different things that are not normally possible. In 2013, Mojang announced Minecraft Realms, a server hosting service intended to enable players to run server multiplayer games easily and safely without the hassle of setting up their own. Realms varies from a standard server in that only invited players can join the server, and that they do not use a server IP. Realms server owners can invite up to twenty people to play on their realm; however, the server can only have ten people online at a time, and does not support user-made plugins. As announced at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2016, Realms will enable Minecraft to support cross-platform play between Windows 10, iOS, and Android versions starting in June 2016, with Xbox One and Nintendo Switch support to come later in 2017, and eventually support for virtual reality devices. On July 31, 2017, Microsoft released the beta version of the update allowing cross-platform play, known as Better Together.

Development

Markus "Notch" Persson began developing the game as a project. He was inspired to create Minecraft by several other games such as Dwarf Fortress, Dungeon Keeper, and later Infiniminer. At the time, he had visualised an isometric 3D building game that would be a cross between his inspirations and had made some early prototypes. Infiniminer heavily influenced the style of gameplay, including the first-person aspect of the game, the "blocky" visual style and the block-building fundamentals. However, unlike Infiniminer, Persson wanted Minecraft to have RPG elements.

Minecraft was first released to the public on 17 May 2009, as a developmental release on TIGSource forums, later becoming known as the Classic version. Further milestones dubbed as Survival Test, Indev and Infdev were released between September 2009 and February 2010, although the game saw updates in-between. The first major update, dubbed alpha version, was released on 28 June 2010. Although Persson maintained a day job with Jalbum.net at first, he later quit in order to work on Minecraft full-time as sales of the alpha version of the game expanded. Persson continued to update the game with releases distributed to users automatically. These updates included features such as new items, new blocks, new mobs, survival mode, and changes to the game's behaviour (e.g., how water flows).

To back the development of Minecraft, Persson set up a video game company, Mojang, with the money earned from the game. On 11 December 2010, Persson announced that Minecraft was entering its beta testing phase on 20 December 2010. He further stated that users who bought the game after this date would no longer be guaranteed to receive all future content free of charge as it "scared both the lawyers and the board." However, bug fixes and all updates leading up to and including the release would still be free. Over the course of the development, Mojang hired several new employees to work on the project.

Mojang moved the game out of beta and released the full version on 18 November 2011. The game has been continuously updated since the release, with changes ranging from new game content to new server hosts. On 1 December 2011, Jens "Jeb" Bergensten took full creative control over Minecraft, replacing Persson as lead developer. On 28 February 2012, Mojang announced that they had hired the developers of the popular server platform "CraftBukkit" to improve Minecraft's support of server modifications. This acquisition also included Mojang apparently taking full ownership of the CraftBukkit modification, although the validity of this claim was questioned due to its status as an open-source project with many contributors, licensed under the GNU General Public License and Lesser General Public License. On 15 September 2014, Microsoft announced a $2.5 billion deal to buy Mojang, along with the ownership of the Minecraft intellectual property. The deal was suggested by Persson when he posted a tweet asking a corporation to buy his share of the game after receiving criticism for "trying to do the right thing." It was completed on 6 November 2014, and led to Persson becoming one of Forbes' "World's Billionaires".

Audio

Minecraft's music and sound effects were produced by German sound designer Daniel "C418" Rosenfeld. The background music in Minecraft is non-lyrical ambient music. On 4 March 2011, Rosenfeld released a soundtrack, titled Minecraft – Volume Alpha; it includes most of the tracks featured in Minecraft, as well as other music not featured in the game. The video game blog Kotaku chose the music in Minecraft as one of the best video game soundtracks of 2011. On 9 November 2013, Rosenfeld released the second official soundtrack, titled Minecraft – Volume Beta, which includes the music that was added in later versions of the game. A physical release of Volume Alpha, consisting of CDs, black vinyl, and limited-edition transparent green vinyl LPs, was issued by acclaimed indie electronic label Ghostly International on 21 August 2015.

Release

Personal Computers Version

The game runs on multiple operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux. Apart from the main version, there are other versions of Minecraft available for PC, including Minecraft Classic and Minecraft 4k.

Minecraft Classic is an older version of Minecraft, available online for players. Unlike newer versions of Minecraft, the classic version is free to play, though it is no longer updated. It functions much the same as creative mode, allowing players to build and destroy any and all parts of the world either alone or in a multiplayer server. There are no computer creatures in this mode, and environmental hazards such as lava will not damage players. Some blocks function differently since their behaviour was later changed during development.

Minecraft 4k is a simplified version of Minecraft similar to the classic version that was developed for the Java 4K game programming contest "in way less than 4 kilobytes". The map itself is finite—composed of 64×64×64 blocks—and the same world is generated every time. Players are restricted to placing or destroying blocks, which consist of grass, dirt, stone, wood, leaves, and brick.

Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition is a version exclusive to Microsoft's Windows 10 operating system. The beta for it launched on the Windows Store on 29 July 2015. This version features the ability to play with Xbox Live friends (but not with those who have the Xbox One version), and to play local multiplayer with owners of the Pocket Edition. Other features include the ability to use multiple control schemes, such as a controller (preferably an Xbox controller), keyboard, or touchscreen (for Windows Phone and Microsoft Surface), and to record and take screenshots in-game via the built-in GameDVR.

Console Versions

The Xbox 360 version of the game, developed by 4J Studios, was released on 9 May 2012. On 22 March 2012, it was announced that Minecraft would be the flagship game in a new Xbox Live promotion called Arcade NEXT. The game differs from the home computer versions in a number of ways, including a newly designed crafting system, the control interface, in-game tutorials, split-screen multiplayer, and the ability to play with friends via Xbox Live. The version's crafting interface does not require players to place items in the correct place in a crafting menu, however, this option was added in a later update. The interface shows the blocks required to craft the selected item, and crafts it if the players have enough blocks. The worlds in the Xbox 360 version are also not "infinite", and are essentially barricaded by invisible walls. The Xbox 360 version was originally similar in content to older PC versions, but is being gradually updated to bring it closer to the current PC version.

At Gamescom 2013, Sony announced that Minecraft would be released as a PlayStation 4 launch title, and would later be released as for the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 3. However, the game was later delayed and the PlayStation 4 version did not launch alongside the console. It was released on the PlayStation 3 on 17 December 2013, on the PlayStation 4 on 4 September 2014, and on the PlayStation Vita on 14 October 2014 in North America, and in Europe the next day. Like the Xbox versions, the PlayStation versions were developed by 4J Studios, and are nearly identical to the Xbox 360 version.

During their E3 2013 press conference Microsoft showed a trailer for Minecraft: Xbox One Edition. It is similar to Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition but features larger worlds, expanded multiplayer features, and other enhancements. This version released on 5 September 2014.

On 17 December 2015, Minecraft: Wii U Edition was released. The Wii U version received a physical release on 17 June 2016 in North America, in Japan on 23 June 2016, and in Europe on 30 June 2016.

A Nintendo Switch version of the game was released on the Nintendo eShop on 11 May 2017, along with a physical retail version set for a later date.

Pocket Edition

On 16 August 2011, Minecraft: Pocket Edition was released for the Xperia Play on the Android Market as an early alpha version. It was then released for several other compatible devices on 8 October 2011. An iOS version of Minecraft was released on 17 November 2011.

A port was made available for Windows Phones shortly after Microsoft acquired Mojang. The port concentrates on the creative building and the primitive survival aspect of the game, and does not contain all the features of the PC release. On his Twitter account, Jens Bergensten noted that the Pocket Edition of Minecraft is written in C++ and not Java, due to iOS not being able to support Java. Gradual updates are periodically released to bring the port closer to the PC version. On 10 December 2014, in observance of Mojang's acquisition by Microsoft, a port of Pocket Edition was released for Windows Phone 8.1.

On 2 April 2014, a version of Minecraft based on the Pocket Edition was released for the Amazon Fire. On 29 July 2015, a version of Minecraft based on the Pocket Edition was released for Windows 10. On 19 December 2016, the full version of Minecraft: Pocket Edition was released on iOS, Android, Windows Phone and Windows 10, along with the release of the game based on the Pocket Edition for the Apple TV.

On 18 January 2017, Microsoft announced that it would no longer maintain the Windows Phone versions of Pocket Edition.

Raspberry Pi

A version of Minecraft for the Raspberry Pi was officially revealed at MineCon 2012. Mojang stated that the Pi Edition is similar to the Pocket Edition except that it is downgraded to an older version, and with the added ability of using text commands to edit the game world. Players can open the game code and use programming languages to manipulate things in the game world. The game was leaked on 20 December 2012, but was quickly pulled off. It was officially released on 11 February 2013.

Virtual Reality

A modification known as Minecraft VR was developed to provide virtual reality support to the original Java version of Minecraft oriented towards Oculus Rift hardware. A fork of Minecraft known as Vivecraft ported the mod to OpenVR, and is oriented towards supporting HTC Vive hardware.

On 15 August 2016, Microsoft launched official Oculus Rift support for the Windows 10 Edition of the game. Upon its release, the Minecraft VR mod was discontinued by its developer due to trademark complaints issued by Microsoft, and Vivecraft was endorsed due to its Rift support and being superior to the original mod.

User Generated Content

A wide variety of user-generated content for Minecraft, such as modifications, texture packs and custom maps, are available for download from the Internet. Modifications of the Minecraft code, called "mods," add a variety of gameplay changes, ranging from new blocks, new items, new mobs to entire arrays of mechanisms to craft. The modding community is responsible for a substantial supply of mods from ones that enhance gameplay, such as minimaps, waypoints, and durability counters, to ones that add to the game elements from Pokémon, Portal, and The Hunger Games. To make mods easier to create and install, Mojang announced in November 2012 that it planned to add an official modding application programming interface (API).

Texture packs that alter the game's textures and HUD are also available, as created by the community. In July 2013, texture packs were replaced with "resource packs", which have the same role as texture packs, but allow custom audio as well. Players are also create their own maps, which often contain specific rules, challenges, puzzles and quests, and share them for others to play. In version 1.3,when Mojang added "adventure mode" for custom maps and in 1.4,when Mojang added command blocks, which were created specially for custom maps. In 1.9,when Mojang added 2 new versions (Repeat, and Chain) of the classic command block, which were also created specifically for custom maps.

The Xbox 360 Edition supports downloadable content, which is available to purchase via the Xbox Games Store; these content packs usually contain additional character skins. It later received support for texture packs in its twelfth title update while introducing "mash-up packs", which combines texture packs with skin packs and changes to the game's sounds, music and user interface. The first mash-up pack (and by extension, the first texture pack) for the Xbox 360 Edition was released on 4 September 2013, and is themed after the Mass Effect franchise. Unlike the PC version, however, the Xbox 360 Edition does not support player-made mods or custom maps. A cross-promotional resource pack based on the Super Mario franchise by Nintendo was released for the Wii U Edition worldwide on 17 May 2016. A mash-up pack based on Fallout was announced for release on the Wii U Edition.

In June 2017, Mojang released an update known as the "Discovery Update." The update includes many features, such as a new map, a new game mode, and the "Marketplace," a catalogue of user-generated content that gives Minecraft creators "another way to make a living from the game."

Reception

Commercial

On 12 January 2011, Minecraft passed 1 million purchases less than a month after entering its beta phase. At the same time, the game had no publisher backing and has never been commercially advertised except through word of mouth, and various unpaid references in popular media such as the Penny Arcade webcomic. By April 2011, Persson estimated that Minecraft had made €23 million (US$33 million) in revenue, with 800,000 sales of the alpha version of the game, and over 1 million sales of the beta version. In November 2011, prior to the game's full release, Minecraft beta surpassed 16 million registered users and 4 million purchases. By March 2012, Minecraft had become the 6th best-selling PC game of all time. As of 10 October 2014, the game has sold 17 million copies on PC, becoming the best-selling PC game of all time. As of 10 October 2014, the game has sold approximately 60 million copies across all platforms, making it one of the best-selling video games of all time. On 25 February 2014, the game reached 100 million registered users. As of February 2017, over 121 million copies had been sold, making it the best-selling PC game to date and the second best-selling video game of all time behind Tetris.

The Xbox 360 version of Minecraft became profitable within the first 24 hours of the game's release in 2012, when the game broke the Xbox Live sales records with 400,000 players online. Within a week of being on the Xbox Live Marketplace, Minecraft sold upwards of 1 million copies. GameSpot announced in December 2012 that Minecraft sold over 4.48 million copies since the game debuted on Xbox Live Arcade in May 2012. In 2012, Minecraft was the most purchased title on Xbox Live Arcade; it was also the fourth most played title on Xbox Live based on average unique users per day. As of 4 April 2014, the Xbox 360 version has sold 12 million copies. In addition, Minecraft: Pocket Edition has reached a figure of 21 million in sales. The PlayStation 3 version sold one million copies in five weeks. The release of the game's PlayStation Vita version boosted Minecraft sales by 79%, outselling both PS3 and PS4 debut releases and becoming the largest Minecraft launch on a PlayStation console. The PS Vita version sold 100,000 digital copies in Japan within the first two months of release, according to an announcement by SCE Japan Asia. By January 2015, 500,000 digital copies of Minecraft were sold in Japan across all PlayStation platforms, with a surge in primary school children purchasing the PS Vita version. Minecraft helped improve Microsoft's total first-party revenue by $63 million for the 2015 second quarter.

Critical Reception

Minecraft has been praised for the creative freedom it grants players in-game, as well as the ease of enabling emergent gameplay. Critics have praised Minecraft's complex crafting system, commenting that it is an important aspect of the game's open-ended gameplay. Most publications were impressed by the game's "blocky" graphics, with IGN describing them as "instantly memorable". Reviewers also liked the game's adventure elements, noting that the game creates a good balance between exploring and building. The game's multiplayer feature has been generally received favourably, with IGN commenting that "adventuring is always better with friends." Jaz McDougall of PC Gamer commended Minecraft, deeming it "intuitively interesting and contagiously fun, with an unparalleled scope for creativity and memorable experiences". It has been regarded as having introduced millions of children to the digital world, insofar as its basic game mechanics are logically analogous to computer commands. 

Reviewers have criticised the game's lack of in-game tutorials and instructions, making it difficult for new players to learn how to play the game. IGN was disappointed about the troublesome steps needed to set up multiplayer servers, calling it a "hassle". Critics also noted visual glitches that occur periodically. In 2009, GameSpot maintained that the game has an "unfinished feel", adding that "some game elements seem incomplete or thrown together in haste."

A review of the alpha version, by Scott Munro of the Daily Record, called it "already something special" and urged readers to buy it. Jim Rossignol of Rock, Paper, Shotgun also recommended the alpha of the game, calling it "a kind of generative 8-bit Lego Stalker". On 17 September 2010, gaming webcomic Penny Arcade began a series of comics and news posts about the addictiveness of the game.

The Xbox 360 version was generally received positively by critics, but did not receive as much praise as the PC version. Although reviewers were disappointed by the lack of features such as mod support and content from the PC version, they acclaimed the port's addition of a tutorial and in-game tips and crafting recipes, saying that they make the game more user-friendly.

Minecraft: Pocket Edition initially received mixed reviews from critics. Although reviewers appreciated the game's intuitive controls, they were disappointed by the lack of content. The inability to collect resources and craft items, as well as the limited types of blocks and lack of hostile mobs, were especially criticised. Recently,when though, it has started receiving positive reviews, due to the game's updates adding more content. In addition to the controls, reviewers have complimented the graphics, though still note the lack of content.

Awards

In July 2010, PC Gamer listed Minecraft as the fourth-best game to play at work. In December of that year, Good Game selected Minecraft as their choice for Best Downloadable Game of 2010, Gamasutra named it the eighth best game of the year as well as the eighth best indie game of the year, and Rock, Paper, Shotgun named it the "game of the year". Indie DB awarded the game the 2010 Indie of the Year award as chosen by voters, in addition to two out of five Editor's Choice awards for Most Innovative and Best Singleplayer Indie. It was also awarded Game of the Year by PC Gamer UK. The game was nominated for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Technical Excellence, and Excellence in Design awards at the March 2011 Independent Games Festival and won the Grand Prize along with community-voted Audience Award. At Game Developers Choice Awards 2011, Minecraft won awards in the categories for Best Debut Game, Best Downloadable Game and Innovation Award, winning every award for which it was nominated. It also won GameCity's video game arts award. On 5 May 2011, Minecraft was selected as one of the 80 games that would be displayed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum as part of The Art of Video Games exhibit that opened on 16 March 2012. At the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards, Minecraft won the award for Best Independent Game and was nominated in the Best PC Game category. In 2012, at the British Academy Video Games Awards, Minecraft was nominated in the GAME Award of 2011 category and Notch received The Special Award. In 2012, Minecraft XBLA was awarded a Golden Joystick Award in the Best Downloadable Game category, and a TIGA Games Industry Award in the Best Arcade Game category. In 2013 it was nominated as the family game of the year at the British Academy Video Games Awards. Minecraft Console Edition won the award for TIGA Game Of The Year in 2014. In 2015, the game placed 6th on USgamer's The 15 Best Games Since 2000 list. In 2016, Minecraft placed 6th on Time's The 50 Best Video Games of All Time list.

Minecraft was nominated for the 2013 Kids' Choice Awards for Favorite App, but lost to Temple Run. It was nominated for the 2014 Kids' Choice Awards for Favorite Video Game, but lost to Just Dance 2014. The game later won the award for the Most Addicting Game at the 2015 Kids' Choice Awards.

Spin-off games

Minecraft Story Mode

Minecraft: Story Mode, an episodic spin-off game developed by Telltale Games in collaboration with Mojang, was announced in December 2014. Consisting of five episodes plus three additional downloadable episodes, the standalone game will be narrative and player choice-driven, and it was released on Microsoft Windows, OS X, iOS, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One via download on 13 October 2015. A physical disc that grants access to all episodes was released for the aforementioned four consoles on 27 October. A Wii U version was also confirmed in an August 2015 interview with The Verge. A Nintendo Switch version is set to be released sometime in 2017. The first trailer for the game was shown at MineCon on 4 July 2015, revealing some of the game's features. In Minecraft: Story Mode, players control Jesse (voiced by Patton Oswalt and Catherine Taber), who sets out on a journey with his or her friends to find The Order of the Stone—four adventurers who slayed an Ender Dragon—in order to save their world. Brian Posehn, Ashley Johnson, Scott Porter, Martha Plimpton, Dave Fennoy, Corey Feldman, Billy West and Paul Reubens portray the rest of the cast.

Minecraft Education Edition

In January 2016, Microsoft announced a new tool for education, called Minecraft: Education Edition or MinecraftEDU, planned to be released in 2016. Minecraft has already been used in classrooms around the world to teach subjects ranging from core STEM topics to arts and poetry. Minecraft: Education Edition will be designed specifically for classroom use. The Education Edition gives teachers the tools they need to use Minecraft on an everyday basis.

There are few differences between Minecraft and MinecraftEDU. The main concept is the same, an open sandbox world. The students' characters in MinecraftEDU will be able to retain characteristics. Students will also be able to download the game at home, without having to buy their own version of the game. Finally the last large difference is that students can take in-game photos. These photos will be stored in an online notebook with the students' online notes. These online notebooks will be shareable with other students.

Cultural Impact

Social media sites such as YouTube, Facebook, and Reddit played a significant role in popularising Minecraft. Research conducted by the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School of Communication showed that one-third of Minecraft players learned about the game via Internet videos. In 2010, Minecraft-related videos began to gain affluence on YouTube, often made by commentators. The videos usually contain screen-capture footage of the game and voice-overs. Common coverage in the videos includes creations made by players, walkthroughs of various tasks, and parodies of works in popular culture. By May 2012, over 4 million Minecraft-related YouTube videos had been uploaded. Some popular commentators have received employment at Machinima, a gaming video company that owns a highly watched entertainment channel on YouTube. The Yogscast is a British organisation that regularly produces Minecraft videos; their YouTube channel has attained billions of views, and their panel at MineCon 2011 had the highest attendance. Other well known YouTube personnel include Jordan Maron, who has created many Minecraft parodies, including "Minecraft Style", a parody of the internationally successful single "Gangnam Style" by South Korean rapper PSY. Herobrine is a major community icon of Minecraft, who first appeared as a single image on 4chan's /v/ board. According to rumours, Herobrine appears in players' worlds and builds strange constructions. However, Mojang has confirmed that Herobrine has never existed in Minecraft, and there are no plans to add Herobrine.

Minecraft has been referenced by other video games, such as RuneScape, Torchlight II, Borderlands 2, Choplifter HD, Super Meat Boy, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, The Binding of Isaac, Team Fortress 2, and FTL: Faster Than Light. It was also referenced by electronic music artist deadmau5 in his performances. A simulation of the game was featured in Lady Gaga's "G.U.Y." music video. After the release of Minecraft, some video games were released with various similarities with Minecraft, and some were called "clones" of the game. Examples include Ace of Spades, CastleMiner, CraftWorld, FortressCraft, Terraria, and Total Miner. David Frampton, designer of The Blockheads, reported that one failure of his 2D game was the "low resolution pixel art" that too closely resembled the art in Minecraft which resulted in "some resistance" from fans.

Minecraft Clones

In response to Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang and their Minecraft IP, various developers suddenly announced even further clone titles that were being developed specifically for Nintendo's consoles, as they were the only major platforms to not officially receive Minecraft at the time. These clone titles include UCraft (Nexis Games), Cube Life: Island Survival (Cypronia), Discovery (noowanda), Battleminer (Wobbly Tooth Games), Cube Creator 3D (Big John Games), and Stone Shire (Finger Gun Games). In 2014, Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto stated in an interview that the Wii U GamePad was a "good fit" for the title, and that Nintendo could have popularised the game in Japan. In a July 2015 interview with Mojang COO Vu Bui, it was revealed that the company was still interested in releasing the game on more platforms, and declared that Microsoft's acquisition would not hinder that prospect. According to Bui, he has "never heard a reason why they haven't ended up on Wii U or 3DS. It just hasn't happened yet." In August 2015, Telltale Games confirmed that the spin-off title Minecraft: Story Mode would be coming to Wii U, making it the first game in the franchise on a Nintendo console. A Wii U version of Minecraft was released on 17 December 2015.

