How goes it, dudes and dudettes? Welcome to another new episode of "Hot Topic". As always, for subtitles, click the Caption button. I'm Gary7 MT for the GTA Series Videos crew.
This HT video starts a new series focusing on what didn't make the cut - that is, the beta and removed content in the GTA series.
In this episode we'll look back at the 2D era and GTA's evolution to the first 3D game - GTA 3.
Future installments in coming weeks will focus on other titles, from GTA Vice City to GTA 5.
Now, like all software, videogames must also run the development gauntlet. Scores of meetings where content ideas are debated, tested and approved - or not.
If content is not approved, some companies completely remove it from the software,
others instead - like Rockstar - leave most of the coding in the software by simply commenting the code line in order to make it unobtainable in the game.
Some of you may not know that Grand Theft Auto is a project born from another game originally named "Race'n'Chase" that had a bumpy development ride that caused numerous problems
- including the possibility of wiping the title out by BMG Interactive - but we'll talk about the original concept and the series' evolution in a future HT episode.
So, considering the game we all know and love so much rose from the ashes of a failed concept, it's reasonable to expect Rockstar to continue their testing of new ideas.
In worst case scenarios such concepts are discarded; but in others, they become strong new features or even entire new games.
Few things are known about the alterations made to the first GTA's.
Old-school players state that in-game children in the game were removed due to the presence of the School Bus in the first GTA.
That game lost drivable Trams in San Anderas and some vehicles had different names.
While all that is known about GTA 2 is that a couple of features and weapons were removed: the Instant Vehicle Bomb, probably a bonus, and Electro Baton, a stun weapon.
Much more is known about GTA 3 however, the first 3D chapter of the series.
First of all we gotta send a shoutout to Alexander Blade, Ghostbear, GTABETA3, Zmey20009, DimZet
and all the other modders who took the time to analyze and share this info from every GTA 3 version - from the PS2, PC and even 10th Anniversary Edition.
If we forgot to mention anyone, we're sorry. Contact us and we'll add your name in the video description.
Now thanks to pre-release screenshots and videos, we can talk about "beta", to wit, a halfway version between the first years of development and the last months
- when a videogame gets polished and debugged.
For example, the graphics were cartoonish, had intense colors and contrast, rounded lines and in general a style similar to classic Nintendo games.
Eventually the graphics became more realistic culminating in those we saw in the PlayStation 2 version of GTA 3.
The HUD changed a lot over the years, from style - different color palette, fonts and crosshairs -
to the life meter - originally a bar on the left of the radar that ranged from yellow to pink.
Also, like in GTA 2, when a car was hit or money collected from the ground, the amount gained floated over the ground or impact area.
The logo itself has changed a lot as well - from a graffiti style, to one that looked like the GTA 2 logo.
All this before the black and white "Pricedown" font Rockstar fell in love with still in use today.
GTA 3 has seen its share of changes as well. Some are real and explained by Rockstar Games, while others remain myths.
Most discuss the protagonist that - only in GTA San Andreas - had a name.
We know it thanks to some dropped scenes and a call from Catalina, the crazed bitch.
- Hello? - Yes, Claude! Faster! Harder! Deeper! Oh yes! YES! YES!
- Catalina! You sick!
In December 2011 Rockstar itself confirmed the name of the protagonist - Claude - but a question about it remains: Is Claude from GTA 3 Claude Speed from GTA 2?
Well, yes and no, and here's why. First we need to set an age for Speed and "GTA 2: The Movie" features a rapsheet that sets his age at 28.
According to police records on the GTA 2 website, the date of game events is July 2013.
If this is the year Claude was in Anywhere City, then no, Speed from GTA 2 and Claude from GTA 3 aren't the same character.
This would make Speed 15 to 17 years old during GTA 3 and 6 to 8 years old in GTA San Andreas.
But this doesn't exactly settle it. If the police files are taken out of the equation, we can fix GTA 2 to 1999 thanks to what radio host Johnny Riccaro says in GTA 2 about the coming millennium.
"The sun always goes down on the Johnny Riccaro Show. The millennium is coming. What do you think it's gonna happen? We're gonna be in one piece?"
In this case, if GTA 2 is in 1999, Speed from GTA 2 could be Claude in GTA 3 because he would be around 30 in Liberty City and 20 to 22 during GTA San Andreas.
This view is strengthened by comparing GTA 2's Speed and GTA 3's Claude's features and clothes. They're practically twins, if not the same guy.
But then again, considering Rockstar's only clue to GTA2's year - "Three weeks into the future" - no date can ever be fixed.
Besides, Rockstar won't ever answer this question because, like other things in the game, they like watching us go mad following breadcrumbs and connecting dots.
But could Claude's last name in GTA 3, be Speed? According to Rockstar the answer is a definite maybe.
For us, yes, Speed is his surname. If for you it isn't, well, let's just say we'll agree to disagree.
Another myth around Claude instead comes from a trailer where somebody says "get out of the car".
This led many players to say that Claude was intended to be a talking protagonist, in the beta, but the sound clip was from GTA 2 and Rockstar itself busted this myth affirming that, quote:
"at no point they had a plan for Claude to have a voice or even design how a speaking protagonist would be implemented, until GTA Vice City" - unquote.
