Fun facts about the GTA series!

[H-G]

Fun fact: In LCS (and hopefully VCS too), most in-game dialogues spoken by characters are actually scripted to play relative to that character's position using the "SET_MISSION_AUDIO_POSITION" (0x03D7) opcode, so the volume of their voice lines will be louder or quieter depending on how close the camera is to them.

 

This opcode had been present in GTA3, VC and SA, but R* very rarely ever used it across all three games:

 

1. In GTA3 it's only used in:

 

- "Chaperone" for the "IT'S A POLICE RAID!" line

- "Arms Shortage" for Phil's lines

- "Plaster Blaster" for the mission-exclusive scripted cop radio talk line

 

2. In VC it's only used in:

 

- "Mall Shootout" for Pierre La Ponce AKA the target courier guy's native French lines

- "Four Iron" for the "Nice ass, baby!" line

- "Psycho Killer" for Love Fist fan crowd chant line (looped)

 

3. And in SA it's only used in:

 

- "Los Sepulcros" for the funeral attenders' mournings

- "Madd Dogg's Rhymes" for the console game sounds

- "House Party" for the party music sound

- "Local LIquor Store" for the store's robbery alarm sound

- "Deconstruction" for cement pouring sound

- "Architectural Espionage" for the building's fire alarm sound

- "Up, Up and Away!" for the military fuel dump's intruder alarm sound and the "This is a restricted area!" and "I WILL open fire!" lines

- "End of the Line" (Part I, breaking into Smoke's place) for the wall breaking sound

- The police impound lot external script for the alarm sound

 

Whereas in the Stories games it's present in most missions with (hopefully) almost every dialogue playing in, and making use of, the actual 3D space.

[H-G]

Certain non-playable characters in SA have unused reaction quotes to being "Busted!" during gameplay, they can be heard working properly while in two-player mode with one of players' model set to one of the recurring storyline\gameplay character models (credits to nikitozz for the video):

 

[DeltaV20]

I recently just found out that the artwork of Rodney Morash holding a machine gun is based on the famous poster of the film 'Get Carter' where Michael Caine is posing with a shotgun, Get Carter was a 70s british film which heavily influenced gta london.
      


Bonus fact: In the same film Sam and Dan Houser's mother (Geraldine Moffat) appeared as an actress. 

Edited April 23 by DeltaV20

[KingAJ032304]

Fun fact: If you count the London games as full titles than Grand Theft Auto Vice City is the 6th game of the series. This makes the GTA VIce City pun unintentionally done already.

[ThatBenGuy1998]

VC and VCS are the only GTA titles from III onwards where Triads are not present.

VCS and V are the only GTA titles from III onwards where the Italian Mafia is not present.

[Carbonox]

There are Triads in VC's Spilling the Beans mission, but kinda half-assed and evidently not even modeled, because the ship is just guarded by average PIG's and the guy you interrogate is in a dark room and out of sight.

[H-G]

13 hours ago, Carbonox said:

There are Triads in VC's Spilling the Beans mission, but kinda half-assed and evidently not even modeled, because the ship is just guarded by average PIG's and the guy you interrogate is in a dark room and out of sight.

I just don't get why R* limited GTA3, VC and SA to have just seven gangs to mess around with in free-roam. VC and VCS each probably feature the most gangs in the 3D-era universe alone that would've been great to have outside of missions:

 

We have:

 

1. The Triads you mentioned

2. The all-female counterfeiting syndicate in "Hit the Courier"

3. The Latino gang of "some Costa Rican brickhead" mentioned in "The Fastest Boat"

4. Pedro Garcia's gang from "Gun Runner" (Pedro Garcia is Phil's rival in the mission and his name ain't even mentioned in-game, WTF?)

5. The European gang from "Autocide", sure the targets in the mission were the whole gang but logically thinking they probably had some more members to back them up

 

There are probably a lot more to go, but VC's main focus? Just Cubans and Haitians for 7 missions in total. While all other missions have 3-4% focus on the Patrol Invest Group, 2% on the Sharks\Streetwannabes and 1% on Mitch Baker's biker gang. SA did it much well IMO, but even that wasn't enough with even more mission-exclusive and scripted "gangs" than in VC.

[KingAJ032304]

5 minutes ago, H-G said:

I just don't get why R* limited GTA3, VC and SA to have just seven gangs to mess around with in free-roam. VC and VCS each probably feature the most gangs in the 3D-era universe alone that would've been great to have outside of missions:

 

We have:

 

1. The Triads you mentioned

2. The all-female counterfeiting syndicate in "Hit the Courier"

3. The Latino gang of "some Costa Rican brickhead" mentioned in "The Fastest Boat"

4. Pedro Garcia's gang from "Gun Runner" (Pedro Garcia is Phil's rival in the mission and his name ain't even mentioned in-game, WTF?)

