Grand Theft Auto clone

A car-jacking in Grand Theft Auto III. The HUD features many common elements used by Grand Theft Auto clones, including a mini-map, the time of day within the scope of the game, a meter indicating the player's current wanted level, and the player's current amount of health, money, and weapons.

Grand Theft Auto clones are a genre of action adventure video games epitomized by the eponymous Grand Theft Auto series, where players may find and use a variety of vehicles and weapons while roaming free in an open world setting. Incorporating a combination of core missions to advance the storyline and side-missions to improve replay value, the storyline of games in this genre typically has strong themes of crime and violence.

Earlier games with similar gameplay features include the 1998 games Body Harvest and Driver: You Are the Wheelman, and the open world level design concepts of 1980s games such as Metroid. Not until the genre-defining 2001 game Grand Theft Auto III, however, did a game in the genre attain such a degree of popularity that it encouraged developers to capitalize on the formula. Now spanning a few dozen^{[citation needed]} games, the genre includes games where the player can control wide ranges of vehicles and weapons, and the game levels have become larger, spanning multiple cities, and offer the ability to explore the interior of buildings. Very few games, however, have been able to come close to the financial and critical success of the Grand Theft Auto series.

Since calling a game a "clone" has a negative connotation, reviewers have come up with other names for the genre. Names such as "sandbox games", however, are applied to a wider range of games that do not share key features of the Grand Theft Auto series. Other efforts to name and define the genre have been rare and inconsistent.

Grand Theft Auto clones are a type of 3D action-adventure game,^[1] where players are given the ability to drive any vehicle or fire any weapon as they explore an open world.^[2] These games often incorporate violent and criminal themes, although games such as The Simpsons Hit & Run are considered more tame.^[3]

Driving while shooting in Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven.

Grand Theft Auto clones offer players the ability to steal and drive a number of vehicles.^[4][5] Games have included all kinds of vehicles, such as cars, helicopters, boats, jet-skis, fixed-wing aircraft, and military vehicles.^[3] Reviewers often compare these games based on the number of vehicles they offer, with greater choice resulting in better reviews.^[3] Players can also use vehicles as weapons, either by driving into enemies, or by damaging the vehicle until it explodes.^[6] Some games allow vehicles to perform stunts.^[3] Games in the genre thus incorporate elements of driving simulation games.^[7] Some games even allow players to customize their vehicles.^[8]

Players can engage in combat using range of weapons depending on the game setting, such as assault weapons, sniper rifles, explosives, rocket launchers, and close-range melee weapons.^[3] As such, several reviewers have stated that games in this genre are partially third person shooters.^[9] Players can find weapons scattered throughout the game world, and may buy weapons in shops or take them from dead enemies.^[2] Virtually anyone in the game world can be attacked by the player. This often provokes a reaction by police authorities, who will attempt to stop the player. The player may then attempt to fight the police. However, games such as Scarface: The World is Yours prevent the player from initiating unprovoked violence in public.^[10] Players must also keep track of their health and ammunition in order to succeed in combat.^[6]

These games have employed a variety of aiming mechanisms, such as free look aiming or a "lock-on" button.^[11] Several games have been criticized for difficult or burdensome controls when it comes to shooting,^[11][4] and thus game designers have tried refine the aiming and shooting controls in these games.^[3]

A debug tool that maps the world of Crackdown, consisting of 495 city blocks.

Grand Theft Auto clones allow players to freely explore the game world,^[3] which is typically on the scale of an entire city.^[12] Some games go so far as to base their level design on real world cities, such as London, New York City, and Los Angeles.^[3] Players are usually able to navigate by vehicle or on foot,^[13] although Outlaw Chopper permanently binds the player to a motorcycle.^[14] Some games put greater emphasis on leaping, climbing,^[3] and even swimming.^[15] Exploring the world is not just necessary to complete objectives, but also to gain valuable items, weapons, and vehicles. Different parts of the game world may be controlled by different enemy factions, who will attempt to stop the player in a variety of ways.^[6] However, more recent games in this genre allow players to acquire their own territory.^[16][17] The freedom of navigating a huge game world may be overwhelming or confusing for new players.^[6] Game designers have come up with a variety of navigational aids to solve this problem. A mini-map is quite common,^[18] while Saints Row and Grand Theft Auto IV go so far as to offer a GPS service.^[7] Games without these navigation tools are sometimes criticized as confusing.^[3]

The player's freedom to explore may be limited until they complete certain objectives and advance the game plot.^[6] Players must visit specific locations and complete specific missions in order to win the game,^[19] such as racing, tailing, couriering, robbing,^[14] stealing,^[4] shooting, assassinating, and driving to specific checkpoints.^[20] There may be multiple ways to complete these missions as the game environment is designed to facilitate shortcuts, experimentation, and creative ways to kill enemies.^[6] Completing a core mission will unlock further missions and advance the storyline,^[16] and if the player fails a mission they will be able to resume the game from before the mission began.^[4] In addition, these games usually offer optional side missions, which allow players to gain other rewards. These side missions improve the game's replay value.^[6] Some games go so far as to incorporate mini-games into the game world, such as circuit races.^[8] Ultimately, this allows the player to follow or ignore the game's storyline as they see fit.^[5]

Body Harvest pioneered the concept of driving and shooting in an open world.

