The Grand Theft Auto series has been one of my most favorite open world game series of all time. I certainly remember playing the first iterations of the game on PC and the first PlayStation back when it was only capable of running in a top down view.

When Grand Theft Auto moved to more powerful hardware, namely the PS2 to start, it set a new precedent for open world games and introducing living, breathing worlds. The makers of the game also added cheat codes to the game of Grand Theft Auto 3. Now obviously the Grand Theft Auto series were never the first to have cheat codes and certainly won’t be the last, but the type of codes that were put in there, really added to the gameplay.

Now there is usually a negative connotation with using cheat codes. There are codes that give you weapons, more money, can spawn cars, invincibility, and more that can help you progress through the game and its missions much easier. Todays games will not allow you to earn trophies if you use cheats to beat the game and a lot of people will frown upon you for using cheats to beat the game.

Grand Theft Auto 3 Cheat Codes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I remember picking up this game in 2001. It was the biggest reason I had bought a PS2 at the time as I kept up with the previews and excitement of what promised to be one of the greatest games to be released at the time.

It was later shown online that there were cheat codes for this game that you would enter by pressing a certain button sequence on the game controller. Some of the codes ranged from amour to heavy weaponry. My favorite though by far was the riot code.

What would happen when you would enter the riot code is that it would give the people in the city, known as non playable characters, weapons and they would go completely insane with them. It was like a complete war zone! My friends and I would take turns to see who could survive the longest with the riot code on.

People would fire all kinds of weapons at each other and at you as well. Some of the weapons ranged from shotguns, to grenades and rocket launchers, and even molotov cocktails. It would always seem like there were constant explosions going on. You could drive a vehicle on the street and see constant mayhem. I remember many a time trying to drive away from chaos only to be blown to smithereens from grenades being thrown into the street meant for other people. Sometimes the pedestrians couldn’t seem to throw the grenades properly and would end up dropping them beside themselves causing them to be killed by the resulting explosions. I would certainly laugh at the craziness that was constantly happening. Every once in awhile I might catch myself playing GTA 3 again just to play with the riot code on.

There was also another code in the game where it would just give the non playable characters weapons, but they would not riot with them. They would walk around normally, but just with weapons in hand. Sometimes this would be funny as well because lets just say that if you caused a pedestrian to point a gun at you and fire, all the other people around would then get mad at the person firing the gun at you and would use their weapons to take that person out. Sometimes it resulted in complete failure as some of the pedestrians with rocket launchers would try to aim it at the person firing the weapon, but would instead aim the rocket launcher at the ground and fire, blowing themselves and anyone else nearby, to pieces.

As you can see, a lot of this was just so funny to see. You talk about hours and hours of fun with these codes on. Sometimes I would input other codes to give me a chance to last longer such as adding armor. Here is a video by Dan Wisbly on YouTube showing just how crazy the riot code is in GTA III.

 Grand Theft Auto Vice City

Grand Theft Auto Vice City was the next major GTA game to come out after GTA 3. It was set in the 1980s in the fictional city of Vice City which is based off of Miami. The main character’s name was Tommy Vercetti. The voice of the character came from real life actor, Ray Liotta. It was a fun game to play and like GTA 3 before it, the game had cheat codes as well.

The cheat codes were mainly the same from GTA III and the riot code of course was back. I’ll admit though that the game just didn’t have the same amount of chaos with the riot code enabled in this game. It was still quite dangerous to roam around with this code on, but there didn’t seem to be so many random explosions like there were in the game before.

Once I beat the main missions of the game, I have to say that I didn’t play this game nearly as much as GTA 3. A lot of people loved the title and still sometimes play it today, but for me it seemed to be among the weakest of the GTA series. With that in mind I set my sights on the next installment of Grand Theft Auto.

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas

This would be the last major Grand Theft Auto game to be released on the PS2 and Xbox and for the time, was the largest open world game in the series. It encompassed the state of San Andreas (based off of California) and included 3 major cities, towns, wilderness, a military base, and more.

The three major cities in the game were Los Santos (Los Angeles), San Fierro (San Francisco), and Las Venturas (Las Vegas). Obviously the cities weren’t to scale of their real life cousins, but they had the main areas (mainly downtowns) of each city to give it their distinct looks.

