Grand Theft Auto: London 1969 Review

The authentic Grand Theft Auto delivered a brand new sort of expertise. The overhead “crime spree on a disc” managed to be greater than only a stunning, violent recreation. It was simply plain enjoyable to drive round, get right into a four-car pileup, hop out of your stolen automobile, mow down 4 or 5 pedestrians with a machine gun, and blow up just a few cop vehicles for good measure. GTA: London 1969 bridges the hole between the primary recreation and GTA2, scheduled for launch later this yr. As one would count on from a mission pack, there have not been many adjustments made to the system, so solely those that nonetheless get pleasure from aimlessly driving via the streets of Vice City searching for a brand new automobile to steal and blow up want apply.

Though mission packs have lengthy been part of PC gaming, there actually hasn’t been any strong add-on expertise on consoles. GTA London requires that you simply personal the unique GTA disc (Rockstar is promoting the 2 discs collectively underneath the title Director’s Cut, in case you do not have the complete recreation) and makes you place it in whereas beginning up as a part of its weird swap trick-esque startup sequence. You boot up the system with London within the unit. It’ll inform you to place within the authentic disc, spin for awhile, after which inform you to place the London disc again within the drive. Whether it’s because it is really utilizing recreation code from the unique disc or simply making an attempt to maintain folks from enjoying a budget add-on with out shopping for the costlier full recreation is unknown, however I’d suspect it is the latter.

The variations between the mission pack and the previous GTA ranges are minimal. If you wish to keep authorized, you will wish to keep on the left aspect of the highway. You’ll even be coming into and exiting automobiles on the suitable aspect of the automobile. This will initially trigger a little bit of confusion. I do know it precipitated me to get caught by the cops (er… nicked by the bobbies… no matter) greater than as soon as. All the speech has been changed with the slang and accents you’d look forward to finding in London round 1969. The music has additionally been utterly revamped, and it matches the situation properly. The graphics are largely new as properly, offering new textures for buildings (there have been loads of pubs in London again then, I suppose) and new vehicles, together with an Austin Powers-esque experience, full with accompanying secret-spy music.

The GTA London mission pack actually does not maintain a candle to GTA’s authentic three cities, but it surely nonetheless manages to be moderately enjoyable. If you’ve got nonetheless bought that itch to jack fools for his or her rides and smoke cops (and truthfully, who does not?), then GTA London ought to make the watch for GTA2 slightly bit simpler to bear.

System requirements

<strong>Recommended configuration</strong>
Hardware:

Processor: 1Ghz Pentium or AMD Athlon
RAM: 256 MB RAM
Video Card: 64MB Directx9 compatible (GeForce3 or better)
Soundcard: Directx9 compatible
DirectXOM: 8x DVD ROM Drive
Hard D Version: DirectX 9
DVD-Rrive: 4.7 GB free hard disk space
Peripherals: Keyboard and mouse

Recommended:

Processor: Pentium 4 or Athlon XP
RAM: 384+ MB RAM
Video Card: 128MB Nvidia GeForce6 or better)
Soundcard: Directx9 compatible surround sound card (Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Seried Recommended)
DVD-ROM: 16x DVD ROM Drive
Hard Drive: 4.7 GB free hard disk space
Peripherals: Keyboard and mouse