Why Grand Theft Auto Sparked Our Childhood Rebellion

Which of this year's video game releases are you most looking forward to?

If your answer was anything other than Grand Theft Auto V, you have no soul. Rockstar's GTA series might have stumbled with the gritty but ultimately slightly tedious GTA4, but V looks like being right on track.

It's bright, over-the-top, has stunning visuals and an intriguing mix of characters. It even returns to San Andreas, the scene of one of the greatest GTA games so far and a game truly worthy of the over-used word "epic".

Given the huge sandbox nature of these later games, their vivid graphics and wide emphasis on gameplay beyond the cars you control, it's easy to forget where it all started: Grand Theft Auto.

The original, 1997 title shares little with its post-GTA3 counterparts, but those later games wouldn't exist were it not for the influence of the first.

Even if you've never played it, you'll be familiar with it: a top-down driving game with little more complicated to do than steal a car, crash into stuff and deliver said car to a certain location. Doesn't sound tough, and doesn't sound that interesting - but the simple graphics and two-dimensional perspective made speeding through the city plenty difficult enough, while the open map of city streets let you choose your own path to a destination - something uncommon in games at the time.

Well... that escalated quickly

Arenas were loosely based on a host of familiar American cities, though London made its own appearance in an expansion pack to the original GTA, one of few occasions the series has strayed outside of the U.S. It's about due a return, we reckon - though we can already imagine the uproar from red-tops and dimwitted, un-educated anti-video game groups if a game allowed you to plow through completely virtual London pedestrians in your completely virtual car on a virtual mission to deliver some virtual cocaine.

Despite the simplicity of GTA, piling your car into other vehicles or over the occasional hapless non-London pedestrian was also oddly satisfying. And of course, you'd not get away with all that destruction for long - police attention was always just around the corner.

As such a simple game, it's eminently replayable these days and available across a wide selection of platforms, so getting hold of it shouldn't be difficult.

Ultimately, the top-down formula was cut short by the success of rival games like Driver (keep your eyes peeled for our look at that one), which prompted the development of GTA3 - the first 3D Grand Theft Auto, and another seminal driving game.

Oh, and it turns out the original GTA was going to be named Race'n'Chase. Doesn't quite have the same ring to it, does it?

Ever played the original GTA? Leave us your thoughts below.