Something about the best GTA games dig into your brain. Whether it's the gleeful moments of parody that send up American crime classics, the freedom to go on a rampage across an open world urban sandbox, or little cinematic touches that remind you Rockstar's characters go beyond surface level, it's almost impossible to forget. And here, we're snitching on the best GTA moments, from the series' greatest heists to the pettiest robberies.
It's impressive in part because every Grand Theft Auto is huge. Even if you go back to the very first game on PS1, you'll find a sweeping, expansive ambition that remains incredibly moreish, your path through a city very much your own. And yet, so much sticks with you. As we barrel ever-closer to the launch of GTA 6, we've cracked the window on every game in the series in order to rummage through all those shiny memories, and stashed the best of the best in our trunk for you to look at.
As GTA 6 nears its biggest deep dive yet, we've spent weeks revealing the entries on this list, finally revealing our full Top 100. That is, until GTA 6 releases imminently, that is. For now, read on below as we continue to look back on one of gaming's greatest series. But, let us know your favorites in the comments!
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100. Taking Chop for a walk
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Game: GTA 5
Released: 2013
Easily the strangest protagonist in GTA history – briefly controllable in single-player, and during a GTA Online Halloween event – Chop is a rottweiler notable for his loyalty in a game full of double-crossings. In fact, the only crossing he does is over the roads near the Clinton Residence should you throw his ball too far. His companionship is welcome when the plot starts blowing up, even if he's behaving badly because you didn't bother to train him via the iFruit app.
But go the other way and you can put plenty of time into building the bond between man and best friend, making sure that Franklin shows love and care to his stalwart companion. Ditch all the crime and take a trip down to Vespucci Beach where you can go for walkies and play fetch.
While some of GTA's detractors will call the series a hedonistic sandbox that brings out the worst in players, it's hard to believe that after we've spent a good hour hanging out with our canine pal. For as sinful as your GTA life can be, it can also be quite mindful. Why not put the weapons away, dutifully park your convertible, and hit the sands with Chop while you take in some digital sun?
99. Getting a call from your cousin Roman
Game: GTA 4
Released: 2008
"Niko! It's Roman. Let's go bowling." The phrase became notorious among Grand Theft Auto fans in the years following the fourth game's release – one of the truly enduring early game memes alongside the arrow to the knee and the cake being a lie. While writer Dan Houser later protested that those calls didn't happen nearly as often as players believed, they were new and significant – a calling card for a relationship system. An important step forward not just for this game, but for many others too. And you'd better enjoy bowling. Strike!
98. Watching an actual comedy set in Liberty City
Game: GTA 4
Released: 2008
Ricky Gervais appears at the Split Sides comedy club in Liberty City. Not someone we'd pay to see, but back on PS3 and Xbox 360 the idea of being able to actually drive to a club and take in a proper show was novel. It's an idea Rockstar has revisited a few times, most recently in Red Dead Redemption 2 where you can watch full theater performances that change every week night. What will we be able to watch in GTA 6?
97. Blasting your ice cream van's jingle
Game: GTA: Vice City
Released: 2002
In Rockstar Games' satirical take on Miami for GTA: Vice City, even the most innocent occupation is a paper-thin veneer concealing rampant corruption and criminality. So it proves when Tommy Vercetti buys the Cherry Popper Ice Cream Company (*sigh*), and discovers a burgeoning drug distribution operation. The juxtaposition of sing-song chimes with the sight of grown adults running from the sidewalks for their favourite white-coloured, tooth-wrecking fix remains one of the most grimly comic scenes in the entire series – which really is saying something.
96. Driving past Deliver Me Timbers
Game: GTA 4
Released: 2008
Just a straight-up great name for a company in the business of logging and logistics. You'll spot it on a passing van, and that's about it. A throwaway line, and funnier for it. If you ever needed proof that beyond the grim depiction of a world rife with crime is some very silly comedy, all you need to do is pay attention to the rich detail. No opportunity is missed for a chortle.
95. Discovering the coral reef
Game: GTA 5
Released: 2013
The act of hitting the ocean bed near Los Santos in your submersible might be driven purely by greed – as hazardous as it might be, nuclear waste fetches a high price, and that means more moolah to put towards your next field hangar or golf club. But once you're down there, you discover that some of Los Santos' beauty lies there, below sea level, brightly coloured and alien. It's the lone chunk of on-land coral reef, however, found halfway up a mountain, that has bewitched players – for nine years and counting.
94. Sniping the moon to change its size
Game: GTA 3
Released: 2001
Shoot for the moon, so the saying goes. In GTA 3 if you do, you won't land among the stars as the rest of the saying claims, but it will get bigger. It's a bizarre fact of life in Liberty City that presumably has dramatic knock-on tidal effects for the planet as a whole. But don't worry – snipe enough times and it'll return to its usual size. That this bizarre Easter egg was ever discovered is testament to the sheer amount of time bored teenagers spent in GTA 3, taking potshots at the scenery.
93. Taking the Pisswasser
Game: GTA 5
Released: 2013
Simple gags can be the greatest. 'Wasser' is German for water, and you can work out the rest. Cheap lager made for export, with the slogan 'You're in for a good time'. You're in. Yep. If that's not enough, you can even invest money in the company using Bawsaq (more on that later), and deck out sports cars with the logo like it's a racing sponsor.
92. Turning a GTA Online session into a Frank Ocean listening party thanks to Blonded Los Santos 97.8 FM
Game: GTA Online
Released: 2013
Frank Ocean and friends play spaced-out, soulful music that runs the gamut of contemporary genres, while riffing on the surrealism of GTA's casual ultraviolence between songs. Proof of Rockstar's cool, and evidence that smart curation is still a major part of this online sensation's backbone that makes it a world worth inhabiting and messing around in.
91. Watching Michael's movie at the cinema
Game: GTA 5
Released: 2013
The premiere of the film Michael 'produces', or rather enforces, over the course of GTA 5 goes awry on the red carpet, when another of its backers orders a hit on his family. That's Hollywood, baby, possibly even more vicious than a life of crime. But you can head back to the cinema at a later date and watch Meltdown in full. What you'll find are 11 and a half minutes of oddly watchable Wall Street pastiche, impossible car physics, and driving monkeys. And who said gaming isn't a storytelling medium?
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90. Attempting to steer in cinematic cam
Game: GTA 3-5
Released: 2001-2013
There are a couple of entertaining yet unusable camera options in GTA. There's the '90s-style top-down view that's a recipe for flipped vehicles, but best of all is the cinematic camera – a favourite feature of Rockstar North's co-founder and president Sam Houser, who was adamant that Grand Theft Auto should look and feel like the crime movies of his childhood. The view periodically switches between various cool and flattering angles, all pretty much guaranteeing a gnarly crash. The cinematic camera is the very definition of style over sense, which is classic GTA.
89. Knowing why Sex Club 7 is funny because you're a fan of '00s British pop
Game: GTA 3, GTA: Liberty City Stories
Released: 2005
You had to be living in the UK between the years of 1998 and 2003 to know why Liberty City's bunny girl-adorned club was naughty – it's a reference to post-Spice Girls pop group S Club 7. Grand Theft Auto is a pastiche of American pop culture, but plenty of tongue-in-cheek UK references get a look in too. Originally Paulie's Revue Bar, you see the Leones take it over as missions progress and Luigi Goterelli comes in as an owner. Guess he's a 'Bring It All Back' fan.
