Timing of Trilogy games is weird

[LotusRIP]

Anybody else noticed that in hindsight, the GTA "era" titles (Vice City 80's, San Andreas 90's), were actually not that long before their respective game release dates?

 

For example

GTA San Andreas set in 1992, released in 2003.

11 years difference.

Felt like it was old school at the time but... GTA V released in 2013 to now is also an 11 year window... so that's like considering 2013 as "old school" or having a GTA game set in the 2010's and thinking of it as retro.

 

Similarly,

 

Vice City set in the 80's

13 years until game release 2002 (if you count from 1989 say at minimum)

 

11 or 13 years ago from today.... doesn't really feel that long ago really (especially considering there's been no new GTA game since), yet these games feel like a huge callback to an era long before their time, "retro", yet now I think of it like this those games were not released too far apart from the eras they were set in...

Edited March 26, 2024 by LotusRIP

[_GTA_]

GTA San Andreas came out in october 2004

[Stagnant09]

Well, GTA V's story mode feels retro, too, in 2024.

[The Journey]

6 hours ago, Stagnant09 said:

Well, GTA V's story mode feels retro, too, in 2024.

Bruh it doesn’t feel retro dated but not retro. I’m gonna bet that 1992-2004 (SA 12 years) was the same, it was dated enough but not retro.
 

1986-2002 (VC 16 years) does look retro, but 2008 actually does look retro today too, look at GTA 4, 16 years old now and a lot of it feels retro.

[TaylorSwiftDies2038]

21 hours ago, The Journey said:

Bruh it doesn’t feel retro dated but not retro. I’m gonna bet that 1992-2004 (SA 12 years) was the same, it was dated enough but not retro.
 

1986-2002 (VC 16 years) does look retro, but 2008 actually does look retro today too, look at GTA 4, 16 years old now and a lot of it feels retro.

 

It feels dated because we haven't gotten anything new in so long. It'll eventually feel retro (it does to me kinda).

 

GTA IV definitely feels retro in a weird nostalgic way though, probably because we were kids/teens back in 2008. GTA IV in general feels like a time capsule of the 2004-2010 era in culture.

[cant remember]

When I play GTA4 now I think it does feel like an unintentional retro time capsule, with the old keypad phones, Roman's beige CRT monitor and traffic overall even the "new" cars look like old cars from nearly two decades ago. Some iconic places also look very different now like Times Square being partially changed into a pedestrian plaza.

 

I don't feel the same about GTA5 yet though, if I didn't know the game was 10 years old it wouldn't be immediately apparent to me that it's set in 2013.

 

My theory behind that effect is that we lived through those eras and experienced that tech and those cars as being new. And with Vice City for example, we've always had the association that those car models equaled retro. So even though GTA4/5's settings are now as long ago as Vice City's setting on release it takes much longer for our perception to change.

[The Journey]

4 hours ago, cant remember said:

When I play GTA4 now I think it does feel like an unintentional retro time capsule, with the old keypad phones, Roman's beige CRT monitor and traffic overall even the "new" cars look like old cars from nearly two decades ago. Some iconic places also look very different now like Times Square being partially changed into a pedestrian plaza.

 

I don't feel the same about GTA5 yet though, if I didn't know the game was 10 years old it wouldn't be immediately apparent to me that it's set in 2013.

 

My theory behind that effect is that we lived through those eras and experienced that tech and those cars as being new. And with Vice City for example, we've always had the association that those car models equaled retro. So even though GTA4/5's settings are now as long ago as Vice City's setting on release it takes much longer for our perception to change.

The thing is GTA V is only 10 years old, that ain’t retro yet but it’s dated. GTA IV is 16 years old that’s a lot closer to being retro.

[Blue carpet]

On 3/26/2024 at 11:36 AM, LotusRIP said:

Anybody else noticed that in hindsight, the GTA "era" titles (Vice City 80's, San Andreas 90's), were actually not that long before their respective game release dates?

 

For example

GTA San Andreas set in 1992, released in 2003.

11 years difference.

Felt like it was old school at the time but... GTA V released in 2013 to now is also an 11 year window... so that's like considering 2013 as "old school" or having a GTA game set in the 2010's and thinking of it as retro.

