GTA Advance

Grand Theft Auto Advance is a Game Boy Advance game developed by Digital Eclipse and published by Rockstar Games. It came out on 26 October 2004 in North America and on 29 October 2004 in Europe, in the same month as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and it was released only for the GBA. It is the eighth entry in the series and is sometimes marketed simply as Grand Theft Auto. Digital Eclipse was based in Emeryville, California, which makes Advance one of the few GTA games made by a studio outside Rockstar.

Story

The protagonist is Mike, a small-time criminal in Liberty City who plans to leave town with his partner Vinnie. Then Vinnie is apparently killed by a car bomb that also destroys their money, and Mike goes after whoever did it. His investigation shows that Vinnie faked his own death to run off with the cash. Mike kills him and leaves Liberty City on Cisco's private jet, bound for Colombia.

Along the way Mike takes missions from the city's criminal organisations across its three boroughs.

Setting and Connection to GTA III

Advance is set in 2000, so it is a prequel to Grand Theft Auto III, which takes place in 2001 in the same city. Although the game is played from above, it belongs to the series' 3D universe and shares its story world with the 3D games.

Several GTA III characters appear as they were a year before that game: 8-Ball, the Yardies leader King Courtney and the yakuza co-leader Asuka Kasen. The story shows how 8-Ball was injured and arrested, which leads into the opening of GTA III. It also shows who ran the Colombian Cartel before Catalina and Miguel.

The city had to be rebuilt for the Game Boy Advance, and many areas changed noticeably. The three islands of the GTA III version (Portland, Staunton Island and Shoreside Vale) are all here, but anyone who knows that game has to explore the streets again.

Gameplay and Look

The camera looks down on the action, as in the first two GTA games. The game keeps several features from the 3D era, though: vehicle side missions, safe houses and a HUD in the style of GTA III. Rockstar had hoped for a fully 3D handheld version, so Digital Eclipse went for a 2.5D look in which buildings seem to rise from the screen and cars tilt in corners.

There are 41 story missions. Side missions include taxi, paramedic, vigilante, firefighter and street racing jobs, plus rampages. The game has no animated cutscenes. Story scenes are text only, with hand-drawn character portraits over a themed backdrop in a comic book style.

Music

There are no radio stations. Each car plays one fixed instrumental tune, including parts of themes from earlier GTA games. Billboards for GTA III's stations still appear around the city.

Development

Two earlier attempts at a Game Boy Advance GTA came before Digital Eclipse. One was a GTA III prequel by the UK studio Crawfish Interactive, which closed in 2002. Digital Eclipse's Mike Mika and artist Dan Schallock say that no code, art or story from the cancelled projects was reused, and the work started from scratch.

Rockstar set the story premise, and Digital Eclipse producer James Stanley wrote the missions and dialogue. That makes Advance one of the few GTA games since 2000 without Dan Houser as main writer.

The release was first aimed at August 2003. It was held back about a year so the marketing could be tied to San Andreas. Eurogamer later noted that the game reached the handheld after extensive delays and developer changes.

Reception and Sales

Reviews were mixed or average, and the game holds a Metacritic score of 68/100. IGN gave it 8.5/10, Game Informer 7.5/10 and GameSpot 6.5/10. Eurogamer scored it 6/10, calling it one of the better GBA experiences of the year but not the GTA experience most fans wanted. Critics faulted the repetitive car music and the driving camera, which does not zoom out far enough to show the road ahead.

Stanley estimated that the game sold roughly 200,000 units in its first year.

Aftermath

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, another prequel to GTA III, came out in 2005.