88. Becoming Ammu-Nation's top customer
Game: GTA 3
Released: 2001
Rockstar North's outsider perspective on the US has served it well, and you can't argue with this simple, damning jab at the country where there are 120 owned guns for every 100 citizens. Frequent visits to the shop over the years have become comfortable and familiar – which is worrying in its own way.
87. Hot Coffee
Game: GTA: San Andreas
Released: 2004
All it took was a fan combing files to find cut content to cause one of gaming's biggest-ever controversies. On the trail of unused animations, 'hot coffee' turned out to be a cartoonish sex minigame, in which CJ has to rhythmically spank his girlfriend to elicit maximum excitement. Chaos ensued as, though the mini-game was inaccessible to the casual player, the incomplete files had been buried on the disc rather than deleted outright. Many fingers were pointed, and Senator Hillary Clinton called for new legislation to ban the sale of violent and sexually explicit games to American children, with a $5,000 fine for retailers in breach of the law.
86. Getting really into talk radio
Game: GTA 3-5
Released: 2001
The nascent Rockstar North dabbled in surrealist comedy radio in GTA 2, but it was only when the series went 3D that it dedicated entire channels to the kind of weird, rambling dialogues you can hear on local phone-in shows in real life. Eventually, the madness seeps in, and you find yourself sitting quietly in a sedan as a mafioso vents about his overbearing mother. "I do a man's job and all," sighs Toni, "but she treats me like a little boy."
85. Any scene with Samuel L Jackson's Officer Tenpenny
Game: GTA: San Andreas
Released: 2004
For those too young for Pulp Fiction, Sam Jackson will always be villainous Officer Tenpenny: a gangster with a badge. He brings his screen presence into the digital role here, crafting a character you love to hate. This is one of the meatiest roles in the series for a celebrity.
84. Walking away from the Chainsaw Masquerade
Game: GTA: Liberty City Stories
Released: 2005
Manhunt was a recent memory when Liberty City Stories came out, and there are a couple of creepy echoes during the latter's runtime. First, a character covertly films you taking out Sindacco goons so that he can use the footage in a snuff film. And second, Rockstar Leeds stages a survival horror showdown in the bowels of a cargo ship. The tension builds in the hollow vessel, until you're ambushed by baddies carrying more power tools than your local hardware store. Brr.
83. Thinking Heavenly Radio is a fantastic joke, then getting weirdly into it
Game: GTA 2
Released: 1999
The home of Hare Krishna conversion, and the only place playing "the sounds of whale love to help Saturn's moon squeeze through Neptune's tight red eye." Strange comedy that really helped to set the tongue-in-cheek comedy tone even before the series fully embraced 3D, classic GTA's radio stations oozed personality even with the generation's limitations.
82. Driving your 'Mini Cooper' wild in Hyde Park
Game: GTA: London
Released: 1999
By setting this early spin-off in a very specific time and place, Rockstar basically promised a playable Italian Job – and it delivered. The Myni, as it's called, may only be 135 pixels from its bonnet to its boot, but offers the best acceleration in the game. That's no small matter when yet another head-on collision takes away all your momentum.
Looking to test drive it? There's ample room at the centrally located Hyde Park, and the pigeons there present little resistance. It might seem quaint now, but the simple rendition of London was a joy to putter around in frenzied style, thanks in part to the design of UK cities, and also the novelty of having a game set in my home country for once. It'd be nice to have the series visit the UK again one day. God knows there isn't a lot more to lampoon now.
81. CJ goes cycling
Game: GTA 5
Released: 2013
Most series veterans quickly realised they were playing in CJ's backyard during the Hood Safari campaign mission of GTA 5, but few noticed him riding by on his BMX with Sweet and Big Smoke. It might not make sense as a canonically sound crossover, but it's a pretty neat nod to how far the series has come since the PS2 days.
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80. Building a 10x score multiplier
Game: Grand Theft Auto
Released: 1997
The oldest GTA games had a unique, often forgotten scoring system that's reminiscent of those in today's roguelikes. The more successive missions you completed, the higher your cash multiplier – massively increasing your chances of hitting the level goal and opening up a new city.
The twist? If you got arrested, your multiplier was halved. It was an arrangement that meant every high-stakes cop stand-off was navigated with sweaty palms. Get Outta Jail Free Cards were more valuable here than they ever were in Monopoly.
79. Getting fat as CJ
Game: GTA: San Andreas
Released: 2004
San Andreas introduced a surprising number of RPG-style stats that influenced protagonist CJ's abilities, but none was more visible than his weight. Though Carl began the game looking as trim as rapper Young Maylay, upon whose appearance his was based, he'd pile on the pounds if you sent him to Cluckin' Bell too regularly. Before long, running and jumping would become a problem, and life in Las Venturas started to feel like a lesson for those of us who'd spent too much time on the couch, lifting nothing heavier than a controller. As in real life, running and exercise machines would put him right.
78. Firing some rockets at Buckingham Palace
Game: GTA: London
Released: 1999
There was no reward for messing up sacred British establishments in GTA: London – the buildings were no more destructible back then than they are in the series today. But the mere presence of Her Maj's digs in a hedonistic videogame prompted transgressive acts, particularly when that videogame handed you a bazooka.
Sadly, Grand Theft Auto hasn't returned to London in its 3D era, but Watch Dogs: Legion is on standby should you feel the need to launch any more missiles outside the windows of the royals.
77. CJ meets Claude
Game: GTA: San Andreas
Released: 2004
GTA 3's central betrayal is foreshadowed in a race through the woods. Unsurprisingly for a mute protagonist, Claude lets Catalina do the talking during the encounter, then heads for Liberty City. This takes place in the '90s, remember, so the gruelling journey that's to come for Claude is still on the horizon, and provides an extra glimpse into Claude and Catalina's soon-to-be-troubled relationship.
76. Lamar picks you up from the airport
Game: GTA Online
Released: 2013
Those who played GTA Online as a male character missed out on a standout appearance from Los Santos' funniest resident. Should you be playing a female character, Franklin's foil and all-round-clown Lamar Davis shows up at Arrivals to greet you with a single red rose, only to realise within seconds that this online relationship isn't going to go the way he'd hoped. A mute protagonist gives GTA 5's biggest talker more space than ever to run his mouth, and without Franklin to keep him in check, things swiftly get daft. But romance is not on the cards.
75. Drive the bus fast or it'll blow
Game: Grand Theft Auto
Released: 1997
The coach looks innocuous enough, parked in a New Jersey-like area of Liberty City. It could almost be ready for a party of daytripping pensioners. Hop inside, though, and you'll discover a terrifying tribute to Speed, the 1994 Keanu Reeves film in which police desperately try to defuse a bomb on a bus that will detonate if the vehicle's speed drops below 50 miles per hour. Keeping up the pace while your pals work to disable the radio receiver is no mean feat in top-down streets with little warning about the traffic coming up ahead.
74. Finding the ElectroGun
Game: GTA 2
Released: 1999
The second GTA actually falls under the definition of science fiction, being set in a near future when US cities are battlegrounds for ruthless pharmaceutical companies and clone-makers. You could be forgiven for forgetting that fact while carjacking and machine-gunning your way through the game in the usual fashion, but the ElectroGun provides a jolting reminder that this is not the world you know. Aiming is tough in GTA 2, and so chain lightning is a welcome tool… which leaves fizzing, prone skeletons in its wake. Dystopian.