5. The European gang from "Autocide", sure the targets in the mission were the whole gang but logically thinking they probably had some more members to back them up

 

There are probably a lot more to go, but VC's main focus? Just Cubans and Haitians for 7 missions in total. While all other missions have 3-4% focus on the Patrol Invest Group, 2% on the Sharks\Streetwannabes and 1% on Mitch Baker's biker gang. SA did it much well IMO, but even that wasn't enough with even more mission-exclusive and scripted "gangs" than in VC.

might have something to do with memory/storage or it might have to do with VC being more derivative and less original

[H-G]

4 hours ago, KingAJ032304 said:

might have something to do with memory/storage or it might have to do with VC being more derivative and less original

I doubt the former, VC is so well-optimized it can run on a literal potato. It's just about adding in proper gang member and gang car models, defining a separate "GANG#" pedtype for each gang, implementing a number ID for each new gang (e.g; Triads get gang ID #8, counterfeit syndicate gets gang ID #9 etc.) and scripting them into the gameplay through the SCM file (adding turf, setting up their signature weapon, giving them a gang car etc.).

 

Why they restricted such interesting gangs to be mission-exclusive is beyond me.

Edited April 29 by H-G

[DR Cherry Bomb]

On 4/29/2022 at 5:30 PM, H-G said:

There are probably a lot more to go, but VC's main focus? Just Cubans and Haitians for 7 missions in total. While all other missions have 3-4% focus on the Patrol Invest Group, 2% on the Sharks\Streetwannabes and 1% on Mitch Baker's biker gang. SA did it much well IMO, but even that wasn't enough with even more mission-exclusive and scripted "gangs" than in VC.

Yeah I do agree Vice City didn't explore the gang lore a lot, everything was just about the war between the Cubans/Los Cabrones and Haitians, other gangs didn't shine much.

[DR Cherry Bomb]

The release and chronological orders of the 3D era are the exact same of each other (excluding Advance of course as this won't apply if we include it), though III and VCS switch places.

[Ondr4H]

Thanks to that big ass Ocean without purpose in GTA V that gives me constant creeps, I found that I have thallasophobia.

Edited May 28 by Ondr4H

[DR Cherry Bomb]

Vic is the only 3D era protagonist who has not been to Liberty City at all. Claude, Toni, and Mike are [obviously] protagonists of games set in Liberty City, Tommy was actually born in Liberty City and was just forced to travel to Vice, and CJ went to Liberty City after Brian's downfall and there's even a mission which has him travel to LC again to kill a made man.

[DeltaV20]

The 'Move over Miami' billboard in Vice city is not connecting Miami with 3D Universe it's just a slightly edited texture referencing the 1941 film 'Moon Over Miami' 


 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_Over_Miami_(film)

[DR Cherry Bomb]

Credits to @Jeansowaty for this interesting find:

About the rampages in III, we all know they exhibit a blue-ish color scheme similar to that of the game's atmosphere, right?

Well, it has just been discovered that in the beta, they actually had some sort of a yellow-ish color, which can be viewed right in the game's files. This is a left-over from the game and the developers decided to change the colors in the final to reflect on the game's dark blue atmosphere (my guess of course).

Edit: Never mind. Check below replies.

 

Edited June 11 by DR Cherry Bomb

[Jeansowaty]

10 hours ago, DR Cherry Bomb said:

Credits to @Jeansowaty for this interesting find:

About the rampages in III, we all know they exhibit a blue-ish color scheme similar to that of the game's atmosphere, right?

Well, it has just been discovered that in the beta, they actually had some sort of a yellow-ish color, which can be viewed right in the game's files. This is a left-over from the game and the developers decided to change the colors in the final to reflect on the game's dark blue atmosphere (my guess of course).

 

This isn't entirely right... I just found a yellow64 texture in the icons.txd and used it in place of the blue. It's probably still used but I don't remember where lol

[DR Cherry Bomb]

3 hours ago, Jeansowaty said:

This isn't entirely right... I just found a yellow64 texture in the icons.txd and used it in place of the blue. It's probably still used but I don't remember where lol

A'right lol. So, it wasn't specifically created for rampages?

[Jeansowaty]

1 minute ago, DR Cherry Bomb said:

A'right lol. So, it wasn't specifically created for rampages?

Nah.

[DR Cherry Bomb]

14 minutes ago, Jeansowaty said:

Nah.

I knew you'd fool me again. So this fact is redundant now, eh? Okay.

[Mehaniq]

Maybe its "fun fact" for many PC players who dont see PS2 gameplay or dont play in GTA games on PS2 console. Playstation 2 game has more original content from source photos but its difficult to recognize after texture compression and small image size. You can see differences between PC and PS2 GTA San Andreas textures side by side in my video about this:

 

 

[H-G]

Judging by the details found in the GTA2 design document recently released by the former DMA Design developer Mike Dailly, the concept of Anywhere City seems to get the bulk of it's inspiration from Los Angeles of all the cities in the US for some reason:

 

 

Also, interesting how in the early days, DMA Design were against the idea of fully basing the game on one IRL city so as not to fail at it, whereas fast forward to 9 years later and they've got GTA IV on their hands with quite a New York City-esque Liberty City in it. I guess back then they were simply against faithful in-game recreation of the real city considering how IV's LC is more of a comical parody than an actual in-game recreation.

Edited August 17 by H-G

[Americana]

What's also interesting is how they thought it would be a good idea not to allow players to pause the game as they wanted them to check the real map, attached to the game.