Best of GR videos: Naked Gun intro done in GTA IV

We love silly humour, so it's no surprise that The Naked Gun (and Police Squad, the series it spawned from) is one of our favourite series. And, of course, we love the 'police car drives through sillier and sillier locations' opening sequence - lovingly lampooned by shows like Family Guy or the Red Rock Cider ads.

Which is why we decided to do our own videogame homage to the skit, using Grand Theft Auto IV. So here's our Naked Gun intro sequence, GTA IV style...

Originally posted 06 Jun, 2008

Alittle more about this video, mainly because it's GamesRadar's most-viewed custom video from the past 5 years (and also scored some YouTube ripper some 290,000 hits for free). I had the idea for the video while using the on-board camera, thinking how similar the bonnet cam looked to that classic intro, and I still remember pitching it at the morning meeting.

I wish I still had the original video files to give you a true HD version, but I've re-uploaded the original master in our new player so you can see it in much higher quality.

Interesting things you probably missed:

  • You can't just drive into the hotel lobby - the scene cuts in at the final moment I scraped in through the door after several minutes of trying (and 'fix car' code entering).
  • It's not possible to get a police car into the skatepark, so I had to spawn in another vehicle. If you look closely at 0:50s, you can see the police car parked outside the entrance, where I left it in frustration.
  • The comedy club scene was incredibly hard to do. The car's turning circle is too wide to turn on the floor, so you're actually watching three small handbrake turns. Can you tell?
  • The rollercoaster gets too narrow for the police car to get through - right at the second after it cuts away.
  • You can see tyre tracks on the skate ramp from where I tried it before. Also, the car rolled onto its roof after that last ramp.

Finally, this video was made before the tragic death of the great Leslie Nielsen. But I hope it's a fitting tribute to him.

08 Mar, 2011

Justin Towell

Justin was a GamesRadar staffer for 10 years but is now a freelancer, musician and videographer. He's big on retro, Sega and racing games (especially retro Sega racing games) and currently also writes for Play Magazine, Traxion.gg, PC Gamer and TopTenReviews, as well as running his own YouTube channel. Having learned to love all platforms equally after Sega left the hardware industry (sniff), his favourite games include Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams, Zelda BotW, Sea of Thieves, Sega Rally Championship and Treasure Island Dizzy.