Sam Houser: "GTA IV crazier than ever"
Rarest of rare interviews with Rockstar president
Vice City
- Why Miami? "When we were doing the London pack for the first GTA, the idea we had after that was to do Miami in the '80s, but for some reason or another it didn't come together... The idea that seemed to have the most meat on it, the one that had the most material that we could work with - the vibe, the storytelling, the culture, the fashion, the music and on and on and on - was Miami in the '80s."
"To me, it's still hands-down the grooviest era of crime because it didn't even feel like it was crime. You had Cuban hitmen gunning people down in the street, but it was still celebrated in a sort of haze of cocaine and excess and Ferraris. It was everything that was crazy about the '80s, and it was in America so it was crazier."
- "A dream of mine and Dan's is to have a montage in a game, actually. We're on our way; we'll get it one day - a montage of your experiences set to music. Come on, that's going to be amazing, right? With hard drives in consoles, you know it'll happen."
- "[Ray Liotta] was a very interesting guy to work with because we had to have him in for quite a long time. In some sessions he was so fired up and he was into it, but then sometimes it'd be like he was in some kind of a hole, and he was very dark and couldn't work. He's a pretty amazing guy, kind of an amazing actor."
But... "He made some comments later on through his agent, something like, 'Hey, that game was so big I should have charged them more money', and I hate that kind of chat. It's so cheesy. Like he's saying, 'Next time I'm really going to pin it to them'. Well, how about we just killed off your character? There is no next time. That's how we handle that."
- "I'll be honest, it's easier to work with someone who's keen and enthusiastic, and not been in hundreds of films. Sometimes you get a famous person in and they literally just read of the script, they want the cheque, and they want to go. I find that insulting and depressing."
Sign up to the 12DOVE Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more