Codename GTA - Glory Days

Twenty-three years, and the same feeling.

If you used to read Codename GTA back in the day, I'm glad you're here again. Maybe a few names will ring a bell, an old memory will come back, or it simply feels good to see this site exist again. For me, it's strange enough just to be writing these lines after all these years.

The story began in April 2003. I was a teenager, and I couldn't wait for Vice City to come out on PC. I had played the first few GTA games and finished GTA III, but it was the excitement around Vice City that made me start a site of my own.

To me, GTA meant freedom. I wanted to be part of it even when I wasn't playing: to read about it, gather the information, share the news and my own experiences. In a way, the site started out as a personal diary. I wrote up the missions, put together the walkthrough, and loved the fact that I was building something of my own.

There was just one small problem: I had no idea how to make a website.

So I started learning. I looked at the source code of other sites and tried to work out what did what and how it all fit together. I read, experimented and tinkered. There was always something else I wanted to build, and that kept me going. It never felt like work. Creating something new was so much fun that learning whatever I didn't know yet just came naturally.

It was the same with English. The news came out on foreign sites, and I wanted to understand it and then write it up in Hungarian. That meant a lot of time with the dictionary. Often I had to piece a sentence together word by word, but I cared about the subject enough to see it through.

Today I work in web development, programming and app development. Whenever I think about how I ended up on this path, I always come back to this site. My love of GTA gave me a reason to learn, and I was happy to do it. What I started back then for the sake of the site later became my profession.

I had no idea where it would all lead. I sat at the computer with my dictionary, looked through other sites' source code, and was genuinely happy about every little thing I managed to get working. I never thought I would make a living from it one day. I loved GTA, I was waiting for Vice City, and it made me happy to be building something that was mine.

Sometimes I wish I could sit down at that computer again for a moment. To feel once more what it was like to see my own site for the first time, to write a news story, or to finally figure out something I had been struggling with. Back then these were simple, everyday joys. Now I know how much they meant, and how much they set in motion in my life.

That time also belongs to the people who were by my side and supported me in their quiet, loving way. Some of them I can no longer show the new site to, even though I would love to. To tell them what became of the thing I started back then, and to thank them for being part of it. Whenever I think back on those years, they are always there in the memory too.

If I could say something to the kid sitting in front of that monitor in 2003, I might just say: keep going. You have no idea how much you'll owe to this. He probably wouldn't believe that more than twenty years later he would be building this site again, and waiting just as eagerly to get back to Vice City.

The first version ran at GTAvice.ix.hu, a free web address. When GameStar and HC Gamer wrote about it, I was still making it on my own. I was very proud. As a teenager, it felt huge that the site I had put together was being noticed by places I read myself.

Later came our own domain, CodenameGTA.hu, and more and more people joined. Gyufo, Ati, s0me0ne4u and others became part of the site. s0me0ne4u helped a lot with the programming too. We worked on it together, and friendships grew out of it. If any of you are reading this now: thank you for being part of it.

Over the years the site was rebuilt several times. After Vice City we covered San Andreas, Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories, then GTA IV and GTA V. We waited for the next game, wrote the news, and meanwhile the years went by in all our lives.

When GTA V came out, I was already a working adult. Even so, I was standing in line at Konzolvilág at midnight to play it as soon as possible. For the next few days even work took a back seat. Everything revolved around GTA again, and it was wonderful to live through that anticipation and then finally take the game home and start it up.

Day-to-day life, though, left less and less room for the site. I played less, other things took up my attention, and I no longer put the same time into it. Around 2013 or 2014, Codename GTA shut down.

More than thirteen years have passed since GTA V came out. It's strange to think how much can happen to a person between two GTAs.

And now GTA VI is taking us back to Vice City, and it brought something back in me too.

The city, the music, the whole atmosphere rekindled the enthusiasm that made me start the site in the first place. And at the end of the extended look there was a scene that really got to me. Cal Hampton says:

"Might not feel like it, but these are your glory days."

Underneath it plays Inner Light by Elderbrook and Bob Moses, and the whole thing feels as if, for a moment, it's talking to us as well. To those of us who have grown up since the last games, started working, and are maybe a little surprised ourselves at how much we can still look forward to a game.

For me, it was a reminder that this time is worth living too. The waiting, the build-up, the fact that there's something that excites me this much again. One day it will be good to look back on these days as well.

That's how I came to open Codename GTA again.

For now I'm running the site on my own. I want to share news and videos, and later my own experiences with the game. I'm also planning to stream my playthrough live. It would be great to explore this world together with people who are looking forward to it as much as I am.

The internet has changed a lot in the meantime, of course. When I looked around recently, it felt like most of the life around the old fan sites has moved to YouTube, Instagram and short videos. I miss opening a familiar site, reading the news and knowing who wrote it.

I'm not expecting huge traffic. But I would be very happy if a few of you who used to be here found your way back. I'm curious whether you still remember the site, which era of it you read, and what GTA meant to you back then.

The old news and articles are coming back too. With them, the writing and the enthusiasm of my younger self will have a place here again. It will be strange to see side by side what I wrote about Vice City as a teenager and what I write about GTA VI now, as an adult. But that is part of the site's story too.

Even if only a small circle finds its way here, or the whole thing stays a personal diary, it will still be worth it to me. I want to keep what used to be, and add what comes next.

Sometimes it crosses my mind that if we have to wait this long for the next GTA too, this might be my last big GTA era like this. One I go into with my own site, this much time and this much enthusiasm. That makes the whole thing a little more moving, and makes me want to enjoy it even more.

In 2003 I started the site because I loved a game and wanted to create something around it. Twenty-three years later I'm sitting here again, building Codename GTA, and I can't wait to play.

It feels good to know that this is still in me.

If you read the site back then, it's especially good to have you here again. I'm curious what has happened to you since. Maybe you also sat down in front of GTA after school, and now you look for a free evening between work and family. A lot has changed in the meantime. But it would be great to wait for a release together again, to guess, to talk, and then to get lost in the streets of Vice City.

I'm building this site with the same enthusiasm as I did back then. It's good to be back.

Codename GTA is back.

See you in Vice City.