 

Similarly,

 

Vice City set in the 80's

13 years until game release 2002 (if you count from 1989 say at minimum)

 

11 or 13 years ago from today.... doesn't really feel that long ago really (especially considering there's been no new GTA game since), yet these games feel like a huge callback to an era long before their time, "retro", yet now I think of it like this those games were not released too far apart from the eras they were set in...

I think it felt so old and retro between 86 to 2003 and 92-04 is because of how much culture and tech has changed between those years it was such a rapid pace at the time.  For me GTA IV doesn't feel nearly as retro I think it's because the internet was already mainstream YouTube and FB existed. It was a post 9/11 world there's been culture changes in the last 15 years but nothing as big as the 80's and 90's progression through culture and tech.

[The Journey]

9 hours ago, Blue carpet said:

I think it felt so old and retro between 86 to 2003 and 92-04 is because of how much culture and tech has changed between those years it was such a rapid pace at the time.  For me GTA IV doesn't feel nearly as retro I think it's because the internet was already mainstream YouTube and FB existed. It was a post 9/11 world there's been culture changes in the last 15 years but nothing as big as the 80's and 90's progression through culture and tech.

This is true for 86-02 because that’s the same difference as 02 to 2018, and 02 is a lot more like 2018 than 86.
 

But, I would say 04 was more like 92 than 2016 which is the same difference too. The explosion of social media and smartphones around 2008-2012 make the early/mid 2000s more similar to the 90s, but the 80s are something else.

Edited March 31, 2024 by The Journey

[Exsanguination]

I think it all depends on your age and/or when you first played them....1992 SA didn't feel "retro" to me at the time.

 

it's funny to me when I read posts here and people refer to these games as the old ones....to me the 3d Era games are GTA and IV and V are the "new" ones 

 

Now that some time has past ,IV has an older feel and captured that Era extremely well..

 

 

Edited April 1, 2024 by Exsanguination

[Aquamaniac]

In some decades life and technology changes faster than in others. The world in 2009 was very different from 1999 but 2019 was not so much different from 2009. I'd say internet and social media is what has changed our world the most in the last 40 years, every period before internet became mainstream will feel retro. I'd go so far to say that 1998 would feel as retro as 1978 by today's standards, especially for those born after 2000.

[nikco]

Hello, off topic, but I want to control the steering direction in the GTA SA game with the plug-in SDK. You can be a partner

[SM-W]

On 3/26/2024 at 7:40 PM, Stagnant09 said:

Well, GTA V's story mode feels retro, too, in 2024.

It absolutely doesn't feel retro.

[TaylorSwiftDies2038]

On 4/1/2024 at 10:18 AM, Aquamaniac said:

In some decades life and technology changes faster than in others. The world in 2009 was very different from 1999 but 2019 was not so much different from 2009. I'd say internet and social media is what has changed our world the most in the last 40 years, every period before internet became mainstream will feel retro. I'd go so far to say that 1998 would feel as retro as 1978 by today's standards, especially for those born after 2000.

 

I think it's also just current generation bias.

 

I remember back in the 2000s, 80s and 90s nostalgia was a huge thing. So much that the early 2010s saw a revival of some of those trends curtesy of Millenials and Zennials.

 

Back in 2007-08, the early 2000s (and the late 90s to some extent) didn't feel that retro. In fact, I remember my friends had a debate about whether "Xbox 360 vs PlayStation 3 vs Wii" would ever be considered "classic/retro gaming" like the SNES and Sega Genesis. I think time has answered that question now, especially considering that was the last real console war.

[Nefarious Money Man]

The longest gap so far has been 22 years between release and setting in Vice City Stories (Set in 1984, released in 2006). But I think it really depends on the player. Vice City felt very retro to the majority of gamers back in 2002 because it took place years before they were born. So let's say you were 10 when you played it. That'd mean that when it was set, your mom and dad probably weren't long out of college or even high school. So essentially, with that and San Andreas, a lot of people were playing games that were set when their parents were the same age as they themselves were when playing GTA IV and GTA V respectively (5-6 year gap between the settings).

 

When you live through something, it doesn't really feel that old to you because you remember it pretty vividly and you don't actually realise how meme worthy pop culture of your time will later become. To me GTA III kind of never ages because it takes influence from so many eras that it's not truly representative of one. GTA IV, on the other hand, to me, is very mid-2000s and things started to shift pretty quickly into the 2010s era of GTA V. 