73. Buying a high-end apartment
Game: GTA Online
Released: 2013
While the series has long laughed at the quest for material gain that drives so much of US society, GTA Online has the goods to satisfy your soul if you covet flashy status symbols. And vehicles are not enough. No sports car is more aspirational than the Hollywood Hills mansions for sale on the Dynasty 8 website, and finally buying one after months of small-time crime feels like a real punctuation point. It helps that high-end apartments also unlock heists, the endgame activities that deliver the real meat of GTA Online's story.
72. Iggy Pop welcoming you to the big city
Game: GTA 4
Released: 2008
"Have a nice day sucking the corporate cock," says Iggy on Liberty Rock Radio. A year after GTA 4 he was starring in car insurance ads, but we'll let it slide. Even today, the grounded grime of this PS3 and Xbox 360 entry sticks out, and that includes how radio stations in this take on Liberty City are presented.
71. Getting a respray
Game: GTA (Series)
Released: 1997-2013
There's lots that doesn't make sense about the respray system in GTA. A quick paint job helps you avoid the consequences of your lawbreaking. But hang on, don't you need to change the number plates too? And how did the cops lose you when they saw you enter the garage? Ah, but those are mere details. You can't beat the palpable sense of relief as five stars vanish instantly – nor the sudden improvement in performance when a knackered ride's instantly restored to rude health with a lick of paint.
A bit of trivia for you: while the garages were later called Pay 'n' Spray, in GTA 2 they were named Max Paynt.
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70. Crashing head-first through the windshield
Game: GTA 4
Released: 2008
GTA 4's leap toward greater realism was a shock most deeply felt in its driving model. Less Driver and more Gran Turismo, it punished you for trying to take a corner at breakneck speed – often by, well, breaking your neck. Seeing your car's momentum transferred straight to Niko, who was hurled through the glass and against the scenery, was a traumatic moment for many in their first days with next-gen GTA. The harsh experience certainly taught us a lesson, though.
69. Hearing Billie Jean playing on the radio
Game: GTA: Vice City
Released: 2002
Contrary to popular belief, Vice City wasn't the first GTA game to feature licensed music on its radio – that was GTA: London, whose soundtrack was stuffed with period reggae. But newly flush with cash, Rockstar made a statement by filling Vice City with big-name artists, including MJ. The game introduced teenagers of the early noughties to the king of pop's trademark shuffle, and set the stage for a place where pastel suits weren't just accepted, they were encouraged.
68. Rubbing shoulders with Dr Dre
Game: GTA Online
Released: 2013
San Andreas made g-funk interactive, so it's no surprise Rockstar is into Dre, but it was still a shock to see him crop up in the Cayo Perico Heist. Then, in The Contract, he enlists you to help recover stolen music. Makes a change from stealing Mad Dogg's rap book, that's for sure.
67. Grand Theft Auto is condemned in the House Of Lords
Game: Grand Theft Auto
Released: 1997
Grand Theft Auto was declared a public menace before the series even began, and that's just how its creators planned it. The marketing team at BMG Interactive hired Max Clifford, the notorious publicist later found guilty of indecent assault, who at the time was famous for feeding stories to the UK tabloid press.
The decision was unconventional for a games company, and worried the owner of GTA's developer, David Jones, but future Rockstar head Sam Houser was keen to make a splash and show that Grand Theft Auto was no child's toy.
Clifford whispered in the ear of the elite, and within three months Grand Theft Auto had infiltrated the wood-paneled walls of the British establishment. On 20 May 1997 a former Scottish Secretary spoke in the House Of Lords about a shocking new game made in his country that featured hit-and-runs and police chases. "There would be nothing to stop children from buying it," said Lord Campbell of Croy. "We simply cannot allow children and young people to be given the idea that car crime or joyriding is in any way an acceptable or an enjoyable thing to do." He called on the BBFC to look into whether GTA should be legal to release.
After that, the free promotion rolled in. The Daily Mail claimed GTA would include "illegal alien assassination"; the Scottish Motor Trade Association said the game would "make children think it is okay to rob cars and kill." BMG's marketers, meanwhile, pulled clips from the House Of Lords debate for its radio ad campaign, capitalising on the image of GTA as something illicit, outrageous, and therefore essential.
The BBFC ultimately ruled that although GTA's subject matter was unprecedented, it wouldn't be banned. And ironically, the concern over members of the public getting their hands on the game ensured that they did, to the tune of 500,000 copies sold. GTA cost a million pounds to make, and had soon made £25 million, ensuring a sequel. Though GTA's notoriety would cause more problems later, that controversy was also the making of the series.
66. Becoming a drug lord
Game: GTA: Chinatown Wars
Released: 2009
A young Sam Houser loved to play space trading game Elite as a "space mugger", and thus far, Chinatown Wars comes closest to recreating that formative experience. Though set on terra firma, Rockstar Leeds' handheld classic introduced a deep drug trading economy. The name of the game is buying low and selling high, travelling around top-down Liberty City to find the best bargains, while dodging police busts that could leave just-as-deep holes in your pockets. Proof GTA doesn't need scripted thrills to hold your attention.
65. Jumping across the incomplete Callahan Bridge
Game: GTA: Liberty City Stories
Released: 2005
Liberty City Stories takes place before the bombing of the Callahan Bridge in GTA 3, and so Rockstar needed another reason to block your progress to other islands. In 1998, the bridge is still under construction, and under protest by local ferry workers. You're cut off from Staunton Island until paranoid mafia boss Salvatore Leone decides to evacuate Portland and commands you to vault the gap in a speeding Sentinel. All together now: "Ohhhhh, shiiiiit!"
64. Officer Tenpenny's Grove Street death
Game: GTA: San Andreas
Released: 2004
Frank Tenpenny represented an early portrayal of police brutality against black communities in games – a corrupting force determined to keep the poor of San Andreas down, and to initiate others into his twisted way of thinking. He was also Rockstar's best baddie, and went out in a climactic fire truck crash over Grove Street. "50 of me and this town would be okay," he monologues while coughing up blood. "I took the trash out, and I'd do it all again."
63. Getting your first haircut
Game: GTA: San Andreas
Released: 2004
GTA 3 and Vice City didn't give you much to work with in the style department, their protagonists little more than quiffs on legs. But with San Andreas you could make a statement with your appearance, garnering respect and even sex appeal with a new afro or cornrows. It's one of many ways in which the game celebrated African American culture, during a period when major action game studios were still unwilling to step away from buzzcut white blokes. (And, it's often argued, games are still in need of a decent range of styles for Black hair.)
62. Trevor kills Johnny
Game: GTA 5
Released: 2013
'Out with the old, in with the new' might be considered a cliché, but not so much when it manifests as a new protagonist caving in the head of an old one. It's a stomach-churning end for Johnny, which also makes for a striking introduction for Trevor, who arrives as a GTA 5 protagonist a fare bit later than Michael and Franklin. There's the sense we've suddenly been thrust into the deep end, and it's all treading dangerous water from here.
