Learning To Steal in 1997
Revisiting Grand Theft Auto nearly 30 years later
Developer: DMA Design
Publisher: BMG Interactive
Release: EU 1997. US 1998.
Platform(s): PlayStation, PC and GBC
We all had that one friend whose parents were a little more relaxed than our own, right?
Rules were everything at my place. But at David’s? Eh, not so much. He had that effortless popularity that made his house a great place to hang out. Sleepovers felt like a total getaway from my usual, everyday life.
Age ratings were ignored and the kitchen was generally a free-for-all. Coke, ramen, hot dogs, chocolate… you name it. Even the liquor cabinet seemed to be fair game. That’s where I had my “first drink”. It was Tia Maria. It tasted like sugary dirt and fire, and I’ve never quite gotten over it.
He even had a friendly chihuahua called Brick. I loved that dog.
But the real highlight was huddling around his TV with the volume low to play Grand Theft Auto for the first time. Loading it up, I wasn’t really sure what to expect until he turned around to me and said, "Watch this”.
A mischievous grin on his face, he steered his pixelated car onto the sidewalk, mowing over an entire procession of orange-robed Hare Krishnas. I stared at Brick. Brick stared back. There wasn't a single thought behind those eyes, and honestly, there wasn't much going on behind mine either.
The screen immediately lit up with the word “GOURANGA!” in big letters. I didn’t understand what it meant, but I knew one thing for sure. Holy shit, were we worlds away from the safety of Ridge Racer and Crash Bandicoot…
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It’s difficult to explain to a modern audience just how dangerous this game felt at the time or the sheer scale of the media frenzy it caused.
Newspapers ran hysterical headlines about its “corrupting influence” while politicians debated banning it entirely, which naturally only made us want to play it more. And because of the furore around it, it became a genuine cultural flash-point proving that games could be dangerous, subversive, and “grown up”.
Looking back, I’ll admit my twelve-year-old brain probably blew things out of proportion. A bit like the media did. It felt like the stakes were sky high, but now years later, I’m wondering what all the fuss was even about.
I’m 40 now. It’s 2026, and the industry’s idea of a scandal has completely shifted since I was a kid. But I’m finally circling back to this game as an adult to see if it actually has legs, or if I only loved it because it felt like a cheap thrill of pre-teen rebellion.
Naughty, Naughty, Very Naughty
Grand Theft Auto is refreshingly simple, but then most games from this era are. I spend a lot of time with retro titles, and the "instant-game" nature of them always catches me slightly off guard. Modern gaming usually involves sitting through a lecture-length tutorial or staring at a 5GB day-one patch before you even see a menu.
Not here, not when the only thing standing between you and a high-speed chase is a ten-second loading screen. Then you’re dropped onto a sidewalk in Liberty City with nothing but a few lives and a total lack of direction. There’s no brooding protagonist or tragic backstory to sit through.
You just walk up to a ringing payphone, read a text-based briefing from a local mobster, and go steal a car. You’ll do this often throughout three locations. Those three locations would later become legendary (Liberty City, San Andreas, and Vice City), but don’t expect the sprawling immersive worlds of the 3D era.
And that is effectively the entire loop. Answer a phone, drive to the yellow arrow, and cause enough property damage to satisfy a pixels-wide boss. It’s remarkably hands-off. You aren't really being guided through a narrative journey. You’re just a ‘freelance contractor’ in a Hawaiian shirt doing chores for the underworld.
You’re a guy looking to stack cash and climb the criminal ladder, and that’s really all there is to it.
So unsurprisingly, the string of missions you accept does feel like an excuse for some arcade-style ultra-violence. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. And if you manage to find any actual value in the “narrative,” that’s just a happy bonus.
It’s a game that wears its influences proudly, too. The folks at DMA Design (now known as Rockstar North) clearly spent a lot of their time watching crime movies.
As a result, the game drips with the cool, cynical crime vibe of Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, mixed with the screeching tires of 70s car chase classics like The French Connection or The Italian Job. It’s a love letter to high-speed chases and guys in cheap suits doing bad things.
