Grand Theft Auto
"Grand Theft Auto", the first game in the series, was released for Microsoft Windows and MS-DOS in October 1997, ported to the PlayStation in 1998 and the Game Boy Color in 1999. "Grand Theft Auto 2" was released in 1999 for Microsoft Windows, later receiving ports on the PlayStation, Dreamcast and Game Boy Color.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
The game is set in 1986 in fictional Vice City, which is based heavily on the city of Miami. Vice City previously appeared in the original "Grand Theft Auto" (1997); the development team decided to reuse the location and incorporate ideas from within the studio and the fanbase. They wanted to satirise a location that was not contemporary, unlike "Grand Theft Auto III"s Liberty City. The team wanted to choose a location that had various similarities and differences to New York City—the inspiration of Liberty City—eventually leading them to Miami, which producer Leslie Benzies describes as "a party town, all sun and sea and sex, but with that same dark edge underneath". Sam Houser called it "the grooviest era of crime because it didn't even feel like it was crime ... it was a totally topsy-turvy back-to-front period of time". The team intended to make Vice City a "living, breathing city", for the player to feel like "life still goes on" while the character is inside a building.