61. Phil Cassidy blows his own arm off
Game: GTA: Vice City
Released: 2002
GTA's best one-armed arms dealer finally gets his origin story, a sorry tale of mixing moonshine with homebrew explosives (don't try this at home). Tommy Vercetti drives Phil to the surgeon who saves his life, so don't say he never did anything for anyone. Alongside San Andreas' Claude cameo, the later PS2 games love tipping the cap to GTA 3.
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60. Dominating the stock market on Bawsaq
Game: GTA 5
Released: 2013
You can buy stocks in Pisswasser (and many other, silly brands) on Bawsaq, the home of GTA 5's stock market. Never has Rockstar's Scottish heritage been more apparent than in this play on the name of New York's own Nasdaq, where you can become more invested in brand name puns than ever before.
59. Michael and Franklin pull down a house
Game: GTA 5
Released: 2013
The player characters start GTA 5 primed for change. Michael is bored by financial comfort, and Franklin is hungry for more of it. But the story can't kick into gear until the pair get into real trouble, and that comes in the form of Marriage Counseling, the mission in which they tear down a house in the hills in retaliation for Michael's cuckolding. The spectacle is only outdone by the twist: the home belongs to a cartel boss.
This simple act of rage-fuelled vengeance is spectacular to behold, the game asking us to push down the accelerator as we watch it crumble bit by bit, but also a catalyst. Now you owe some very bad people a lot of money, which means there's only one thing for it. The life of crime calls once again. Though, you can't help feeling that one way or another Michael would have found some excuse to spice up his life once again, and dragged Franklin along for the ride all the way.
58. Being introduced to the power of reggae with the Heavy Heavy Monster Sound
Game: GTA: London
Released: 1999
Back in the '90s, each GTA radio station consisted of only two songs – but the uplifting Hammond organ sound of Harry J Allstars' reggae instrumental, Liquidator, sounded perfect on repeat. It just goes to show how vital a well-curated set of songs is to setting the tone of each GTA's setting, which has only deepened with time.
57. Seeing GTA 4's debut trailer
Game: GTA 4
Released: 2008
Following a 28-day countdown, the mere sight of GTA in its new, realistic HD form was breath-taking. Then the choir gave way, time slowed, and the heavy, staccato voice of Niko Bellic was heard for the first time. "Life is complicated," he said. "I killed people, smuggled people, sold people. Perhaps here, things will be different."
It was shocking for two reasons. First, Niko was an immigrant protagonist, and a former Yugoslavian one at that, in a country that still defaulted to Eastern European accents for its villains. Second, although GTA had played with darkness before, it had never adopted a tone as bleak as this. Almost unbelievable at the time, watching it still produces a tingle to this day.
56. Fighting for your patch
Game: GTA: San Andreas
Released: 2004
GTA has rarely given you much freedom in how and where you take the fight to your enemies, which is why San Andreas' gang warfare system stands out even today, nearly two decades after the game's release. The struggle between the Ballas, Los Santos Vagos, and Grove Street Families is one you can influence yourself by stepping into hostile territory and opening fire, triggering waves of opponents and starting a gang war in that location. Expanding the area under Grove Street's influence becomes a personal mission and gives you a stake in the streets, just like CJ.
55. Lindsay Lohan sues Rockstar
Game: GTA 5
Released: 2013
A bizarre episode in gaming history that took four years to resolve. Judges in New York's Court Of Appeals unanimously rejected actress Lindsay Lohan's claim that two residents of Los Santos – both Lacey Jonas, the actress character harangued by paparazzi in a random event, and the beach-going blonde lady depicted in a GTA 5 loading screen – were based on her. "The ambiguous representations in question are nothing more than cultural comment that is not recognisable as plaintiff," ruled Judge Eugene M Fahey.
54. Realizing the Soulwax FM playlist is perfect sports car music
Game: GTA 5
Released: 2013
Hosted by the legendary Belgian techno group of the same name, this 42-minute mix constitutes what has to be the best driving playlist ever conceived for stolen sports cars. Boosts your chance of winning races, the feeling of popping Franklin's talent to weave between heavy traffic while this blares is simply transcendent.
53. Niko's final choice
Game: GTA 4
Released: 2008
Can you put a price on principle? That's the surprisingly worthy question at the end of GTA 4, which asks you to make a binary decision about whether to go through with a dirty deal. In some ways, what you're offered is a false choice – Niko loses somebody important to him either way, and finds there's no escaping revenge in a business where bad blood inevitably leads to bad bloodshed. It's a perpetual theme of gangster fiction: in the end, nobody gets to simply walk away.
52. Biking straight off Mount Chiliad
Game: GTA: San Andreas
Released: 2004
By far the highest peak in GTA history at the time San Andreas came out, Mount Chiliad was irresistible to stunt-heads. The ramp at the very top helped, as did the knowledge that it was just about possible to land a dirt bike at the very bottom, if you were good enough. Impossible feats like this laid the groundwork for Just Cause and a whole series of silly sandbox games to follow, and ensured Rockstar would stick Chiliad in GTA 5 too.
51. Assembling a sniper rifle
Game: GTA: Chinatown Wars
Released: 2009
This minigame was designed to get the most out of Chinatown Wars' unique Nintendo hardware (the game was originally released on the touchscreen-equipped DS). Before using your rifle, you're required to pop open the suitcase, fasten the grip, twist the silencer, adjust the sights, slot in the ammo, and finally arm the weapon. It's a brilliantly tactile process that ramps up the tension before a mission. Firing the thing is unusual, too, since you view the map from a top-down perspective, as if shooting from the clouds.
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50. The Grand Theft Auto rap
Game: Grand Theft Auto
Released: 1997
Even if you haven't heard the original theme for GTA, you know the beat – its melody plays every time the pager goes off in GTA 3, as well as in the Commodore-64-style opening to Vice City. Titled 'Grand Theft Auto', it's credited to the fictional Da Shootaz. While far too corny to sit beside the West Coast classics in the series today, it still sounds big and baggy in true '90s fashion. "Just when I thought I knew justice, a cop behind me said: you just bin' busted."
49. Pulling a reverse prison breakout
Game: GTA 4: The Lost and Damned
Released: 2010
A novel twist on a crime caper classic, this counterintuitive final mission sees you blow open the doors of a correctional facility and fight through the guards in order to execute an inmate who's supposedly 'safely' behind bars. Ironically, the whole plan is an effort to get rid of a rat so that Johnny Klebitz and co can avoid being locked up themselves. Afterwards, the gang set fire to the Lost MC Clubhouse and eulogise the end of the Alderney Chapter. Aw, these bikers are sentimental.
48. Riding shotgun in multiplayer
Game: GTA: San Andreas
Released: 2004
You couldn't get much more limited than multiplayer as Rockstar first imagined it in San Andreas. Players were stuck together on the same screen, presumably for fear of breaking GTA's world-streaming system. Missions were out of the question; heists a pipe dream. Nonetheless, roaming freely and causing chaos as a duo was exciting. Not only was co-op a glimpse of the future, its tight implementation suited the fraternity feel that defined San Andreas in particular.
47. Flipping a car over onto its roof
Game: GTA 3-5
Released: 2001-2013
The driving physics that powers Rockstar's early 3D games isn't given nearly enough credit – would we have all stuck with the series for so many years if the cars hadn't been a pleasure to drive? Constantly entertaining, it lends even a boring family car a sense of buoyancy, as if the weight of the wheels is the only thing keeping the chassis from taking off. The danger is real: even GTA 3's starting area, Portland Island, is a very hilly environment, and rolling your ride is inevitable. Players quickly find out what happens next, and learn to run. Ka-BOOM.