"Tommy Vercetti! Remember the name!"
Continuing with characters and missions - some characters wore different clothes and had different features, from Claude himself who changed a lot during development,
to Luigi Goterelli who looked younger. The arch enemy, Catalina, who originally wore a skirt and leggings
and then there was Maria who previously had long hair and wore a stylish leopard top and miniskirt.
Even the police originally had mustaches, the Firemen yellow uniforms and the Triad's color was black instead of blue.
Some characters also had different names and last names. 8-Ball's original name - or real name - was Mullan.
Asuka Kasen was Kemuri and the Leone's family were the Sorvino's family with Salvatore named Frankie Sorvino.
And there are also characters who were completely removed from the game.
Tom Novy, a german DJ and producer, was meant to be an in-game character and with a song on the Head Radio soundtrack,
but probably due to copyright problems, he and his song were both removed.
The same thing happened to Curtly and Darkel, two more characters credited in the game's credits.
Both were probably linked and if nothing is known about Curtly, more is known about the other.
Darkel was to be a crazy bum who gave Claude five missions - three of them were removed during development,
the other two and Darkel himself were dropped, because, as stated on Rockstar Q&A, the character and the missions didn't work alongside the others.
Thanks to the in-game files we also know that Darkel's intention was to crash the city's economy
and one of his missions involved stealing an Ice Cream Truck to attract pedestrians and then blow it up.
Many say Darkel's missions were cut after 9/11 due to a mission to assassinate Donald Love that involved crashing a Dodo into the Love Media building.
Rockstar has refuted this and it's easy to understand why:
Claude would have died in the crash, and no parachutes were ever meant to be added in the game before GTA San Andreas.
Other changes, by the way, were made after 9/11. Particularly a mission that had a "terrorist" theme, a couple of ped lines and some radio dialogues.
They also changed, the color scheme of police cars from blue and white to black and white,
and airplanes - originally destructible, were made indestructible.
None of this deleted content was found in the game files but there are a lot of screenshots and videos showing these differences.
Other dropped content however, is still in the game, from buskers that were meant to be around the city, especially in Middle Park,
to a sketch of a multiplayer component where you could play game modes like deathmatch and team deathmatch, both in normal and steal versions:
Stash the Cash, Capture the Flag, Rat Race and Domination.
There were also rough maps and some lines of netcode - that indicate we would have been able to join online matches or host one, allowing players the choice of online or local LAN.
Also, thanks to the 10th Anniversary Edition, Zmey converted some of the maps originally created for the game, dropped from the PC version, but available in the iOS game files.
Some of these maps are unobtainable, but others have been ported to PC and we can see new places like the Tower - the building in the big construction yard.
Or the sewer.
A complex sewer system with destroyed walls and access to a bank vault, and no, we are not talking about Online Heists.
Then there are the vehicles that originally had different names, features and colors and others that were never added at all, like
Ariant, Beamer, Panto, Luton and a smaller version of the BF Injection called the Buggy.
Originally school buses were meant to travel the streets of Liberty City, but were removed leaving only wreckage visible behind 8-Ball's garage in Portland.
All vehicles initially had the same wheel design and different textures still in the game files, but unused.
The Dodo, the airplanes and helicopters were once considered for use because the game code has lines connected to them that appear if and when you get in.
Some say that the reason the game's aircraft have been locked or nearly impossible to use, is again due to 9/11,
but Rockstar Games denies saying the Dodo was never meant to be flown and it certainly wasn't grounded as a result of 9/11.
The city itself - the real protagonist in Grand Theft Auto - has changed a lot during development.
During development the three islands were named after GTA's districts: Portland was the Industrial area,
Staunton Island the Commercial area
and Shoreside Vale the Suburban area.
Thanks to screenshots and video, we can also see that at some point, the Cochrane Dam was smaller
and the airport was meant to be north of Staunton Island, not in Shoreside Vale.
In Portland where we can see Punk Noodles, there were originally only two statues and the Callahan Bridge was named West Port Bridge and had two suspensions.
As for the weapons the nightstick and the land mine were cut,
the Rocket Launcher's scope looked like those on a Sniper rifle and the baseball bat was red and yellow with a red grip.
Lastly, even missions and gameplay have changed.
During the Vigilante, Paramedic and Firefighter missions, vehicles could go out of range forcing players to stay in designated areas.
Police vehicles had been shown on radar through a police car icon.
Also some missions couldn't be taken at any time because bosses could be busy during certain hours of the day.
You could heal Claude using health pickups or by going to hospitals, but it would set you back $250 bucks.
And speaking of pickups, there's a "camera" pickup in the in-game files along with locations where this pickup would spawn, but no clues exist about what this pickup would do.
The subways and El Train stations had names and according to some, you would have been able to drive the trains but again, no real proof exists.
And these, more or less, are the main deletions or changes Rockstar made before releasing GTA 3 on PlayStation 2 in 2001.
Stay tuned for all the latest and most reliable GTA 5 news and updates on the net - except of course for Rockstar Games themselves.
And be sure to catch the next episode of Hot Topic where we'll delve deeper into GTA beta secrets and ditched content from Vice City to GTA 5.
As always this has been Gary7 MT with the GTA Series Videos crew and remember: Respect is everything.