A homebrew adaptation of the alpha version of Minecraft for the Nintendo DS, titled DScraft, has been released; it has been noted for its similarity to the original game considering the technical limitations of the system.

Adaptions

In 2012, Mojang received offers from Hollywood producers who wanted to produce Minecraft-related TV shows; however, Mojang stated that they would only engage in such projects when "the right idea comes along." A documentary about the development of Mojang and Minecraft was released in December 2012. Titled Minecraft: The Story of Mojang, the film was produced by 2 Player Productions. The second episode of the seventeenth season of the animated television series South Park titled "Informative Murder Porn", features the boys distracting their parents from fighting each other with Minecraft. In the South Park episode, gruff character Corey Lanskin explained the Minecraft game by noting, "Minecraft, it don't got no winner, it don't got no objective. You're just f****in' buildin' s***!" On 27 February 2014, Notch revealed that Mojang is in talks with Warner Bros. regarding a Minecraft film to be produced by Roy Lee and Jill Messick. On 8 October 2014, Mojang COO Vu Bui stated that the movie was "in its early days of development", saying that it was a "large-budget" production, and also said that it might not be released until 2018. The film will be released on 24 May 2019, and is being co-directed by Shawn Levy and Rob McElhenney and written by Jason Fuchs.

Merchandise

A Lego set based on Minecraft called Lego Minecraft was released on 6 June 2012. The set, called "Micro World", centres around the game's default player character and a Creeper. Mojang submitted the concept of Minecraft merchandise to Lego in December 2011 for the Lego Cuusoo program, from which it quickly received 10,000 votes by users, prompting Lego to review the concept. Lego Cuusoo approved the concept in January 2012 and began developing sets based on Minecraft. Two more sets based on the Nether and village areas of the game were released on 1 September 2013. A fourth Micro World set, the End, was released in June 2014. Six more sets became available November 2014.

Mojang collaborates with Jinx, an online game merchandise store, to sell Minecraft merchandise, such as clothing, foam pickaxes, and toys of creatures in the game. By May 2012, over 1 million dollars were made from Minecraft merchandise sales. T-shirts and socks were the most popular products. In March 2013 Mojang signed a deal with the Egmont Group, a children's book publisher, to create Minecraft handbooks, annuals, poster books, and magazines.

Minecon

MineCon is an official convention dedicated to Minecraft. The first one was held in November 2011 at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. All 4,500 tickets for MineCon 2011 were sold out by 31 October. The event included the official launch of Minecraft; keynote speeches, including one by Persson; building and costume contests; Minecraft-themed breakout classes; exhibits by leading gaming and Minecraft-related companies; commemorative merchandise; and autograph and picture times with Mojang employees and well-known contributors from the Minecraft community. After MineCon, there was an Into The Nether after-party with deadmau5. Free codes were given to every attendee of MineCon that unlocked alpha versions of Mojang's Scrolls, as well as an additional non-Mojang game, Cobalt, developed by Oxeye Game Studios. Similar events occurred in MineCon 2012, which took place in Disneyland Paris from in November. The tickets for the 2012 event sold out in less than two hours. MineCon 2013 was held in Orlando in November as well. MineCon 2015 was held in London in July. MineCon 2016 was held in Anaheim in September.

Applications

The possible applications of Minecraft have been discussed extensively, especially in the fields of computer-aided design and education. In a panel at MineCon 2011, a Swedish developer discussed the possibility of using the game to redesign public buildings and parks, stating that rendering using Minecraft was much more user-friendly for the community, making it easier to envision the functionality of new buildings and parks. In 2012, a member of the Human Dynamics group at the MIT Media Lab, Cody Sumter, said that "Notch hasn't just built a game. He's tricked 40 million people into learning to use a CAD program." Various software has been developed to allow virtual designs to be printed using professional 3D printers or personal printers such as MakerBot and RepRap.

In September 2012, Mojang began the Block By Block project in cooperation with UN Habitat to create real-world environments in Minecraft. The project allows young people who live in those environments to participate in designing the changes they would like to see. Using Minecraft, the community has helped reconstruct the areas of concern, and citizens are invited to enter the Minecraft servers and modify their own neighbourhood. Carl Manneh, Mojang's managing director, called the game "the perfect tool to facilitate this process," adding that "the three-year partnership will support UN-Habitat's Sustainable Urban Development Network to upgrade 300 public spaces by 2016." Mojang signed Minecraft building community, FyreUK, to help render the environments into Minecraft. The first pilot project began in Kibera, one of Nairobi's informal settlements, and is in the planning phase. The Block By Block project is based on an earlier initiative started in October 2011, Mina Kvarter (My Block), which gave young people in Swedish communities a tool to visualise how they wanted to change their part of town. According to Manneh, the project was a helpful way to visualise urban planning ideas without necessarily having a training in architecture. The ideas presented by the citizens were a template for political decisions.

In April 2014, the Danish Geodata Agency generated all of Denmark in fullscale in Minecraft based on their own geodata. This is possible because Denmark is one of the flattest countries with the highest point at 171 meters (ranking as the country with the 30th smallest elevation span), where the limit in default Minecraft is around 192 meters above in-game sea level.

Minecraft has also been used in educational settings. In 2011, an educational organisation named MinecraftEdu was formed with the goal of introducing Minecraft into schools. The group works with Mojang to make the game affordable and accessible to schools. In September 2012, MinecraftEdu said that approximately 250,000 students around the world have access to Minecraft through the company. A wide variety of educational activities involving the game have been developed to teach students various subjects, including history, language arts and science. For an example, one teacher built a world consisting of various historical landmarks for students to learn and explore.

With the introduction of redstone blocks to represent electrical circuits, users have been able to build functional virtual computers within Minecraft. Such virtual creations include a working hard drive, an 8-bit virtual computer, and emulators for the Atari 2600 and Game Boy Advance. In at least one instance, a mod has been created to use this feature to teach younger players how to program within a language set by the virtual computer within a Minecraft world.

In September 2014, the British Museum in London announced plans to recreate its building along with all exhibits in Minecraft in conjunction with members of the public.

[justinagana-blog]

About the Game

Roblox is a user-generated massively multiplayer online social gaming platform developed and published by the Roblox Corporation and released in 2006; the first demos of the game were tested in 2004 under the name DynaBlocks.

In the game, players are able to design their own games within the platform.

As of 2016, Roblox has 30 million active monthly players.

Gameplay

Roblox allows for the creation of groups. After joining, players can then advertise their group, participate in group relations, and set their primary group.

A car on a road in Roblox Studio 2013 Editing using Roblox Studio 2017 Players can use the programming language Lua to dynamically change the environment of the game. Plugins can also be developed with Lua to be used in Roblox Studio.

Development

Roblox was created by co-founders David Baszucki and Erik Cassel in 2004. Roblox – a portmanteau of the words "robots" and "blocks", launched in beta version that year. The website was officially launched in 2006.

In March 2007, Roblox became compliant with COPPA, with the addition of safe chat, a change that limited users under the age of thirteen to communicating by selecting predefined messages from a menu. In August 2007, Roblox added the Builders Club, a premium membership, and applied server improvements.

In December 2011, Roblox also held their first Hack Week, an annual event where Roblox developers work on innovative outside-the-box ideas for new developments to present to the company.

On December 11, 2012, Roblox released an iOS version of the game. In an interview with Massively, CEO David Baszucki stated he also wanted the game to be available on the digital stores of "Android, Windows, Steam, Mac, Chrome, [and] Amazon..."

On May 31, 2015, a feature named Smooth Terrain was added, increasing the graphical fidelity of the terrain and changing the physics engine from a block-oriented style to a smoother and more realistic style. On November 20, 2015, Roblox was launched on Xbox One, with an initial selection of 15 games chosen by Roblox staff. New Roblox games for this console will have to go through an approval process, and are subject to the Entertainment Software Ratings Board standards.

In April 2016, Roblox launched Roblox VR for Oculus Rift. At the time of release, more than ten million games were available in 3-D. In June 2016, the company launched a version compatible with Windows 10. While the game has had a PC presence since 2004 with its web version, this is the first time it was upgraded with a standalone launcher built for Windows.

In April 2016, Roblox had 30 million monthly active users, and a peak of 900,000 concurrent users. Around the same time period, the safe chat feature was removed and replaced by a system based on a whitelist with a set of acceptable words for users under 13 years old and on a "black list" for other users. This new system allows users under the age of 13 to create content on the website, which they were not able to do previously.

On January 10, 2017, Jazwares unveiled designs for toys based on Roblox characters. The characters are similar to Lego minifigures, having interchangeable body parts, clothes, and tools. The toys were released on February 5, 2017.

[justinagana-blog]

About the Game

Grand Theft Auto V is an action-adventure video game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It was released on 17 September 2013 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, on 18 November 2014 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and on 14 April 2015 for Microsoft Windows. It is the first main entry in the Grand Theft Auto series since 2008's Grand Theft Auto IV. Set within the fictional state of San Andreas, based on Southern California, the single-player story follows three criminals and their efforts to commit heists while under pressure from a government agency. The open world design lets players freely roam San Andreas' open countryside and the fictional city of Los Santos, based on Los Angeles.

The game is played from either a third-person or first-person perspective and its world is navigated on foot or by vehicle. Players control the three lead protagonists throughout single-player and switch between them both during and outside missions. The story is centred on the heist sequences, and many missions involve shooting and driving gameplay. A "wanted" system governs the aggression of law enforcement response to players who commit crimes. Grand Theft Auto Online, the online multiplayer mode, lets up to 30 players explore the open world and engage in cooperative or competitive game matches.

Development began soon after Grand Theft Auto IV's release and was shared between many of Rockstar's studios worldwide. The development team drew influence from many of their previous projects such as Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3, and designed the game around three lead protagonists to innovate on the core structure of its predecessors. Much of the development work constituted the open world's creation, and several team members conducted field research around California to capture footage for the design team. The game's soundtrack features an original score composed by a team of producers who collaborated over several years.

Extensively marketed and widely anticipated, the game broke industry sales records and became the fastest-selling entertainment product in history, earning US $800 million in its first day and US $1 billion in its first three days. It received widespread critical acclaim, with praise directed at its multiple protagonist design, open world, presentation and gameplay. However, it caused controversies related to its depiction of women and a mission featuring torture during a hostage interrogation. Considered one of seventh generation console gaming's most significant titles and among the best games ever made, it won year-end accolades including Game of the Year awards from several gaming publications. It has shipped over 80 million copies and is one of the best-selling video games of all time.

Gameplay

Grand Theft Auto V is an action-adventure game played from either a first-person or third-person perspective. Players complete missions—linear scenarios with set objectives—to progress through the story. Outside the missions, players may freely roam the open world. Composed of the San Andreas open countryside area and the fictional city of Los Santos, the world is much larger in area than earlier entries in the series. It may be fully explored after the game's beginning without restriction, although story progress unlocks more gameplay content.

The player character crouched behind a vehicle while in combat. The head-up display elements are visible on-screen. Players may take cover behind objects during firefights to avoid taking damage from enemies. Players use melee attacks, firearms and explosives to fight enemies, and may run, jump, swim or use vehicles to navigate the world. To accommodate the map's size, the game introduces vehicle types absent in its predecessor Grand Theft Auto IV, such as fixed-wing aircraft. In combat, auto-aim and a cover system may be used as assistance against enemies. Should players take damage, their health meter will gradually regenerate to its halfway point. Players respawn at hospitals when their health depletes. If players commit crimes, law enforcement agencies may respond as indicated by a "wanted" meter in the head-up display (HUD). Stars displayed on the meter indicate the current wanted level (for example, at the maximum five-star level, police helicopters and SWAT teams swarm to lethally dispatch players). Law enforcement officers will search for players who leave the wanted vicinity. The meter enters a cooldown mode and eventually recedes when players are hidden from the officers' line of sight that displays on the mini-map.

The single-player mode lets players control three characters: Michael De Santa, Trevor Philips and Franklin Clinton—criminals whose stories interconnect as they complete missions. Some missions are completed with only one character and others feature two or three. Outside the missions, players may switch between characters at will by means of a directional compass on the HUD. The game may switch characters automatically during missions to complete certain objectives. A character's compass avatar will flash red if he is in danger and needs help, and flash white if he has a strategic advantage. Though players complete missions as any of the three protagonists, the more difficult heist missions require aid from AI-controlled accomplices with unique skill sets like computer hacking and driving. If an accomplice survives a successful heist, they take a cut from the cash reward and may be available for later missions with improvements to their unique skills. There are multiple options for completing heists; in a holdup mission, players may either stealthily subdue civilians with an incapacitating agent or conspicuously storm the venue with guns drawn.

Each character has a set of eight skills that represent their ability in certain areas such as shooting and driving. Though skills improve through play, each character has a skill with expertise by default (i.e. Trevor's flying skill). The eighth "special" skill determines the effectiveness in performing an ability that is unique to each respective character. Michael enters bullet time in combat, Franklin slows down time while driving, and Trevor deals twice as much damage to enemies while taking half as much in combat. A meter on each character's HUD depletes when an ability is being used and regenerates when players perform skilful actions (for example, drifting in vehicles as Franklin or performing headshots as Michael).

While free roaming the game world, players may engage in context-specific activities such as scuba diving underwater or BASE jumping via parachute. Each character has a smartphone for contacting friends, starting activities and accessing an in-game Internet. The Internet lets players trade in stocks via a stock market. Players may purchase properties such as garages and businesses, upgrade the weapons and vehicles in each character's arsenal, and customise their appearance by purchasing outfits, haircuts and tattoos.

Plot

Michael Townley, Trevor Philips, and Brad Snider partake in a botched robbery in Ludendorff, North Yankton. Nine years later, Michael is living under witness protection with his family in Los Santos, under the alias Michael De Santa. Across town, gangbanger Franklin Clinton is working for a corrupt Armenian car salesman and meets Michael while attempting to fraudulently repossess his son's car; the two later become friends. When Michael finds his wife Amanda sleeping with her tennis coach, he and Franklin chase the coach to a mansion, which Michael destroys in anger. The owner turns out to be the girlfriend of Martin Madrazo, a Mexican drug lord who demands compensation to avoid further violence. Michael returns to a life of crime to obtain the money, enlisting Franklin as an accomplice. With the help of Michael's old friend Lester, a crippled hacker, they perform a jewellery shop heist to pay off the debt. Trevor, who now lives in a trailer park on the outskirts of Los Santos and believes Michael was killed in their failed robbery, hears of the heist and realises that it was Michael's handiwork; Trevor surprises Michael and reunites with him after tracking down his home.

The personal lives of the protagonists begin to spiral out of control. Michael's increasingly erratic behaviour prompts his family to leave him, and when he becomes a movie producer at film studio Richards Majestic, he comes into conflict with Devin Weston, a self-made billionaire venture capitalist and corporate raider who vows revenge after his attempts to shut down the studio are thwarted by Michael and his lawyer dies in an accident. Franklin rescues his friend Lamar Davis from gangster and former friend Harold "Stretch" Joseph, who repeatedly attempts to kill Lamar to prove himself to his new brethren. Trevor's reckless efforts to consolidate his control over various black markets in Blaine County see him waging war against The Lost outlaw motorcycle club, several Latin American street gangs, rival meth dealers, hillbillies, private security firm Merryweather, and Triad kingpin Wei Cheng.

Federal Investigation Bureau (FIB) agents Dave Norton and Steve Haines contact Michael and demand that he perform a series of operations to undermine a rival agency, the International Affairs Agency (IAA).[i] Under Steve's direction and with Lester's help, they attack an armoured convoy carrying funds intended for the IAA and steal an experimental chemical weapon from an IAA-controlled lab. As Steve comes under increasing scrutiny, he forces Michael and Franklin to erase any evidence being used against him from the FIB servers. Michael takes the opportunity to wipe the data on his own activities, destroying Steve's leverage over him. Michael, Trevor, Franklin, and Lester start planning their most daring feat ever: raiding the Union Depository's gold bullion reserve.

Michael reconciles with his family. However, Trevor discovers that Brad was not imprisoned as led to believe, but killed during the heist and buried in the grave marked for Michael. Trevor's feelings of betrayal cause friction within the group and threaten to undermine their Union Depository plans. When Michael and Dave are betrayed by Steve and become caught in a Mexican standoff between the FIB, IAA, and Merryweather, Trevor, feeling that he is the only one that has the right to kill Michael, comes to their aid. Despite not forgiving Michael, Trevor agrees to perform the Union Depository heist and part ways with him afterwards.

The heist is completed successfully, but Franklin is then approached separately by Steve and Dave, who contend that Trevor is a liability, and Devin, who wants retribution for Michael's betrayal. Franklin has three choices: kill Trevor, kill Michael, or attempt to save both in a suicide mission. Should Franklin choose to kill either Michael or Trevor, he ceases contact with the survivor and returns to his old life. Otherwise, the trio withstand an onslaught from the FIB and Merryweather before going on to kill Steve, Stretch, Wei, and Devin. Michael and Trevor reconcile, and the three cease working together but remain friends.

Development

Rockstar North began to develop Grand Theft Auto V in 2009, following Grand Theft Auto IV's release. Development was conducted by a team of more than 1,000 people, including Rockstar North's core team and staff from parent company Rockstar Games' studios around the world. The proprietary Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE) was overhauled for the game to improve its draw distance rendering capabilities. The Euphoria and Bullet software handle additional animation and rendering tasks. Having become familiar with the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 hardware over time, Rockstar found they were able to push the consoles' graphical capabilities further than in previous games. Analyst estimations place the game's combined development and marketing budget at more than £170 million (US $265 million), which would make it the most expensive game ever made at that time.

The open world was modelled on Southern California and Los Angeles, and its design and in-game render constituted much of the game's early work. Key members of the game world production team took field research trips throughout the region and documented their research with photo and video footage. Google Maps projections of Los Angeles were used by the team to help design Los Santos' road networks. To reflect and reproduce Los Angeles' demographic spread, the developers studied census data and watched documentaries about the city. The team considered creating the open world the most technically demanding aspect of the game's production.

A fundamental design goal from the outset was to innovate on the series core structure by giving players control of three lead protagonists instead of one. The idea was first raised during Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' development, but contemporaneous hardware restrictions made it infeasible. Having developed two Grand Theft Auto IV episodic expansion packs featuring new protagonists in 2009, the team wanted to base Grand Theft Auto V around three simultaneously controlled protagonists. The team viewed it as a spiritual successor to many of their previous games (such as Grand Theft Auto IV, Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3), and designed it to improve upon their gameplay mechanics. They sought to improve the action gameplay by refining the shooting mechanics and cover system, and reworked the driving mechanics to correct Grand Theft Auto IV's difficult vehicle controls.

After an audition process, Ned Luke, Shawn Fonteno and Steven Ogg were selected to portray Michael, Franklin and Trevor, respectively. Their performances were mostly recorded using motion capture technology, but dialogue for scenes with characters seated in vehicles was recorded in studios instead. The game is the first in its series to feature an original score, composed by a team of producers collaborating with each other over several years. Licensed music provided by an in-game radio is also used. The team licensed more than 241 tracks shared between fifteen radio stations, with an additional two stations providing talk radio. Some of the tracks were written specifically for the game, such as rapper and producer Flying Lotus' original work composed for the FlyLo FM radio station he hosts.

The game was first announced by Rockstar Games on 25 October 2011. They released its debut trailer one week later, with an official press release acknowledging its setting. Journalists noted that the announcement ignited widespread anticipation within the gaming industry, which they owed to the cultural significance of the series. The game missed its original projected Q2 2013 release date, pushed back to 17 September to allow for further polishing. To spur pre-order game sales, Rockstar collaborated with several retail outlets to make a special edition with extra in-game features. They ran a viral marketing strategy with a website for a fictional religious cult, "The Epsilon Program", that offered users the chance to feature in the game as members of the cult.

The city of Los Santos being rendered on the PlayStation 4 on the left, and the PlayStation 3 on the right. Improved texture effects, lighting and draw distances are visible on the PS4 version. A comparison of the PlayStation 4 (left) and PlayStation 3 (right) versions of the game. The enhanced re-release features greater draw distances and higher-resolution textures than the original versions. A re-release of the game was announced for Microsoft Windows (PC), PlayStation 4 and Xbox One at E3 2014. This enhanced version features an increased draw distance, finer texture details, denser traffic, upgraded weather effects, and new wildlife and vegetation. It includes a new on-foot first-person view option, which required the development team to overhaul the animation system to accommodate first-person gameplay. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions were released on 18 November 2014. The PC version, initially scheduled for simultaneous release with the console versions, was delayed until 14 April 2015. According to Rockstar, it required extra development time for "polish". The PC version is capable of 60 frames per second gameplay at 4K resolution, and the Rockstar Editor lets players capture and edit gameplay videos.

Critical Reception

Initial Release

Grand Theft Auto V was released to critical acclaim. Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating in the 0–100 range, calculated an average score of 97 out of 100 based on 50 reviews for the PlayStation 3 version and 58 reviews for the Xbox 360 version. The game is Metacritic's fifth-highest rated, tied with a number of others. Reviewers liked the multiple lead character formula, heist mission design and presentation, but some did not agree on the quality of the story and characters. IGN's Keza MacDonald called Grand Theft Auto V "one of the very best video games ever made", and Play considered it "generation-defining" and "exceptional". Edge wrote that it is a "remarkable achievement" in open world design and storytelling, while The Daily Telegraph's Tom Hoggins declared it a "colossal feat of technical engineering".

CNET's Jeff Bakalar felt that the game encouraged players to engage with all three characters. Edge found that switching players was helpful for avoiding long travel times to mission start points. Because of the switching mechanic, Game Informer's Matt Bertz noted that players are kept "in the thick of the action" during shootouts. Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell wrote that switching added a tactical element to shootouts as characters set up in strategic outposts would cause fewer "shooting gallery" situations than previous instalments. IGN's MacDonald felt the switching feature gave players more choice in their approach and made missions less predictable.