46. Tense showdown at the dam
Game: GTA 3
Released: 2001
"You have been a busy boy, but you haven't learned," GTA 3 antagonist Catalina tells Claude. "I'm not to be trusted." And so with that inarguable truth she betrays you for the second time, walking away with the ransom money that should have secured Maria's release. The shootout that follows is a tricky one (not least because your arsenal was confiscated beforehand) and made tense by a timer. But when you pull it off, you're rewarded with a suitably explosive helicopter crash. Maria's brief epilogue is awfully misogynistic, mind.
45. Carefully playing the faction system
Game: GTA 2
Released: 1999
GTA games have always aligned you with and against gangs, making certain districts no-go areas for a leisurely walk. But only this first sequel allowed you to influence your reputation with each group, via a point system that was updated when you completed or failed their missions. Brilliantly, rival gangs appreciated you stuffing things up for their enemies – the enemy of my enemy is my friend, after all – so you could go on a killing spree in Russian Mafia territory, and unlock a Hare Krishna job in the process. Player-driven politics.
44. Getting hooked on V-Rock's odd mix of Twisted Sister and Lazlow's musings
Game: GTA: Vice City
Released: 2002
Even Lazlow's egotistical mutterings can't detract from a compilation uniting the cheesy stomp of Twisted Sister, Quiet Riot's wall of sound, and Slayer's apocalyptic arpeggiating. This radio station converted a generation, and has proven just as much a taste-maker as Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. GTA 6, we need you to educate the next one.
43. Going dancing at The Music Locker
Game: GTA Online
Released: 2013
By the time the Cayo Perico Heist came out in December 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic had made nightclubs the stuff of myth. (Yes, we did occasionally venture away from our PlayStations to meet real people). Having an excuse to dress up – so as to reduce the $150 in-game entry fee – and try out Rockstar-designed dance moves on the packed floor of The Music Locker beneath the Diamond Casino was a genuine joy, and a reminder of better times. The extraordinary light show and exclusive, motion-captured DJ sets didn't hurt.
42. Finding Grove Street
Game: GTA 5
Released: 2013
'Grove Street for life' was the refrain of San Andreas, and one fans repeated years later in nostalgic tribute. There was no better way to prove your lifelong devotion than to make a pilgrimage, almost a decade later, to CJ's house in GTA 5.
The crime-ridden cul-de-sac looks just as it did, though the Ballas occupy it now, and are keen to remind you "The Families were kicked out ages ago!" It's not just players who feel nostalgic about the place; Rockstar staged a firefight there, for old time's sake.
41. Facing off against the army with six stars
Game: GTA 2
Released: 1999
The wanted system has always had a dual function in GTA. Both dynamic difficulty level and moral pushback, it's a reminder that actions have consequences. But it undermines the point by making those consequences fun. GTA 2 was the first entry to call in the army, introducing a sixth 'star' – or angry policeman heads, as they were then – and raising the challenge to match. Armoured soldiers carried uzis and didn't attempt arrests, instead shooting to kill. Game over, man.
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40. Lazlow's comeuppance
Game: GTA 5
Released: 2013
After a decade of listening to the ultimate media survivor whine on the radio, we finally get our hands on Lazlow in the flesh and give him a few new piercings and a fetching tattoo after he perves on Michael's daughter. Just one of many reasons he definitely had it coming, and proves quite cathartic.
39. Modding a car with hydraulics
Game: GTA: San Andreas
Released: 2004
Hydraulics weren't new in San Andreas, as anybody who ever cruised the streets of Liberty City in a Yardie Lobo can tell you. But it was the third 3D game that wholeheartedly embraced car modding, and opened mod shops like the Wheel Arch Angels and Loco Low Co. Now almost any vehicle was fair game for tricked-out suspension, and players could compete in rhythm action competitions to make their cars dance. A pure celebration of lowrider culture in the US.
38. Trevor versus the O'Neill Brothers
Game: GTA 5
Released: 2013
After killing an O'Neill for stealing a distribution deal with the Triads from under his nose, our antihero follows through by hunting down the whole clan, then torching their ranch. It's an action-packed early mission for Trevor that sets the tone for making him feel like an unstoppable force of nature with any weapon.
37. Feeling Phil Collins coming in the air (tonight)
Game: GTA: Vice City Stories
Released: 2006
An '80s icon comes to Vice City for a full performance of In The Air Tonight. He even does the drum bit, so there's something here for all generations. It's nice that GTA's celebrity pull even covered the 'Stories' spin-off titles, making these PSP/PS2 games feel every bit as beloved as the originals.
36. Trevor kills Floyd and Debra
Game: GTA 5
Released: 2013
All the more disturbing for the fact you don't see it, the inevitable doom of the poor couple who involuntarily host Trev during his stay in Los Santos is played for dark laughs. Trevor's treatment of Floyd is uncomfortable at the best of times, and this puts a nasty pin in the whole thing.
35. Trevor shows up in Michael's kitchen
Game: GTA 5
Released: 2013
"Somebody say yoga?" It's as if the De Santas have said 'Candyman' in the mirror too many times. Watch as Michael steps subtly between his son and the nightmare from his past. Just one of many times it feels like Trevor intrudes on a scene in progress, he never stops feeling like a dark omen.
34. Doing the loop de loop in a stunt race
Game: GTA Online
Released: 2013
It's a shock when a playlist pulls you into a race from the, er, Cunning Stunts update. Where most head-to-heads are rooted in the streets, these brightly coloured tracks are suspended high above Los Santos, and are made up of impossible strings of hamster tubes and rings of fire. Trickiest to get used to are the loops that turn you completely upside-down, forcing you to rely on the power of centripetal force to make it to the other side. The trick is to nail your angle of approach, and not think too hard about what happens afterwards.
33. Turning people into hot dogs
Game: GTA 2
Released: 1999
One Russian Mafia mission sticks in the mind after completing GTA 2. Mob leader Jerkov needs cheap meat to feed his soldiers, and so sends you to bus stops to pick up passengers. In the PC version, Hot Dog Homicide! it's a regular bus and people; on PlayStation the mission's called RSL Bows and involves a Karma bus and Hare Krishna gangsters. Once all the seats are filled, you drive to the processing plant, where the livestock is stripped naked and funneled at gunpoint onto the conveyor belts and into the machine. They don't go quietly.
32. Being rock band Love Fist's roadie
Game: GTA: Vice City
Released: 2002
The road crew handles everything outside the performance when bands are on tour. Setting up's the part you might think of, but in Tommy Vercetti's case, it means picking up a porn star, fetching 'love juice' (cocaine, boomshine, fizz bombs, petrol), and saving the group from the murderous advances of a crazed fan. Getting a chauffeur's-seat view of the antics of an '80s hair metal group is a Mötley Crüe-style treat, and Love Fist's exaggerated Scottish accents are especially funny given where Rockstar North is based.
