Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is a 2002 action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It is the fourth main entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, following 2001's Grand Theft Auto III, and the sixth instalment overall. Set in 1986 within the fictional Vice City, the single-player story follows mobster Tommy Vercetti's rise to power after being released from prison and becoming caught up in an ambushed drug deal. While seeking out those responsible, he slowly builds a criminal empire by seizing power from other criminal organisations in the city.
Grand Theft Auto III is a 2001 action-adventure game developed by DMA Design and published by Rockstar Games. It is the third main entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, following 1999's Grand Theft Auto 2, and the fifth instalment overall. Set within the fictional Liberty City, the story follows Claude, a silent protagonist who, after being betrayed and left for dead by his girlfriend during a robbery, embarks on a quest for revenge that leads him to become entangled in a world of crime, drugs, gang warfare, and corruption. The game is played from a third-person perspective and its world is navigated on foot or by vehicle. Its open world design lets players freely roam Liberty City, consisting of three main areas.
Video game modding is the process of alteration by players or fans of one or more aspects of a video game, such as how it looks or behaves, and is a sub-discipline of general modding. Mods may range from small changes and tweaks to complete overhauls, and can extend the replay value and interest of the game.
Rockstar North Limited is a British video game development company and a studio of Rockstar Games based in Edinburgh. The company was founded as DMA Design in Dundee in 1987 by David Jones, soon hiring former classmates Mike Dailly, Russell Kay, and Steve Hammond. During its early years, DMA Design was backed by its publisher Psygnosis, primarily focusing on Amiga, Atari ST and Commodore 64 games. During this time, they created successful shooters such as Menace, and Blood Money, but soon turned to platform games after the release of Lemmings in 1991, which was an international success and led to several sequels and spin-offs. After developing Unirally for Nintendo, DMA Design was set to become one of their main second-party developers, but this partnership ended after Nintendo's disapproval of Body Harvest.
Grand Theft Auto 2 is an action-adventure game, developed by DMA Design and published by Rockstar Games, for Microsoft Windows and the PlayStation in October 1999, and the Dreamcast and Game Boy Color in 2000. It is the sequel to 1997's Grand Theft Auto, and the second main instalment of the Grand Theft Auto series. Set within a retrofuturistic metropolis known as "Anywhere City", the game focuses on players taking the role of a criminal as they roam an open world, conducting jobs for various crime syndicates and having free rein to do whatever they wish to achieve their goal. The game's intro is unique for a title in the series, as it involved live-action scenes filmed by Rockstar Games.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is a 2004 action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It is the fifth main entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, following 2002's Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and the seventh installment overall. It was released in October 2004 for the PlayStation 2, in June 2005 for Microsoft Windows and Xbox, and in November 2010 for Mac OS X. The game is set within an open world environment that players can explore and interact with at their leisure. The story follows former gangster Carl "CJ" Johnson, who returns home following his mother's murder and is drawn back into his former gang and a life of crime while clashing with corrupt authorities and powerful criminals. Carl's journey takes him across the fictional U.S. state of San Andreas, which is heavily based on California and Nevada and encompasses three major cities: Los Santos, San Fierro and Las Venturas.
The action-adventure genre is a video game genre that combines core elements from both the action game and adventure game genres.
A griefer or bad faith player is a player in a multiplayer video game who deliberately irritates and harasses other players within the game (trolling), by using aspects of the game in unintended ways, such as destroying something another player made or built. A griefer derives pleasure primarily, or exclusively, from the act of annoying other users, and as such, is a particular nuisance in online gaming communities. To qualify as griefing, a player must be using aspects of the game in unintended ways to annoy other players—if they are trying to gain a strategic advantage, it is instead called "cheating".
Grand Theft Auto (GTA) is a series of action-adventure games created by David Jones and Mike Dailly. Later titles were developed under the oversight of brothers Dan and Sam Houser, Leslie Benzies and Aaron Garbut. It is primarily developed by British development house Rockstar North, and published by its parent company, Rockstar Games. The name of the series references the term "grand theft auto", used in the United States for motor vehicle theft.
Grand Theft Auto IV is a 2008 action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It is the sixth main entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, following 2004's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and the eleventh instalment overall. Set within the fictional Liberty City, based on New York City, the single-player story follows Eastern European war veteran Niko Bellic and his attempts to escape his past while under pressure from high-profile criminals. The open world design lets players freely roam Liberty City, consisting of three main islands, and the neighbouring state of Alderney, which is based on New Jersey.
