In anticipation of Halo 3, I thought it might be a hoot to look back on other highly anticipated gaming 3's from the past, and the effect they had on that paticular game series and the world of gaming in general. On Tuesday we looked at Mega Man 3, a game that taught Capcom that if they half ass a sequel to a popular series every year or so, they will make big money until people get totally sick of them. Yesterday it was Street Fighter 3, a game that taught Capcom that putting tons of time, money and talent into a game wont mean sqwat if they already have three other games out that meet the exact same needs of the player audience.

Today, we have a game that taught the entire industry a lesson in what gamers (at the time) wanted.



Here's a secret. I never played through all of GTA III. In fact, I've never played through any of the GTA games. I find them to be lacking in all the areas I look for in a good video game. Creative enemy design, level design, art design, puzzle design, weapon design, boss battles, all the things that made me a rabid fan of Mega Man 2. Those are the things that I love about video games: those are the things that Rockstar doesn't seem to give two shits about in the creation of the GTA games.

And yet, here I am dedicating at least and hour, likely up to three hours, writing a blog about GTA III. Why? Because I can't deny the incredible impact this game made on the industry. I'm willing to go out on a limb and say it is the single most influencial video game made since Super Mario Bros.

GTA III brought a game premise that most people thought a sick joke to the fore front of the gaming world. Rockstar was smart enough to respect the GTA I and II for what they were, games that in concept could appeal to almost any human being with an ID (not I.D., the freudian ID. Look it up) but due to their low tech look and play style were not appealing to the mainstream audience.

Taking GTA II and turning it into GTA III was a brilliant move. It was akin to a film producer seeing a crappy student film about home made muppets and teen agers sword fighting with broom sticks and turning it into Star Wars. It was like a music producer taking a the sound of a baby's fart and resampling it until it turned into the symphony. Sure, the "sandbox" game had been tried before in ShenMue, but not with the level of freedom and the sheer size that GTA III had. And of course, not with the crime.

ShenMue was...



The explosion that was GTA III caused cultural revolution in gaming like the medium had never seen. It completely re-invented the culture's concept of who plays video games and why. People who would never consider playing a video game before due their "kiddie" or "nerdy" nature saw them as hip and trendy, something they wanted to be associated with, not embarrased by.

"Mature" games like Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, even Fear Effect (if you can call that mature) had been done a million times prior to GTA III, but they all took themselves too seriously. They had no real spirit of rebellion. They had no spirit of punk rock. GTA III had that spirit. It spit in the face of what games had been about up until that point, and it did it with a smile. It didn't ask the player to accept a new reality or to work towards some generic, heroic goal. It gave the player the opportunity to engage in a shockingly, humorously bad natured power fantasy where laws were meant to be broken and the only goal was self fulfillment.

And people freaking loved it.

They loved it so much that Rockstar hasn't been able to pull away from the series. The only critical and financial success the company has pulled off since GTA II are other GTA games, all of which follow GTA III's basic formual. They brilliantly brought in mainstream voice talent (and with them the mainstream audience) to the sequels GTA:Vice City and GTA:San Andreas. They incorperated soundtracks from the 80's and 90's that in themselves were huge hits. And they of course inspired countless rip offs like NARC, Mark Ecko's Getting Up, and the Getaway, but none could emulate GTA's tradmark humor, social boundry pushing, and genuinely bad behavior.

In the comics world a similar social phenomina occured in the mid 90's. Wolverine, the Punisher, and Lobo became more popular than Spider-Man, Captain America, and Superman. People prefered the rebelious, edgey, often murderous anti-hero to the traditional boy scout style protagonist. Just as people preferred GTA to Super Mario Sunshine in the early 2K's, they prefered a hero who shot criminals in the head to a hero who saved kittens from trees.

See how much the Punisher and GTA fit together? They're like PB and J.



So the Punisher did GTA III before GTA did. And eventually his star and the stars of the other comics anti-heroes faded. When fans caught on that comics creators were making anti-hero comics just to cash in on readers tastes and not out of the spirit of true rebellion, those readers quit reading. Audiences always seek the most geniunely expressed messages they can find. When they caught on that the Punisher had become a sell out, they abandoned him. If the GTA series ever totally sells out, I imagine it will be similarly abandoned.

Does Halo 3 have any potential to make the amazing impact on the industry that GTA III had? Not even a little bit. If Bungie takes a huge risk with Halo 3 and makes it more than an online FPS, then maybe. But in doing so they will also alienate their loyal fan base. Third entries in game series with strong deviations from formula almost always lead to critical and financial failures. Even Street Fighter 3, which more or less stayed on the path paved by SF2, was too much of a deviation with it's new characters and combat system, and suffered dearly for it.

As we'll see in tomorrow's article on another great 3, Super Metroid, staying true to formula and refining it can be the best possible move. It's nothing to be ashamed of, and it can lead to the creation of a legendary game remembered for years to come. But it can't start a rebellion.

I do however think that Halo 3 (and GTA IV for that matter) have the potential to be seen as "sell outs". Halo 1 was also a rebellion against type in it's time. It wasn't an over blown Sci-Fi fantasy requiring much suspension of disbelief and nerdcore dedication from it's fans. It was basiclly online multi-player paintball with much in the way of virtual death and destruction. For consoles at the time, that had never been done, and was therefore quite punk rock. But now it's more or less like classic rock, respectable, but far from innovative.

Punk Rock.

a

Classic Rock.



The nation wide frathouse that is the Halo community is bound to make Halo 3 a success regardless of the games quality. But it wont be a cultural revolution. That designation is saved for the Super Mario Bros's, the Street Fighter 2's, and the GTA III's of the gaming world, the likes of which we may not see again for some time.

Or we may see one tomorrow. You never know. That's part of why I check Destructoid at least ten times a day.

What do you guys think? Am I being to harsh on teh Haloes?

And what do you think could be the next big gaming revolution? A simple downloadable game like geometry wars, a motion controled Wii game, a non-fantasy MMORPG, or will Halo 3 in fact be the game that changes gamse forever?

School me, bitches!