Grand Theft Auto Double Pack

"A nightmare for parents..."

Containing 2 critically acclaimed games is a nice way to sell systems and win fans over. When those 2 games are Grand Theft Auto 3 and Grand Theft Auto Vice City that statement becomes even truer. Grand Theft Auto has become a phenomenon. It sells in the millions. It has fans standing in long lines to pick it up for all night drive bys. The name Grand Theft Auto (GTA) holds a lot of controversy, but with the controversy the game has managed to draw in fans from all over the world. Grand Theft Auto Double Pack is a way for the Xbox user base to get in on the action.

GTA is essentially a free roaming game over a vast area, where the gamer has many options. You can go around jacking cars and smacking folks upside the head. When you get bored of that, there is the story that the player can play through. GTA is basically a crime simulator where the player has a bunch of options to commit a crime. The one thing that makes Grand Theft Auto intriguing is its non-linearity. The gamer has a choice to choose how they want to play. One can just mess around and do all sorts of feats, while they will also have the choice to try and follow through the story by completing missions. While it's intriguing, it does make thing a bit sporadic. What I mean is the open ended ness to some extent makes the game lose its purpose. After a while, you start to lose focus on the story and mission.

It's fun for a while. It's fun to bash someone's skull in with a bat. It's definitely fun getting chased by police and fending them off. There are limits to the fun factor of such violence. After a while, you begin to lose focus on the missions and the game does a poor job at getting you back on track. This goes for both Grand Theft Auto games present in this compilation. But even with that said, the game has too much going for it to completely and utterly be a failure. The controls for the most part felt slick and solid. It was easy to transition from combat into driving a vehicle. Running people over and committing brutal violence is the name of the game and for that Grand Theft Auto excels.

The best part about the 2 GTAs in this compilation is the environment that the developer created. Each street felt interconnected and as you are fleeing in vehicles, it really felt like a high speed chase in a metropolitan area. The game gives off a vibe of a crime filled city. This immerses the player into the world that the developer intended to create.

The voice acting for the most part was quite strong in both games. The voiceovers for the characters had strong resemblance of what you expect from crime lords. This adds to the game's environment. The game's special sound effects and little details also add to the game's environment. The graphics for the most part felt a bit dated, but it still felt solid. Even though the game could definitely use some polishing, you can't really blame the developers for being lazy. The name Grand Theft Auto would sell even without any major updates.

Grand Theft Auto Double Pack is a nice little compilation for Xbox owners who didn't get the chance to play them on the PS2. Unfortunately, there are issues with them that might bother some. The lack of major updates is a concern, but the game was still solid. Of course, playing through it for the first time on the Xbox, I realized that the game's enjoyable moments are eventually its demise. The open ended ness skews the game's purpose. Some may disagree, but that is how I feel. It's still a solid game no doubt, but it could definitely be better.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/25/07