A sandbox game is a video game with a gameplay element that provides the player a great degree of creativity to interact with, usually without any predetermined goal, or alternatively with a goal that the player sets for themselves. Such games may lack any objective, and are sometimes referred to as non-games or software toys. More often, sandbox games result from these creative elements being incorporated into other genres and allowing for emergent gameplay. Sandbox games are often associated with an open world concept which gives the player freedom of movement and progression in the game's world. The "sandbox" term derives from the nature of a sandbox that lets children create nearly anything they want within it.
Grand Theft Auto IV is an action-adventure video game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. Upon its release in 2008 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, the game generated controversy for its depiction of violence, occasionally being referred to as a "murder simulator". The ability to drive under the influence of alcohol in the game also received criticism, resulting in a request for the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) to change the game's rating. Similarly, some gameplay features were censored for the Australian and New Zealand versions of the game, though these were subsequently restored. Several crimes committed following the game's release, such as murder and sexual violence, were attributed to the perpetrators' experience with the game, generating further controversy. Former attorney Jack Thompson, known for his campaigns against the Grand Theft Auto series, heavily criticised Grand Theft Auto IV prior to its release, filing lawsuits against Rockstar's parent company Take-Two Interactive and threatening to ban distribution if some gameplay features were not removed. The game also generated further controversy and lawsuits from city officials and organisations.
In video games, an open world is a game mechanic of using a virtual world that the player can explore and approach objectives freely, as opposed to a world with more linear and structured gameplay. While games have used open-world designs since the 1980s, the implementation in Grand Theft Auto III (2001) set a standard for the concept which has been used since.
Third-person shooter (TPS) is a subgenre of 3D shooter games in which the gameplay consists primarily of shooting. It is closely related to first-person shooters, but with the player character visible on-screen during play. While 2D shoot 'em up games also employ a third-person perspective, the TPS genre is distinguished by having the game presented with the player's avatar as a primary focus of the camera's view.
Grand Theft Auto V is a 2013 action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It is the seventh main entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, following 2008's Grand Theft Auto IV, and the fifteenth instalment overall. Set within the fictional state of San Andreas, based on Southern California, the single-player story follows three protagonists—retired bank robber Michael De Santa, street gangster Franklin Clinton, and drug dealer and gunrunner Trevor Philips—and their attempts to commit heists while under pressure from a corrupt government agency and powerful criminals. The open world design lets players freely roam San Andreas' open countryside and the fictional city of Los Santos, based on Los Angeles.
A team of approximately 1,000 people developed Grand Theft Auto V over several years. Rockstar Games released the action-adventure game in September 2013 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, in November 2014 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, in April 2015 for Microsoft Windows, and in March 2022 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. The first main Grand Theft Auto series entry since Grand Theft Auto IV, its development was led by Rockstar North's core 360-person team, who collaborated with several other international Rockstar studios. The team considered the game a spiritual successor to many of their previous projects like Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3. After its unexpected announcement in 2011, the game was fervently promoted with press showings, cinematic trailers, viral marketing strategies and special editions. Its release date, though subject to several delays, was widely anticipated.
Grand Theft Auto Online is an online multiplayer action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It was released on 1 October 2013 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, 18 November 2014 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, 14 April 2015 for Microsoft Windows, and 15 March 2022 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. The game is the online component of Grand Theft Auto V. Set within the fictional state of San Andreas, Grand Theft Auto Online allows up to 30 players to explore its open world environment and engage in cooperative or competitive game matches.
The music for the 2013 action-adventure video game Grand Theft Auto V, developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games, was composed by The Alchemist, Oh No and Tangerine Dream in collaboration with Woody Jackson. The game is the first entry in the Grand Theft Auto series to make use of an original score. In collaboration with each other, the musicians produced over twenty hours of music which scores the game's missions. Some of the works produced by the musicians throughout the game's development influenced some of the in-game missions and sparked inspiration for further score development. Grand Theft Auto V also has an in-game radio that can tune into sixteen stations playing more than 441 tracks of licensed music, as well as two talk radio stations. The composers of the score wanted it to accompany the licensed music, as opposed to detracting from it.
Steve is a fictional character from the Minecraft video game franchise. Created by Swedish video game developer Markus "Notch" Persson and introduced in the initial Java-based version of Minecraft which was publicly released on May 17, 2009, Steve is one of two default player character skins available for players of contemporary versions of Minecraft. Steve lacks an official backstory by the developers of Minecraft as he is intended to be a customizable player avatar as opposed to being a predefined character. His feminine counterpart, Alex, was first introduced in August 2014 for PC versions of Minecraft. Depending on the version of Minecraft, players have a chance of spawning as either Steve or Alex when starting a new game.