31. Causing a pile-up
Game: GTA: San Andreas
Released: 2004
San Andreas featured GTA's first cross-country map, and with that came the necessity for highways. The near-continuous road network stretches from San Fierro to Las Venturas, and traffic moves along at a frightening pace. Thanks to a combination of unpredictable speed limit changes and cars switching lanes without warning, crashes become inevitable - leading to flipped cars, explosions, and a chain reaction of booms extending down the highway as new vehicles come to join the party. A rare disaster you're not solely responsible for.
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30. Trevor saves his own torture victim
Game: GTA 5
Released: 2013
Lots of people remember GTA 5's torture scene. It was the game's most controversial feature, making headlines and attracting condemnation from human rights groups including Amnesty International.
"Rockstar North has crossed a line," said Freedom From Torture chief executive Keith Best, "by effectively forcing people to take on the role of a torturer and perform a series of unspeakable acts if they want to achieve success in the game." The scene made for uneasy playing – although it's worth noting that the information it yields is questionable at best, and paints a deliberately ugly picture of US intelligence agencies.
It's what happens afterwards that's truly strange, however, and often forgotten. Rather than kill the victim as instructed, Trevor turns on a dime and drives the guy to the airport. "Safety first," he says, fastening the seatbelt of the man he's just beaten with a wrench.
By the time you arrive at Departures, Trevor has passionately argued that the broken man in the passenger seat should speak out against his treatment. The treatment for which, to be clear, Trevor is primarily responsible. While he's all for cruelty and sadism as a hobby, he objects to the idea that it's a useful means to an end. "Torture's for the torturer," he says. "We should all admit that. It's useless as a means of getting information."
The moment when Ferdinand Kerimov trips down the stairs on his way to freedom, leaving his Los Santos family behind for good, is one of messed-up pathos. But don't mistake it for mercy. It's Trevor's first thought that's most telling: "I ain't gonna let those G-man fuckin' scumbags tell me what to do." Whatever pseudo-intellectual justification he comes up with after the fact, it's clear Trevor is no idealist, he's a contrarian with an authority complex.
Whatever else GTA 5's torture mission is – beyond the pale, or an example of Rockstar's most biting satire – it cements Trevor as the most reactive, mercurial character in GTA. You leave Los Santos International Airport knowing one thing: you'll never know what he'll do next.
29. Skydiving over Los Santos
Game: GTA 5
Released: 2013
GTA 5's cityscape has to be seen from the air to be fully appreciated. Fortunately the game's map is littered with skydiving spots, officially introduced by obnoxious hedge fund manager and thrillseeker Dom, who pressures Franklin into stepping out of a plane. These jumps are confirmation that GTA's worlds are exciting to explore even when separated from their backdrop of crime and chaos. That said, getting to the top of the Maze Bank Tower is definitely more trouble than it's worth.
28. Stealing the British crown jewels
Game: GTA: London
Released: 1999
A Beefeater stationed outside the Tower Of London owes the mob "a couple grand, two ponies, and a monkey." After a persuasive punch to the face, he agrees to help your cockney gangster stage an audacious burglary. First, you pick up a van packed with explosives; second, you park it outside the Tower and hit the detonator. With the authorities distracted, you slip around the back and nab the 600-year-old stash of valuables, before evading the coppers. Lovely jubbly.
27. Surviving a high-speed FBI chase
Game: GTA 3
Released: 2001
Sending in the army might sound like the most extreme possible government response to a violent crime spree, but GTA 3 veterans know that it's the second-to-last wanted level you want to watch out for. Rather than trundle after you in tanks, the bureau brings supercharged sedans to the fight, and lays a brick on the accelerator pedal. Strongly reminiscent of the early Driver games, with their kamikaze cops and blindside collisions, these encounters are GTA 3's toughest challenge.
26. Trevor and Patricia's romance
Game: GTA 5
Released: 2013
After bracing for her demise, it's a relief to see real love blossom between Trevor and the cartel wife he's kidnapped. Though they're ultimately separated, the connection persists. It gives Trevor some amount of character growth, though despite controlling him for a third of the game it's hard to get a handle of just quite what's going through his head.
25. The Three Leaf Clover heist
Game: GTA 4
Released: 2008
A classic bank heist gone wrong, pulled by Niko and a bickering family of Irish gangsters. Basically an interactive Heat, it's an intense sequence, a highlight moment in Niko's spiralling journey. It was so good we wanted more, and more was to come, as this acted as a blueprint for GTA 5's main campaign and online heists.
24. Shooting a Rockstar dev for the trophy
Game: GTA 4
Released: 2008
There are some trophies you really had to be there for. In the earliest days of GTA 4, you needed to kill a Rockstar developer in a ranked multiplayer match to win Let Sleeping Rockstars Lie – and it was quite an achievement, given how many hours the company's QA testers put into mastering PvP. But you also get it for killing a player who already has the trophy, so today, the Let Sleeping Rockstars Lie virus has spread to almost every player who frequents GTA 4 online.
23. Finding the cheat codes
Game: GTA 3
Released: 2001
GTA 3 arrived at the dawn of the internet as we know it. While it was possible to find information about games online, Google was primitive, and cheats travelled more often by word of mouth and playground rumour (and the little covermounted books given away with our predecessor mag). The aim wasn't so much to overcome or circumvent Rockstar's challenges, but to extend the longevity of a game that had already carried us through long summer school holidays. There was still further entertainment to be wrung from GTA 3's sandbox and systems – they just needed a little tweaking.
'Cheat', really, was a misnomer: there was no advantage to turning every car invisible (if anything, it made crossing the road much more dangerous), and exploding all vehicles in the vicinity was often a recipe for instant death. These were just fun modifiers that pushed the faders of Rockstar's world to extreme levels. We'd marvelled at GTA's realism, and so it was a treat to see it warped into absurdism. Some of us even spent so long playing the game in fast forward that it never felt quite right again at normal speed, as if we were astronauts returning to Earth.
One favourite was the tank cheat that saw heavy armour literally drop, with a thud, from the sky. You could set your wanted level to full, then arm yourself with infinite ammo in anticipation of the coming war. Best of all was the set of codes that randomly armed pedestrians and set their AI to aggressive. Suddenly, Liberty City was in the grip of a proto-Purge, in which sex workers packed flamethrowers and OAPs carried M16s as if they were canes.
There was something special about activating cheats on PS2 in particular: while our cousins on PC were typing in comedy phrases, we were inputting arcane sequences of buttons like they were secret ciphers. We would pass a pad to a friend with a strong capacity for rote learning, and wait for the magic to happen. And, of course, this was forbidden territory – nobody activated the hidden limb-popping gore mode without a quick glance over the shoulder to check there were no parents or guardians in the room.
22. The Pacific Standard heist
Game: GTA: Online
Released: 2013
Crowd control has rarely been so literal in games. Keeping the hostages in check, the mission is reminiscent of GTA 5's opening except everything, and we mean everything, is down to you and your online partners in crime. Trying to nail it without killing anyone, to avoid bringing the SWAT-like NOOSE down around your necks, is tricky work.
21. Beating a Kill Frenzy
Game: Grand Theft Auto
Released: 1997
The precursor to the Rampage, the Kill Frenzy was the birth of the psychopathic side-mission. It pushed players to kill off as many people as possible in a specified fashion, under a strict time limit. The tension came from the knowledge that if you didn't hit your target, you'd be left to deal with the wanted level, which would be high and see the forces of law and order coming down hard. And so you blew up as many vehicles as you could using bombs strapped to RC cars, as the announcer giggled with glee.
