DESIGN: THE CHAOTIC N64 YEARS THAT LED TO ROCKSTAR NORTH

1998 was a golden year for the N64, showcasing the console’s colourful creative spirit and distinguishing it from the more self-serious PlayStation. It was the year when Link first scurried across a 3D Hyrule Field in Ocarina Of Time, when Banjo-Kazooie out-Marioed Super Mario 64, and when Turok really found his juju in his self-titled sequel. Nintendo cashed in on Poké-fever with Pokémon Stadium (and, err, Hey You, Pikachu!), while Star Wars: Rogue Squadron sealed the console’s love-in with LucasArts.

But there were a couple more games that rounded off this vintage year. Critically acclaimed but commercially overlooked, DMA Design’s Body Harvest and Space Station Silicon Valley were oddities – not quite fitting the kid-friendly N64 mould but not not fitting it either. Excited by the newly discovered freedoms of 3D graphics, DMA approached these games as toy-strewn playgrounds to experiment in. Those who worked on these titles say it’s a miracle they ever came out, yet within them you can find the kernels of design that would eventually form into Grand Theft Auto III, and Rockstar North.

Following the success of and especially in the early Nineties, DMA had established itself as a name developer, and set out to get involved with Nintendo for Project Reality (which would later become the N64). DMA cofounder Steve Hammond says that DMA got Nintendo’s attention by wooing them in 1994 with an FMV clip of that they coded onto a SNES cartridge. “It was a case of Dave Jones trying to get their attention with a wee stunt which said, ‘Look at us!’ while cornering Nintendo at a trade show,” Steve