Giant Bomb's Jeff Gerstmann considered the heist missions a welcome deviation from series typical mission structure. Eurogamer's Bramwell likened them to "blockbuster set-pieces" and GameSpot's Carolyn Petit cited the 1995 film Heat as a stylistic influence on their design. Joystiq's Xav de Matos felt creativity and methodical approaches were encouraged. Polygon's Chris Plante likened rapid character switching during heist missions to "film editing, with the player serving as editor, switching rapidly to the most interesting perspective for any moment". Computer and Video Games' Andy Kelly felt that overall mission design was more diverse than and lacked the escort errands of its predecessors.

The player character with their back to the camera, and the sprawl of an urban city centre in front of them. Los Santos, the city featured in the game's open world. Reviewers praised its design and similarity to Los Angeles. The departure from Grand Theft Auto IV's Liberty City was also well received. Edge praised the game's graphical fidelity and absence of load screens. Play complimented the draw distances and weather and lighting systems. Eurogamer's Bramwell considered the lighting system to be the game's biggest advancement. Official Xbox Magazine (OXM)'s Mikel Reparaz thought that the game was "probably the Xbox 360's greatest technical achievement", and was surprised that the open world could render on the console. Reviewers lauded the open world's design, some further complimenting the game for streamlining Los Angeles' geography into a well-designed city space. GameTrailers' Brandon Jones considered the Los Angeles emulation authentic and the open world "full of voice and personality". IGN and PlayStation Official Magazine (OPM) made favourable comparisons between Los Santos and Grand Theft Auto IV's Liberty City. OXM's Reparez felt Los Santos surpassed the "grey and gritty" Liberty City. Reviewers praised the world's satire of contemporary American culture OPM's Joel Gregory opined that "the scathing social commentary is, of course, present and correct".

Destructoid's Jim Sterling called the sound design "impeccable" and praised the actors' performances, original soundtrack and licensed music use. IGN and Giant Bomb commended the music selection and felt that the original score enhanced dramatic tension during missions. GameSpot's Petit wrote that the score "lends missions more cinematic flavour". Edge said that the licensed music enhanced the city's "already remarkable sense of space" and that the original score improved the atmosphere of the gameplay. They summarised the game as "a compendium of everything Rockstar has learnt about the power of game music in the past decade".

Many reviewers found the land-based vehicles more responsive and easier to control than in previous games. Game Informer's Bertz explained that "cars have a proper sense of weight, while retaining the agility necessary for navigating through traffic at high speeds". In addition to the vehicle handling, most reviewers noted the shooting mechanics were tighter than they had been in previous games, but Destructoid's Sterling felt that in spite of the improvements, auto-aim was "twitchy and unreliable" and cover mechanics "still come off as dated and unwieldy". Some reviewers felt the game solved a continual problem by adding mid-mission checkpoints.

The story and characters—particularly Trevor—polarised reviewers. Some felt that the narrative was not as well written as previous Rockstar games and cited Grand Theft Auto IV and Red Dead Redemption's plot strengths. Others felt that the protagonists' contrasting personalities gave the narrative tighter pacing. GamesRadar's Hollander Cooper thought the game negated inconsistencies in the story of previous entries, whose single lead protagonists had muddled morality. GameSpot's Petit considered Trevor in particular a "truly horrible, terrifying, psychotic human being—and a terrific character". Eurogamer's Bramwell found Trevor "shallow and unconvincing", and felt that his eccentricities hurt the narrative and overshadowed Michael and Franklin's character development. Joystiq's de Matos faulted the protagonists' lack of likability for him, and found the ambivalence between Michael and Trevor a tired plot device as their conflict grew into a "seemingly endless cycle". The Escapist's Greg Tito had difficulty connecting with the characters' emotions since they acted out of greed with no sense of morality and thus gave players little reason to support them.

Accolades

Grand Theft Auto V received multiple nominations and awards from gaming publications. Prior to its release, it received Most Anticipated Game at the 2012 Spike Video Game Awards. The game was review aggregators Metacritic and GameRankings' highest rated for the year 2013. The game appeared on several year-end lists of 2013's best games, receiving wins from independent journalist Tom Chick, CNET, Edge, the 31st Golden Joystick Awards, the 5th Annual Inside Gaming Awards the Spike VGX 2013 Awards, Slant Magazine and Time. It was named the Best Xbox Game by Canada.com, GameSpot, and IGN, and the Best Multiplatform Game by Destructoid. Rockstar Games and Rockstar North won Best Studio and Best Developer from Edge, and the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award at the 10th British Academy Video Games Awards.

Various in-game elements were recognised with awards. Two characters, Trevor Philips and Lamar Davis, received numerous nominations for Best Character, and Lamar won the award from Giant Bomb. The music received awards from Spike VGX, Hardcore Gamer and The Daily Telegraph. Grand Theft Auto Online won Best Multiplayer from GameTrailers and BAFTA, and Best Xbox 360 Multiplayer from IGN. Online was also nominated for Biggest Disappointment by Game Revolution and Hardcore Gamer. Grand Theft Auto V won Best Technical Achievement in the Telegraph Video Game Awards, and Best Technology at the 14th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards. The graphical and artistic design received awards from IGN, The Daily Telegraph and BAFTA, and a nomination at the Game Developers Choice Awards.

The game received numerous other awards. It was awarded the title of Most Immersive Game at the Inside Gaming Awards. The general public voted for the game to receive the User Choice Award at the PlayStation Awards 2013 and the Community Choice award from Destructoid. The game received the Platinum Award at the PlayStation Awards, and was named the Best British Game from BAFTA. At IGN's Best of 2013 Awards, it received multiple wins, including Best Xbox 360 Graphics, Best Xbox 360 Sound, and Best Action Game on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and overall.

Commercial performance

Within 24 hours of its release, Grand Theft Auto V generated more than $800 million in worldwide revenue, equating to approximately 11.21 million copies sold for Take Two. The numbers nearly doubled analysts' expectations for the title. Three days after release, the game had surpassed one billion dollars in sales, making it the fastest selling entertainment product in history. Six weeks after its release, Rockstar had shipped nearly 29 million copies of the game to retailers, exceeding the lifetime figures of Grand Theft Auto IV. On 7 October 2013, the game became the best-selling digital release on PlayStation Store for PlayStation 3, breaking the previous record set by The Last of Us, though numerical sales figures were not disclosed. It broke seven Guinness World Records on 8 October: best-selling video game in 24 hours, best-selling action-adventure video game in 24 hours, highest grossing video game in 24 hours, fastest entertainment property to gross $1 billion, fastest video game to gross $1 billion, highest revenue generated by an entertainment product in 24 hours, and most viewed trailer for an action-adventure video game. A digital version was released on 18 October for the Xbox 360, which went on to become the highest grossing day-one and week-one release on Xbox Live. As of May 2014, the game has generated over $1.98 billion in revenue. As of August 2014, the game has sold-in over 34 million units to retailers for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. As of December 2014, the game has shipped 45 million copies to retailers, including 10 million copies of the re-released version for eighth-generation consoles. As of May 2017, the game has shipped over 80 million copies across all platforms.

In the United Kingdom, the game became the all time fastest-selling, selling more than 2.25 million copies in five days. This broke the record set by Call of Duty: Black Ops at two million copies over the same period. It broke the day one record by selling 1.57 million copies and generating £65 million. In two weeks, the game sold more than 2.6 million copies and generated £90 million, which accounted for 52% of games sold September 2013. After three weeks on sale, it beat Grand Theft Auto IV's lifetime sales in the United Kingdom. In its fourth week, it became the fastest-selling title to break the three million barrier in the UK, thus overtaking Black Ops II's lifetime sales. In November 2014, the game became the best-selling game of all time in the UK, overtaking Black Ops. The game was similarly successful in North America: it was the best selling game in September, representing over 50% of software sales and boosting overall software sales by 52% compared to September 2012.

Grand Theft Auto Online

Developed in tandem with the single-player mode, the online multiplayer mode Grand Theft Auto Online was conceived as a separate experience to be played in a continually evolving world. Up to 30 players freely roam across the game world and enter lobbies to complete jobs (story-driven competitive and cooperative modes). The Content Creator toolset lets players create their own parameters for custom jobs, like racetracks and deathmatch weapon spawn points. Players may band together in organised player teams called crews to complete jobs together. Rockstar Games Social Club extends crews formed in Max Payne 3's multiplayer mode to those of Grand Theft Auto Online. Players may create their own crews and join up to five total. Crews win multiplayer matches to earn experience points and climb online leaderboards.

Grand Theft Auto Online launched on 1 October 2013, two weeks after Grand Theft Auto V's release. Many players reported connection difficulties and game freezes during load screens. Rockstar released a technical patch on 5 October in an effort to resolve the issues, but problems persisted the second week following launch as some players reported their character progress as having disappeared. Another technical patch was released on 10 October combating the issues and Rockstar offered a GTA $500,000 (in-game currency) stimulus to the accounts of all players connected to Online since launch as recompense. Because of the widespread technical issues present at launch, many reviewers bemoaned their Grand Theft Auto Online experience, but generally recognised its open-ended exploration and dynamic content as strengths.

Post-release content is continually added to Grand Theft Auto Online through free title updates. Some updates add new game modes and features, and others feature themed gameplay content, such as the Independence Day Special update that added patriotic-themed content on 1 July 2014. The widely anticipated Online Heists update launched on 10 March 2015 and suffered some initial technical difficulties due to the increased user load. Shortly after the game's PC release, some players reported being banned from Grand Theft Auto Online for using field of view and cosmetic mods in single-player. Rockstar stated in their official blog that nobody had been banned from Online for using single-players mods, but that recent updates to the PC version had the "unintentional effect" of making such mods unplayable. They stated that mods are unauthorised and may cause unforeseen technical problems and instabilities.

Controversies

The game has generated several controversies related to its violence and depiction of women. A mission that requires players to use torture equipment in a hostage interrogation polarised reviewers, who noted its political commentary but felt that the torture sequence was in poor taste. The mission also received criticism from politicians and anti-torture charity groups. The game became subject to widespread online debate over its portrayal of women, particularly in the wake of backlash against GameSpot journalist Carolyn Petit when she claimed the game was misogynistic in her review. After Petit's review webpage received more than 20,000 largely negative comments, many journalists defended her right to an opinion and lamented the gaming community's defensiveness towards criticism. Television personality Karen Gravano and actress Lindsay Lohan both filed lawsuits against Rockstar in allegation that characters in the game were based on their likenesses. Their lawsuits were later dismissed. Australian department store Target pulled the game from their 300 stores following a Change.org petition against depictions of violence towards women in the game.

Legacy

Critics concurred that Grand Theft Auto V was among seventh generation console gaming's best and a great closing title before the eighth generation's emergence. Polygon's Plante observed that the game would "bridge between games' present and the future", and declared it "the closure of this generation, and the benchmark for the next". VideoGamer.com's Simon Miller considered it "the ultimate swansong for this console cycle" that would "cast a long shadow over the next". Three days after its release, the game ranked second on IGN's "Top 25 Xbox 360 Games" list. Editor Ryan McCaffrey considered that the open world's scale and detail succeeded the majority of other Xbox 360 games. He called the game "a triumph both for gamers and for the medium itself, and it deserves its runaway success". In November 2013, Hardcore Gamer placed the game third on their "Top 100 Games of the Generation" list. They cited its improved shooting and driving mechanics over its predecessors, and considered the multiple protagonist design "a welcome change of pace" that could become an eighth generation gaming benchmark. In December, The Daily Telegraph listed the game among their "50 best games of the console generation". They called it a "cultural behemoth" that "will be Rockstar's lasting legacy".

In January 2014, Computer and Video Games ranked the game fourth on their "Games of the Generation 20–1" list. Editor Rob Crossley said that for the first time, Rockstar created an "utterly beautiful" open world. He found that the game did away with Grand Theft Auto IV's repetitive mission design and focused instead on fun gameplay. In May, IGN ranked it eighth on their "Top 100 Games of a Generation" list and called it a "huge, raucous, and wildly ambitious bridge towards the eighth generation of console gaming". The next month, it placed third on IGN's "Games of a Generation: Your Top 100" list as voted by the site's readers. In August, Game Informer ranked it third on their "Top 10 Action Games Of The Generation" list. They compared the game's quality to that of its predecessor, but thought that its ensemble character set-up, varied missions and multiplayer superseded Grand Theft Auto IV's placement on the list. They wrote of the story's absurd drama and the open world's vastness, and did not "regret a single second" spent playing the game. In November, Edge named it the fifth best game of its generation and commented that "no other game studio is even daring to attempt an open world game in its tradition because there is simply no possibility of measuring up to its standards." In 2015, the publication rated it the second greatest video game of all time. The game ranked high on several best game lists determined by the public; it featured eighth on Empire's "100 Greatest Video Games Of All Time" list, and fifth on Good Game's "Top 100 Games" list, as voted by the magazine and programme's respective audiences. It was the most tweeted game of 2015, despite being released over a year earlier.

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About the Game

Grand Theft Auto IV is an action-adventure video game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It was released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles on 29 April 2008, and for Microsoft Windows on 2 December 2008. It is the eleventh title in the Grand Theft Auto series, and the first main entry since 2004's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Set within the fictional Liberty City (based on New York City), the single-player story follows a war veteran, Niko Bellic, and his attempts to escape his past while under pressure from loan sharks and mob bosses. The open world design lets players freely roam Liberty City, consisting of three main islands.

The game is played from a third-person perspective and its world is navigated on-foot or by vehicle. Throughout the single-player mode, players play as Niko Bellic. An online multiplayer mode is included with the game, allowing up to 32 players to engage in both co-operative and competitive gameplay in a recreation of the single-player setting. Two expansion packs were later released for the game, The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony, which both feature new plots that are interconnected with the main Grand Theft Auto IV storyline, and follow new protagonists.

Development began soon after the release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and was shared between many of Rockstar's studios worldwide. The game introduced a shift to a more realistic and detailed style and tone for the series. Unlike previous entries, Grand Theft Auto IV had no strong cinematic influence, as the team attempted an original approach to the story. As part of their research for the open world, the developers conducted field research around New York throughout development and captured footage for the design team.

Following its announcement in May 2006, Grand Theft Auto IV was widely anticipated. Upon release, the game received universal critical acclaim, with praise particularly directed at the game's narrative and open world design. However, the game also generated controversy, with criticism directed at the game's depiction of violence and players' ability to drive under the influence of alcohol. Grand Theft Auto IV broke industry sales records and became the fastest-selling entertainment product in history at the time, earning US $310 million in its first day and US $500 million in its first week. Considered one of the most significant titles of the seventh generation of video games, and by many critics as one of the greatest video games of all time, it won year-end accolades, including Game of the Year awards from several gaming publications. A sequel, Grand Theft Auto V, was released in September 2013.

Gameplay

Grand Theft Auto IV is an action-adventure game played from a third-person perspective. Players complete missions—linear scenarios with set objectives—to progress through the story. It is possible to have several active missions running at one time, as some missions require players to wait for further instructions or events. Outside of missions, players can freely roam the game's open world, and have the ability to complete optional side missions. Composed of the fictional city of Liberty City, the world of Grand Theft Auto IV is larger in area than most earlier entries in the series. At the beginning of the game, players can only explore the first island–composed of Dukes and Broker–with all other islands unlocking as the story progresses.

Players use melee attacks, firearms and explosives to fight enemies, and may run, jump, swim or use vehicles to navigate the game's world. There is a first-person perspective option when using vehicles. In combat, auto-aim and a cover system can be used as assistance against enemies. Should players take damage, their health meter can be fully regenerated using multiple techniques, such as eating, using medical kits, or calling for paramedics. If players commit crimes while playing, the game's law enforcement agencies may respond as indicated by a "wanted" meter in the head-up display (HUD). On the meter, the displayed stars indicate the current wanted level (for example, at the maximum six-star level, efforts by law enforcement to incapacitate players become very aggressive). Law enforcement officers will search for players who leave the wanted vicinity. The wanted meter enters a cool-down mode and eventually recedes when players are hidden from the officers' line of sight.

The player character positioned in cover behind a vehicle, preparing to shoot at police officers on the other side of the vehicle. Combat in Grand Theft Auto IV was reworked to include a cover system. The game's cover system allows players to move between cover, to fire blindly, aim freely, and target a specific enemy. Individual body parts can also be targeted.[7] Melee attacks include additional moves, such as dodging, blocking, disarming an opponent and counter-attacking. Body armour can be used to absorb gunshots and explosive damage, but is used up in the process. When health is entirely depleted, gameplay stops, and players respawn at the nearest hospital.

The game's single-player mode lets players control a war veteran, Eastern European Niko Bellic. During the story, Niko meets various new characters, many of whom he befriends. These characters can then perform favours for Niko whenever he asks; for example, his cousin Roman, who owns a taxi service, can send one of his cabs to Niko and take him to any destination around the city. Cabs are always available during gameplay, allowing players to quickly travel to a destination. Throughout the course of the game, players are also faced with morality choices, which alter the storyline appropriately depending on the player's choice. While free roaming the game world, players may engage in context-specific activities such as bowling or darts. Other available activities include a vigilante mini-game, and in-game television programming. Niko has a smartphone for contacting friends and starting activities. The smartphone is also used to access the game's online multiplayer mode, and to enter cheat codes. To access the in-game Internet, which allows Niko to send and receive emails and set up prospective dates with potential girlfriends, Niko can use Internet cafés located around the city. The game also features a subway system, allowing players to quickly traverse through the game's world.

The online multiplayer mode for Grand Theft Auto IV allows up to 32 players to freely roam across a recreation of the single-player world. Players decide which game mode that they wish to play, including deathmatches and street races. Both cooperative and competitive game modes are available. These game modes are split into ranked and unranked matches. For players to level up through ranks, in-game money must be earned. The game also features a Free Mode, in which players have the entire map open to explore, with no end goal or mission to complete. Hosts of the game can control many variables, such as police presence, traffic, and weapons. LAN support is available in the Windows version of the game.

Synopsis

Setting

Grand Theft Auto IV takes place in 2008, in a redesigned version of Liberty City consisting of four boroughs, based on four of the boroughs of New York City: Broker (based on Brooklyn), Dukes (Queens), Bohan (The Bronx), and Algonquin (Manhattan). Adjacent to the city is the independent state of Alderney (Northern New Jersey). There are three minor islands present in the game: Charge Island (Randall's Island), Colony Island (Roosevelt Island), and Happiness Island (Liberty Island). Initially, bridges are locked down due to a terrorist threat, and players are constantly pursued by police if the bridges are crossed, but the blockades are lifted as the story progresses, allowing the player to traverse between islands. Grand Theft Auto IV takes place in a different storyline and timeline from the previous games in the series. However, the game takes place in the same canon as its expansion packs, The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony, and its successor, Grand Theft Auto V.

Plot

Niko Bellic, an Eastern European, arrives in Liberty City to meet his cousin Roman, pursue the American Dream, and to search for the man who betrayed his unit in a war fifteen years prior. Upon arrival, however, Niko discovers that Roman's tales of riches and luxury were lies concealing struggles with gambling debts and loan sharks, and that Roman lives in a dirty apartment rather than a mansion.

Niko defends Roman from his loan sharks several times, but is forced to work for Vlad Glebov, Roman's Russian loan shark. Niko kills Vlad after finding out he slept with Roman's girlfriend, Mallorie. After Vlad's murder, Niko and Roman are kidnapped by members of the Liberty City Bratva on order of Mikhail Faustin and his associate, Dimitri Rascalov. Faustin, not bothered by the murder of Vlad, hires Niko.[26] Niko quickly learns that Faustin is a psychopath after being ordered to kill the son of Kenny Petrović, the most powerful man in the Bratva. After the Petrović family threatens retaliation, Dimitri convinces Niko to assassinate Faustin in order to prevent a gang war. When Niko meets with Dimitri to collect on the assassination, Dimitri brings Niko's former employer Ray Bulgarin instead, who accuses Niko of stealing from him a few years earlier. When Niko truthfully denies the allegation, a firefight ensues, allowing Dimitri and Bulgarin to escape.

Niko and Roman are immediately forced to flee to Bohan after their apartment and taxi company are destroyed by Dimitri's men in arson attacks. However, things go poorly as well in Bohan: Dimitri's men kidnap Roman in a failed bid to lure out Niko, who rescues Roman. Furthermore, Niko's girlfriend Michelle reveals she is a government agent and entraps Niko into working for her company, known only by its cover: United Liberty Paper. Niko kills several known or suspected terrorists for the agency in exchange for the file of the numerous crimes the police have on him and the promise of assistance in finding the traitor of his unit.

The Paper tracks down the man responsible for Niko's unit's betrayal, Darko Brevic, and brings him into Liberty City for Niko to decide his fate. Having dealt with his past, Niko is summoned by one of his employers, Jimmy Pegorino, who demands one final favour: to help with an extremely lucrative deal on heroin in collusion with Dimitri. Niko must either strike a deal with Dimitri, or exact revenge on him.

Should Niko go through with the deal, Dimitri again betrays him and takes the heroin for himself. At Roman's wedding, an assassin sent by Dimitri kills Roman with a stray bullet. After Dimitri kills Pegorino, he is in turn killed by a devastated and vengeful Niko. Should Niko choose to exact revenge, he ambushes and executes Dimitri. At Roman's wedding, Pegorino, furious after Niko's betrayal, targets Niko in a drive-by shooting, but ends up killing Niko's new girlfriend, Kate. With Pegorino targeted by the entire Liberty City underworld, Niko tracks him down and executes him.