With a new character and a bigger map, cheat codes once again appeared. A lot of them were new such as some altering the physical characteristics of the main character, while others were the classic codes such as the riot code once again and different weapons codes.

This game would also cause controversy later on because it was discovered by a gamer through what is called the “Hot Coffee Mod” which revealed a sexual mini game. You had to have a specific patch in order to access it, however. Nevertheless, the game was one of the best selling in the series history.

With the riot code back once again, it was time to test out the chaos of this code. It was safe to say that this time it closely resembled the craziness of Grand Theft Auto 3 that I liked. One thing that made this one quite memorable with the riot code is that it kind of resembled the LA riots of the early 1990s as you would see random people in the game running off with things such as tvs.

The weapons were just as crazy that the pedestrians in the games had and believe me, there were a lot of random explosions that mainly came from the npc’s shooting off rocket launchers or cars blowing up. It was the return of the chaotic environment that I had really missed from Vice City. This game provided me hours of fun and laughter with the riot code on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grand Theft Auto IV

Grand Theft Auto IV would be the first GTA game for next generation of systems, the PS3 and Xbox 360. I didn’t get a PS3 a few years after the release of the system and instead had an Xbox 360 and thus had bought the game for that system.

With new and much more powerful graphics as well as a return to a newly created much more detailed Liberty City that actually resembled New York City, it promised to be one of the most realistic Grand Theft Auto games ever created.

Now even though the game sold pretty well, there was some disappointment with it as a lot of people thought it was too realistic and lacked the fun and craziness of past GTA games such as San Andreas. I for one did enjoy the game and love the main character of the game as well as additional content that was released for it, but I tend to agree with a lot of other people that it lacked the craziness of past games from the series.

One thing I was greatly disappointed in was that a lot of the codes of old, were no longer present. Yes there were codes for weapons and whatnot, but sadly the riot code was gone. Needless to say, I greatly missed it and I don’t think it’ll ever be back in future GTA iterations.

There really weren’t a lot of cheat codes available for the games and for the ones you wanted to enable, you have to use the in game cell phone to activate them by dialing a specific number. Here is a list of the codes that are list on a number of sites, but my preferred site to get codes from is gamefaqs.com.

Effect	Password
Change weather	468-555-0100
Get a different selection of weapons	486-555-0150
Get a selection of weapons	486-555-0100
Lower wanted level	267-555-0100
Raise wanted level	267-555-0150
Restore armour	362-555-0100
Restore health, armor, and ammo	482-555-0100
Song information	948-555-0100
Spawn a Cognoscenti	227-555-0142
Spawn a Comet	227-555-0175
Spawn a Jetmax	938-555-0100
Spawn a Police Chopper	359-555-0100
Spawn a Sanchez	625-555-0150
Spawn a SuperGT	227-555-0168
Spawn a Turismo	227-555-0147
Spawn an FIB Buffalo	227-555-0100
Spawn an NRG-900	625-555-0100

As you can see, a majority of them just spawn some of the different vehicles you can drive in the game. You have a selection of weapons, raising and lowering the wanted level and changing the weather. Sadly I will admit, this game did not get as much play time from me as the other games from the past.

Grand Theft Auto V

This game is the latest iteration of the Grand Theft Auto series and also the last to come out for the PS3 and Xbox 360 and also recreated for the newer systems of the PS4, Xbox One, and soon the PC (which will be the most graphically impressive version of the game as it is promised to run in 4k resolution).

This is the first Grand Theft Auto game to have 3 playable major characters that are all integral to the story and each vital to the heist missions that you will play throughout the game’s story. I have to say that I really enjoyed how these 3 characters interacted with each other especially Trevor. He says some of the craziest things and you’ll find him in some of the craziest situations when changing to him in the game.

As far as cheat codes go, it is an improvement from GTA IV, still no riot code though. Some of the codes that are in the game can make it chaotic and fun. There is the invincibility code though it only lasts for 5 minutes and then you have to put in again if you want to keep using. There is also a free fall code where once you put that in, it’ll put you way up in the sky and you’ll fall back down to the ground (which can be survivable). There is also a drunk mode, super jump, and fast run code just to name a few. Here is a video of mine (with some commentary from me) showcasing the invincibility code. The video has strong violence and language and not really meant for anyone under 18!

