The Best UK Games Ever

Grand Theft Auto

Developer: DMA Design
Platform: PC, GBC, PlayStation
Year: 1997
Download it for free!

The core Grand Theft Auto games are all the products of the UK, with Rockstar North based out of Edinburgh and able to take the credit for Vice City, San Andreas and GTA IV.

As pedants though, we do have to point out that ever since the studio took the name Rockstar it has been a subsidiary of Take-Two, who are based out of New York. Fortunately, the GTA series first kicked off back when Rockstar North was still an independent developer called DMA Design – so the first few games in the series definitely qualify for our purposes.

Like Tomb Raider, Grand Theft Auto is likely a series that needs no introduction whatsoever. Everyone is familiar with the adventures of Niko Bellic and his predecessors and the franchise has gone from strength to strength over recent years – with an announcement for GTA V supposedly just around the corner.


Still, while GTA is known these days for its sprawling 3D world, complete with comedy clubs and bowling alleys, DMA originally got the series started with a top-down perspective and a much looser storyline. There were no minigames to while away the hours with, just a massive world filled with lots of hidden areas, ramps and weapons.

Though the first two games in the series are definitely very different from the latter instalments, they both give players a huge amount of freedom and autonomy – and it’s that which is at the root of GTA’s appeal. The ability to roam freely and set your own challenges is what has made this one of the best and most important game franchises of the past decade.

Elite

Developer: David Braben & Ian Bell
Platform: All of them, ever
Year: 1984
Download Freeware Remake!

Elite, if you’ve shamefully never heard of it, is undeniably one of the most influential games ever created. While an endless parade of journalists make similar claims about whatever game they happen to be writing about, with Elite it’s actually true. Here is the game which first established the idea of procedurally generated content and an open world, as well as being the first truly 3D title for a home computer.

Elite was so massively important in fact that, instead of writing this quick blurb about the game we were tempted to write simply a list of titles that were inspired or made possible by this legendary title. Games like World of Warcraft, EVE: Online and Spore, to name a few.


Despite that though, Elite is mostly unknown to the current generation of gamers and remains a title that only the most hardcore of enthusiasts will ever have actually played. Provided you can look beyond the wireframe graphics though, Elite’s appeal is ageless, starting players out in a massive universe with just a handful of credits and a spaceship to explore in. There are no constraints, no requirements at all. You can turn pirate, soldier, miner or profiteer as you wish, mixing the roles together and ploughing your earnings into new vessels and upgrades.

The technology underneath the game is equally brilliant, with an entire, unique, 3D universe programmed into just 14 kilobytes of memory thanks to the algorithms written by game creators and Cambridge graduates David Braben and Ian Bell. The pair wrote the entire game in machine code to help save space – a task which took two years to complete, but allowed much more control for the developers.

Thankfully, Braben and Bell’s diligence was rewarded and Elite went on to sell an astonishing number of copies for the time. The game quickly became a phenomenon, establishing a lasting legacy as not only a great example of British innovation and creativity, but also as a game which helped to shape the future of the entire industry.