Production

Development

Work on Grand Theft Auto IV began in November 2004, almost immediately after the release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004). Around 150 game developers worked on Grand Theft Auto IV, led by core members of the team that previously worked on Grand Theft Auto III (2001). For the game, Rockstar used their proprietary Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE), which was previously used in Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis (2006), in combination with the Euphoria game animation engine. Instead of pre-written animations, Euphoria uses procedural animation to control the way the player moves, enabling character movements to be more realistic. The Euphoria engine also enables NPCs to react in a realistic way to the player's actions. In one preview, a player knocked an NPC out of a window and the character grabbed onto a ledge to stop himself from falling. The game also uses middleware from Image Metrics to facilitate intricate facial expressions and ease the process of incorporating lip-synching. Foliage in the game is produced through SpeedTree.

Grand Theft Auto IV sees a shift in the series to a more realistic and detailed style and tone, partly a result of the transition to consoles which offered high-definition graphics and the new and improved capabilities of such consoles. Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser said "what we're taking as our watchword on Grand Theft Auto IV is the idea of what high definition actually means. Not just in terms of graphics, which obviously we are achieving, but in terms of all aspects of the design.  You know, trying to make something more realistic, more held together, but still retaining the overall coherence that the other games had." Art director Aaron Garbut said one of the reasons they decided to set the game in New York because "we all knew what an amazing, diverse, vibrant, cinematic city it is," and since they were hoping the push the "detail, variety and life" to a high level, it seemed that "basing the game in a city so synonymous with these things was a great fit." Dan Houser added "because we were working in high definition and we knew we'd need a shitload of research, we wanted to be somewhere where we had a foothold." The developers consciously avoided creating a block for block recreation of New York City; Dan Houser said "what we've always tried to do is make a thing that looks real and has the qualities of a real environment, but is also fun from a game design perspective." The Grand Theft Auto IV rendition of Liberty City is far more detailed and larger in size than most earlier entries in the series. Although smaller than San Andreas, the main setting for Grand Theft Auto IV's predecessor Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Liberty City is comparable to it in terms of scope when "the level of verticality of the city, the number of buildings you can go into, and the level of detail in those buildings" are taken into account. The goal for Liberty City was to have no dead spots or irrelevant spaces, such as the wide open deserts in San Andreas. To achieve a realistic environment, the Rockstar North team, based in Edinburgh, Scotland, made two trips to New York for research, one at the start of the project (which was done with every previous Grand Theft Auto game) and another smaller one further into development. A full-time research team, based in New York, handled further requests for information ranging from the ethnic minority of a neighbourhood to videos of traffic patterns.

The story of Grand Theft Auto IV was written by Dan Houser and Rupert Humphries. Unlike previous Grand Theft Auto games which have a strong cultural or cinematic influence, "Grand Theft Auto IV doesn't really have any cinematic influences", as explained by Houser. "We were consciously trying to go, well, if video games are going to develop into the next stage, then the thing isn't to try and do a loving tribute or reference other stuff. It's to reference the actual place itself". Houser also said, "In terms of the character, we wanted something that felt fresh and new and not something that was obviously derived from a movie. Maybe we could do something ourselves that would live alongside that stuff".

Music supervisor Ivan Pavlovich said "we had to pick the songs that make New York today what it is, but make sure they won't feel dated by the time the game comes out." The developers contacted over 2,000 people in order to obtain recording and publishing rights. They even hired a private investigator to locate the relatives of late Skatt Bros. member Sean Delaney to license the band's song "Walk the Night". Citing sources close to the deals, Billboard reported that Rockstar paid as much as $5,000 per composition and another $5,000 per master recording per track. Developers originally considered letting players purchase music by going to an in-game record shop and for Niko to have an MP3 player, but both ideas were cut. DJ Green Lantern produced tracks exclusively for the game's hip-hop radio station The Beat 102.7. Record label owner and record producer Bobby Konders, who hosts the in-game radio station Massive B Soundsystem 96.9, went through the extra effort of flying to Jamaica to get dancehall artists to re-record tracks to make references to the boroughs of Liberty City.

The Corporate Vice-President of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business division, Peter Moore, announced at E3 2006 that the game would appear on Xbox 360, by rolling up his sleeve to reveal a Grand Theft Auto IV temporary tattoo. Rockstar Games initially appeared to be committed to the original 16 October 2007 release date; however, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter suggested that Take-Two may choose to delay the release of the game in order to boost its financial results for 2008 and to avoid competing with the release of other highly anticipated titles, such as Halo 3. Rockstar responded by saying that Grand Theft Auto IV was still on track for release in "late October". On 2 August 2007, Take-Two announced that Grand Theft Auto IV would miss its original release date of 16 October 2007 contrary to their previous statements, and would be delayed to their second fiscal quarter (February–April) of 2008. In a later conference call with investors, Take-Two's Strauss Zelnick attributed the delay to "almost strictly technological problems ... not problems, but challenges." It was later revealed that technical difficulties with the PlayStation 3 version of the game contributed to the delay, along with storage problems on the Xbox 360. On 24 January 2008, Take-Two announced that Grand Theft Auto IV would be released on 29 April 2008. As the release date approached, Rockstar Games and Take-Two marketed the game heavily through various forms, including television ads, Internet video, billboards, viral marketing, and a redesigned website. A special edition of the game was also released for both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. At a Take-Two shareholder meeting on 18 April 2008, Take-Two CEO Ben Feder announced that Grand Theft Auto IV had already "gone gold" and was "in production and in trucks en route to retailers". The game was eventually released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 video game consoles in Europe, North America, and Oceania on 29 April 2008, and in Japan on 30 October 2008. Overall, Grand Theft Auto IV took over 1000 people and more than three and a half years to complete, with a total cost estimated at approximately $100 million, making it, at the time, the most expensive video game ever developed.

The Windows version of Grand Theft Auto IV includes a replay editor. The Clips interface is used to capture game footage. On 6 August 2008, Rockstar announced that a Microsoft Windows version of Grand Theft Auto IV was in development by Rockstar North and Rockstar Toronto. The game was originally announced for release in North America on 18 November 2008 and in Europe on 21 November 2008 but was later pushed back to 2 and 3 December 2008, respectively. It contains expanded features, including traffic density control, draw distance configurations and a replay editor. The replay editor allows players to record and edit game clips, videos can then be uploaded to Rockstar's Social Club website. It utilised Games for Windows - Live for online play and supports 32 players for multiplayer. SecuROM protection is utilised and a one time online activation is required in order to play the game. The game was made available on Steam on 4 January 2009. On 9 February 2017, the Xbox 360 version of Grand Theft Auto IV was made available for backwards compatibility with the Xbox One.

Episodic Content

Two episodic packs for Grand Theft Auto IV have been released. These two episodes were first released separately, exclusively on Xbox Live, as downloadable content (DLC), requiring the original game to play. They were later released together as part of a standalone game, titled Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City, which does not require the original game to play. Dan Houser stated the episodes shows "a different side of Liberty City".

The first expansion, titled Grand Theft Auto: The Lost and Damned, was originally released on 17 February 2009. The protagonist of The Lost and Damned is Johnny Klebitz, a member of Liberty City's biker gang The Lost. The second expansion, titled Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony, was released on 29 October 2009. The protagonist of The Ballad of Gay Tony is Luis Fernando Lopez, an assistant to nightclub owner Tony "Gay Tony" Prince, and follows him as he resolves the conflicts of his friends, family, and boss.

Jeronimo Barrera, Vice President of Product Development for Rockstar Games, said that the episodes were experiments because the team were not sure that there was enough users with access to online content on the Xbox 360. Take-Two Interactive's Chief Financial Officer, Lainie Goldstein revealed that Microsoft was paying a total of $50 million for the first two episodes. In January 2010, Rockstar announced that the DLC as well as Episodes From Liberty City would be made available for the PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Windows on 13 April 2010 in North America and 16 April 2010 in Europe.

Both episodes were released for PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Windows on 13 April 2010 in North America and on 16 April 2010 in Europe. Grand Theft Auto IV: The Complete Edition, including the original Grand Theft Auto IV and its two episodic expansions, was listed on online stores, before being confirmed by Rockstar. The compilation was released on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Windows on 26 October 2010 in North America, and 29 October in Europe. The Xbox 360 versions of both episodes were made backwards compatible with the Xbox One on 9 February 2017.

Soundtrack

Like previous games in the Grand Theft Auto series, Grand Theft Auto IV features a soundtrack that can be heard through radio stations while the player is in a vehicle. Liberty City is serviced by 19 radio stations, three of which are talk radio stations. The other stations feature music from a large range of genres, including tracks from Genesis, David Bowie, Bob Marley, The Who, Queen, Kanye West and Elton John.

Grand Theft Auto IV uses a similar music system to that of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004). In other games in the series, each radio station was essentially a single looped sound file, playing the same songs, announcements and advertisements in the same order each time. With the radio stations in Grand Theft Auto IV, each sound file is held separately, and sequenced randomly, allowing songs to be played in different orders, announcements to songs to be different each time, and plot events to be mentioned on the stations. Certain songs are also edited to incorporate references to the fictional Liberty City.

A variety of real celebrities provide voices for the radio DJs in the game, including fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, musicians Iggy Pop, Femi Kuti, Jimmy Gestapo and Ruslana, and real-life radio talk show host Lazlow Jones. Saturday Night Live actors Bill Hader and Jason Sudeikis appear on the liberal and conservative radio talk shows respectively, with Fred Armisen playing several guests on Lazlow's "Integrity 2.0". Numerous other comedians, including Jim Norton, Patrice O'Neal, Rick Shapiro, and Robert Kelly, as well as radio hosts Opie and Anthony appeared on the radio and/or as characters in-game.

The Music of Grand Theft Auto IV is a 2008 soundtrack packaged with the special edition of Grand Theft Auto IV. The disc contains several soundtrack selections. The soundtrack features several genres, from hip hop to rock and reggae. Several artists re-recorded their songs to make references to in-game locations. Two songs, "Liberty City: The Invasion" and "No Sex for Ben", were composed specifically for the game and the soundtrack. The theme song of Grand Theft Auto IV, "Soviet Connection", was composed by Michael Hunter, who previously composed the theme for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

Reception

Initial Release

Grand Theft Auto IV was released to critical acclaim. Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating in the 0–100 range, calculated an average score of 98, indicating "universal acclaim". It is the second-highest rated game on the site, only behind The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Reviewers liked the game's narrative, open world design and combat system. Hilary Goldstein of IGN felt that the game "sets a new benchmark for open-world games", and Andrew Reiner of Game Informer wrote that the game "completely changes the landscape of gaming".

Reviewers lauded the open world design, some further complimenting the freedom that it allows the player. Seth Schiesel of The New York Times named the city the "real star" of the game. Official Xbox Magazine's Hicks was impressed by the city, attributing this to the game's AI. Robinson of Computer and Video Games considered the environment believable, and felt that the world was "utterly unmatched". Goldstein of IGN felt that, although Liberty City is inspired by New York, it is not beholden to it. He wrote that the city "exists in its own universe and rightfully so". Crispin Boyer of 1UP.com directed praise at the city's "breathtaking vistas, incredibly varied scenery, and lived-in look." Conversely, Jesse Costantino of Game Revolution felt that the game lacked important features common in other open world games.

Reviewers praised the game's narrative. IGN's Goldstein accepted that the darker tones to the story, a break from series tradition. Jon Hicks of Official Xbox Magazine felt surprised by the amount of depth to the story. Reiner of Game Informer wrote that the level of freedom in the game contributed to his enjoyment of the story. The morality choices faced by players throughout the narrative were also welcomed. 1UP.com's Boyer felt that they gave the game an element of "replayability". Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell considered the morality choices a fair substitute over "bosses with large health bars".

The player character sitting next to the main antagonist, at a bench on the side of the road. The game's main protagonist Niko Bellic with main antagonist Dimitri Rascalov. Reviewers praised the game's story and characters, commending the morality choices faced by players. The game's characters—particularly Niko—received positive reactions from critics. Hicks of Official Xbox Magazine and Andy Robinson of Computer and Video Games both called Niko "charismatic" and "likeable", stating that they prefer him over previous protagonists of the series. George Walter of GamesRadar praised the depth of the character, and IGN's Goldstein felt that the character of Niko feels relatable when faced with difficult decisions. Jeff Gerstmann of Giant Bomb felt that Niko was a "the only thing that mattered to him" as he progressed through the story, with the character becoming one of his favourite features of the game. Schiesel of The New York Times named Niko one of the most realised video game characters attributing this to the game's script, while 1UP.com's Boyer commended the use of character bonding during the game's missions.

Many reviewers found the combat system was more responsive than in previous games, particularly praising the addition of the cover system. Justin Calvert of GameSpot wrote that the cover system makes the game's combat a "huge improvement" over previous games. Reiner of Game Informer agreed, writing that the targeting system makes players feel responsible for all deaths. IGN's Goldstein praised the fluidity of the cover system, and felt that the auto aim mechanic is a "great help in larger battles". GamesRadar's Walter wrote that the cover system has "paved the way to a new style of mission". David McComb of Empire called the combat "sharp and instinctive", and Hicks of Official Xbox Magazine felt that the cover system allows players to execute an attack plan. In addition to the combat system, most reviewers noted the vehicle handling was more realistic than in previous games. Robinson of Computer and Video Games felt that the vehicle handling echoed realism, while Hicks of Official Xbox Magazine called the vehicle selection "excellent". Costantino of Game Revolution praised the improvement of the game's mechanics, particularly the physics engine's advanced vehicle and character animations.

Reviewers praised the sound design. Goldstein of IGN praised the actors' performances and the use of licensed music. GameSpot's Calvert and GamesRadar's Walter also commended the licensed music, the latter admiring the humour of the radio's talk stations. Michael Pinson of The Pro Audio Files praised the separate features of the game's sound design—including the city's ambiance, licensed music, character dialogue, and vehicle and weapon sound effects—applauding the developer's use of uniting the features together Carolyn Gudmundson of GamesRadar also retroactively praised the game's soundtrack, commending its suitability to the game's setting.

The game's online multiplayer mode received positive reactions from critics. Reiner of Game Informer praised the character customisation available in the multiplayer mode, and noted that it runs "just as smoothly" as the single-player game. 1UP.com's Boyer called the multiplayer modes "excellent", and IGN's Goldstein named it one of the best. Official Xbox Magazine's Hicks dubbed the multiplayer as "hugely entertaining", while Walter of GamesRadar praised the "seamless" process of entering a multiplayer match. Giant Bomb's Gerstmann and Game Revolution's Costantino felt divided about the multiplayer, the latter naming it a "fantastic idea", but feeling as though connectivity problems resulted in a "broken" experience.

Microsoft Windows Version

When Grand Theft Auto IV was released to Microsoft Windows in December 2008, it received generally positive reviews. Metacritic calculated an average score of 90 out of 100, indicating "universal acclaim", based on 40 reviews. Reviewers liked the enhanced visuals and the additional features, but criticised the port for its inferiority over the console versions.

The in-game features added in the port were well received. The addition of the Video Editor was met with positive reactions; GameSpot's Calvert called it "a great way to get creative", while Kieron Gillen of Eurogamer criticised the unpredictability in its timing. Critics also praised the addition of the customisable radio station, which allows players to listen to their own choice of music; Tom Chick of 1UP.com named it the best feature of the port, and Steven Hopper of GameZone called it a "great touch". The port's upgrade to 32 concurrent players in the online multiplayer mode, as opposed to the console version's 16 players, was also met with positive feedback; Eurogamer's Gillen said that the "possibility for mayhem... increases", while Will Tuttle of GameSpy felt that the player increase "changes the action significantly".

The port's enhanced visuals were commended by many reviewers. GameZone's Hopper considered the visuals an improvement over the original versions. Andy Robinson of Computer and Video Games called the visuals "impressive", while Tom Orry of VideoGamer.com called them "superb". Conversely, the port's system requirements, considered difficult to run with advanced settings, received criticism. Eurogamer's Gillen said that, though the Windows version is "the most attractive version", it's "annoyingly fiddly to get there". GameSpy's Tuttle was able to overlook the demanding system requirements in exchange for the game's other features.

Commercial Performance

Sales

Within twenty-four hours of its release, Grand Theft Auto IV sold over 3.6 million copies, equating to approximately $310 million in revenue. Within a week, it generated more than $500 million in worldwide revenue, equating to approximately 6 million copies sold for Take Two. The numbers surpassed analysts' expectations for the title. After one month of availability, the game had sold over 8.5 million copies. It broke three Guinness World Records on 13 May 2008: highest grossing video game in 24 hours, highest revenue generated by an entertainment product in 24 hours, and fastest-selling video game in 24 hours. On 11 March 2011, Take-Two announced that the game had sold over 20 million copies, with the Grand Theft Auto series surpassing a collective total of 100 million copies. As of July 2013, the game has sold over 25 million copies. All sales records broken by Grand Theft Auto IV were beaten by its successor, Grand Theft Auto V, upon release.

In the United Kingdom, the game became the fastest-selling game of all time, selling over 631,000 copies in twenty-four hours. This broke the record set by Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas at 501,000 copies over the same period. During the first five days of availability, the game sold over 927,000 copies in the United Kingdom. Over the same period, 2.85 million units were sold in the United States. By the end of 2008, the game had sold over 5.18 million copies in the US. In its first four days of availability in Japan, it sold 133,000 copies on the PlayStation 3 and 34,000 on the Xbox 360, according to Media Create.

In the first week of availability, the Windows version of Grand Theft Auto IV debuted at seventh place on the weekly charts; by the second week, it had left the top-ten. Based on unique user counts, the game was the most played Games for Windows – Live game in 2009 and 2012, and the second-most played in 2011.

Awards

Following the critical acclaim it received on its release, Grand Theft Auto IV has received various awards from various critics and publications. It received several Game of the Year awards, from gaming media outlets such as Spike TV, Giant Bomb, Kotaku, and GameTrailers, as well as mainstream publications, like The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Time magazine. Grand Theft Auto IV also received seven nominations at the 5th British Academy Video Games Awards (BAFTA Games Awards), and three nominations at the 9th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards, but did not win any of them.

Controversies

Prior to and since the release of Grand Theft Auto IV, the game had been subject to a great deal of controversy, as was the case with previous Grand Theft Auto titles. Figures including George Galloway, Jack Thompson and Hillary Clinton have criticised the game, as have organisations including New York City officials and Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). MADD asked ESRB to change the rating of the game from "M" (for ages seventeen and up) to "AO" (for adults only) due to the player's ability to drive under the influence of alcohol.

The initial version of Grand Theft Auto IV released in Australia and New Zealand was pre-censored by Rockstar to allow the game to meet the perceived requirements of the Australian classification system. However, the game was resubmitted to the New Zealand OFLC by Stan Calif, a 21-year-old student who was unhappy that New Zealand received an edited version of the game as a result of Australian censorship laws. The unedited version was subsequently given an R18 rating and cleared for sale in New Zealand. For the PC release, the uncensored version of the game was awarded MA15+ in Australia. Following the release of The Lost and Damned, Rockstar distributed a patch which uncensored the Australian console version.

There have been reports in the United Kingdom and the United States of crimes perpetrated against people purchasing Grand Theft Auto IV, as well as employees of stores selling the game. One of these incidents, an attack near a Gamestation store in Croydon, London was later reported to be an unrelated argument between two groups of people leaving a pub and the story has been referred to as a "media panic." Six teenagers were later arrested in June 2008 after engaging in a crime spree in New Hyde Park, New York, assaulting and robbing several people, and attempting a carjacking. According to police, the teens claimed that they were "inspired" by Grand Theft Auto IV.

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About the Game

Grand Theft Auto III is an open world action-adventure third-person shooter video game developed by DMA Design and published by Rockstar Games. It was released on 22 October 2001 for the PlayStation 2, on 20 May 2002 for Microsoft Windows, and on 31 October 2003 for the Xbox. A remastered version of the game was released on mobile platforms in 2011, for the game's tenth anniversary. It is the fifth title in the Grand Theft Auto series, and the first main entry since 1999's Grand Theft Auto 2. Set within the fictional Liberty City, based on New York City, the game follows Claude after he is left for dead and quickly becomes entangled in a world of gangs, crime and corruption.

The game is played from a third-person perspective and its world is navigated on foot or by vehicle. The open world design lets players freely roam Liberty City, consisting of three main islands. Development was shared between DMA Design, based in Edinburgh and Rockstar, in New York City. Much of the development work constituted transforming popular series elements into a 3D world. The game was delayed following the September 11 attacks, to allow the team to change references and gameplay deemed inappropriate.

Upon release, the game received critical acclaim, with praise particularly directed at its concept and gameplay. However, the game also generated controversy, with criticism directed at the depiction of violence and sexual content. Grand Theft Auto III became the best-selling video game of 2001, and has sold over 17 million copies. Considered one of the most significant titles of the sixth generation of video games, and by many critics as one of the greatest video games of all time, it won year-end accolades, including Game of the Year awards from several gaming publications. Since its release, it has received numerous ports to many gaming platforms. Its successor, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, was released in October 2002.

Gameplay

Grand Theft Auto III is an action-adventure game played from a third-person view. Players complete missions—linear scenarios with set objectives—to progress through the story. It is possible to have several active missions running at one time, as some missions require players to wait for further instructions or events. Outside of missions, players can freely roam the game's open world, and have the ability to complete option side missions. Liberty City is composed of three boroughs: Portland, Staunton Island, and Shoreside Vale; the islands are unlocked to players as the story progresses.

Players can freely roam the game's world, and have the ability to use weapons Players may run, jump or use vehicles to navigate the game's world. In combat, auto-aim can be used as assistance against enemies. Should players take damage, their health meter can be fully regenerated through the use of health pick-ups. Body armour can be used to absorb gunshots and explosive damage, but is used up in the process. When health is entirely depleted, gameplay stops, and players respawn at the nearest hospital, at the expense of losing all weapons and armour, and an amount of money.

If players commit crimes while playing, the game's law enforcement agencies may respond as indicated by a "wanted" meter in the head-up display (HUD). On the meter, the displayed stars indicate the current wanted level (for example, at the maximum six-star level, efforts by law enforcement to incapacitate players become very aggressive). Law enforcement officers will search for players who leave the wanted vicinity. The wanted meter enters a cooldown mode and eventually recedes when players are hidden from the officers' line of sight.

