Why GTA San Andreas Shouldn't Have Worked on PS2 — Transcript

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1. 0:00Many people consider GTA San Andreas the
2. 0:02best game of the entire GTA franchise,
3. 0:05and this isn't without reason. If we
4. 0:07just look at the insane amount of
5. 0:08details this game had while still
6. 0:10running on the PS2's limited memory,
7. 0:12you'd think that the developers at
8. 0:13Rockstar are actual wizards. But to
9. 0:16understand how they managed to do it, we
10. 0:18have to start at the beginning, November
11. 0:202002. A few weeks prior to this date,
12. 0:23Rockstar North released GTA Vice City.
13. 0:25But instead of enjoying their success
14. 0:26from that game, a group of 50 developers
15. 0:29gather around an empty whiteboard to
16. 0:31already work on their next project.
17. 0:32[music] As you guys know, Rockstar is
18. 0:34known for releasing bigger and better
19. 0:36games every single time. So, they had
20. 0:39one simple question, how do we top Vice
21. 0:41City? In that game, they had already
22. 0:43built Liberty City. So, instead of
23. 0:45building another city, they decided to
24. 0:47build a state with not just one, not
25. 0:49two, but three different areas, all
26. 0:52stitched together surrounded by forest
27. 0:54and deserts. [music] The brainstorming
28. 0:55of ideas kept going on for months. In
29. 0:57early 2003, the designers were already
30. 1:00creating concepts of the entire map,
31. 1:02where again each one would be based on
32. 1:04real locations. For example, Los Santos
33. 1:07would be based on Los Angeles from the
34. 1:09early '90s with references to Hollywood,
35. 1:11Inglewood, Watts, Venice Beach, and much
36. 1:14more. The total area of the map was
37. 1:16going to be roughly 36 to 38 [music]
38. 1:18square kilometers. Now, if you compare
39. 1:20that to other ones, that's pretty small.
40. 1:22But despite that, the developers still
41. 1:24managed to trick millions of players
42. 1:26into thinking it was massive. And to do
43. 1:28that, they used four different tricks.
44. 1:30As the developers were designing the new
45. 1:32state, they realized they had a big
46. 1:35problem. The PS2 only had 32 megabytes
47. 1:37of RAM, and their map exceeded that
48. 1:39limit by hundreds of megabytes. They
49. 1:41knew that the map they had designed
50. 1:43would be successful, [music]
51. 1:44so deleting it wasn't an option. The map
52. 1:46was primarily built using C++, which
53. 1:49enables the developers to directly send
54. 1:51orders to the PS2's hardware. As you
55. 1:53guys know, all the data is received from
56. 1:55the disk. So, by using C++ [music] the
57. 1:57developers basically tell the PS2 to use
58. 2:00its drive to read a small area. Then, if
59. 2:02the player decides to turn around, they
60. 2:04made sure the game deletes what the
61. 2:05player just saw to free up some memory.
62. 2:07Then, it orders the PS2 to slightly spin
63. 2:10the disk again to read the next chunk of
64. 2:12data to load the other angle of the area
65. 2:14in front of the player. When the game
66. 2:15loads an area, the engine uses the
67. 2:17Z-buffer, which is a piece of memory
68. 2:19that calculates how far away objects are
69. 2:21from the camera. From CJ's perspective,
70. 2:23the developers put a circle around him,
71. 2:25which was the limit that the engine
72. 2:27would load objects to. But, in order to
73. 2:29hide that exact limit, they used [music]
74. 2:31distance fog, making those objects that
75. 2:33are far away dissolve into the
76. 2:35background. [music] The next thing that
77. 2:37tricked people was the design of roads.
78. 2:39If you look at a bird's-eye view of the
79. 2:40highways connecting [music] the three
80. 2:42cities, you will notice something funny.
81. 2:44Almost none of them are straight lines.
