GTA: What If

By Angus Deacon, Daniel Needham, Liam O'Connor, Tristan Clark

What if GTA was a little different...

If you’ve played any decent amount of Grand Theft Auto before, you’re bound to have wondered what the game might be like if transplanted to a completely different setting. We’ve wondered the same thing, so read on to find out how cool GTA would be if it started going a little crazy with its themes and backdrops.

GTA: NZ

With the impending release of Grand Theft Auto IV, many are buzzing about the new environments to explore, as well as other new features which may appear in the game. While it has always been fun to romp around the landscape, sometimes we New Zealanders can't quite connect with the setting and the tongue in cheek jokes pointed at American society.

So one can’t help but wonder what GTA: NZ would be like – and it looks like a certain Karori teenager may show us…

My home city, Christchurch, would provide an ample setting, and even a San Andreas-style map could be incorporated, linking the three main cities of the country. Back to the garden city though, one could start out as a lowly street-bum in the square, doing the odd stand over job, or dealing to youth gangs to earn some cash on the side.

Then he could explore down Manchester Street, running prostitution rings, protecting his workers and ‘taking care of’ anyone moving on to his turf, all the while bringing in more money to expand his empire with endless expansion possibilities: housing, factories, as well as ‘inheriting’ other criminal assets and gangs.

And you could only imagine what driving a tank down Moorhouse Avenue would be like! All this could be a realistic enough setting, as unfortunately all the elements are here without having to be too ambitious with game content.

GTA: 2052

Throughout the years, Rockstar Games has opened the doors to completely new worlds for us to get immersed in. We've stepped into the polished black shoes of the mafia as Toni Cipriani, where crime is more of a profession than a past-time. San Andreas gave us the poverty stricken angle as we endured life in the ghetto as Carl Johnson. The Grand Theft Auto series has even catapulted us into the retro days of the 80's and allowed us to relive our Miami Vice and Magnum P.I. fantasies (whether for better or worse). But what if Grand Theft Auto went forward in time and showed us a world that no one had witnessed yet?

GTA: 2052 would obviously be pulled straight from the shelves of a sci-fi library. Imagine hover-cars, sky-scrapers that reach into the upper stratosphere, instant teleportation, bionic implants, laser guns, grappling hooks, extraterrestrial life-forms... I have to stop as I'm drooling all over my keyboard. But the possibilities are literally limitless to the imagination.

Also, past Grand Theft Auto games have always been packed full of humorous references and parodies from popular culture. GTA 2052 could reference flicks like Blade Runner, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Minority Report, all the way through to cult classics like Plan 9 from Outer Space, Star Wars and even The Jetsons. For example, a mission could involve you tracking down a rogue android as seen in the Asimov-influenced blockbuster of 2004, I,Robot.

Perhaps Rockstar are afraid of stepping outside of the realms of realism, needing "real-life" stories to portray a believable setting to their gamers. Personally though, I think that many people would find it hard to truly relate to the lifestyles of the Cipriani family or the 50 Cent-like environment of Carl Johnson.

Would it be much harder to envisage a robot-renegade cyber-cop with laser limbs? Possibly, but that depends on your imagination. Either way, only time will tell as to whether Rockstar are thinking down these lines or not for future titles.

GTA: Mos Eisley

Mos Eisley Spaceport. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. What better place, then, than the planet of Tatooine for a Grand Theft Auto game? Those that stop for even a parsec to think about it will understand what a brilliant concept this is. Hijacking speeders and selling them to Jawas; shoot-outs in cantinas (remember to shoot first!); and smuggling for Hutts: it all makes sense for a Grand Theft Auto game.

Perhaps the best part about Grand Theft Auto: Mos Eisley is how controversy could be avoided by the inclusion of Imperial Stormtroopers. No one will have a problem with players wiping out the boys in white, just as no one had a problem with everyone in the Death Star being blown to smithereens not once, but twice.

Speaking of the Death Star, the battle-station itself could serve as a wonderful parody of GTA’s star system for wanted levels. Six stars would bring down the entire Imperial armada on a player, but causing enough damage would unlock a secret seventh star rating, at which point the Empire would bring in the Death Star to wipe out the planet Tatooine. Game over, man, game over. Oh wait; wrong movie…

GTA: Dark Ages

Okay, so get this: instead of stealing cars, you can steal horses! That’d be a fun game in itself right there. But seriously, a GTA game set in feudal times could be a great laugh, if the developers take care to remove much of the tediousness and general stupidity associated with the 14th century.

The land would be populated with an assortment of quirky characters, from corrupt drunken barons, to hopeless serfs, to insane priests. One mission might have you chasing down a suspected witch and bringing her to whatever passes for justice – or maybe you might decide to turn the tables on the witch hunters who hired you, and let her escape. Defend your honour by engaging in gentlemanly duels; buy your way up through the aristocracy; acquire a castle or two and decorate them in all the most fashionable tapestries. Really, the possibilities are relatively endless, considering the dismal state of the period.

Hey, and maybe it could turn out that you’re really a dude from the present day reliving the memories of one of your ancestors – or has that been done before?

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