The game lets players control the mute criminal Claude. During the story, Claude meets various new characters from gangs. As players completes missions for different gangs, fellow gang members will often defend players, while rival gang members will recognise players and subsequently shoot on sight. While free roaming the game world, players may engage in activities such as a vigilante minigame, a fire fighting activity, and a taxi cab service. Completion of these activities grants players with context-specific rewards; for example, completing the vigilante mission allows players to bribe police after committing a crime.

Combat in Grand Theft Auto III was reworked to allow players to commit drive-by shootings by viewing sideways in a car. Players use melee attacks, firearms and explosives to fight enemies. The firearms include weapons such as the Micro Uzi, an M16 rifle and a flamethrower. The game's three-dimension environment allows a first-person view while aiming with the sniper rifle, rocket launcher and the M16 rifle. In addition, the game's combat was reworked to allow players to commit drive-by shootings by facing sideways in a vehicle. The game gives players a wide variety of weapon options—they can be purchased from local firearms dealers, found on the ground, retrieved from dead enemies, or found around the city.

Plot

While robbing a bank in Liberty City, ambitious criminal Claude is shot and betrayed by his girlfriend and accomplice Catalina (Cynthia Farrell). Although he survives the wound, Claude is arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. While being transported in a prison van, Claude and fellow prisoner 8-Ball (Guru) are inadvertently freed after an attack on the police convoy, and escape to a safehouse. 8-Ball later introduces Claude to the Leone Mafia crime family; Sex Club 7 owner Luigi Goterelli (Joe Pantoliano), Don Salvatore Leone (Frank Vincent), his Capo Toni Cipriani (Michael Madsen), and the Don's son Joey Leone (Michael Rapaport). During work for the family, Claude finds himself fighting the Colombians, who are being led by Catalina in proliferating a new drug. Meanwhile, Salvatore's trophy wife Maria (Debi Mazar) begins to take a liking to Claude. Salvatore grows suspicious and betrays Claude into luring him to a death trap, but Maria saves him just in time and they both flee.

Claude then begins working for the city's Yakuza and its leader Asuka Kasen (Lianna Pai), Maria's close friend, who has Claude assassinate Salvatore and get his revenge. This cuts off all of Claude's ties with the Leone family, who are now against him. Claude's work leads him to allying himself with other criminal sources, such as corrupt police detective Ray Machowski (Robert Loggia), an enemy of the Cartel. Claude later saves him from Internal Affairs and the CIA by helping him flee to Vice City. Claude also meets charismatic media mogul Donald Love (Kyle MacLachlan), who maintains a huge media front. In an effort to start a war between the Yakuza and Cartel, Claude and Love organise the death of Asuka's brother Kenji Kasen (Les Mau) and blame the Cartel. Later, Love asks Claude to rescue a man who was kidnapped by the Cartel in the prison truck that Claude was in. While on an errand, Claude finally confronts Catalina, who narrowly escapes. Asuka abducts Catalina's partner Miguel (Al Espinosa), believing him to have knowledge of her brother's death.

With the war with the Cartel intensifying, Asuka and Maria learn of Claude's history with Catalina and order him to attack many Cartel operations. Eventually, his exploits attract the attention of Catalina. As a result, the Cartel kidnap Maria, murder Asuka and Miguel, and demand Claude to pay a $500,000 ransom in exchange for Maria's release. When Claude confronts Catalina, she attempts to have him killed, but he escapes. In the resulting firefight, Catalina attempts to flee in a helicopter and makes a final attempt on Claude's life. After killing the remaining Cartel members and rescuing Maria, Claude shoots down the helicopter, effectively killing Catalina. As they are leaving the scene, Maria complains to Claude about the kidnapping, particularly the state of her appearance. During the credits, a gunshot is heard, and Maria's voice is silenced.

Development

The core development team of Grand Theft Auto III consisted of about 23 people at DMA Design in Edinburgh, who worked closely with publisher Rockstar Games in New York City. By early 2001, the team had designed the city, cars, and some weapons. An online multiplayer mode was initially planned for the game, but was ultimately dropped due to time and resource limitations. Producer Leslie Benzies described Grand Theft Auto III as a "crime simulation game". When porting the game to Microsoft Windows, the team delayed it from the PlayStation 2 release in order to ensure quality, citing issues with the simultaneous platform release of previous Grand Theft Auto games.

Open World Design

Grand Theft Auto III is the first 3D game in the series, using Criterion Games' RenderWare game engine. When designing the game, the development team expanded upon concepts introduced in the previous Grand Theft Auto games. Benzies stated that the intention was to recreate the "freedom and diversity" of the previous games in a "living, breathing 3D world", using the power of the PlayStation 2 to do so. The console's ability to use DVDs, an improvement over the PlayStation's limit to CDs, allowed the team to store more data, such as animations, music and environments. Despite this, the team found it difficult to fit the game into the PlayStation 2's 32 megabytes of RAM, due to the scale. The game's size also created difficulties for the testers, due to the variety of options.[5] Benzies felt that creating a living city was the "underlying principle" of the game's concept during development. Executive producer Sam Houser felt that the game's 3D element allowed the "chemistry of the team to come together perfectly for the first time".

A major difficulty the team encountered was converting all game elements into a 3D world, including the sound and radio stations, as well as designing and voicing the non-player characters, due to the amount that existed within the open world; producer Dan Houser said that there was about 8,000 lines of recorded dialogue in the game, while audio programmer Raymond Usher estimated about 18,000. The basic technical elements of the game began to work together in mid-2000, with a carjacking mechanic prototype and stable streaming model. Streaming was initially intended to be reserved for music and map geometry, but other elements were eventually included when it became apparent to the team as more data was entered.

When designing the game world, the team initially created a "hybrid city", which producer Dan Houser describes as "a post industrial Midwest slash east coast generic" city. Upon developing within this game world, the team realised that basing the design on a real location meant "you have a lot of things you can say about it". As a result, the team redesigned Liberty City, which had been previously featured in Grand Theft Auto (1997), basing it loosely on New York City. The city is broken into three islands: an industrial section representing Brooklyn and Queens, a commercial centre resembling Manhattan, and suburbs similar to New Jersey. The islands unlock as the story progresses; the team wanted players to "start out feeling poor and work to being richer". Dan Houser describes Liberty City as a "hybrid of a generic American city", including Chicago, Pittsburgh, Detroit, New York, and Philadelphia. He felt that the parallel realism of the world allowed the team to make more social commentary than previously. Sam Houser cited films and shows like Heat (1995) and The Sopranos (1999–2007) as inspiration for the setting, and wanted to emulate them in the game. He also cited the influence of The Legend of Zelda series (1986–present) and the film Goodfellas (1990), describing Grand Theft Auto III as "a cross between a gangster movie and an RPG".

Story and Characters

The team developed the story and design simultaneously. "We use the story to expose the mechanics, and we use the mechanics to tell the story," said Dan Houser. Houser found it difficult to create the narrative, as the game is so strongly focused on player freedom. He wanted the story to be more nuanced and interesting than the generic "rise and fall and rise again of a superhero bad guy". The game's script was also focused on mission objectives, attempting to implement high amounts of interactivity. Houser felt that each mission is "its own short story", and part of an "overarching story". Houser and co-writer James Worrall drew influence from mob films, and the mafiosi featured in films by Martin Scorsese. When writing the story, Houser and Worrall regularly met with the designers, and filled a room with post-it notes to reconstruct the story components to shape the game.

Many of the game characters were animated using motion capture, filmed at a rented studio at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, though this was limited by technical restraints. The character movement was also treated as being cinematic, though limited polygons heavily inhibited this. Animating non-player characters entering and driving cars proved to be difficult for the team, due to the variety of vehicle designs. "It involved chaining together dozens of different animations and altering key frames in code," recalled software engineer Alan Campbell. The team used varying camera angles when animating the game's cutscenes, in order to evoke different emotions. For the voice acting, the team wanted "natural, subtle performances", which proved difficult as many of the actors "had in their head the idea that because video games are animated their performances needed to be animated", explained motion capture director Navid Khonsari. The game's playable protagonist is unnamed in the game, and his name is not officially revealed as Claude until his appearance in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004). He is a silent protagonist, never speaking throughout his appearances. The team decided to make Claude silent primarily because it "did not seem like a major issue", due to the other challenges faced during development, and also partly to allow players to identify with the character.

Sound Design

Grand Theft Auto III features about three-and-a-half hours of in-game radio material. For the music, the team sought a broad diversity, to recreate the real sensation of skipping through radio stations, reflecting the gangster movie culture invoked by the game. The team used the talk radio stations to add character to the city, and provide a "unique take on American life"; Sam Houser described it as "a very iconoclastic look at America". The team used real DJs to portray those on the radio. In doing so, the team wrote unusual dialogue for the DJs, seeking the effect of "high production values and absurd content". Music director Craig Conner assembled the assets of the radio station—music, advertisements, DJ dialogue, station imaging.

Cuts, Changes, and the 9/11 Effect

Prior to the initial release, several modifications were made to the game. While changes are frequent during game development, the changes in Grand Theft Auto III were noted to be around the time of the September 11 attacks, which led to speculation that some changes were motivated by the attacks. On 19 September 2001, Rockstar delayed the game's release by three weeks, citing the attacks as an influencing factor in the delay. "Everyone had someone who had an uncle or brother who was impacted by the attack", said Paul Eibeler, then-president of distributor Take-Two Interactive.

After the events of 9/11, the original colour scheme of the police cars in the game (top), which resembled the NYPD, was changed to a generic black-and-white design common in the United States.

The original artwork for the game, which was changed after the events of 9/11. The artwork was used as the cover in Europe. One of the changes made shortly after 9/11 was the colour scheme of the police cars; the original colour scheme of blue with white stripes specifically resembled that of the New York City Police Department. It was changed to black-and-white designs common among several police departments in the United States, such as Los Angeles and San Francisco. Other changes include altering the flight path of a plane to avoid appearing to fly into or behind a skyscraper, removing a mission referencing terrorists, as well as some changes to pedestrian dialogue and talk radio.

Another cut to the game is the character of Darkel, a revolutionary urchin who vowed to bring down the city's economy. When references to Darkel were found in the game's code, speculation arose that the character was related to 9/11, however Dan Houser explained that the character had been cut "months before release". There are also reports and previews stating that the game featured school children as pedestrians prior to release, although Rockstar has dismissed such rumours as "nonsense".

Rockstar stated that the game was "about 1% different" after 9/11, and that the biggest change was the cover art. They felt that the original cover, which was ultimately released as the cover in Europe, felt "too raw" after 9/11, and was changed into what became the "signature style" of the series. Sam Houser claims that the cover was designed in an evening, and was instantly preferred over the original cover. The cover was inspired by the movie posters for 1960s films, such as The Thomas Crown Affair (1968).

Critical Reception

Initial Release

Grand Theft Auto III was released to critical acclaim. Metacritic calculated an average score of 97 of out 100, indicating "universal acclaim", based on 56 reviews. It is the sixth-highest rated game on Metacritic, tied with a number of others. Reviewers liked the game's sound, gameplay, and open world design, though some criticism was directed at the controls. Tom Bramwell of Eurogamer called Grand Theft Auto III "a luscious, sprawling epic", and Official PlayStation Magazine named it "the most innovative, outlandish, brilliant video game". GameSpot's Jeff Gerstmann described the game as "an incredible experience that shouldn't be missed by anyone"; IGN's Doug Perry named it "one of the best titles of the year, on PlayStation 2, or on any system".

Many reviewers found the 3D graphics a welcoming change from the 2D of the previous games. GameSpot's Gerstmann particularly praised the character and vehicle models, and the overall texture quality of the city. GameSpy's Andrei Alupului found the graphics "really rather impressive", describing the car models as "greatly improved" over those in Midnight Club. Eurogamer's Bramwell considered the graphics "generally pleasant to look at", but considered it inferior to games like Gran Turismo 3 and Ico. Justin Leeper of Game Informer described game world as "stunning in scope and detail",[63] and Perry of IGN found it to be "on a scale that's truly epic". Game Revolution's Ben Silverman called the city a "technological marvel ... that captures the essence of gritty city life in amazing detail".

IGN's Perry considered the game's sound "unbelievably and meticulously delivered", particularly praising the soundtrack, voice acting and sound design, stating that it was "really approached as if it were done for a movie". Eurogamer's Bramwell echoed similar remarks, describing the city sounds as "perfect" and the soundtrack as "monstrous". The sound was described as "terrific" by GameSpot's Gerstmann and Game Revolution's Silverman, and 1UP.com appreciated the subtlety of the in-game radio stations. AllGame's Scott Alan Marriott named the music "the true star" of the game.

Reviewers considered the style of the game's missions to be a welcoming departure from those in previous games. 1UP.com described the missions as "wonderfully creative", while GamesMaster appreciated the diversity. IGN's Perry similarly appreciated the variety and scale of the missions, and praised the amount of available side missions. GameSpy's Alupului described the game's story as "well-paced" and "coherent", featuring plot elements akin to a mob film. GameSpot's Gerstmann found the missions entertaining and challenging, but noted that exploring the game world also offers "a great deal of fun" to players.

Reactions to the game's controls were mixed. Alupului of GameSpy found the game "controls beautifully", both while driving and on-foot. Game Revolution's Silverman identified the control issues as the game's only flaw, although praised the responsiveness of the driving mechanics. Matt Helgeson of Game Informer similarly described the driving as "great", but noted "clunky" combat. GamePro's Four-Eyed Dragon found the cars simple to manoeuvre. Edge described the game's combat as "an awkward system that stymies play. 1UP.com noted particular flaws in the targeting system, explaining that it "often focuses on the wrong guy".

Microsoft Windows Version

When Grand Theft Auto III was released to Microsoft Windows in May 2002, it received similar critical acclaim. Metacritic calculated an average score of 93 out of 100, indicating "universal acclaim", based on 20 reviews. It was the highest-rated Windows game on Metacritic in 2002. Reviewers liked the visual enhancements and control improvements, but criticised the port for its demanding system requirements.

The in-game features and controls in the port were generally well received. IGN's Tal Blevins praised the higher precision of the mouse controls, finding the aiming mechanic more precise. GameSpot's Erik Wolpaw also commended the mouse controls, but disapproved the replay system, particularly due to the lack of options with timing and camera controls. Extended Play's Andrew Bub appreciated the addition of a custom radio station, as well as the availability of custom skins. Daniel Morris of PC Gamer praised the gameplay tweaks provided by the port, but criticised the lack of major additional features, such as an overhead map of the in-game city.

The port's visuals received a positive response from reviewers. GameSpot's Wolpaw praised the port's reworked textures, but criticised the frequent popup, and the advanced system requirements. IGN's Blevins similarly criticised the necessity of an advanced system for stable play, but ultimately felt that the port looks "a bit nicer" than the original game. GameSpy's Sal Accardo felt that the port "looks much sharper" than the PlayStation 2 version, though noted some "choppy" animations. Extended Play's Bub mentioned that the advanced settings resulted in slowdown and crashes. Game Informer's Matt Helgeson noticed little difference between the visuals of the original and the port.

Mobile Version

When Grand Theft Auto III was released to mobile devices in December 2011, it received generally positive reviews. Metacritic calculated an average score of 80 out of 100, based on 26 reviews. Reviewers liked the enhanced visuals, but criticism was directed at the touchscreen controls.

The port's visuals were well received. IGN's Peter Eykemans commended the smoother textures, especially condensed on a mobile screen, while Destructoid's Jim Sterling noted improvements in the character and vehicle models. Mark Walton of GameSpot wrote that the game runs well on high-end devices like the Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy S II, but noticed significant frame rate and texture issues on the Xperia Play. Pocket Gamer's Mark Brown identified the game's short draw distance leading to sudden popup, although still found that the models and textures "have been given a tune-up" in the port.

The touchscreen controls received a mixed response. Eurogamer's Dan Whitehead appreciated the driving mechanics, but felt that moving on-foot is "a flaky way of navigating" the world, and criticised the "clumsy" shooting mechanics. IGN's Eykemans felt that the controls "make half the experience frustrating", and Destructoid's Sterling described them as "by far the biggest barrier toward enjoying" the port. Brown of Pocket Gamer found that the touchscreen "hasn't hindered the game too drastically", commending simple movement and "effortless" driving mechanics. Some critics identified better controls upon the use of external gamepads, but felt that they hinder the game's portability.

Commercial Performance

Sales

Grand Theft Auto III was the highest-selling game of 2001 in the United States, selling over two million units by February 2002. The game was also the second best-selling game of 2002, behind only its sequel. Take-Two stock significantly increased following the game's launch, and the game was included in PlayStation's Greatest Hits selection. In the United States, the game had sold 5.35 million units by June 2004, and 6.55 million units in the United States by December 2007. In Japan, Grand Theft Auto III sold about 120,000 copies in its first week, and over 350,000 by January 2008. The game earned a "Diamond" award in the United Kingdom, indicating over one million sales;[89] it was the first game to achieve this milestone in the region. By March 2008, the game had sold 14.5 million units worldwide.

Accolades

Grand Theft Auto III received multiple nominations and awards from gaming publications. It was awarded Game of the Year at the Game Developers Choice Awards, and from GameSpot and GameSpy. It was named the Best PlayStation 2 Game by Game Revolution, GameSpot, GameSpy and IGN. It also won Best Action Game from Game Revolution, GameSpot, and IGN, and Most Innovative from GameSpot, as well as Excellence in Game Design at the Game Developers Choice Awards. GameSpy also awarded the game Most Offensive, Best Use of Radio, and tied for Best Artificial Intelligence.

Controversies

Prior to and since the release of Grand Theft Auto III, the game generated several controversies. GameSpy awarded Grand Theft Auto III with Most Offensive Game of the Year, calling it "absolutely reprehensible". They wrote that the game rewards players for "causing mayhem" and "killing innocent people by the dozen", ultimately questioning its appropriateness within the industry. The notoriety of Grand Theft Auto III resulted in Wal-Mart's decision to check the identification of purchasers who appeared to be under the age of 17, when purchasing mature titles. In an essay, assistant professor Shira Chess identified the lack of conclusion to player violence, due to the ability to respawn upon death or incarceration, and found that it denies the "reality of mortality and simultaneously forces it on players". When speaking about the game's depiction of violence, producer Leslie Benzies claims that is intended as comedic, and that the game is "not meant to be taken seriously". Producer Dan Houser stated that the team was conscious of the offence that the game would attract, but "never marketed it in a way that exploited that".

The game allows players to participate in sexual activities with prostitutes, and murder them to reclaim the payment. This was met with widespread controversy. The game also received controversy for its depiction of crime, and allowing violence against police officers. Psychologist David Walsh of the National Institute on Media and the Family stated that the game "glamorizes antisocial and criminal activity", and that "the purpose of the game is to perpetrate crime". In response, Kotaku writer Owen Good wrote that the game does not reward players for "proficiency at crime, no matter how much it is accused of doing so". Joanna Weiss of The Boston Globe noted the "adrenaline" that players feel when committing crimes in the game, excusing the game's violence due to its mature classification. The National Organization for Women spoke out against the game in January 2002, asking Rockstar and Take-Two to withdraw the game from sale as it "encourages violence and the degradation of women". Matt Richtel of The New York Times wrote that the activities within the game "crossed the line into bad taste".

Grand Theft Auto III was initially released in Australia with an MA15+ classification. After re-reviewing the game, the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) banned it, due to its depiction of sexual content and violence to prostitutes. This prompted distributor Take-Two Interactive to appeal to the OFLC, who reaffirmed the banned status on 11 December 2001, after reanalysing the game and seeking the professional opinion of a forensic psychologist. This prompted Take-Two to recall the game in Australia, and Rockstar to make appropriate changes to the game; a modified version was re-released with an MA15+ classification in January 2002, removing all instances of sexual acts with prostitutes.

On 25 June 2003, teenage stepbrothers William and Josh Buckner shot and killed Aaron Hamel and Kimberly Bede. In statements to investigators, the perpretators claimed their actions were inspired by Grand Theft Auto III. In response, on 20 October 2003, the families of Hamel and Bede filed a US$246 million lawsuit against Rockstar Games, Take-Two Interactive, Sony Computer Entertainment and Wal-Mart. Rockstar and Take-Two filed for dismissal of the lawsuit, stating in United States district court on 29 October 2003 that the "ideas and concepts", and the "purported psychological effects" of the perpetrators, are protected by the First Amendment's free-speech clause. Jack Thompson, the lawyer representing the victims, denied Rockstar's claims, and attempted to move the lawsuit into a state court for consideration under Tennessee's consumer protection act.

Legacy

Grand Theft Auto III has been frequently included among the greatest video games of all time. In 2007, GamePro called Grand Theft Auto III the most important video game of all-time, explaining that the "game's open-ended gameplay elements have revolutionized the way all video games are made". Similarly, IGN ranked the game among the Top 10 Most Influential Games, and GameSpot listed among the greatest games of all time. In 2009, Game Informer wrote that Grand Theft Auto III "changed the gaming landscape forever with its immersive open world sandbox", and in 2016 GamesRadar named it "the most important game of the decade". Time named it one of the greatest video games of all time in November 2012 and August 2016.

Grand Theft Auto III is considered to have a leading role in the popularisation of sandbox games, inspiring those such as True Crime (2003–05), Saints Row (2006–present) and Crackdown (2007). The term "Grand Theft Auto clone" is frequently used to describe subsequent video games released with similar open-ended gameplay as Grand Theft Auto III. While previous video games used open world design, including earlier Grand Theft Auto games, Grand Theft Auto III took this gameplay foundation and expanded it into a 3D world, offering an unprecedented variety of minigames and side-missions. Due to the greater success of the game over its predecessors, it is credited with popularising the open-world genre; Dan Houser felt that the game made it "one of the most vibrant genres today".