82. 2:46The [music] roads constantly bend and
83. 2:48twist. By doing this, the player has to
84. 2:50constantly slow down and turn. So, it
85. 2:52takes much longer to get from point A to
86. 2:54B compared [music] to a straight road.
87. 2:56The third trick they used was making the
88. 2:57streets feel claustrophobic. By making
89. 2:59short blocks, the [music] player can
90. 3:01never see the whole city at once. The
91. 3:03next neighborhood is always hidden. Now,
92. 3:05the last trick was all about the
93. 3:07environment. [music] You start in Los
94. 3:09Santos' hazy, sunny environment, then
95. 3:11drive into a dense, [music] foggy
96. 3:13forest, and finish in a neon oasis of
97. 3:15Las Venturas. This is exactly why San
98. 3:18Andreas [music] stands out compared to
99. 3:19the others. Even though those maps are
100. 3:21physically four to five times larger,
101. 3:23the realism they contain makes them feel
102. 3:25much smaller, and sometimes even boring
103. 3:28compared to San [music] Andreas. By this
104. 3:30point, it was already 2004, and the
105. 3:32clock was ticking. [music] As the studio
106. 3:34realized how big the game was going to
107. 3:36be, the team grew to 75 developers,
108. 3:38[music] while the testing department
109. 3:40expanded to almost 100 people. They were
110. 3:42slowly entering [music] the most
111. 3:43stressful phase of development. The map
112. 3:45was built, but it was just empty.
113. 3:47[music] This stage was all about giving
114. 3:50the world its laws of physics and making
115. 3:52it interactive. First off, they coded
116. 3:54swimming mechanics, requiring a stamina
117. 3:57meter and a lung capacity tracking. They
118. 3:59also added tire friction so that a car
119. 4:01worked differently on city asphalt than
120. 4:03a dirt bike did on desert sand. They
121. 4:06also introduced bicycles, which required
122. 4:08a brand new physics engine to handle
123. 4:10pedaling, bunny hops, and balance. At
124. 4:12first glance, those physics don't seem
125. 4:14that impressive. But what most people
126. 4:16forget is that unlike modern consoles
127. 4:18that have a built-in physics engine, the
128. 4:20PS2 didn't have that at all. This means
129. 4:23the developers had to write the math for
130. 4:25gravity, friction, and momentum in C++,
131. 4:28which was extremely hard. On top of
132. 4:30that, they wanted to add a multiplayer
133. 4:32mode where two players could play at the
134. 4:34same time on one single console. But
135. 4:37remember how we talked about that circle
136. 4:39around CJ that streams data from the
137. 4:41disc? Well, adding a second player meant
138. 4:44the engine now had to calculate two
139. 4:46entirely different circles at the same
140. 4:48time, which the console obviously could
141. 4:50not handle. So, the developers were
142. 4:52forced to lock both players onto a
143. 4:54single screen with a shared camera. And
144. 4:56if player two walked too far away from
145. 4:58player one, they would hit an invisible
146. 5:00wall and couldn't go any further. Now,
147. 5:02if you take a look at most games of this
148. 5:04era, you can clearly see that they
149. 5:06always pick one thing. They were either
150. 5:08a driving game, a stealth game, a
151. 5:10swimming game, or a cycling game. But if
152. 5:12you think about it and look at San
153. 5:14Andreas, you can see that Rockstar
154. 5:16managed to cram all of these completely
155. 5:18different genres into one single game.