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20. Niko's first kill
Game: GTA 4
Released: 2008
He might be a self-described killer long before entering Liberty City, but Niko's first execution under player control feels like a momentous event.
He confronts Vlad, who is sleeping with Roman's girlfriend, and gives chase, despite repeated pleas from Roman himself. "The only thing that'll hold him down is six feet of dirt," says Niko. The act itself is uncomfortable: a point-blank shot into the head of an unarmed victim. It's the death knell to the idea that here, in America, things will be different.
19. Stealing a helicopter from the army base
Game: GTA 5
Released: 2013
Have you ever tried to buy a helicopter? They're expensive, in GTA 5, as in real life. It's better to borrow one, and Fort Zancudo is an obvious and reliable source of whirlybirds. The problem isn't getting in, since the gate smashes easily enough, but getting out alive. Bullets pierce the windows of your new ride as the rotors start to spin, and the armour you invested in quickly gets super-holey. But you're as free as a bird now…
18. Salvatore's betrayal
Game: GTA 3
Released: 2001
I see nothing but good things for you, my boy. I'm proud of you, my boy. Pick up a car, my boy, take it to the crushers, and then we can finally celebrate. That's what Sal said. Only a pager message from Maria – which is easily missed if you're focused on the road – warns you about the car bombing you're walking into. It turns out that Sal wasn't too pleased with you getting together with his wife behind his back. And so you're left with no option but to turn your back on the mafia, and the Don is dead one mission later.
17. Michael makes his glass-smashing entrance
Game: GTA 5
Released: 2013
It's the start of a beautiful business partnership. Franklin repossesses the SUV in Michael's garage, not realising there's a grumpy old gangster lying in the back seat. "That's a 9mm semi-automatic, pushed against your skull," Michael says, by way of introduction. "Drive right through the fucking window, and fast." And so Franklin quits his dealership job in style, and Michael becomes the new player character, in a transition so smooth you barely notice it. An artful step up in comedic storytelling.
16. The Diamond Casino heist
Game: GTA Online
Released: 2013
Designed to be highly replayable and malleable, so that you still had options for clean escapes if the plan went sideways, this was a new kind of heist from Rockstar where no two executions feel quite the same (especially if you hop in with a different gang). Security has never been tighter, which makes this quite the challenge, and oh-so-satisfying when a plan comes together.
15. Smoke and Ryder's betrayal
Game: GTA: San Andreas
Released: 2004
There were signs. The fact that Big Smoke moved out of Grove Street for a new home in Idlewood, Ballas territory. His obsession with legacy, and selling the hard drugs the Families refuse to. But it's no less of a shock when CJ finally sees the big smoking gun, so to speak: his childhood friends colluding with Ballas and corrupt cops, driving the Green Sabre used in the killing of Carl's mother. One car winds up destroying two families.
14. Going to the country
Game: GTA: San Andreas
Released: 2004
GTA had been a strictly urban proposition for seven years before San Andreas came along. Exploring Flint County, Red County, and Whetstone felt like being set free, and getting behind the wheels of tractors and combine harvesters was a breath of pungent countryside air. The new verticality made proper use of dirt bikes, and the missions changed too, The Truth introducing you to a world of survivalists and conspiracy theorists.
13. Baby's first carjacking
Game: GTA (Series)
Released: 1997-2013
Do you remember the first time? It's second nature now: hit w, watch for three or four seconds as your character 'persuades' a civilian to get out of the nearest car, then drive away in your ill-gotten motor. The animations may have evolved over time, the yells and tinkling glass re-recorded at higher sound quality, but the fundamental action has remained the same for more than 20 years. It's at the very core of GTA's gameplay loop, getting you into trouble and getting you out of it. It provides that regular rush of rebellion, the sense that you're playing something you shouldn't. And it nearly didn't make it in at all.
Believe it or not, crime wasn't allowed in the first version of Grand Theft Auto. Cops And Robbers, as it was called then, cast you as the police and asked you to obey the rules. But the project only gained momentum when the developer switched sides. And for Sam Houser, GTA finally clicked when he was sent a build in which you could stop any car on the street and eject its owner, winning 100 points in the process. "You're a criminal," original series writer Brian Baglow said in David Kushner's Jacked. "So if you do something bad, you get a reward."
Carjacking in GTA 3 shocked game developers as well as players, but for different reasons. Where studios were used to dedicating a keyboard key to every action – walking, opening a car door, attacking – Rockstar had distilled a series of movements down to a single button press. Afterwards, action games became much simpler to control, without sacrificing complexity. Assassin's Creed in particular made every button on the pad work extra hard for the player, changing their function depending on context. Not bad for, well, literally opening a door.
It's perhaps the reason why GTA has always upset the establishment: it made a life of crime look like the easiest thing in the world. The great irony of all is that 'grand theft auto' is defined under US law as stealing a car with nobody in it – so the series should've been called Carjacker all along.
12. Switching between characters
Game: GTA 5
Released: 2013
The idea of three protagonists had been kicking around since San Andreas – a game composed of three cities, let's not forget. But the daunting hardware demands only became surmountable with the appearance of PS3, and even then it was a stretch. You can feel the console creaking as GTA 5's camera zooms out, beyond the clouds, then homes in on another character, falling back to earth in irregular beats. Yet the obvious difficulty of the feat only makes it more impressive. As you watch the street lamps shimmer over Los Santos, you can't help marvelling at the fact this semi-seamless character swap works at all.
By 2013, it was a natural step forward in Rockstar's storytelling, too. GTA 4's DLC episodes, The Lost And Damned and The Ballad Of Gay Tony, had starred people on the periphery of Niko's story, enabling the developer to explore its sandbox from different perspectives. Through Franklin, Trevor, and Michael, GTA 5 could be at home in the streets, desert, and Hollywood Hills respectively. For example, if a mission called for a plane, then drug smuggler and airforce reject Mr Philips could handle it without pushing the particular abilities of Mr Clinton or Mr Townley beyond the boundaries of believability. The clear gaps in each protagonist's skillset only served to make them more distinct.
Character-swapping was also a smart modernisation in a changing open-world landscape. Since GTA 4, Ubisoft had reimagined the genre as a fairground of constant distraction, letting players warp between discovered locations to reach the fun instantly. Evidently, Rockstar didn't want to go down the same route – GTA's downtime is a key part of its pacing. But switching protagonist allowed players to fast travel without breaking the flow and fiction.
The cherries on the cake are the transition scenes, which suggest your protagonists are busy getting on with their lives, and taking others, while you're not watching. Cut to Trevor eating from a bin, burying a body, or tying up a stranger in a suit beneath the pier to demonstrate why trickle-down economics is "a load of shit".
11. The Doomsday Scenario heist
Game: GTA: Online
Released: 2013
Plays on the silliness of '60s Bond to give you access to personal jetpacks and underwater cars, even if the villain is somewhat lacking in cats. Oh, you didn't realise there was a secret base under Mount Chiliad? You and your ne'er-do-well pals 'do well' for once – this is world-saving stuff – but play your cards right and it can be quite lucrative nevertheless, as well as a thrilling adventure.
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10. The Jewel Store Job
Game: GTA 5
Released: 2013
The genius of GTA 5's early game-changing heist was its focus on procedure: the step-by-step preparations you took to secure all the instruments, so that they could be played together in one final, symphonic show.