Rockstar North's Grand Theft Auto III is often credited with pioneering a game genre in 2001.^[21] However, the game was arguably influenced by early nonlinear 2D games from the 1980s, including The Legend of Zelda and Metroid.^[22] Also, many of the features in Grand Theft Auto III can be seen in the 1998 Nintendo 64 game Body Harvest, which was developed by DMA Design (which eventually became Rockstar North when it was acquired by Rockstar Games).^[23] This game featured an open world with nonlinear missions and side-quests, as well as the ability to commandeer and drive a variety of vehicles.^[23] As such, it has been retroactively called "GTA in space",^[23] and is credited with making Grand Theft Auto III possible.^[24] Some of the features of Grand Theft Auto III could also be seen in the Driver series, which was created in 1998.^[25] In addition to these influential games, the development of Grand Theft Auto III also expanded upon concepts from Grand Theft Auto and Grand Theft Auto II.^[23]

Despite these prior releases, it was Grand Theft Auto III that attained enough critical and commercial success to inspire an entire genre of similar games.^[26] As such, Grand Theft Auto III is credited with popularizing this genre,^[23] and is sometimes treated as a revolutionary event in the history of video games, much like the release of Doom nearly a decade earlier.^[27] GamePro called it the most important game of all time, and claimed that every genre was influenced to rethink their conventional level design.^[28] IGN similarly praised it as one of the top ten most influential games of all time.^[29] Subsequent games that follow this formula of driving and shooting in a free-roaming level have been called Grand Theft Auto clones. Some reviewers even extended this label to the Driver series, even though this series began years before the release of Grand Theft Auto III.^[25]

Rockstar North developed Grand Theft Auto: Vice City in 2002, which expanded on the open world concept by letting players explore the interior of more than sixty buildings.^[17] The game also featured an expanded soundtrack and the voice talent of several Hollywood actors, including Ray Liotta. This set a new standard for the genre, making studio talent a pre-requisite for success.^[30] Other game developers also entered the field that year, with releases such as The Getaway and Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven.^[3] The Simpsons Hit & Run in 2003 applied the concept to a cartoon world,^[3] while True Crime: Streets of LA reversed the Grand Theft Auto formula by putting the player in the role of a police officer.^[31] Some reviewers began warning parents of the growing number of games in this genre, due to the violent themes intended for mature audiences.^[30]

A mural ad for Grand Theft Auto IV, which currently holds numerous sales records.

Ultimately, rival developers were unable match the reception of the Grand Theft Auto series.^[3] Rockstar North released Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas in 2004, which featured the an open world on the scale of three distinct cities.^[17] The game also allowed players to customize their avatar and vehicles, as well as compete for turf by fighting with rival gangs.^[17] The continued success of the Grand Theft Auto series led to successful spin-offs, including Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories in 2005, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories in 2006, and the 2D Grand Theft Auto Advance for the Game Boy Advance handheld game console.^[17] A market analysis in early 2006 found that new games in this genre would have more difficulty than new first-person shooters or racing games, and noted that that overall revenue for this genre declines during periods without a new Grand Theft Auto game.^[32] By 2006, developers were producing fewer games in this space, estimated at half the number seen in 2005.^[33]

With the arrival of the seventh generation of video game consoles, the first "next-gen" Grand Theft Auto clones were released in 2006, beginning with Saints Row.^[16] Saints Row from 2006 and Crackdown from 2007 both introduced online multiplayer to the genre, a feature that had been requested by many fans.^[3] Crackdown was notable for being created by the developer of the original Grand Theft Auto,^[33] and featured the ability to develop the player character's superpowers in a semi-futuristic setting.^[3] 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 movie franchises.^[17] Still, reviewers continued to measure these games against the standard set by the Grand Theft Auto series.^[3] The 2008 release of Grand Theft Auto IV broke numerous sales records, including the record for the fastest selling game in its first 24 hours.^[34] The Playstation 3 version is the second-highest rated video game of all-time on Game Rankings.^[35] Since its inception, this genre has evolved to include larger settings, more missions, and a wider range of vehicles.^[23]

Calling a game a "Grand Theft Auto clone" is sometimes considered unfair or insulting.^[16] This is because reviewers sometimes use this term to suggest that the "clone" is a mere imitation, designed for the sole purpose of capitalizing on the success of the Grand Theft Auto series.^[36] However, this term can also be used as a neutral description of a game,^[37] which can range from good to bad.^[38] Reviewers have used "Grand Theft Auto clone" to describe games that rest on their own merits, and do not necessarily dismiss the entire class of games as mere imitators.^[39]

These games are sometimes called "open world games" or "sandbox games".^[2] However, many different games have been called open world or sandbox games, including Metroid from 1986.^[22] In contradiction to this, games such as Grand Theft Auto III and Body Harvest are credited with inventing this genre more than a decade later.^[23][21] Furthermore, reviewers have stated that this genre does not include every game with a freely explorable world and that this genre is much more specific, thus excluding Spider-Man 2 and The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction from this class of games.^[3] Reviewers have thus been inconsistent, sometimes describing any game with open level design,^[22] while other times focusing on a specific genre created in the late 1990s.^[6]

Without clear terminology to describe the genre popularized by Grand Theft Auto, reviewers have invented a number of other names for this genre. Some reviewers have focused on criminal themes in the genre, using terminology such as "crime games",^[12] "crime-based action games",^[32] and what CNN called the "gangsta genre".^[33] Other journalists have emphasized gameplay, by describing the genre as "free roaming action adventure games",^[40] "driving-and-shooting games",^[41] and "driving action hybrids".^[42]