Grand Theft Auto IV Wishlist

Liam tells us about what GTA IV would be like if he was calling the shots.

Love it or hate it, Grand Theft Auto is one of the biggest names in video games. It began life as a 2D title by developers DMA that broke new ground thanks to its free-roaming gameplay, its extremely adult nature, and its satirical sense of humour.

Its success lead to the creation of an expansion pack and a full-blown sequel. Its renovation into a 3D game helped the series really shine, and many attribute the appeal and success of the PlayStation 2 to the success of GTA 3.

And the 9th iteration of the series, the excellent GTA: Vice City Stories, is hitting store shelves now. Grand Theft Auto is always there, ever present, always reminding us that its gameplay is still some of the best on offer.

And with Grand Theft Auto IV coming next year for PS3 and Xbox 360, NZGamer has decided to put forward a wishlist of features that we would like to see.

The Setting

The most important thing about Grand Theft Auto is the setting. It’s what helps you immediately distinguish each version. Every version of Grand Theft Auto, with the exception of the PSP versions, has had a different setting.

The City

Grand Theft Auto usually takes place in a city. The reasons for this are obvious: Grand Theft Auto: The Outback would quickly grow stale, and Grand Theft Auto: New Plymouth doesn’t really cut the mustard.

No, the city must be big, because you’ll want to explore it and cause mayhem throughout it. The cities, with the exception of GTA: London and GTA 2, have usually been based on American cities. So what would the setting be for GTA IV?

Perhaps the series could take another trip abroad, as it were? Visit another country, perhaps the neon-filled Tokyo? After all, Tokyo would certainly prove to be an interesting city to drive around, especially at night, thanks to all the signs and adverts. Tokyo is also host to many open freeways and narrow alleys that would be perfect for adding variety to the game.

And most importantly, Tokyo has its own criminal underworld that would provide the meat for the game’s story. However, there’s one thing wrong about a Grand Theft Auto: Tokyo: it doesn’t take place in America.

I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t actually think San Andreas was a good Grand Theft Auto game. Don’t get me wrong, it was very competent at what it did, but it seemed to be missing the satire and wit, the ironic look at American society that the series was known for.

Take Vice City, for example: it’s tongue was firmly in its cheek as it not only ridiculed the gross American consumerism that was prevalent during the 1980s, but it also poked fun at all the 1980s gang movies from the era, like Scarface. With San Andreas, it seemed almost as if the game was glorifying the American ghetto culture of the 90s.

Yes, there was some humour there, but it wasn’t satirical. To be fair, Rockstar North, a bunch of Scots, was probably hesitant to poke fun at something that is still a touchy subject. Given that they’re constantly accused of promoting violence in young people, the last thing they want is to be accused of promoting racism.

So when choosing a location, it’s important to pick a location that would allow a return to the roots of GTA, the satire, while also avoiding any more controversial pitfalls. So what better place to start looking than Texas? Ye haw!

Home state of George W. Bush, Texas is home to three cities that could work. San Antonio is out, simply because it sounds too much like San Andreas. Dallas is actually the third smallest city in the state, with the aforementioned San Antonio being larger, so it really comes down to Houston.

Houston, the fourth largest city in the United States, would be an excellent choice if you were planning cheeky satire based on the America we all know and hate love. The extreme stereotype of the gun-toting and extremely religious modern day cowboy could be played with while also looking at the sickening state of America’s internal politics. Remember: this is a game for people over 18, and if you’re over 18, you’ll find interest in this stuff unless you’re a total grogan.

But I digress; the problem with Houston is that a current Grand Theft Auto has been done. And while I like cowboy hats as much as the next person, you can do so much more with a Grand Theft Auto. We’ll get to what in a moment, but for now let’s just look at the only logical choice.

If Houston is the fourth largest city, and New York and Los Angeles have been done, that leaves the third largest city in America: Chicago.

Chicago is actually an excellent choice. With a population of 2.9 million people, a modern day Chicago would certainly have the scope a Grand Theft Auto game needs. If you wanted to take a San Andreas approach, you could also involve the Chicagoland area. You might even remember a certain April Fool’s Day prank that registered gtachicago.com and put up a fake logo – it seems others have also thought it a good idea. But Chicago has even better reason to be the next city for GTA IV . . .