The game also led the trend of mature video games; Dan Houser felt that it allowed other developers to create violent shooters. Hal Halpin, president of the Entertainment Consumers Association, described Grand Theft Auto III as the "lightning rod for the violence-in-games debate". Metro's Roger Hargreaves wrote that it "emboldened a whole new wave of games that were ... fixated with violence, gang culture". Greg Ford of Electronic Gaming Monthly felt that the game allowed the medium to handle mature subject matter in a more serious manner than previously perceived, and noted the improvement of video game classification as a result of the game's controversy.

Following the game's success, Rockstar developed further titles in the series. Vice City and San Andreas are set in their titular locations in 1986 and 1992, respectively. Grand Theft Auto Advance (2004) is set in Liberty City roughly one year before the events of Grand Theft Auto III. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (2005) takes place three years before the events of Grand Theft Auto III in the same rendition of Liberty City. A completely redesigned version of the city was later used in Grand Theft Auto IV (2008), The Lost and Damned (2009), The Ballad of Gay Tony (2009) and Chinatown Wars (2009).

Ports and Remakes

Grand Theft Auto III was released on 21 May 2002 for Microsoft Windows, supporting higher screen resolutions and draw distance, and featuring more detailed textures. The game was planned to be released on the GameCube and Xbox, though the version for the former was later cancelled. For its release on the Xbox in December 2003, Grand Theft Auto III was bundled with its sequel Vice City in a compilation titled Grand Theft Auto: Double Pack. The Xbox port features custom soundtrack support as well as improved audio, polygon models, and reflections over the previous ports. Double Pack was later bundled with San Andreas in a compilation titled Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy, released in October 2005. The Trilogy was also released for OS X on 12 November 2010. For the game's tenth anniversary in December 2011, War Drum Studios ported Grand Theft Auto III to several iOS and Android devices. The port is almost identical to the Windows version of the game, in addition to enhanced textures and models and touchscreen controls. A PlayStation 3 version of Grand Theft Auto III was released on 25 September 2012 via the PlayStation Network. The original PlayStation 2 version of the game was released for the PlayStation 4 on 5 December 2015.

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About the Game

Grand Theft Auto 2 is an open-world action-adventure video game developed by DMA Design and published by Rockstar Games. It was released on 30 September 1999 for Microsoft Windows, and on 22 October 1999 for the PlayStation, followed by Dreamcast and Game Boy Color releases in 2000. It is the sequel to Grand Theft Auto, part of the Grand Theft Auto series. The open world design lets players freely roam Anywhere City, the setting of the game.

The game is played from a top–down perspective and its world is navigated on foot or by vehicle. The game was made available on Steam on 4 January 2008 as part of a collection. Its successor, Grand Theft Auto III, was released on 22 October 2001.

Setting

Grand Theft Auto 2 is set in an unspecified time in a retrofuturistic metropolis referred to only as "Anywhere, USA", but the game's manual and website use the phrase "three weeks into the future"; fictional journal entries on the Grand Theft Auto 2 website suggest the year to be 2013, but rather the in-game references suggest the game to be set in 1999.

The City is split into three levels, or "districts". The first level, Downtown, is a hub of business activity as well as the site of a large mental institution and university. The second area, the Residential District, contains the city's prison, a trailer park with an Elvis-themed bar dubbed "Disgracelands", a shopping mall, and a giant hydroelectric power plant. The third and final area is the Industrial District; it holds a large seaport, a meat packing plant, a Nuclear Power Plant and a Krishna temple.

There are a total of seven criminal gangs in the game: the Zaibatsu, a corrupt corporation, is present in all three areas. The Downtown area is also home to the Loonies, a gang of mentally ill people who have taken over the city asylum, and the Yakuza. In the Residential area, the gangs include SRS Scientists and the Rednecks, who live in a trailer park and drive around in pick-ups with large Confederate flags. The Industrial area contains the Russian Mafia and the Hare Krishna. Each gang has their own special characteristics, car, and behaviour.

The game can be played in two modes (only in the PC version), noon or dusk. On the noon setting the lighting is bright making the game clear to see (also lowering the graphics overhead on low-end hardware because of the fewer lighting effects). On the dusk setting the game is darker, with multiple dynamic lights from explosions and car headlights. The Dreamcast version of the game can only be played in the dusk setting. The PlayStation version of the game can only be played in the noon setting. This feature was expanded further in Grand Theft Auto III where the daylight changes with the time of day in the game.

Gameplay

Grand Theft Auto 2 retained the overhead viewpoint of Grand Theft Auto, as well as the car-stealing/telephone-answering formula of the original. The player has the ability to explore cities on foot or in various vehicles. The aim is to achieve a certain score. On achieving this goal the player then can proceed to the next level. Doing missions awards the player more points than any other method but are not essential for completion of the game.

A new feature introduced in Grand Theft Auto 2 was doing missions for separate gangs, of which there are two new gangs for each of the three levels of the game, and one faction which is present in all levels. Being employed by one gang can cause distrust from others (working for gang No. 1 will incur the wrath of gang No. 2, working for gang No. 2 will cause enmity with gang No. 3, etc.). In the original Grand Theft Auto, only the local police pursued the player. In Grand Theft Auto 2, SWAT teams (4 Copheads) are introduced in the Downtown District, while Special Agents (5 Copheads) and the army (6 Copheads) are introduced in the Residential and Industrial Districts. These additional types of law enforcement begin chasing the player as his or her wanted level increases. The wanted level is represented by images of a cop's head, and vary between the Windows and PlayStation versions.

Grand Theft Auto 2 introduced an improved saving technique, unlike the original game, which saved only when finishing a city. If the player entered a church with $50,000, a voice announced "Hallelujah! Another soul saved!". This notified the player that the game had been saved. If the player did not have enough money, the voice would say "Damnation! No donation, no salvation!". These messages are not heard on the PlayStation version.

Other improvements pertain to city activity. Passing vehicles and pedestrians are no longer cosmetic parts of the environment, but actually play a role in gameplay. Sometimes pedestrians would occasionally enter and ride in taxis or buses. The game is noted for the behaviour of its non-player characters. Pedestrians, gang members and the police would occasionally engage in fights, and there are other carjackers (Green sweater) and muggers (Red sweater with white arms) in the city.

This game introduces 'side missions' such as being a taxi driver, bus driver, and a semi-truck driver along with retrieving 'hidden' packages ('GTA2' Badges) or Wang Cars (play on 'wankers'), and a health meter. Being a taxidriver would earn roughly 1 dollar per second. When standing still, passengers could get out if they want to, and the earnings will stop. Wang Cars only appeared in the second district. They were well hidden and usually required the player to take a severe amount of highspeed jumps to reach the cars, some of them parked on top of buildings. When the car was entered, the player spawned at the Wang Cars garage, with the garagedoor of the collected car lighting up. Collecting all cars resulted in 8 bonus vehicles parked outside the garage. Among these were cars prepped with oilslicks, integrated machineguns and a firetruck, living up its name as its watercannon was replaced with a flamethrower.

Some weapons in Grand Theft Auto 2 feature a "Kill Frenzy" mission when picked up, where a player has a limited amount of time to kill a certain number of people with a particular weapon loaded. Bonuses are rewarded if the mission is successful. Also if a player finds a tank and gets in it a "Kill Frenzy" mission also starts, and finally in random parts of the city are parked special cars, and if the player gets on one he has to either kill people by running them over or kill them with any extra weapon that the car has. There is a bug involving the Kill Frenzy as it is possible to save when having it. When the game is then reloaded, the Kill Frenzy ends, but the almost unlimited ammunition remains until that same weapon is picked up or a more than usually allowed amount of ammunition is wasted.

The PlayStation version of Grand Theft Auto 2 is toned down from the PC version, with lower quotas for the number of kills needed in rampage style missions, and containing no voice acting in the saving interface. The port also includes a feature where the player car will explode after the player kills a large number of gang members. One mission was also changed. Instead of the player tricking civilians into entering a bus to drive them to a meat processing plant to be cannibalised, the victims are Hare Krishna gang members.

As is the case with the original Grand Theft Auto and Grand Theft Auto: London 1969, the player receives bonuses for running his car over certain people without stopping or braking. A string of Elvis impersonators are sometimes spotted walking the streets. If a player can kill them in a short amount of time, they are awarded with a large money bonus, followed by the bold words "ELVIS HAS LEFT THE BUILDING".

Grand Theft Auto 2 features four multiplayer modes: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Tag and Race.

There are trains in the PC version, which the players can ride on.

Gta 2: The Movie

The opening cutscene of the game was pieced together using live-action footage taken from an eight-minute short film created for the purpose of advertising the game, retrospectively known as GTA 2: The Movie. This film has since been made available to the public and is downloadable from Rockstar's website. Claude Speed (the game's playable protagonist) is played by Scott Maslen in the film.

The short film shows Claude being murdered (shot by "The Cleaner" a Zaibatsu assassin played by Ian McQue) while trying to break into a sports car. It was shot in 1999 New York City with the World Trade Center in clear view, instead of the game's anonymous city of the future (it should be noted, however, that two fictional locations were mentioned in the film: "Chernobyl Docks" and "Disgraceland", the latter being the name of a district featured in Grand Theft Auto 2). The film depicts a blue-and-white NYPD 1991–1992 Chevrolet Caprice police car as a pursuit vehicle, as well as a black BMW 5 Series (E39) driven by Claude, which is later repainted white.

Soundtrack

Each area features five radio stations from a pool of eleven, one of which is heard as the player drives most vehicles in game. Changing radio stations for preference is possible. "Head Radio" was present in the original Grand Theft Auto, Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories. Each gang has its own radio station that transmits within a limited area. Police vehicles, ambulances, fire trucks and tanks had no ability to listen to the radio channels. Instead, the player would hear the radio transmitter of the emergency services.

All the music and the ads included in the game are exclusive, following the tradition of previous games. People in charge of the musical content were Craig Conner, Stuart Ross, Paul Scargill, Colin Anderson, Bert Reid and Moving Shadow. Some of these producers would keep their work on subsequent GTA releases.

The Game Boy Color version uses some real songs, one of which is a sped up version of Back in Black by AC/DC. The Character Selection theme is an old Brazilian song titled "Chega De Saudade".

Reception

Grand Theft Auto 2 was released to mixed reviews. The game's graphics received mixed reactions from critics, who noted that they had barely any difference to the graphics in the original game. IGN's Tal Blevins called them "average at best", and that the scenery is "hard to appreciate". Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot said that the "graphics look a bit plain." The game's soundtrack received positive feedback, with Jeff Gerstmann calling it a "great soundtrack", and that it "closely [mirrors] the station-style of the original game. Tal Blevins of IGN called it "one of the best features" of the game.

Grand Theft Auto 2's gameplay elements received mixed reactions. IGN's Jeremy Dunham said that the gameplay is "where the game really takes a punch to the stomach", and that it "could've been a lot better." Tal Blevins called it "simple, but effective." Jeff Gerstmann said that "even though the gameplay is largely the same as in the previous GTA, it's still a lot of fun." Edge highlighted the game's story development and inventive missions, stating that Grand Theft Auto 2 "manages to draw you deep into the complexities of its world".

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About the Game

Grand Theft Auto is an open world action-adventure video game developed by DMA Design and published by BMG Interactive. It was first released in Europe and North America in October 1997 for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. It was later re-released on 12 December 1997 in Europe and 30 June 1998 in North America for the PlayStation. It is the first installment of the Grand Theft Auto series, a series that has sold more than 150 million units as of September 2013. The story follows a group of criminals in three fictionalised versions of US cities as they perform bank robberies, assassinations, and other crimes for their respective syndicates.

The game was originally intended to be named Race'n'Chase and to be developed for the Commodore Amiga, starting in 1996. However, it was nearly cancelled due to production issues.

Its successor, Grand Theft Auto 2, was released in September 1999.

Gameplay

Grand Theft Auto is made up of six levels split between the three main cities. In each level, the player's ultimate objective is to reach a target number of points, which is typically achieved by performing tasks for the city's local crime syndicate. Each level is initiated at a telephone box and has its own unique set of tasks. Successful completion of a mission rewards the player with points and opens the opportunity to attempt harder missions for higher rewards, while failure awards fewer points and may permanently seal off opportunities for more tasks. Completing missions also increases the player's "multiplier", which increases the points the player gets for doing other tasks. When the player amasses a total of $1,000,000, the next city is unlocked.

There are eight playable characters in the game, four male and four female: Travis, Troy, Bubba, Kivlov, Ulrika, Katie, Divine, and Mikki (the PlayStation version only includes the four male characters, however). In actual gameplay, there is no real difference, since all player-characters wear the identical yellow jumper, although they do wear different coloured trousers and hair colours to each other and have the correct skin colours. Players may also name their character which, with the correct name, acts like a cheat code and alters gameplay.

The player is free to do whatever they want, but have limited lives upon doing so. The player can gain points by causing death and destruction amid the traffic in the city, or steal and sell cars for profit. To get to the large target money required to complete a level, players will usually opt to complete at least some missions to build up their multiplier. Some criminal acts have an inherent multiplier; for example, using a police car for running over people doubles the number of points received. If the player is arrested then their multiplier is halved. Unlike in later games in the series, the player can be killed, or "wasted", in one hit without body armour. If the player is wasted then they lose a life. In both cases the player loses their current equipment. If the player is wasted too many times, they must restart the level.

Even during missions there is still some freedom as most of the time the player is free to choose the route to take, but the destination is usually fixed. It was this level of freedom which set Grand Theft Auto apart from other action based computer games at the time. The PC releases of the game allowed networked multiplayer gameplay using the IPX protocol. Some places in the game have to be unlocked by completing missions.

Synopsis

Grand Theft Auto takes place in 1997 in three primary settings, all of which are modelled on real locales: Liberty City is based on New York City, Vice City is based on Miami, and San Andreas is based on San Francisco. All three suffer from rampant crime and corruption, with constant feuding between the local crime syndicates, random acts of violence from street gangs, organised thievery and murder, and corrupt city officials and police officers.

While Grand Theft Auto: London 1969, Grand Theft Auto: London 1961 and Grand Theft Auto 2 would use different locations, these three cities have been individually revisited as the settings in later Grand Theft Auto games, with differing layouts - for example, Liberty City was the sole city in Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto Advance, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, and Grand Theft Auto IV, Vice City was the city in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, and San Andreas, becoming a state based on regions of California and Nevada, was the setting for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Grand Theft Auto V.

Development

The development of Grand Theft Auto began on 4 April 1995 at DMA Design in Dundee. It originally had a protracted four-year development, which included a title change and numerous attempts to halt development

The game was originally titled Race'n'Chase. It was originally planned to be released on MS-DOS, Windows 95, PlayStation, Sega Saturn and the Nintendo 64. However, it was never released for the two latter consoles. During the development of Grand Theft Auto, many people overseeing the game's progress attempted to halt the development, which led the crew at DMA Design to have to convince them to allow them to continue.

There were specific milestones planned for Grand Theft Auto

An original design document, dated 22 March 1995, was posted online by Mike Dailly on 22 March 2011. The author of the document credited is K.R. Hamilton, and the released version is 1.05. It contained information about elements of the game discussed in various meetings held from 23 January 1995 to the writing of the document which also contains many similarities to the 1986 Commodore 64 Miami Vice. According to the original design document, the introduction to Grand Theft Auto is a pre-drawn/rendered animation. The Windows 95 version was developed using Visual C++ v2.0. The DOS version was developed using Watcom C/C++ v10, Microsoft MASM 6.1 and Rational Systems DOS extender (DOS4GW) v 1.97. The program used to make Grand Theft Auto was said to produce "a 3D array which can be used by both the perspective and the isometric engines". It was said to consist of "a grid editor which is used to place blocks on a grid, with a separate grid for each level", and "allow any block to be placed at any level". It was said that the world may have had to be 256×256×6 blocks.

The original concept of Grand Theft Auto was "to produce a fun, addictive and fast multi-player car racing and crashing game which uses a novel graphics method".

David Jones, the game's producer, cited Pac-Man as an influence. He noted that the player runs over pedestrians and gets chased by police in a similar manner to Pac-Man.

Gary Penn, creative director of DMA at the time, cited Elite as a major influence, "But I'd been working on Frontier, which is very different and there were definitely other people on the team who had things like Syndicate, Mercenary and Elite very much in their minds as well. That combination definitely led to the more open plan structure there is now. The game as it stands now is basically Elite in a city, but without quite the same sense of taking on the jobs. You take on the jobs in a slightly different way, but incredibly similar structurally. It's just a much more acceptable real world setting. The game was cops and robbers and then that evolved fairly quickly -- nobody wants to be the cop, it's more fun to be bad. And then that evolved into Grand Theft Auto".

Ports

The original Grand Theft Auto was developed for MS-DOS, but then later ported to Microsoft Windows (using SciTech MGL), PlayStation (developed by Visual Sciences using their "ViSOS" framework), and Game Boy Color. The Game Boy Color version was technologically unabridged, which was quite a technical achievement due to the sheer size of the cities, converted tile-for-tile from the PC original, making them many times larger than most Game Boy Color game worlds were because of the handheld's limited hardware. To cater for the target younger generation, however, the game was heavily censored, with gore and swearing removed.

The PC version comes in several different executables for DOS and MS-Windows, which use single set of data files (except for the 8-bit colour DOS version which uses different but similar graphics). It was previously available as a free download as part of the Rockstar Classics (alongside Wild Metal and Grand Theft Auto 2), however the free download service is currently unavailable.

Grand Theft Auto was to be released on the Sega Saturn, but due to the console's rapid decline in popularity before development was finished, the project was halted and the game was never released.citation needed After the PlayStation's successful release, development began on Grand Theft Auto 64, a port of the game for the Nintendo 64, rumoured to have graphical enhancements and new missions. However, development was cancelled without ever having a public appearance.

Cover Art

The cover art for Grand Theft Auto is a photograph of a New York Police Department 1980s Plymouth Gran Fury rushing through the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 56th Street, with Trump Tower in the background of the picture. The same cover art was also an alternative cover for Grand Theft Auto 2 in selected markets. There was also a cover featuring a yellow Buick GSX. There are other covers, but the one shown above is the most common.

Soundtrack

Grand Theft Auto has seven "radio stations", plus a police band track, which can be heard once the player enters a car; however, each vehicle can only receive a limited number of these radio stations. In the PlayStation port each car only had two stations.

PC players can remove the CD once the game is loaded and replace it with an audio CD. The next time the character enters a vehicle, a song from the CD will randomly play. This can also be done in the PlayStation port.

The game's main theme is "Gangster Friday" by Craig Conner, credited to the fictitious band Slumpussy, and is played on N-CT FM. With the exception of Head Radio FM, the names of songs or the radio station names are never mentioned in-game. However, the soundtrack is listed in the booklet which comes with the game.

The Collector's Edition of the PC version included the soundtrack on a separate CD. The track-listing gives the names of the fictional radio stations, bands and their tracks, and for some of them the fictional album that they are from.

Reception

The game was a best-seller in the UK. The game was a commercial success, though it received mixed reviews upon release.

GameSpot's 1998 review for Grand Theft Auto said that, although the graphics may look "a little plain", the music and sound effects are the opposite, praising the radio stations and the sound effects used to open and close vehicles. They also praised the freedom of the game, favouring it over other games that make you follow a specific rule set and complete specific missions in a specific order. 

IGN were critical of the graphics which were said to be "really quite shoddy" and dated. They were also unimpressed by the "fast-food programming and careless design", including the controls. Overall the game was considered to be fun but with problems which could have been fixed.

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About the Game

Slime Rancher is a life simulation video game developed and published by Monomi Park. The game was released as an early access title in January 2016, with an official release on Windows, macOS, Linux, and Xbox One on August 1, 2017.

Gameplay

The game is played in an open world and from a first-person perspective. The player controls a character named Beatrix LeBeau, a rancher who moves to a planet far from Earth to live the life of a "slime rancher", which consists of constructing her ranch and exploring the environment, in order to collect, raise, feed and breed slimes, gelatinous living organisms of various sizes and characteristics.

The game's main economical aspect revolves around feeding slimes the appropriate food items so that they produce "plorts", which can then be sold in exchange for Newbucks, the currency required to purchase upgrades to the rancher's equipment or farm buildings. The player moves the character around a variety of environments, and can collect slimes, food items and plorts by sucking them up with their vacuum tool (called a "VacPack", a portmanteau of vacuum and backpack). They can only store a limited number of items and item types at a time and must go back to their ranch to unload their collected items before being able to collect more. The player must buy and upgrade various enclosures to house their collected slimes.

Different types of slimes can be combined and evolved by feeding a slime a plort from another species, making them noticeably larger and able to produce multiple plorts. However, if a slime combines more than three traits by eating two different plorts, it becomes an aggressive malevolent black slime called the "tarr", which infects all other slimes around it. The player can pump fresh water from ponds and springs to splash and disintegrate the tarrs.

There are different kinds of slimes in the game, which all differ from small bits like simple ears and tails, to the ability to teleport or grab chicken via a vine that emerges from the ground. Docile and less harmful slimes include: Pink, Phosphor, Tabby, Quantum, Honey, Puddle, Hunter, Tangle, and Dervish. Directly, and indirectly harmful slimes are: Rock, Fire, Boom, Mosaic, Crystal, and Rad. And finally, The rarer or special types of slimes: Lucky, Gold, Largos, and Gordos.

Reception

The Early Access version of the Slime Rancher received "generally positive" reviews. Heather Alexandra form Kotaku noticed some bugs, but gave the game positive review saying that “I’m not usually a fan of games as catharsis but when return to my bright and goofy farm at the end of the day? I can't help but smile as wide as my slimy little friends.” Phillip Grobler from LevelSkip enjoyed to play Slime Rancher gave the game a score of 4.3 out of 5 stars saying that “this game is very fun already and I will recommend anyone to go and check it out”. Steve Neilsen from Games Mojo awarded it 4.4 out of 5 stars stating that "Slime Rancher is fun and addictive game, with a fun premise and cute creatures. The cartoon style graphics look amazing, and gameplay is clever and full of cute."

The full release of the game got a score of 81/100 on Metacritic, with reviewers saying it was colorful and bittersweet and had the ability to keep you hooked for hours. Reviewers also said it was relaxing and cathartic, but quite repetitive, and successfully taps into the addictive nature of farming simulators, but it doesn't quite reach the heights of its sub-genre.