Setup missions are a concept familiar to GTA Online players now, of course, but in 2013 they were a step into the unknown. You nicked a fumigation van, acquired some gas grenades and scoped out the rooftops of Rockford Hills, all in the faith that it would add up to something meaningful. And it did. The Jewel Store Job was the Better Call Saul to Three Leaf Clover's Breaking Bad – a slower, more grounded affair that took its time to place all the pieces, so that the eventual payoff could be even more explosive.
Your conductor was Lester, a criminal mastermind able to direct your felonious abilities like never before in the series. For once you felt like you were part of something: an operation that would be smart, efficient, and effective, if only you could pick the right participants.
The heist presented you with a new risk-reward equation: you could hypothetically save money by hiring inexperienced goons, and bag the largest possible score for yourself. Could you trust an untested gunman, Norm, to hold up the store manager and ride a bike through the sewer tunnels without losing his head? Would any of that matter if you stumped up for a skilled hacker, allowing you to clear the joint without the alarms going off? The possible deviations were dizzying, and yet Rockstar still managed to make The Jewel Store Job feel like scripted cinema. It's just like a film you'll want to let run again, to see how it might have gone differently.
You can argue that much of this potential was ultimately wasted in GTA 5; opportunities to call on your crew later in the campaign were limited, and subsequent heists offered fewer options for your approach. It took years of GTA Online for Rockstar to build on the foundations laid down here. But for the sheer shock of new choice and consequence, you simply can't beat Franklin's first time.
9. Driving a chopper down Ocean Drive
Game: GTA: Vice City
Released: 2002
Rockstar took a real gamble in turning GTA into a period piece, but shifting the action to a 1980s Miami-alike worked. What's more, there's no better place to soak up the thick Florida air than Ocean Drive. Just as on its namesake in Miami Beach, art deco hotels look out across the palms to an impossibly azure sea. Pedestrians skate by in skimpy swimsuits. And players bomb down the road on Peter Fonda's bike from Easy Rider, soundtracked by Indeep's Last Night A DJ Saved My Life. Bliss.
8. Going vigilante and hunting criminals
Game: GTA 3
Released: 2001
Enjoyable as they are, GTA 3's main missions are often in danger of being overshadowed by its diversions, and never more so than when you tune into police radio frequencies to hunt down fellow criminals. Vigilante missions provide players with endless car chases of a consistently high calibre, and only get juicier once the fuzz cotton on to what you're doing. While the cops attempt to run you off the road, you're gleefully doing the same to the unfortunate felons in front. And the timer is always ticking down.
7. Stealing a tank as a birthday present
Game: GTA 2
Released: 1999
You pick up the phone to hear Redneck boss Billy Bob Bean. "I want to surprise Jungle Montana with a tank fer his birthday," he says. "How about you drivin' over to the army base and stealin' me one?" It's a thoughtful gift – certainly beats yet another Lynx gift set – but pulling off the theft involves one of GTA's most extreme escapes – a truly jaw-dropping militarisation of the streets in which rockets fly freely between the lamp posts. The prototype for GTA Online's PvP tank battles.
6. Learning to 'fly' the infamous Dodo
Game: GTA 3
Released: 2001
"It's not called a Dodo because it's killed more passengers than any other plane in its size class, though that's a sad fact, and a regrettable legacy for this otherwise splendid aircraft," Elitás Travel tells us. "It can't turn, it can barely fly, but it will be able to float if you land it just right." That was good enough for GTA 3 players, who spent days wrestling with stunted wings to eke out seconds of flight time from this grounded bird, even using it to reach the game's hidden 'Ghost Town'.
5. Finally flying a real plane
Game: GTA: Vice City
Released: 2002
Despite the idiosyncratic charm of a plane that can't stay aloft, it was a relief when Rockstar made the Dodo extinct and fully embraced air travel for GTA 3's sequel. Here was a fantastic way to see Vice City, not least because the seaplane had a thoroughly unimpressive top speed, giving you ample opportunity to look out of the window. There's nothing like flying over a city, dropping porn flyers, to give you an appreciation for life.
4. Landing a plane inside another plane
Game: GTA 5
Released: 2013
Plenty of American entrepreneurs claim to be disruptors, but they've got nothing on the CEO of Trevor Philips Industries. It's Trevor who has the idea to feed one plane, an open-cockpit antique crop duster, to another – a private military cargo craft. The ploy works, and you commandeer the biggest controllable vehicle in the series. Until you're shot down, and bail out in a jeep. It's Trevor's dumbest stunt, and that's saying something.
3. Gouranga!
Game: Grand Theft Auto
Released: 1997
The Hare Krishnas didn't deserve it, of course. The adherents to Hindu scripture only wished to promote happiness through devotion to god, or as they called it, 'gouranga'. But GTA writer Brian Baglow was sick of their recruitment drives in airports, and so in the game players got a bonus for running over an entire Hare Krishna procession. Their reward? The word 'GOURANGA!' emblazoned on the screen. That dark sense of humour, a series trademark, was established early.
2. Lance Vance's very last dance
Game: GTA: Vice City
Released: 2002
GTA might have since outgrown slavish recreations of gangster cinema, but this tribute to Tony Montana's last stand is a fan favourite for a reason. It's rooted in original character drama – the betrayal of your partner, Lance. "This is Vice City," he hisses. "This is business." The knife still in your back, your next job is to climb the stairs to the safe room and defend the thing closest to Tommy Vercetti's heart: his cash. Say hello to my lost friend.
1. Crossing the Callahan Bridge
Game: GTA 3
Released: 2001
In Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, an inventor builds a machine capable of showing the entire scope of the universe, and the position of the user within it. Named the Total Perspective Vortex, it becomes a torture device, as it turns out in such a vast place, the one thing we can't afford to have is a sense of perspective.
Rockstar must have realised something similar while putting together GTA 3. It knew we couldn't handle Liberty City whole. Exposing a 2001 gamer to a full-scale urban open world would probably have fried their frontal lobe, and so the game was divided into three islands, each linked to the next by a bridge. Then the first of those, the Callahan Bridge, was ripped apart by a bomb at the start of the game, leaving you stranded in Portland, a pastiche of New York's industrial districts.
There you remained, for hours, learning the layout of the red light district, and the locations of police cars and health icons. The coastal drive up to Salvatore's mansion started to feel like home. Then plot machinations took you away from the Italian mafia, and across the water to Staunton, first by boat, and then via the suspension bridge.
Staunton Island itself was overwhelming, a glamorous land of stretched limos and high-rise buildings. The roads were wider, the drives were longer, and the skyline was roughly recognisable as that of Manhattan. Navigating this multi-lane world was bewildering, and you could understand why Rockstar hadn't simply let you loose there in the first place.
For years, impatient players shared methods of crossing the Callahan without completing missions, jumping between the bridge's warped cables over water that, to a protagonist who couldn't swim, was deadly. Some made it, and were treated to a forbidden realm.
Today 3D open worlds are standard fare. But in the years after crossing the Callahan Bridge, we called them 'GTA clones' – an acknowledgement that Rockstar had achieved something new.
Our GTA 6 guide details everything you need to know about the story, gameplay, and world so far! Or, check out our best GTA games list for what to play while you wait!