The Era

The era is as important to Grand Theft Auto as the setting. We’ve had two games set in the present day, one in the 60s, one in the 80s, one in the 90s, and one in the near future. Now, you might be thinking that it would make sense to have one set in the 70s, right? But when you’ve got Chicago as your setting and your game's about crime, you don’t have any other choice than to have it set in the 1920s.

After all, it’s a time famous for its criminal activity, not quite as in the underbelly as many would have liked. Not only was bootlegging alcohol a profitable and illegal activity thanks to a rather foolish prohibition of the substance, but general crime such as bribery, prostitution, money laundering, and general first degree murder. And what about the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre?

Additionally, given that the population of Chicago wouldn’t be as dense as it is today, you could easily bypass the problems of generating a virtual population of nearly three million. Honestly, the one flaw about the Grand Theft Auto series so far is that it feels too sparsely populated for a city.

New York City has over eight million people residing there, yet there were parts of Liberty City that just felt like a ghost town. Sometimes you’d lose your car and you’d spend a good couple of minutes trying to find a new one. It looked the part, but the soul of the city was missing. This wouldn’t be an issue if you were setting the game in the 1920s.

You would also be able to poke fun at all the clichés of American gangster movies, and even some of the more-subdued movies like The Untouchables. There would also be room to play with the art style that Grand Theft Auto is known for, playing around with the stereotypical pinstripe suit and bowler hat.

The streets of 1920s Chicago would allow for an interesting landscape, and the interior of some of the buildings would spice things up a bit. Just imagine walking into a seedy nightclub or a tailor’s to get a new suit. The setting and era just work. But what about the story and gameplay features?

The Story

To be honest, I think that the story of Grand Theft Auto has been detrimental to the series. Sure, some people love stories in video games, and I’m one of them, but a linear story has always put limits on a game that should be about having no limits at all.

So instead of a story, Grand Theft Auto: Chicago would have more of a premise. Sure, there would still be room for theatrical elements, and I’ll get to that in a moment. However, I think it's important to put the player in a city and let them create their own tale.

The player would be cast as young male, born to immigrant parents, who has moved to Chicago to find a new life for himself. Upon reaching the city, the player is mugged. Destitute, the player turns to the only avenue left available to him: crime.

The player’s goal is to rise from rags to riches, with the eventual goal being in complete control of one of the city’s many gangs. How the player will accomplish this will be discussed shortly, but for now we’ll focus on the narrative.

As the player rises to the top of the chain, his actions wouldn’t go unnoticed. Not only would rival gangs try and fit him with a pair of concrete slippers for sleeping with the fishes, but the police would also take a keen interest.

Some of the police will merely be looking for bribes, and it’s up to the player to make sure he has the income to regularly pay off the police. Other police, however, will be slightly more honest. One such cop will be Detective Leon Tessi.

Tessi decides to make it his mission to bring you to justice. Why he’s so intent on doing so would be revealed throughout the game, but Tessi’s role would be an important one in the story. He would constantly be following you, waiting for you to slip up, and it would be your job to make sure you’ve lost the tail before you commit your crimes.

The more successful you become, the more Tessi will follow you until eventually you have a climatic confrontation that will change the future of Chicago forever.

Because the main story doesn’t limit the player to following a specific path, instead following the player’s path, far more freedom can be granted. This allows for some major renovations to the existing Grand Theft Auto formula.

The Gameplay

The Cars and the Weapons

It wouldn’t be much of a Grand Theft Auto game if it didn’t contain motor vehicles and assorted weaponry. To some people, going back to the 1920s might seem like a giant step backward, but you would be surprised. Sure, you’re not going to be racing around Lake Michigan on a powerboat, but you’ll still have access to planes, albeit propeller ones. The cars of the 1920s were also far cooler.

As far as weapons go, you’ve got far more scope for instruments of torture. Ice picks, switchblades, pliers: the room for viciousness is vast and untapped. There’ll also be the weaponry you expect, including Browning pistols, Tommy Guns, and grenades. Now if you’re not getting excited at the thought of executing a drive-by in a Model T with a Tommy Gun, you should probably check for a pulse.

The Crime

As mentioned before, once the player reaches the city, they will be left to their own devices. At first they’ll only be able to turn to petty crime: mugging and stealing. Once they get a bit of clout behind them they can perhaps turn to becoming a pimp, or maybe look at setting up a bootlegging operation.