By May 2017, the game had sold over 800,000 copies.

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About the Game

BeamNG.drive is a vehicle simulation video game developed and published by Bremen, Germany-based video game developer BeamNG. The game features unique soft-body physics, and was released into Steam Early Access for Microsoft Windows on 29 May 2015.

Development

On 28 May 2012, BeamNG released a YouTube video titled "Revolutionary soft-body physics in CryEngine3". Originally, BeamNG.drive was to be based on CryEngine 3, but the implementation to the driving game filled it with bugs, leading development to be rolled over to Torque. BeamNG.drive relies heavily on coding in Lua, and uses packets of local data using the Lua network system while the game is operating in order to complete the complex physics equations during gameplay.

BeamNG's website, beamng.com, was opened on 8 May 2012, to begin rolling out news of their development of the simulator.

The game was placed on an open vote on Steam Greenlight on 12 February 2014, and was greenlit eight days later.

On 29 May 2015, the game was released to Steam Early Access.

Gameplay

BeamNG.drive features three modes: Scenarios, which are checkpoint-to-checkpoint-based races, Campaign Mode, which is a collection of small scenarios which are scored based on different factors such as damage, time, etc., and there is Free Roam Mode, the player can drive and crash several different vehicles on a few provided default environments. The game implements its soft-body physics to both control vehicle dynamics as well as to control the collisions between objects and vehicles.

Physics

BeamNG.drive uses a real-time, soft-body dynamics physics structure to simulate its vehicles. Algorithms have been written for the physics equations to be carried out. Vehicles in the game consist of a soft-body, node-beam structure, similar to the vehicle structure in Rigs of Rods. The physics engine simulates a network of interconnected nodes and beams which combine to form an invisible skeleton of a vehicle with realistic weights and masses. In terms of soft-body physics, vehicles realistically flex and deform as stresses to the skeleton, such as impacts from collisions are applied. The game's engine constantly calculates physics equations and problems in real-time during gameplay.

Reception

Jack Stewart of BBC mentioned that BeamNG.drive "has received interest from the film industry to model vehicle stunts, so that they can be prototyped and tested exhaustively – but cheaply – before a stunt driver smashes up a car on set." Polygon's Nick Robinson lauded the game's simulated physics and user-created content support, leading him to create an ongoing video series for Polygon, "Car Boys", in which he and Griffin McElroy spotlight new BeamNG.drive content each week.

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About the Game

Planet Coaster is a construction and management simulation video game developed and published by Frontier Developments for Microsoft Windows and is available on Steam. Planet Coaster was released worldwide on 17 November 2016. Frontier had previously worked in the construction and management genre with RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, of which Planet Coaster is a spiritual successor.

There are three different modes in the game, namely Sandbox, Challenge, and Career. In the career mode, players assume the role of a theme park manager, and must complete tasks such as constructing unfinished roller coasters or hiring janitors. In Sandbox mode, players are tasked to construct their own theme park on an empty plot of land. The challenge mode is similar to the sandbox mode, but with added difficulty, as players need to take funds into account.

Originally called Coaster Park Tycoon, the game was officially revealed on 29 January 2015 and was renamed during E3 2016. Planet Coaster is Frontier's second self-published franchise, following Elite: Dangerous. Frontier organized several multiple alpha and beta testings before launching officially in November 2016. The game was supported with free post-release downloadable content upon launch. The title received positive reviews upon release, with critics praising the game's sandbox mode and creation tools. Criticisms were mainly directed to the game's career mode. It was a commercial success, with more than 400,000 copies sold in its first month of release.

Gameplay

Planet Coaster is a construction and management simulation video game. Similar to its spiritual predecessor, the game allows players to build different theme park rides and roller-coasters. These player-created attractions can be shared through a mechanic called "global village". The game also comes with ten mascots.

Before starting the game, the player must create their own avatar. Afterwards, the player is able to choose between three game modes: sandbox, challenge, and career.

Similar to Frontier's previous game, RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, the Sandbox Mode enables players to construct their own theme park on an empty plot of land. In Sandbox Mode, all features and rides of the game are unlocked and your funds are unlimited. This is the mode most players use to create items (parks, coasters, scenery, etc.) and then post them to Steam's Planet Coaster Workshop.

In the Challenge Mode, the player must construct an amusement park on an empty lot (similar to Sandbox Mode) but with limited funds and research depending on chosen difficulty—Easy, Medium, or Hard. As the player develops their park, the game presents the player with challenges that the player must accept or decline. Upon completion of a challenge, the player is given a reward such as a park rating boost or a sum of money.

In the Career Mode, the player must complete objectives such as constructing roller coasters, achieving park ratings or hiring janitors. Similar to Frontier's previous game, RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, Career Mode allows players to progress by completing scenarios with objectives in different difficulties.

First unveiled at EGX 2016, the game also features a dedicated mode called the "crash mode" which allows players to construct incomplete coasters and let them crash into the park's visitors.

On April 26, 2017, Frontier revealed the existence of several cheat codes that were previously undiscovered on their official forums. These included the ability to ride go-karts and the ability for security guards to plow through guests similarly to a bulldozer.

Development

Before the development of Planet Coaster, Frontier Developments had developed several other construction and management simulation video games, including 2004's commercial and critical success RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, which sold over 10 million copies. Planet Coaster serves only as a spiritual successor to RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 instead of a direct sequel, as the company considered the use of the brand Tycoon "didn’t carry the cachet anymore" due to the releases of mainly poorly-received Tycoon games in recent years. In a December 2016 interview with Cambridge News, David Walsh (the Chief Operating Officer of Frontier Developments) said that the success of Elite: Dangerous enabled the company "to bring Planet Coaster to the market, which is highly significant as it demonstrates we are not a single game company”.

The game was announced on 29 January 2015 by Frontier Developments. Originally called Coaster Park Tycoon, the game was renamed into Planet Coaster on 16 June 2015 during the PC Gaming Show at E3 2015. Frontier Developments aimed to turn the game into the company's second self-published franchise, along with the Elite series. The game uses an advanced version of Cobra Engine, which is an in-house proprietary engine developed by Frontier previously used by games like Elite Dangerous and RollerCoaster Tycoon 3. Features confirmed for the game include a hybrid spline/piece-by-piece coaster builder, modular structure building, a voxel terrain editor among others detailed through Q&A's and "Dev Diaries." On the second live stream, the release date of the alpha was announced. Released on 22 March 2016, the alpha emphasized on modular building and paths. The alpha contained two themes: "Planet Coaster" and "Pirate". Although disabled by default, Coaster Building was included in the first alpha through a cheat code.

On 24 May 2016, Frontier released the second alpha build. This build included finances, terrain tools, improved path building, and the official release of a coaster builder. Also, on 25 August, Frontier discontinued further alpha purchases. On 24 September, Frontier announced at EGX 2016 that players who had pre-ordered the "Thrillseeker Edition" would be able to test the game that October. At Gamescom 2016, Frontier announced that the game would be released on 17 November 2016. The game was released with Denuvo's anti-tamper technology.

To record the audio for the game, sound designer Watson Wu took over the Holiday World & Splashin' Safari theme park in Santa Claus, Indiana to record the sounds of various attractions. Guests in the park and park staff speak their own fictional language, known as "Planco". According to James Stant, Frontier's senior audio designer, the language contains about 7,000 words. After the game's release, Frontier Developments released an official Planco dictionary.

Soundtrack

Planet Coaster features a dynamic soundtrack composed by Jim Guthrie & JJ Ipsen, released under the album titled You, Me & Gravity: The Music of Planet Coaster. Additionally, players may use their own sound files in their parks as long as they are in the correct folder on their PC.

Downloadable Content

On 15 December 2016, Frontier released their first major update: "Winter Update". Several notable additions included additional rides, blueprints, stores, and staff features. One of the newly added rides, the "Collider", was determined by a community vote. On March 2017, the "Spring Update" was announced. Among the features included are new rides and a crime system. The Spring Update was later released on April 2017. On 27 June 2017, the "Summer Update" was released. The biggest addition in the update is the ability to create firework shows, especially during the American Independence Day, New Year's Day, and Bonfire Night. Furthermore, the fireworks can be triggered by other events in the park and can be synced to custom music. The summer update also added the ability to add customizable images and video into the game.

On 21 July 2017, Frontier launched paid DLC for the game featuring props inspired by Back to the Future, Knight Rider, and The Munsters.

In August 2017, Frontier partnered with the Cedar Point amusement park to provide an in-game version of the park's upcoming Steel Vengeance roller coaster before the ride officially opens in 2018.

Reception

Pre-Release

The game was met with praise upon release of the alpha. Andy Kelly of PC Gamer commented that Frontier was "off to a tremendous start", adding that creating buildings with the creation tools hinted at "immense possibilities". However, Mark Walton of Ars Technica noted several small flaws including the "hard to navigate" menus and the lack of custom built roller coasters. On 27 April 2016, about a month after the release of the alpha, Frontier announced that Planet Coaster had grossed nearly two million dollars.

Release

Matt Wales of Eurogamer recommended the game, concluding that the game is "the finest simulator yet". Meanwhile, Ben Reeves of Game Informer praised the game for its creative mode but criticized the game's career mode, referring it to as "boring" and "tedious". TJ Hafer of IGN compared the game's integration of Steam Workshop to Minecraft and Second Life. Edmond Tran of GameSpot praised the game for its accessible creative tools and for its evocative tone. Jonathan Leack of Game Revolution claimed that the game "resurrected the [theme park simulation] genre". In a critical review of the game, Jody Macgregor of PC Gamer praised the game's challenge mode but criticized the game for not innovating enough from RollerCoaster Tycoon 3. The original score (70/100) was retracted due to miscommunication between Frontier Developments and PC Gamer with the game version they received; its reevaluated score is 75/100. Patrick Hancock of Destructoid noted that the game suffers frame rate issues in larger parks. Furthermore, Edge Magazine noted that the game's "fiddly" camera makes some actions harder.

Sales

Upon release, the game topped the Steam "top sellers" charts. The game sold over 400,000 copies in the first month of its release. Despite being released later in the year, Planet Coaster was featured on Steam's "Top 100 Best Sellers of 2016" chart as a "silver tier" title. As of August 2017, the game has sold over one million copies.

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About the Game

Clustertruck is a platform indie game developed by Landfall Games and published by tinyBuild. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on 27 September 2016. The game's name is a play on the word "clusterfuck", describing "a chaotic situation where everything seems to go wrong".

Gameplay

In Clustertruck, the player controls a character from a first-person perspective. They are set to jump onto a moving line of trucks, avoiding obstacles and truck pile-ups and crashes. The player is unable to touch anything other than trucks, and will else fail their task of reaching the goal at the end of the level.

On each stage, the player is scored based on how fast they reach a goal line and a number of style points based on various tricks, such as jumping off a truck that is currently in mid-air. The player's cumulative score points can be used to purchase one of several abilities, such as a double jump or a quick boost of speed, which can then be used to either successfully pass more difficult levels or to improve one's time and scoring on earlier ones.

Development

Development on Clustertruck started in September 2015, after the development on Landfall Games' previous game, Square Brawl, was finished. The game was officially revealed on 16 December 2015 with a trailer and a release date of April 2016. At PAX South 2016, it was announced that Landfall Games had signed a publishing deal with tinyBuild. This deal led the developers to push the release date to the third quarter of 2016, where Landfall Games CEO Wilhem Nylund said that it was "initially intended for the game to be a small project with a short development", but changed his mind and considered the game to be delayed even further, as it has "gaining more and more traction." As an April Fool's Day joke, Landfall released a free demo version of Clustertruck called Supertruck that incorporated the visual style and mechanic of the recently released Superhot, in which the internal clock within the game moves forward when the player-character moves.

Landfall released preview copies of the game to various YouTube and Twitch.tv streamers to help promote the title. The game was released on 27 September 2016.

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About the Game

Hello Neighbor is an upcoming stealth survival horror video game developed by independent Russian studio Dynamic Pixels and published by tinyBuild. The object of the game is for the player to successfully sneak into the basement of their neighbor's house to uncover a "horrible secret". The game's artificial intelligence modifies the neighbor's behavior based on the player's past actions, such as setting traps along paths the player followed in a previous attempt.

The game, originally known as Hello, Neighbor!, was released as an alpha build on Dynamic Pixels' website in 2015, before being approved for sale as an early access game by the Steam Greenlight program and launching a Kickstarter campaign to fund further development, after which the studio signed a deal with tinyBuild to publish the game. The game is scheduled to release on Microsoft Windows, macOS and Xbox One on 8 December 2017.

Gameplay

In Hello Neighbor, the player finds themselves moving into a new house across the street of a mysterious neighbor, who seems to be keeping a secret in his basement. The player's task is to break into the neighbor's home and gather items needed to unlock and access his basement. As the player explores the neighbor's house, he must not be spotted by the neighbor, or he will be chased down and caught. If the player is caught, he will be sent back to his own house and will have to break in again.

The player has four inventory spaces; items of the same kind cannot be stacked together in the same inventory space.

Development

Pre-Alpha

The first prerelease version of the game was the Pre-Alpha. The player starts in his own house and has a list of things to do before going into the neighbor's house. A glow can be seen from your neighbor's basement door. Before the player can enter the basement, the neighbor catches him trespassing. He then bars the door to the basement and locks it. In this build, the neighbor's house is blue and quite big. However, only the first floor is accessible. The player must find a tool to get the boards off the basement door, a key to unlock it and a code to the keypad. Though every time you get caught, you get sent to your house and the neighbor will block the entry by using a chair or locking the door.

Alpha 1

The game's first alpha installment has a cutscene showing the player moving into his house. His neighbor watches him arrive from the second floor.

The neighbor's house is now an improved version of the Pre-Alpha house. There is a train that goes around the house. There are a few puzzles added to the game, one of these being getting across a pool inhabited by a robotic shark on the second floor which will rapidly attack the player and capture them, so should the player step into the body of water?

This alpha is also one of two versions to have a tutorial. The player's first objective is to complete a tutorial that explains how to interact with the environment in Hello Neighbor. Then, the player must go to the neighbor's house. Should the neighbor catch the player the first time, they will be treated to a cutscene of the neighbor going inside the basement. What may look like an explosion occurs, and a tire rolls out. Then the neighbor goes back upstairs and walks away. This alerts the player that he needs to find out what the neighbor is hiding. As from the Pre-Alpha, the player needs a key and a tool for getting the boards off, however the keypad has been removed.

Alpha 2

The second alpha of Hello Neighbor also has a beginning cutscene upon starting the game, however this one can be skipped. A new visual effect has been added so that when the neighbor is very close, things will get darker and darker until the neighbor eventually catches you. The player is seen moving to what appears to be "his house". As in Alpha 1, there is a tutorial for how to play Hello Neighbor. Here, the neighbor's house is significantly smaller, and the player now has a physical appearance as can be seen from the visible hands and arms. The basement door is once again barred, but the padlock holding it shut has been replaced with a keycard receiver. This is also the first time players can see the contents of the basement. This is also the last alpha to use a different house, as this and the previous builds were used to gain feedback from playtesters...

Alpha 3

This time, the game is set in the night-time (second to Alpha 2, both being the only versions without a day/night cycle), and the neighbor's house is now much bigger (the first revision of what will be the final house). Here, the tutorial is omitted, but the player's house (from the previous alpha) remains intact and has added furniture.

Alpha 4

The fourth alpha is very similar to the third alpha, but the day/night cycle (which debuted in the Pre-Alpha and Alpha 1) has been implemented as compared to the previous two alphas being fixed at dusk and night-time, respectively. The neighbor's house is mostly left intact, but now has more rooms and the player can now reach the rooftop. However, the player's own house is now inaccessible and only part of the scenery. Falling damage has also been added; should the player fall far enough without using an umbrella, they black out and are sent back to their house. Once again, the basement door is nailed shut with wooden boards and requires a keycard to enter. Also new to this version is abilities which the player can obtain, both being the double jump and ability to break free of the neighbor's grasp once chased.

Beta

The Beta builds are practically much of the same as Alpha 4, only the intro has been extended and a tutorial has been re-implemented since its removal with Alpha 3. The Neighbor's house is still much of the same as in Alpha 4, though with a few new additions; the Neighbor can now climb ladders, as seen in the elevator shaft when chasing the player, and two new abilities have been added. These are the ability to become invisible by staying completely motionless for one second, and the power-throw to throw items much further than normal by holding the right mouse button, respectively. However, several bugs also sprung up due to the engine upgrade to 4.16 of Unreal Engine 4, such as the AI and performance breaking. These would not be fixed until the Beta 3 build released on August 14th. For the aforementioned reasons, the release date had to be pushed back to December 8th in order to avoid releasing a broken, and unfinished game that lacks many features.

Release

Hello Neighbor was originally scheduled for release on 29 August 2017, but it was announced in August 2017, that it was rescheduled to 8 December 2017.

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About the Game

Alien: Isolation is a survival horror video game developed by Creative Assembly and based on the Alien science fiction horror film series. It was published by Sega and originally released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One on 7 October 2014. The game is set 15 years after the events of Ridley Scott's 1979 Alien film and follows Amanda Ripley, daughter of Alien protagonist Ellen Ripley, and her efforts to investigate the disappearance of her mother.

Unlike previous video game adaptations of the Alien franchise, Alien: Isolation places a strong emphasis on stealth and survival horror gameplay, requiring the player to avoid and outsmart a single alien creature over the course of the game with the help of gadgets like a motion tracker and a flamethrower. It was designed more in line with Scott's film as opposed to James Cameron's more action-oriented 1986 sequel Aliens, and features a similar lo-fi, 1970s vision of what the future would look like. The game runs on an entirely new engine that was built from scratch to accommodate technical aspects like the game's atmospheric and lighting effects as well as the alien's behavioural design. Creative Assembly originally intended to make Alien: Isolation a third-person game, but the perspective was later shifted to first-person in order to create a more intense experience.

Upon release, Alien: Isolation received generally positive reviews from video game journalists and sold over two million copies in Europe and the US as of May 2015. Critics praised the game's retro-futuristic art direction, sound design, and the alien's artificial intelligence, but criticised its story, characters, and voice acting. The game won several year-end awards, including Best Audio at the 2015 Game Developers Choice Awards and Audio Achievement at the 2015 British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards. Several downloadable content packs that extend the game with new missions and challenges were also released.

Gameplay

Alien: Isolation is a single-player action-adventure game with heavy emphasis on stealth and survival horror features. The player controls the protagonist, Amanda Ripley, from a first-person perspective to interact with the environment. To advance through the game, the player must explore a space station and complete numerous objectives while avoiding, outsmarting and defeating enemies like human occupants or hostile androids. Objectives range from activating computers to collecting certain items or reaching a specific area in the game. The player has the ability to run, climb ladders, and sneak into vents. The player can also crouch and hide behind objects to break the line of sight with enemies, and covertly peek over or lean around to gain view. The player also has the ability to go under nearby tables or inside lockers to hide from enemies.

Unlike previous video game adaptations of the Alien franchise, Alien: Isolation features a single alien creature that pursues the player over the course of the game. The alien creature cannot be defeated, requiring the player to use stealth tactics in order to survive. Instead of following a predetermined path, the alien has the ability to actively investigate disturbances and hunt the player by sight or sound. Along the way, the player can use both a flashlight and a motion tracker to detect the alien's movements. However, using any of these increases the chance of the alien finding the player. For example, if the alien is moving and close enough, the tracker's sound will attract the alien, forcing the player to wisely use the tracker and remove it as soon as it detects motion. The motion tracker cannot detect enemies when they are not moving and cannot determine whether the alien creature is up in the ducts or on ground level.

Although the player can use certain weapons to defeat enemies, Alien: Isolation emphasises evasion over direct combat by providing the player with limited ammunition. The game features four weapons that become available as the player progresses throughout the game: a revolver, a shotgun, a bolt gun, and a flamethrower. The player can also craft several items by collecting schematics and different kind of materials throughout the game. Items range from EMP mines to noisemakers, molotov cocktails and pipe bombs, among others. These items help the player deal with enemies and the alien. For example, the noisemaker can be used to attract enemies in one particular direction. The alien is afraid of fire, so using the flamethrower or a molotov cocktail will force it to retreat into the station's ventilation system. The player has a limited amount of health which decreases when attacked by enemies. Nevertheless, the player can restore lost health using medkits, which can be crafted with materials in Amanda's inventory.

The space station is divided into multiple sections connected by trams and elevators. Each section is composed of a set of rooms and corridors separated by doors. Some doors require certain actions to be performed first before entry is allowed. For example, some doors require a keycard or a numbered entry code, while others need to be cut with a variety of welding torches or hacked using an electronic device. The player may also encounter computer terminals that can be used to access information or trigger in-game actions like disabling security cameras or manipulating the space station's air-purification mechanism. The game features an automap to help players navigate the different areas of the game. To save their progress, players need to locate a terminal in the game and manually insert Amanda's access card in it. If Amanda dies, the player will need to start the game again from the last saved point. In addition to the campaign mode, Alien: Isolation features a separate game mode, called Survivor Mode, that focuses on short, player-versus-alien scenarios. In each scenario, the player needs to complete a set of objectives while avoiding the alien under a time limit.

Plot

In 2137, 15 years after the disappearance of the Nostromo spacecraft, Amanda Ripley, daughter of Ellen Ripley, is approached by the android Christopher Samuels of the Weyland-Yutani corporation. Samuels informs her that the flight recorder of the Nostromo was recently located by a ship named the Anesidora and is being held aboard Sevastopol, a remote space station owned by the Seegson Corporation, in orbit around the gas giant KG348. He offers her a place on the Weyland-Yutani team sent to retrieve it so that she can have closure regarding the fate of her missing mother. Ripley, Samuels, and Weyland-Yutani executive Nina Taylor travel to Sevastopol on board the courier ship Torrens, owned by captain Diane Verlaine. The group arrives at Sevastopol to find the station damaged and its communications offline. Ripley, Samuels, and Taylor attempt to spacewalk over to the station to investigate, but their EVA line is severed by debris, and Ripley is separated from them and forced to enter the station on her own.