156. 5:21Lastly, they wanted the audio to be
157. 5:23completely interactive. If CJ walked
158. 5:25down the street looking big or wearing a
159. 5:28bad outfit, the pedestrians would
160. 5:29instantly check CJ's stats and trigger a
161. 5:32specific voice line based on those
162. 5:34[music] stats. As for the voice lines,
163. 5:36Rockstar went out and secured deals with
164. 5:38many pop culture icons [music] from the
165. 5:39'90s, such as Samuel L. Jackson, who
166. 5:42voices the corrupt Officer Tenpenny, and
167. 5:44many more. For the music and radio, they
168. 5:46brought in Ice T and Dr. Dre alongside
169. 5:49many other icons to host the radio
170. 5:51stations. While having so much variety
171. 5:53in audio is pretty cool, they didn't
172. 5:55realize yet that the PS2 DVD disc could
173. 5:58only hold about 4.7 GB of data. And
174. 6:01since developers were already using a
175. 6:03massive chunk of that space with the
176. 6:05entire city, they were able to keep over
177. 6:0760,000 lines of dialogue and license
178. 6:10over 150 hit songs for the radio
179. 6:12stations. So, for the first half of
180. 6:152004, nobody knew anything other than
181. 6:18the title. But in May 2004, Rockstar
182. 6:20dropped an exclusive 10-page first look.
183. 6:23This was the moment the world found out
184. 6:25that San Andreas wasn't just a single
185. 6:27[music] city. They learned that they
186. 6:28could ride bicycles and that CJ had to
187. 6:30eat and could get fat or even muscular
188. 6:33alongside with many other exciting
189. 6:34features and brand new locations. It
190. 6:37blew people's minds just reading [music]
191. 6:39about it. But there was still no video
192. 6:41footage. Eventually, a few months later
193. 6:44on August 20, Rockstar finally released
194. 6:46the very first teaser trailer to the
195. 6:48public. [music] The trailer showed
196. 6:49actual in-game footage, lowriders
197. 6:51bouncing on hydraulics, CJ riding a BMX
198. 6:54bike, and a glimpse of the countryside
199. 6:56and desert. [music] This trailer was
200. 6:58being downloaded millions of times. Fans
201. 7:00spent weeks parsing the video frame by
202. 7:02frame analyzing every single detail.
203. 7:05[music] As the release date kept coming
204. 7:06closer, Rockstar released two more
205. 7:08trailers that focused heavily on the
206. 7:10game's atmosphere and radio stations.
207. 7:13Fans got to see glimpses of San Fierro's
208. 7:15hills and the neon lights of Las
209. 7:16Venturas, confirming that the map truly
210. 7:19was as big as the magazine articles had
211. 7:21[music] shown. But in mid-October 2004,
212. 7:24about a week or two before the official
213. 7:26release date, a retail copy of the
214. 7:28PlayStation 2's version was leaked. Fans
215. 7:30[music] were stunned that a standard PS2
216. 7:33was rendering a map that included three
217. 7:35separate cities and a massive
218. 7:37countryside without any [music] loading
219. 7:39screens. But surprisingly, rather than
220. 7:41hurting sales, the leaked gameplay
221. 7:43confirmed to fans that Rockstar had
222. 7:45actually delivered on this [music] game,
223. 7:46leading to millions of players lining up
224. 7:49for the midnight release on October 26th
225. 7:51in 2004. [music]
226. 7:53Within its very first week, the game
227. 7:54sold millions of copies, immediately
228. 7:56generating hundreds of millions of
229. 7:58dollars. In the UK alone, it moved 1
230. 8:00million copies in just [music] 9 days,
231. 8:03making it the fastest-selling video game
232. 8:05in British history up to that point. The
233. 8:07game crossed over 27 and 1/2 million
234. 8:10total copies sold worldwide, generating
235. 8:12over $1 billion in total revenue.
236. 8:14[music]
237. 8:15Rockstar built this game within just 2
238. 8:17years, and now, 2 decades later, the
239. 8:19game is still being played by thousands
240. 8:21of people every single day. But, like I
241. 8:23said before, Rockstar keeps surprising
242. 8:26us with their new games. And if you'd
243. 8:27like to see how they developed other
244. 8:29games, then you can watch these, too.
245. 8:31Now, this was it for today's video. I
246. 8:32really want to thank you guys for
247. 8:34watching, and I'll see you in the next
248. 8:35one.