 

In terms of the games, the closest match we have to the gap between GTA V and GTA VI would be Vice City to Liberty City Stories, which unlike it's successor, was made at a time where we were 7 years removed from it's setting so it sort of matches the vibe of the older games with how it lampoons life in the past. So it'd be like if we went back in two years and said "remember 2013..." Now that's nostalgic  

[TaylorSwiftDies2038]

22 hours ago, The Nefarious said:

When you live through something, it doesn't really feel that old to you because you remember it pretty vividly and you don't actually realise how meme worthy pop culture of your time will later become. To me GTA III kind of never ages because it takes influence from so many eras that it's not truly representative of one. GTA IV, on the other hand, to me, is very mid-2000s and things started to shift pretty quickly into the 2010s era of GTA V. 

 

It's weird, because GTA III was supposed to be a "modern-day action game" that unintentionally became a period piece. Same thing with GTA IV.

 

It's funny that you mention that too. GTA III always had some late 40s/early 50s vibe with the cabbies, the slight Catcher in the Rye vibe of the whole game, some of the Broadway influences on Liberty City, etc. There were 70s/early 80s vibes too with the traffic (so many older vehicles for a game based in 2001, the Kuruma, Sentinel, Police, and sports cars being the most contemporary), but the "turn of the millennium" vibe with the game is huge. So many references to the early internet; the radio stations MSX FM, Rise FM, Head Radio and Lips 106 having some of the most early 2000s music you'll ever listen to, and the overall mood of the game that kinda reflected pop culture of the era with shows and movies such as Invader Zim and Donnie Darko.

 

To me, all of that still feels "recent" because it was the childhood I know and remember. To a Gen Z kid, it's probably some hunk of junk game in the same way I would've thought of say, the Atari 2600 growing up.

[Nefarious Money Man]

24 minutes ago, TaylorSwiftDies2038 said:

 

It's weird, because GTA III was supposed to be a "modern-day action game" that unintentionally became a period piece. Same thing with GTA IV.

 

It's funny that you mention that too. GTA III always had some late 40s/early 50s vibe with the cabbies, the slight Catcher in the Rye vibe of the whole game, some of the Broadway influences on Liberty City, etc. There were 70s/early 80s vibes too with the traffic (so many older vehicles for a game based in 2001, the Kuruma, Sentinel, Police, and sports cars being the most contemporary), but the "turn of the millennium" vibe with the game is huge. So many references to the early internet; the radio stations MSX FM, Rise FM, Head Radio and Lips 106 having some of the most early 2000s music you'll ever listen to, and the overall mood of the game that kinda reflected pop culture of the era with shows and movies such as Invader Zim and Donnie Darko.

 

To me, all of that still feels "recent" because it was the childhood I know and remember. To a Gen Z kid, it's probably some hunk of junk game in the same way I would've thought of say, the Atari 2600 growing up.

The radio content is usually some of the last to be added and is one of the few definitively "of the era" elements. Donnie Darko was released after the game in most regions and I'm not seeing the influence, but the game had influences from all over the latter half 20th Century. I think they had a bunch of ideas and moreso just wanted to have the gameplay be era defining, rather than to make a truly contemporary piece.

[TaylorSwiftDies2038]

On 4/4/2024 at 9:26 PM, The Nefarious said:

The radio content is usually some of the last to be added and is one of the few definitively "of the era" elements. Donnie Darko was released after the game in most regions and I'm not seeing the influence, but the game had influences from all over the latter half 20th Century. I think they had a bunch of ideas and moreso just wanted to have the gameplay be era defining, rather than to make a truly contemporary piece.

 

True. I think to an extent, the early 2000s symbolism of GTA III was something that became part of popular perception with the fanbase than anything else.

 

Everything becomes a "period piece" at some point. Scarface, Billy Madison, and The Warriors are examples of movies that became "period pieces" when they were meant to reflect contemporary trends.

 

That's the lame thing about GTA: Online updates. We get so many post-2013 updates to GTA V that it can't get its chance to feel like its own thing. Instead it feels like a strange hodgepodge of the 2010s.