There is something genuinely charming about how it pulls everything off in such a lo-fi manner. Seeing these massive ambitions filtered through a handful of crunchy pixels makes for the absurd.
It’s a world away from the chaotic brutality the media obsessed over back when everyone was busy arguing over Blur versus Oasis or trying to figure out if the Spice Girls were actually taking over the world.
The cars look like toys. The people are little clusters of pixels that scurry around like ants. When you punch someone, they fall with a slapstick thud that feels more like a cartoon than a crime drama.
It creates a fever dream disconnect between the violence you are committing and the visuals on screen. You are murdering people, but it looks like a children’s diorama. It’s incredibly dark at times, maybe even slightly disturbing, but undeniably funny in that specific, edgy 90s way.
And the audio design really elevates the experience. It offers a level of immersion that I found unheard of in 1997, largely because the radio doesn't just loop generic noise. When you steal a car, you’re treated to distinct stations like The Fix FM for techno or Head Radio for pop.
It felt like a genuine attempt to simulate scanning a real dial while cruising between missions. Unfortunately, that’s where the pleasantries end.
The Reality of 1997 Design
But here’s the catch.
We need to talk about the pain, because nostalgia tends to smooth over the rough edges. By 2026, we’ve grown soft. We’re used to generous checkpoints and health bars that regenerate the moment we hide behind a wall. Grand Theft Auto offers no such comforts. In fact, it feels actively hostile.
First, you have to wrestle with the controls. They’re essentially “tank controls”, where pressing “up” moves you forward in whatever direction you’re facing rather than toward the top of the screen.
And it feels really can only be described as steering a shopping cart with a broken wheel. Trying to take a corner during a high-speed chase usually ends with you smashed against a brick wall while the police box you in.
Then there’s the save system, or the total lack of one. You can’t save after a mission or halfway through a city. You have to finish the entire chapter in one sitting to keep your progress. It demands a level of perfection that feels cruel by modern standards.
The camera is arguably your most persistent enemy. It’s an erratic mess that zooms in and out based on your current speed, which sounds fine in theory but is a disaster in practice. When you’re on foot, the view stays so tight that you have zero situational awareness.
You’ll frequently be walking down the sidewalk only to drop dead instantly because a cop shot you from a distance the screen literally hadn’t rendered yet. By the time the camera decides to zoom out and show you the threat, you’re already looking at a "Wasted" screen.
It turns every street corner into a potential firing squad that you have no way of seeing until it’s too late.
The missions range from difficult to deeply frustrating. You’ll be ordered to drive a volatile truck across the city under a time limit that feels near impossible. I’m talking zero room for error. If you clip a corner or nudge a wall too hard, your vehicle immediately erupts into a fireball.
That’s one life gone.
If you burn through your remaining lives, there are no checkpoints to save you. You’re sent straight back to the very beginning of the level to think about what you've done. It turns a simple delivery into a high-stakes game of operation where one wrong move deletes an hour of your life.
So, with all its negatives, does Grand Theft Auto hold up in 2026?
Not really, and I think that’s okay. The tank controls make every vehicle feel like a heavy, unresponsive slab of metal, and the combat is basically a high-stakes game of "spray and pray," but I don’t think that original spark of rebellion has faded.
I wouldn’t necessarily suggest grinding through to the credits. The lack of save points feels less like a challenge and more like a relic of a less forgiving era. Instead, my advice is to embrace modern convenience. Emulate it. Use save states to bypass the misery, or simply spend an hour wandering through the pixelated blueprints of these iconic cities.
It is a pilgrimage worth taking, even if only to stand at the point where the chaos began. What was once a cultural lightning rod has become a digital monument.
In loving memory of Brick.
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This game had an 18 rating (same rating used for films in the UK), and I was absolutely not 18 years old when I played it. Which is where the lax parenting comes into play, because no parents back then really understood what we were playing, they just accepted what we said. My children won't get past me as a gate keeper now though.
It was interesting enough to play at the time, but it was mostly for shock value too. I can't remember my reaction to the complete disregard of human life, but I'm sure it was pretty juvenile. Still, it led to GTA3 and everything after.
Great post, I enjoyed remembering playing games I shouldn't have!