| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
The games allow the player to take on the role of a criminal in a city. Various missions are set for completion, such as bank robberies, assassinations, and other crimes.
The game is made up of a series of levels each set in one of the three cities in the game. In each level, the player has a target number of points to achieve, and you have five lives to attain the score. On obtaining the target number of points, the player must then drive to a certain location to complete the level, which allows progress to the next one.
Apart from that, the player is free to do what he/she wants. The player can just explore the city, cause death and destuction amid the traffic in the city, or steal and sell cars for profit, although completing a level, will almost certainly require the completion of missions. Even in missions there is still some freedom, as usually the player is free to choose the route to take, although the destination is usually fixed. This level of freedom is not found in most action-based computer games.
There are various ways in which to earn the points needed to complete each level.
Some points can be earned by committing various crimes, such as ramming cars (10 points each), and killing policemen (1000 each). The more serious the crime, the more points, but also the more the police will pay attention to the player. Another way to make money is to steal cars, and sell them at the many docks around each city, usually earning several thousand points.
These ways can give the player quite a number of points but this is not sufficient to earn the millions of points needed to complete each level (unless the player has a lot of patience), so it is neccesary to take on missions to complete a level. On successful completion of a mission successfully, the player gets 'paid', a large amount of points. A typical payment is in the region of 50,000 points.
Also after completing a mission, the score multiplier is increased by 1. The score multiplier is multiplied by the normal score for something, to get the points actually awarded. For example a multiplier of 3 will mean that the player gets 3*10 = 30 points for ramming a car, rather than the normal 10 points. This applies for anything points are awarded for, including the payment for completing a mission.
The three cities in which the game is set are modelled after real cities, in terms of landscape and style. They are Liberty City ( New York), San Andreas ( San Francisco) and Vice City ( Miami)
In most cases, missions are started by answering telephones, although some missions are allocated on the spot, or are triggered by finding certain vehicles.
At the start of each mission, the player will be given a series of instructions they must follow. The instructions are given in stages, so the objectives can change in a given situation.
Many of the missions involve tasks that can be completed at the player's own pace, so the player can take a leisurely pace, and observe the traffic laws, although there is always a temptation to cut corners. However, sometimes the game imposes time limits on mission completion, or there may be people giving chase, such as enemy gangsters, or the police, forcing the player to cut corners, to get to the destination on time and/or evade the pursuers. This means running red lights, driving on the pavement (risking running over pedestrians), and finding shortcuts.
Whilst the cities have other emergency services, as a criminal you are more likely to notice the local cops.
The police are constantly on the lookout for criminals. The player has a 'wanted' level, which reflects how much attention the police pay him/her. At the start of the game this is at zero and the player is ignored, but when the player commits a serious crime, the police pay the player more attention, and the wanted level increases, up to a maximum of four.
At one, the police tend only to give chase if they are in the area anyway, whereas at four, the police set up roadblocks on major roads, and shoots on sight, and send everyone available to the player's location. The more crimes are committed, the higher the rating goes. Also, sometimes the player automatically get noticed, if a mission lead to someone calling the police, or in the case of bank robberies that not suprisingly put the police on full alert.
The police's aim is in general to arrest the player, although they will not hesistate in shooting at , or trying to ram the player off the road, in the desperate attempt to stop the player, and they get more trigger happy the higher the wanted level. On arrest, the player is dropped off at the nearest police station, taking all the player's weapons and armour, and halving the score multiplier, but resetting the wanted level back to zero.
The police are very determined to catch the player, but they can be evaded. Dotted around each city are a number of respray shops, where your vehicle can be resprayed, or the licence plate s changed, to disguise it. This makes the police think you are someone else, even if they see you enter the shop, although this does cost money (i.e. points).