Public Telephone
Public telephones, also known as payphones and pay phones, is a recurring communication device/machine in the Grand Theft Auto series.
Description
Having appeared in every single Grand Theft Auto game to date as street props, public phones are, in both Grand Theft Auto 1 and Grand Theft Auto 2, a crucial mode of communication between the player and various criminals, as verbal and face-to-face mission bosses are not possible. Ringing in various portions of cities, players are issued orders by said party to perform a string of missions, simply by walking in front of the marked telephone booths.
The system is employed more extensively in GTA 2, where individual missions are trigger each time the player walks up to a ringing public phone. Access to specific phones in GTA 2 is dependent on the player's level of Respect towards a specific gang, determining whether the player has access to any phone affiliated with a gang at all or have access to specific color-coded phones tied within a gang; on top of gang colors, each set of these phones are marked as green, yellow and red arrows, which are only accessible with increasing level of respect towards a gang.
Emphasis on face-to-face meetings with individuals in Grand Theft Auto III resulted in fewer occurrences of public telephones as a means to issue missions to the player. Only a handful of characters in games after GTA 2 are known to use public telephones to address the player, including El Burro, King Courtney, D-Ice and Marty Chonks from GTA III, Mr. Black from Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Wade Johnson from Grand Theft Auto IV.
Aside its use to communicate with players, public telephones have by large been nothing more than useless street furniture until GTA IV, where pedestrian may enter animation sequences using public phones.
Gallery
-
A public telephone in GTA 1.
-
A public telephone in GTA London 1969 and GTA London 1961, which uses red telephone boxes formerly common in the United Kingdom.
-
A public telephone in GTA 2.
-
A ringing public telephone fronted by a halo in GTA III. This phone activates El Burro missions.
-
An NPC taking through a public telephone in GTA IV
Trivia
- Grand Theft Auto III has the most payphone mission givers out of every Grand Theft Auto game after Grand Theft Auto 2.