Once the player gets enough of a presence within the city, rather than be recruited, they can start to recruit other members. The larger your gang becomes, the larger the crimes you are able to commit. Unlike previous Grand Theft Auto games, you will not be ordered to commit crimes by higher-ups. Instead, you will pick from a list of crimes that are relevant to your rank within a certain field.

A new addition to the Grand Theft Auto formula, areas of expertise would bring a freshness to the franchise. Rather than just committing a series of crimes, the player will build up skills in certain areas. For example, you might choose to level up your skills as a master bootlegger, with missions requiring you to not only create and deliver your product, but also exterminate the competition. Alternatively, you might look at something like prostitution.

The more you build up your skill set in a certain area, the greater and bolder the crimes you can commit. Eventually the player will become so refined in one area that they become the number one crime lord for that field in the city. Of course, this will mean it’s easier for Tessi to find you.

And losing him is vital. If Tessi sees you committing a crime, he’ll call the cops for back-up. The greater the crime, the more of the police he’ll call. Get caught committing a huge crime and even your bribery won’t stop the Chicago police force from coming down on your ass with all 6 stars.

The Features

GTA IV is going to be on a next generation console, so it’s fair to expect some next generation power. We know that the game will be using the Table Tennis engine to generate the graphics, so we can expect a fair amount of oomph.

However, if I was in charge, I’d make sure that delicious engine was used for more than just stupid stuff like putting sweat on people’s faces. Sure, you’d use some of that power to generate some rather impressive character models and cityscapes, but you could also use it for so much more.

Imagine racing along in your Model T, running from the cops, only to smash into the side of a building. Now, we’re used to the car suffering some major damage, but imagine if the building suffered some damage as well. It’s a cool thought, isn’t it?

Imagine that if you lobbed a grenade into the lobby of a building, it would destroy the insides and they would stay that way until they were repaired over time. Imagine levelling entire establishments. Imagine your actions having an impact on the game world.

With the power of these next generation consoles, there’s no reason why they couldn’t achieve this. Forget trying to recreate expansive areas; make a smaller area feel real and alive! Speaking of alive, how about putting more people on the street? And more unique people as well.

There’s no reason why it can’t be done. Forget about trying to impress us with high-res textures and HDR; that’s been done. It was disappointing to see that so many people fell for the fake screens that appeared a while ago, because as gamers we should be expecting much more.

Another feature we should be expecting as gamers is online play and downloadable content. Given that both the Xbox 360 and the PS3 will have the ability to go online, and that the PSP versions have given us multiplayer, it’s almost a given that there’ll be some form of online. Saints Row has it, after all.

But what would you want from online multiplayer? Given the gang-based nature of our dream GTA IV, you might even imagine a massively-multiplayer online GTA, where the rival gangs you are competing with are other human players.

Obviously such a mode would have to work parallel to the single-player experience, much like Phantasy Star Universe or Chromehounds do. However, who wouldn’t want to try and wipe out rival bootlegging gangs, or perhaps committing their own St. Valentine’s Day Massacre? Imagine a leaderboard that represented a gang’s standing within a persistent online world. Ah, we can dream.

Of course, we would also expect downloadable content, and it’s already practically been promised. In our fantasy GTA, it’s easy to see what the downloadable content would bring: more possible crimes for each area of expertise. Risen to the top of the prostitution syndicate? How about downloading some new content and trying to expand your empire somewhat? Maybe there’s a mission where one of your girls is threatening to defect to another gang, taking a large number of your girls with her? Maybe you just have to wipe her out. Providing such content wasn’t deliberately left out of the game to sell later on, we’d be more than happy with such a feature.

The Humour

Such features are all well and good, but one of the magic ingredients is humour. As stated before, it would be nice to see a return to the ironic humour of the originals. The Chicago setting would certainly allow for plenty of satire.

However, you don’t want to make it too slapstick. We don’t want any Wacky Races-style silliness. At the same time, you don’t want things to seem as if they are glorifying the situation. For starters, that loses the ironic tone you hope for in a Grand Theft Auto game.