 Future GTA games and cheat codes

You can definitely bet on there being more Grand Theft Auto games in the future as the game developers have already hinted at this. Grand Theft Auto V was definitely an improvement over GTA IV and while the riot code is still not back, the cheat codes that are available do add to the overall enjoyment of Grand Theft Auto V.

What I would like to see in the next Grand Theft Auto game is having the riot code return and maybe add some new ones as well. The Saints Row series has a code called Evil cars where all the vehicles in the immediate area will try to run you over. It was insane just trying to survive with that code enabled. Maybe a little different iteration of that in the next GTA game could have it where all the vehicles will target anyone that is not inside a vehicle themselves. It would be hilarious just seeing the random people trying to flee from getting ran over as you yourself try to keep that from happening.

What are some of your favorite times with the different cheat codes you’ve had with the Grand Theft Auto series? Are there other codes you wish the games had? What codes would you like to see in the future? Share your thoughts! Here’s a list of cheat codes from GTA V (PS4 version) I get from gamefaqs.com that I like to use:

Effect	Code
Change Weather (Enter multiple times to cycle weather)	R2, X, L1, L1, L2, L2, L2, Square
Drunk Mode	Triangle, Right, Right, Left, Right, Square, Circle, Left
Explosive Ammo Rounds	Right, Square, X, Left, R1, R2, Left, Right, Right, L1, L1, L1
Explosive Melee Attacks	Right, Left, X, Triangle, R1, Circle, Circle, Circle, L2
Fast Run	Triangle, Left, Right, Right, L2, L1, Square
Fast Swim	Left, Left, L1, Right, Right, R2, Left, L2, Right
Flaming Bullets	L1, R1, Square, R1, Left, R2, R1, Left, Square, Right, L1, L1
Invincibility (For 5 minutes)	Right, X, Right, Left, Right, R1, Right, Left, X, Triangle
Less Vehicle Traction	Triangle, R1, R1, Left, R1, L1, R2, L1
Lower Wanted Level	R1, R1, Circle, R2, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left
Max Health & Armor	Circle, L1, Triangle, R2, X, Square, Circle, Right, Square, L1, L1, L1
Moon Gravity	Left, Left, L1, R1, L1, Right, Left, L1, Left
Parachute	Left, Right, L1, L2, R1, R2, R2, Left, Left, Right, L1
Raise Wanted Level	R1, R1, Circle, R2, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right
Recharge Ability	X, X, Square, R1, L1, X, Right, Left, X
Skyfall	L1, L2, R1, R2, Left, Right, Left, Right, L1, L2, R1, R2, Left, Right, Left, Right
Slow Motion (Can enter up to 3 times for compounded effect, 4th time disables effect)	Triangle, Left, Right, Right, Square, R2, R1
Slow Motion Aim (Can enter up to 4 times to compounded effect, 5th time disables effect)	Square, L2, R1, Triangle, Left, Square, L2, Right, X
Spawn BMX	Left, Left, Right, Right, Left, Right, Square, Circle, Triangle, R1, R2
Spawn Buzzard (Attack Helicopter)	Circle, Circle, L1, Circle, Circle, Circle, L1, L2, R1, Triangle, Circle, Triangle
Spawn Caddy	Circle, L1, Left, R1, L2, X, R1, L1, Circle, X
Spawn Comet	R1, Circle, R2, Right, L1, L2, X, X, Square, R1
Spawn Duster	Right, Left, R1, R1, R1, Left, Triangle, Triangle, X, Circle, L1, L1
Spawn Limo	R2, Right, L2, Left, Left, R1, L1, Circle, Right
Spawn PCJ-600	R1, Right, Left, Right, R2, Left, Right, Square Right, L2, L1, L1
Spawn Rapid GT	R2, L1, Circle, Right, L1, R1, Right, Left, Circle, R2
Spawn Sanchez	Circle, X, L1, Circle, Circle, L1, Circle, R1, R2, L2, L1, L1
Spawn Stunt Plane	Circle, Right, L1, L2, Left, R1, L1, L1, Left, Left, X, Triangle
Spawn Trashmaster	Circle, R1, Circle, R1, Left, Left, R1, L1, Circle, Right
Super Jump (Hold square for greater jump)	Left, Left, Triangle, Triangle, Right, Right, Left, Right, Square, R1, R2
Weapons	Triangle, R2, Left, L1, X, Right, Triangle, Down, Square, L1, L1, L1