Ripley attempts to find help, but is confronted by Axel, a survivor who explains that Sevastopol is out of control due to a deadly "monster" lurking aboard, leading to fear and paranoia amongst the station's population. Ripley convinces him to help her in exchange for a ride off the station aboard the Torrens, but Axel is eventually killed by the monster in question, an alien creature. While exploring the station, Ripley finds the Nostromo's flight recorder but discovers, to her dismay, that it contains no data. After contacting Samuels and recovering medical supplies to treat an injured Taylor, Ripley reunites with the station's marshal, Waits, and his deputy, Ricardo. Waits explains that the alien was brought on board the station by Anesidora captain Henry Marlow, who is now in Waits' custody. Ripley learns from Marlow that the Anesidora crew discovered the flight recorder near the planetoid LV-426, where they also found a derelict ship previously found by the Nostromo crew and the nest of alien eggs contained within. While exploring the ship, Marlow's wife was attacked by a facehugger. Marlow then brought her aboard Sevastopol for emergency medical treatment, but an alien ultimately hatched from her. Waits convinces Ripley to contain the alien by luring it into a remote section of the station and sealing it inside. Ripley is successful, but Waits truly plotted to use Ripley as bait, and ejects the module from the station with her still inside. As the module careens into space towards KG348, Ripley space-jumps back to Sevastopol using an EVA suit.

Ripley makes her way back to Ricardo, who explains that the Working Joes, the station's service androids, abruptly started slaughtering the remaining crew, including Waits. He also tells her that Samuels is attempting to interface with the station's controlling artificial intelligence, APOLLO, to cease the rampage. However, APOLLO's defensive countermeasures electrocute Samuels shortly after he managed to open a path for Ripley into APOLLO's control core. Upon reaching APOLLO, Ripley discovers that Seegson, who has been trying to sell off Sevastopol for years, has finally found a buyer: Weyland-Yutani, who instructed APOLLO to protect the alien. When Ripley tells APOLLO that the creature is no longer aboard the station and demands to cease all activity, it refuses due to an unidentified presence within the station's reactor. Ripley arrives there and discovers that it has been converted into an alien nest. She then initiates a reactor purge to destroy the nest, but some aliens manage to escape and begin to overrun Sevastopol. Ripley learns from Ricardo that Taylor was sent by Weyland-Yutani to retrieve the alien, and that she freed Marlow in exchange for the location of LV-426. However, Marlow double-crosses her and takes her hostage aboard the Anesidora.

Aboard the Anesidora, Ripley discovers a message from her mother after her initial report of the events on the Nostromo, thus finally giving her closure. Marlow then appears with Taylor and tells Ripley that he plans to overload the Anesidora's fusion reactor and destroy the station, thus ensuring that no aliens survive. In the ensuing confrontation, Taylor kills Marlow and is herself killed by an electric discharge while Ripley is forced to escape the Anesidora shortly before it explodes. Ricardo tells Ripley that the Anesidora explosion destroyed Sevastopol's orbital stabilisers, causing the station to slowly drift into KG348's atmosphere. Ripley and Ricardo contact the Torrens for extraction, but a facehugger paralyses Ricardo, forcing Ripley to leave him. After making her way outside to help the Torrens detach from the station, Ripley is surrounded by several alien creatures and then thrown into the ship due to a blast. Aboard the Torrens, Ripley discovers that another alien has boarded the ship. Still in her EVA suit, Ripley is cornered in the airlock and left with no option but to open it, which ejects both her and the alien into space. The final shot of the game depicts Ripley adrift and unconscious in her EVA suit, then suddenly awakened by a searchlight that crosses her face.

Development

Alien: Isolation was developed by the Creative Assembly, which is best known for their work on the Total War real-time strategy video game series. The idea of developing a game based on the Alien film series from 20th Century Fox was conceived when the company finished work on their 2008 title Viking: Battle for Asgard, after publisher Sega acquired the rights to develop Alien games in December 2006. A six-person team developed a small multiplayer game to pitch the idea to Sega, a "hide and seek" prototype where one of the players had to control the alien while the others would need to conceal themselves in the environment. The game captured the attention of Sega and the project was eventually approved. Since the Creative Assembly had no experience with survival horror games, the company had to hire several people from other studios like Bizarre Creations, Black Rock, Crytek, Ubisoft, and Realtime Worlds for the project. According to director Alistair Hope, the development team grew from "a couple of guys crammed in with the Total War team" to a group of 100 people by 2014.

The Creative Assembly decided to design the game more in line with Ridley Scott's 1979 film Alien as opposed to James Cameron's more action-oriented 1986 sequel Aliens. To help the designers authentically recreate the atmosphere of the film, Fox provided them with three terabytes of original production material, including costume photography, concept art, set design, behind the scenes photos, videos, and the film's original sound effect recordings. As artist John Mckellan recalls, "It was a proper gold mine. We saw angles of things we'd never seen before." During the first stage of development, the developers deconstructed the film to find out what made its setting unique. This would allow them to build new environments that were faithful to it. Similarly, the film's original soundtrack was deconstructed so that composers could identify the main cues, which would then be used as templates to extend the soundtrack and fill in the length of the game. The developers also met Alien and Blade Runner editor Terry Rawlings, who would give them additional insight.

Rather than go for a shiny, high-tech science fiction look, the designers opted to recreate the setting and feel of the original Alien film using the work of concept artists Ron Cobb and Mœbius. As a result, the game features a lo-fi, 1970s vision of what the future would look like. For example, the game features clunky machinery like phone receivers, monochrome displays, and distorted CRT monitors. To create period authentic distortion on in-game monitors, the developers recorded their in game animations onto VHS and Betamax video recorders, then filmed those sequences playing on an "old curvy portable TV" while adjusting the tracking settings. As digital hacking was not conceived in the 1970s, the game's hacking device was built the way it would have been built on the set of the movie, and requires players to tune into a computer's signal while selecting icons on its screen. Artist Jon McKellan noted, "We had this rule: If a prop couldn't have been made in '79 with the things that they had around, then we wouldn't make it either."

The Creative Assembly wanted Alien: Isolation to have a story that was closely related to the film. As a result, the team decided to explore a story set 15 years after the events of the film which would involve Ellen Ripley's daughter and the Nostromo's flight recorder. Writer Will Porter explained that the process of creating a backstory for Amanda was "refreshing" as he felt that she was an overlooked character of the Alien universe. The derelict ship the Nostromo crew previously found in the film was also included in the game since the developers felt it was a central point in the Alien canon. Actress Sigourney Weaver agreed to reprise her role as Ellen Ripley to voice small sections throughout the game because she felt that the story was interesting and true to the film. Along with Weaver, the original Alien cast, which includes Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, and Yaphet Kotto, reprised their roles for the game's separate downloadable content missions, marking the first time they were brought back together since the release of the film. All the characters were created with 3D face scans.

Alien: Isolation runs on a proprietary engine that was built from scratch by the Creative Assembly. The engine allowed the development team to accommodate technical aspects like the game's atmospheric and lighting effects as well as the alien's behavioural design. The engine's deferred rendering allowed artists to both place "hundreds of dynamic lights in the scene" and achieve great geometric detail. The alien itself was designed to look similar to H. R. Giger's original design for the creature from the film, including the skull underneath its semitransparent head. However, the designers did alter its humanoid legs with recurved ones to provide the alien a walk cycle that would hold up to scrutiny during longer encounters with the player. Between 70 and 80 different sets of animation for the alien were created. The alien's artificial intelligence was programmed with a complex set of behavioural designs that slowly unlock as it encounters the player, creating the illusion that the alien learns from each interaction and appropriately adjusts its hunting strategy. As gameplay designer Gary Napper explains, "We needed something that would be different every time you played it. You’re going to die a lot, which means restarting a lot, and if the alien was scripted, you’d see the same behaviour. That makes the alien become predictable, and a lot less scary." The save system was inspired by a scene in the film where Captain Dallas uses a key-card to access Nostromo's computer, Mother.

The developers originally planned to add a feature that would allow players to craft weapons, but the idea was ultimately discarded. According to Hope, "We thought about what people would want to do in order to survive. We explored different ideas, and one of them was fashioning weapons to defend yourself. That was quite early on, but then we realised that this game isn't really about pulling the trigger." Another cancelled feature was the alien's iconic acid blood as a game mechanic, which could melt through metal like in the film. Although the feature was implemented at one point, it was eventually removed from the game because the developers felt it would change the course of the game in a "weird" direction. In addition, the developers considered the possibility for the game to be played from a third-person perspective, but then realised that it would significantly change the experience. Hope explained that it would become "a game about jockeying the camera and looking after your avatar. But in first-person it's you that's being hunted. If you're hiding behind an object and you want to get a better view of your surroundings, you have to move." The actual development of the game took overall four years to complete after the Creative Assembly first pitched the idea to Sega. The game went gold on 9 September 2014 and is dedicated to Simon Franco, a programmer of the game, who died during its development.

Marketing and Release

Alien: Isolation was first unveiled on 12 May 2011 when UK government minister Ed Vaizey visited the Creative Assembly and revealed on his Twitter account that the studio was hiring for an Alien game. Although no gameplay details were confirmed, the Creative Assembly did confirm to CVG that the game would be released for consoles, but did not specify any format. Sega boss Mike Hayes also said that the game was going to be "very much a triple-A project. We want this to be a peer to the likes of Dead Space 2." Although the game's name was anticipated following a trademark registration in October 2013 and some screenshots of the game were leaked in December 2013, Alien: Isolation was formally announced and confirmed for the Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One platforms with the release of a teaser trailer on 7 January 2014. The developers also stated that they were not worried about the fact that Sega's previous Alien game, Aliens: Colonial Marines, received a negative public reaction. According to Napper, "It did completely reaffirm to us that there was a massive Alien fanbase out there and just to see such a vocal reaction to the game, everything that they've said they want is something that we're building and we're very excited about that."

In June 2014, Alien: Isolation was presented at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), where journalists had a chance to play a demonstration of the game. The game was also playable on the Oculus Rift virtual reality (VR) headset that was shown at the show. Danielle Riendeau of Polygon described the demo as "one of the most effectively terrifying slices of a game I've ever played in my life." The game was awarded Best VR Game and was nominated for Game of the Show, Best Xbox One Game, Best PlayStation 4 Game, Best PC Game, and Best Action Game at the IGN's Best of E3 2014 Awards. Similarly, at the 2014 Game Critics Awards, the game was nominated for Best of Show, Best Console Game, and Best Action/Adventure Game. In August 2014, a cinematic trailer for the game was shown at Gamescom.

Alien: Isolation was released on 7 October 2014, featuring two pre-order downloadable content missions that allow players to play two scenes from the original film. The first mission, entitled Crew Expendable, features the original crew of the Nostromo and involves the player controlling Ripley, Dallas or Parker attempting to flush the alien creature from the air vents and into the ship's airlock. The second mission, Last Survivor, is set during the film's finale and involves the player controlling Ripley as she tries to activate the Nostromo's self-destruct sequence and reach the escape shuttle. Unlike the first mission, the second mission is only available for players who pre-ordered the game at certain retailers. Upon release, five additional downloadable content packs for the game were periodically released between October 2014 and March 2015. These packs expand the game's Survivor Mode with new characters, challenges, maps, and other features. A collection featuring the game and all the downloadable content packs was released for Linux, OS X, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in late 2015.

Reception

Critical reception for Alien: Isolation was divided but generally positive, with review scores ranging from IGN's 5.9 out of 10 to The Guardian's 5 out of 5 stars. Josh Harmon of Electronic Gaming Monthly felt that Alien: Isolation "succeeds as a genuine effort to capture the spirit of the film franchise in playable form, rather than a lazy attempt to use it as an easy backdrop for a cash-in with an ill-fitting genre." Writing for GameSpot, Kevin VanOrd credited the game for its tense and frightening gameplay, stating that "when all mechanics are working as intended, alien-evasion is dread distilled into its purest, simplest form." However, he criticised the game's "trial and error" progression and frustrating distances between save points. Jeff Marchiafava of Game Informer stated similar pros, but criticised the story and poor acting from the voice actors.

The game's visuals and atmosphere were highlighted positively. Polygon editor Arthur Gies felt that Alien: Isolation is "a beautiful game, full of deep shadows and mystery around every corner," while Dan Whitehead of Eurogamer praised the lighting and unusually compelling environment design. IGN's Ryan McCaffrey gave high marks to the game's retro-futuristic art direction and sound design, commenting: "From wisps of smoke that billow out of air vents to clouds of white mist that obscure your vision when you rewire an area's life-support systems in order to aid your stealthy objectives, Isolation certainly looks and sounds like a part of the Alien universe." Similarly, PC Gamer reviewer Andy Kelly said that the game's art design sets Alien: Isolation apart from the likes of System Shock or Dead Space and creates a "convincing science-fiction world, with machines and environments that are functional and utilitarian, rather than overtly futuristic."

The story and characters were generally criticised, with Game Informer stating that "Amanda exhibits little growth or personality, other than concern for her fellow humans and a desire not to die gruesomely." Similarly, Blake Peterson of Game Revolution noted that none of characters are fully developed. According to him, "we never spend enough time with them to build the emotional bond necessary for their inevitable deaths to mean anything." GameTrailers said that most of the computer terminals found in the game contain unoriginal logs to describe predictable events, but also remarked that reading reports from different computer terminals "grounds Sevastopol in an appreciable way."

Writing for GamesRadar, David Houghton highlighted the alien's advanced artificial intelligence, stating that "progress becomes a case of 'if' and 'how', not 'when'. Movement is measured in inches and feet rather than metres, and simply remaining alive becomes more exhilarating than any objective achieved." Peterson praised the gameplay for being tense, scary and effective, commenting that Alien: Isolation is "a solid, incredibly striking example of the survival horror genre that uses its first person perspective to greater personalize the horror." PC Gamer credited the crafting system for giving the game "a lot of unexpected depth", allowing players to outsmart enemies in multiple ways. The game's Survivor Mode was praised by Chris Carter of Destructoid, who felt it offered players different feelings and experiences each time they played it.

Although the gameplay was praised by several reviewers, some found the game to be unnecessarily long, repetitive and unforgiving. In a mixed review, McCaffrey felt that the game does not offer many options of survival, requiring players to spend most of their time hiding in lockers "staring at the motion tracker". Polygon criticised the overexposure to the alien creature, turning Alien: Isolation into an irritating experience. As Gies explained, "Every time I thought I heard the monster, every blip on my motion tracker, was a cause for a tightness in my chest at first. By the 300th time I dived under a table or into a locker, I wasn't scared anymore — I was annoyed." Despite the criticism, Alien: Isolation was considered a "brave" title due to its difficult and unforgiving gameplay, a feature that is uncommon in games with large development costs. As of January 2015, Alien: Isolation has sold over one million copies worldwide according to Sega. As of March 2015, the game has sold over 2.1 million copies in Europe and the US.

Accolades

Alien: Isolation received several year-end awards, including PC Gamer's Game of the Year 2014, Audio Achievement at the 11th British Academy Games Awards, Best Audio at the 15th Game Developers Choice Awards, and four awards at the 14th National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers. The game also appeared on several year-end lists of the best games of 2014. It was ranked 1st in The Daily Telegraph's the 25 best video games of 2014, 2nd in Empire's the 10 Best Games Of The Year, 2nd in Time's Top 10 Video Games of 2014,[61] 4th in The Guardian's Top 25 Games of 2014, 3rd in Reader's top 50 games of 2014 by Eurogamer, and in Daily Mirror's the 10 best games of 2014. In 2015, Alien: Isolation was ranked 7th in Kotaku's list of the 10 Best Horror Games.

Possible Sequel

In October 2015, Creative Assembly studio director Tim Heaton stated that, while Sega was disappointed with the sales of the game, a sequel was "not out of the question" and that "there was more to be said". However, he also highlighted significant obstacles in creating a sequel, commenting: "Spending very significant amounts of money, and getting close to break-even or just about in the black? That’s not where Sega wants to be, when we have a brilliant portfolio of other games that do great business". Sega later confirmed that a sequel is still being considered, but the question of whether or not a sequel would be profitable will eventually decide the fate of the project.

On 24 April 2017, rumours of Creative Assembly producing a sequel were published by PSU.com. However, Eurogamer later pointed out that the rumour is likely false, as much of the original design team behind Alien: Isolation were no longer with Creative Assembly.

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About the Game

Astroneer is an upcoming sandbox adventure game developed by System Era Softworks. An early access version of the game was released on December 16, 2016. The player is tasked with colonizing planets, creating structures and mining resources. Astroneer has no set goal or storyline.

Gameplay

Astroneer is a sandbox adventure game played from a third-person view. Its open world planets, wherein terraforming can take place, are subject to procedural generation. The player controls an astronaut who navigates on foot, by lunar rover or spacecraft. Crafting extends to vehicles, spacecraft, modules (smelted into core components) and oxygen reserve tanks. Ice is converted into fuel for the astronaut's spacecraft. When low on oxygen, the astronaut recharges by tethering to poles in the ground; the tethers are extendable if attached in succession (possible after collecting the compound resource). A mining tool allows the player to unearth resources, reshape landscapes and illuminate dark spaces. Solar panels and generators power the mining tool. The astronaut can die from suffocation, impact with storm debris and hostile plants. Single-player and four-player co-op modes are supported.

Development

Astroneer is developed with the Unreal Engine 4. The art style is composed of texture-less environments, conceptualized by artist John Liberto.

Release

On December 16, 2016, Astroneer was given an early access release, which will last for one or two years, according to the developer.

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About the Game

Subnautica is an open world survival game in development. Subnautica allows the player to explore an aquatic alien planet by scuba diving and traveling in submersibles. It was released on Steam Early Access on December 16, 2014, and on the Xbox One on May 17, 2016, with a PlayStation 4 version planned and in testing. The full release is planned for October 31st 2017.

Gameplay

The player controls in first-person view the lone survivor of a crashed space ship, called the Aurora, on an aquatic planet. The main objective of the player is to explore the open world environment and survive the dangers of the planet while at the same time following the story of what happened in the game. Subnautica allows the player to collect resources, construct tools, bases, and submersibles, and interact with the planet's wildlife. Players must keep themselves adequately hydrated and fed. In Survival Mode, they must also maintain their oxygen supply while traversing underwater. The game includes a day and night cycle. The game includes three other modes: Freedom mode, in which hunger and thirst are disabled; Hardcore mode, which is the same as Survival, except that if the player dies, the player will no longer be able to respawn; and Creative Mode, in which the hunger, thirst, health, and oxygen features are all disabled, all the crafting blueprints are acquired, where no resources are needed to craft and the submersibles do not need energy and can be damaged. The game is mainly set underwater, with two explorable islands.

HTC Vive Support is not yet fully built into the game. As a result, using SteamVR will not work with the Vive Controllers.

Plot

The game takes place in the late 22nd century, when humanity begins to colonize planets in space. The player was on an engineering vessel sent to make a phasegate (and find the Degasi) named the Aurora, which crash-lands on the planet 4546b due to an unknown energy pulse. Multiple of the Aurora's escape pods were launched, one including the player.

While progressing through the game, radio messages are sent to the player's communications relay, sending them to broken escape pods containing information about their passengers and what happened to them, a few of the radio signals are sent by hostile creatures called Warpers. A some of the radio signals explain that a passing cargo ship, called the Sunbeam, has picked up their distress signal and are coming to help, telling the player that they are going to land on a nearby island to rescue them. Upon attempted landing the Sunbeam is destroyed by a mysterious cannon.

Later in the game, the player discovers remnants of an alien race known as Precursors, who placed the planet in quarantine after an outbreak of a disease known as Carar, which has infected the entire planet. Quarantine measures the player encounters include the cannon that shot down the Aurora, Degasi, and Sunbeam; as well as cyborg creatures known as Warpers. It is then revealed that the player is infected with Carar, forcing them to find a cure.

The player must then find the Precursor's "Primary Containment Facility" which holds the Sea Emperor Leviathan, the biggest creature in the game. It is a thousand-year-old creature that contains an enzyme to cure Carar. The Emperor resides in an artificial aquarium, housing a stable ecosystem. Once getting the cure from the Sea Emperor and hatching its babies, the player must go back to the cannon and disable it. Once the cannon is disabled, the player can build a rocket to escape the planet.

Development

Subnautica was announced by Unknown Worlds Entertainment on December 17, 2013, with Charlie Cleveland as the game director and lead gameplay programmer, and Hugh Jeremy as the producer.

The development team opted to use the Unity engine rather than Spark, the engine used for the company's previous game, Natural Selection 2. Subnautica producer Hugh Jeremy justified this decision because of the different demands that the game places on the engine, and "because [the team] does not include people working on Spark, it's not appropriate for Subnautica to use Spark. By using Unity for Subnautica, Spark can continue to develop in certain directions, while Subnautica develops in others. To use Spark for Subnautica would be like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole."

The development team opted against the inclusion of lethal weapons in the game. Charlie Cleveland, the game's director, described Subnautica as "one vote towards a world with less guns," and had felt inspired by real life gun violence, including the Sandy Hook shooting, to encourage players to think about "non-violent and more creative solutions to solve our problems."

Subnautica was released on Steam Early Access on December 16, 2014, and is currently in early access development. It was released on Xbox One Preview on May 17, 2016.

Reception

Ian Birnbaum of PC Gamer described Subnautica as an "underwater Minecraft", remarking that "with an experienced developer at the helm and a limitless variety of the oceans to play with, it's going to take a lot for Subnautica to go badly wrong. As the toolbox gets deeper and the shape of the end-game gets set, Subnautica will be a unique example of the ways survival can be tense, rewarding, and fun." Marsh Davies of Rock, Paper, Shotgun praised the rewarding nature of exploring the world of Subnautica, but criticized the "arbitrariness" and lack of intuition in some of the in-game recipes.