Grand Theft Auto clone
The objective of Grand Theft Auto clones is to complete a sequence of core missions involving driving and shooting, but often side-missions and minigames are added to improve replay value.
The storylines of games in this subgenre typically have strong themes of crime, violence and other controversial elements such as drugs and sexually explicit content.
The release of Grand Theft Auto (1997) marked a major commercial success for open-ended game design in North America, and featured a more marketable crime theme, but it was the popularity of its 3D sequel Grand Theft Auto III in 2001 that led to the widespread propagation of a more specific set of gameplay conventions consistent with a subgenre.
[4] They are noted for frequently bearing strong violent or criminal themes,[5] though exceptions like The Simpsons: Hit & Run and American McGee Presents: Scrapland have copied its gameplay and structure with a Teen rating.
[6] The game Lego City Undercover was released the same year as GTA V and drew similar comparisons, albeit generally positive, and was given an E10+ rating by the ESRB.
[8] This is because reviewers sometimes use this term to suggest that the "clone" is a mere imitation, which commonly occurs in the video game industry, designed for the sole purpose of capitalizing on the success of the Grand Theft Auto series.
[5] The terminology is inconsistent, sometimes including any game with open level design,[14] while other times focusing on a specific genre created at the turn of the century.
[5] Grand Theft Auto clones allow players to freely explore the game world,[5] which is typically on the scale of an entire city.
A mini-map feature is common,[33] while Saints Row and Grand Theft Auto IV go so far as to offer a GPS service.
[37] Mercenary (1985) has been described as a major ancestor to the Grand Theft Auto series, because it featured an open world which the player could explore freely.
[39][40][41] The Terminator, released in 1991, was a free-form, open world game that set its action in a modern-day city that extended for miles, and included the ability to fire at civilians and steal cars.
[42] Hunter (1991) has been described as the first sandbox game featuring full 3D, third-person graphics, thus making it an important precursor to the Grand Theft Auto series.
[43] Moreover, Hunter also had many unique features such as day and night lighting, fuel modelling, a log book, aerial observation units, tank traps, land mines and computer-controlled rocket batteries and tracer guns.
[15] As such, it has been retroactively called "GTA in space" (despite the fact that most of the game takes place in various settings on Earth),[15] and is credited with making Grand Theft Auto III possible.
Set in a 3D open world in an urban environment with the ability to traverse on foot and commandeer other vehicles, Driver 2 featured many aspects of what would later become known as a Grand Theft Auto clone, though violence was restricted to cutscenes.
[36] Subsequent games that follow this formula of driving and shooting in a free-roaming level have been called Grand Theft Auto clones.
For instance, radio stations had been implemented earlier in games such as Sega's Out Run (1986)[56] and Maxis' SimCopter (1996), open-ended missions based on operating a taxi cab in a sandbox environment were the basis for Sega's Crazy Taxi (1999),[57] the ability to kill non-player characters dated back to action role-playing games like Hydlide II (1985),[58] and Final Fantasy Adventure (1991),[59] and the way in which players run over pedestrians and get chased by police has been compared to Pac-Man (1980).
Its development during the same time and release a year later in 2002 had a few review websites draw comparisons, notably comparing the open world city and driving.
[62] Rockstar North finished development of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City later that year, which expanded on the open world concept by letting players explore the interior of more than sixty buildings.
[5] The Simpsons: Hit & Run in 2003 applied the concept to a cartoon world,[5] while True Crime: Streets of LA reversed the Grand Theft Auto formula by putting the player in the role of a police officer.
[64] Some reviewers began warning parents of the growing number of games in this genre, due to the violent themes intended for mature audiences.
[5] Rockstar North released Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas in 2004, which featured an open world on the scale of three distinct cities.
[68][69] With the arrival of the seventh generation of video game consoles, the first "next-gen" Grand Theft Auto clones were released in 2006.
[5] Meanwhile, The Godfather: The Game and Scarface: The World Is Yours entered the market in 2006, and attempted to apply the Grand Theft Auto formula to popular film franchises.
[5] Grand Theft Auto IV was released in April 2008 and featured a large, detailed environment, redefining gameplay[71] and even adopted the GPS navigation system seen in Saints Row.