The key is to make something grounded enough that you can take it seriously, but not so much that it’s pretentious. Something that has a sense of self-depreciating humour, but not so much that it stoops to childish immaturity. Think of the 1920s-themed level in TimeSplitters 2 and you’ll be on the right track to the general style of the game.

Unfortunately, I’m not much of a comedian. While I find myself funny, I’m aware that other people often don’t. Consequently, I’m not about to try and suggest any jokes; I’ll leave that to people who can do a good job. However, I would like to mention that I could see some fun being had with the extremist views that lead to the prohibition of alcohol during the era.

The Controversy

Just as humour is a part of every Grand Theft Auto game, so is controversy. Although the game is clearly made for adults, it’s often accused of corrupting the morals of the young. It seems that the satire is often lost on people, and it becomes a glorification of violence.

Indeed, every gamer’s favourite man to hate, Jack Thompson, has seemingly made it his life’s mission to eradicate the franchise. And who could forget the Hot Coffee fiasco? I never got that myself; murdering thousands is okay, but sex is a no-no?

But I digress; GTA is no stranger to controversy. But there is one last feature I would include in the next Grand Theft Auto that might prove to be controversial with gamers: consequences. Yes, you see, there is no real consequence for the random acts of violence one might commit.

If you really ran down half the population of a town, you’d certainly get more than a slap on the wrist and a big fine. And other games have used consequences before, to varying degrees. Oblivion will stop you from visiting certain towns while you have a criminal record. Fable had people turn away from you in disgust and fear if you were evil. And who could forget the corruption apparent in your face when you turned to the Dark Side in KOTOR?

Consequences in GTA wouldn’t be hard to implement. The larger your crimes, the more recognisable you would become. Not only would this make it easier for Tessi to find you, but the worse you got, the higher your permanent wanted rating would be. There would be no hiding out to reduce it back to zero.

If you were efficient and stuck to the tasks at hand, you’d probably be okay. But random acts of violence would have severe consequences. It might also be a good idea to teach remorse. Massacre large amounts of people and you’ll have to watch a cutscene that highlighted the massive grief that gripped the city. You’d have to watch a mass funeral and speeches by the townsfolk about how tragic this was. You would have to face up to your actions and decide if that was really you. I’d suggest a “NEWSFLASH!” style spoof, but that might take away from the point of the exercise.

This is totally controversial, no doubt, but it has its merits. For starters, it might encourage people to actually think about the virtual violence. Many people have stated that they just couldn’t commit the evil acts in games like KOTOR and Fable because they didn’t want to go down the dark path; it just wasn’t in their nature. Maybe it’s time GTA made gamers stare in the mirror?

But more importantly, it would get people like Jack Thompson off our backs. No longer would he be able to claim that GTA was a murder simulator that taught people how to kill without remorse or consequence, because GTA would be teaching those things. Of course, knowing him, he’d still find some kind of way to say that it was just desensitising people to acts of grief. You can’t win with that prick.

So there you have our list of features for our dream GTA IV. Sure, the setting might sound similar to Mafia, but the gameplay is radically different. So unlike Mafia, it wouldn’t stink. The gameplay would bring an air of freshness into the franchise, allowing players to finally go nuts in a giant sandbox while still providing the necessary motivation via narrative.

The game would also sport heaps of new features and additions, taking full advantage of the setting. The game would also mark a return to the trademark irony that Grand Theft Auto is known for.

Taking full advantage of the next generation hardware, our dream GTA IV would provide fully interactive and destructible environments, as well as providing online play that is the stuff of dreams.

And most importantly, it would introduce consequence, to remind gamers that even virtual violence can overstep the lines, while also getting the extremists of the back of the community.

Of course, it’s only a dream, and Rockstar North is probably creating a game that’s even better than what we could dream of. We’re writers and fans; we’re not game designers. Although we’d like to see some of these ideas make it to GTA IV, we’re sure that what’s coming will be an amazing experience you won’t soon forget.

Where will GTA IV take place? When will it be set? What new features will it provide? How will it take advantage of the next generation consoles and online? Stay tuned to NZGamer to find out the answer to these questions and more as information about GTA IV is revealed. And be sure to visit our forums and tell us what you’d like to see in the next GTA.

And who knows, maybe Rockstar North will think totally out of the box and give us GTA: Lego City? Nah, that’s just crazy talk! ;)