It was 20 years ago, in 1997, that “Grand Theft Auto” started making its indelible impact on the video game landscape, and a reminder of its beginnings is on its way to “Grand Theft Auto Online” in the form of a special birds’-eye-view racing mode.
When upstart action game “Grand Theft Auto” was first released, it threw players into a succession of bustling metropolises and rewarded them with successfully executing jobs for crime networks.
Each environment, based on a real-world equivalent, has subsequently been revisited over the course of franchise history, starting with 2001’s “Grand Theft Auto III”.
“GTA III” also marked the series’ impressive transition into full 3D, a significant step forward in demonstrating the potential of go-anywhere, do-anything open worlds.
Recent releases like “Ghost Recon Wildlands”, “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild”, “Yakuza 0”, “Watch Dogs 2”, “Fallout 4”, and “Metal Gear Solid V” tread a similar path to one degree or another.
Now, an April 25 update to “Grand Theft Auto Online”, the multiplayer portion of “Grand Theft Auto V”, will serve for some as a reminder of “GTA” history.
Taking place within the familiar 3D world of “GTA Online”, the Tiny Racers update adopts the original’s top-down perspective within the bounds of a high-speed car racing mode.
Soundtracking a trailer for the update is “Anthem”, N-Joi’s 1990 dance tune, included in the “Grand Theft Auto V” as one of 200-plus selections for its in-game radio stations. It had been re-released in 1996, not long before the first “GTA” debuted.
The early 1990s were also an era of dedicated top-down combat racers, with “Badlands”, “Nitro”, “Super Cars II” among genre favorites, and the seven race-wrecking power-ups of the Tiny Racers update promise a similar experience. JB
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