TITLE
By the Book: Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto
AUTHOR
David Kushner
PUBLICATION
GameSpot
YEAR
2012
ARTICLE TYPE
Book Excerpt
FROM THE ARTICLE
What they needed to work on now more than anything was this new game: Race ‘n’ Chase. Though it had technical chops, it was missing something crucial: balls, preferably as big as the yellow ones flying around the room. On his screen, Sam looked down on the virtual city, the buildings rising in chunky colored blocks. Little cars puttered along gray streets with white hash-mark lines. Traffic lights blinked from yellow to red. Ant-like people paced the sidewalks. Sam pressed one button on the keyboard, and the door of a car swung open. He pressed another, and it closed.Senior producer Gary Penn–a former journalist with a streak of Johnny Rotten and a taste for bright green socks–felt dejected. “This is a fucking simulation,” he said, bemoaning the game’s “stupid details.” Up in Dundee at DMA, the developers were starting to agree. By casting the player as the cop, they realized, they had cut out the fun. Some dismissed it as Sims Driving Instructor.
When an unruly gamer tried to drive his police car on the sidewalk or through traffic lights, a persnickety programmer reminded him that the stop lights needed to be obeyed. Were they building a video game or a train set? Even worse, the pedestrians milling around the game created frustrating obstacles. It was almost impossible to drive fast without taking people down, and, because the player was a cop, he had to be punished for hit-and-runs.
Race ‘n’ Chase hit a road block. There was just no way to have a fast and furious arcade-style game while playing by the rules. The DMAers stared at the screen, as the cars and the people raced around. Maybe there was another solution, they realized. Instead of having to avoid all of the pedestrians, what if you got points for running them over? What if you were the bad guy instead? Video game development is a highly collaborative work in progress, with constant feedback along the way. As the publishers of Race ‘n’ Chase, Sam and the others at BMG would frequently get new iterations–or builds–of the game to evaluate and comment on. The developers would then go off and implement necessary changes.
One day a new build of Race ‘n’ Chase arrived for Sam and the others to try out.
GAMES MENTIONED
Grand Theft Auto
PEOPLE MENTIONED
Sam Houser
EXCERPTED FROM
Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto
SEE ALSO
Read A Chapter From Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto – Game Informer (2012)
Book Excerpt: Jacked – MCV (2012)
How Grand Theft Auto Jacked the House of Lords – Wired (2012)