Cedar Ridge in Grand Theft Auto III.
Cedar Ridge [1] is the name given to the northern end of Shoreside Vale, Liberty City, which normally is inaccessible during gameplay and is normally used as a background. The area could be considered the technical limitations of Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories.
This area also appears in Grand Theft Auto Advance as a flat terrain due to the top-down perspective. This is also the limit of the game's map, and has an invisible wall to prevent the player from passing. Also, one of the hidden packages is located on the left corner of the map.
Description[]
Overview[]
It is a heavily-forested ridge located north of Cedar Grove and northeast of the Cochrane Dam. It has numerous trees and telephone poles and it is a large landmass. The Cedar Ridge Observatory is located in this area, and it is the only structure on the hill. In the Grand Theft Auto Advance rendition of Liberty City, the observatory is replaced by a warehouse belonging to King Courtney.
The ridge is only used as a background scenario and to cover up the area behind it. Most of the hills are not solid. The way to distinguish this is if the grass is blurred, it's usually not solid. Most of the ground below the Cedar Ridge Observatory is solid and the ground at or above the observatory isn't. A chain of telephone poles that appear in the city begin from Cedar Ridge. The very first one (or last one) is located directly next to the observatory.
Lying behind the ridge land mass are water patches and a gaping entrance into the game's void. There is also a non-solid small city block floating in air, commonly referred as the "Ghost Town", which is an area made only for the introduction cutscene of Grand Theft Auto III. [2]
Geography[]
Terrain of the area
Cedar Ridge is the hilliest part of Shoreside Vale. The ridge is located above Cedar Grove as mentioned before. There are two layers of hills. The first layer is under the observatory. And the second layer is at the same level as the observatory although some of it stretches out above it. There is a steep rocky wall connecting the two, which acts as a wall preventing the player from roaming the second (and unsolid) layer. The wall also stretches around the western part of the hills near Cochrane Dam, and the western part of the hills. The first layer is solid, and the player can roam on. The second layer isn't solid. Located above the wall is an invisible field that blocks the player. It is worth noting that some of the hills on the first land mass can be used as ramps to jump onto, and through the second hill mass.
Around the upper-area of Cochrane Dam, the north-western section of the ridge can be seen sheltering the water contained in the dam. The rocky parts of this section are solid but are normally not accessible. From certain viewpoints optical illusions can be seen which are results of incomplete draw graphics such as water jutting through the wall of the dam. Under the water a large entrance of Blue Hell exists. Unlike all of the other Blue Hell entrances, if the player falls in they will fall for a longer period of time as opposed to the normal amount of time.
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Viewed from the North-East
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View from the North-West.
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The Upstate Tunnel entrances are located to the north of Cedar Grove and to the east of Cochrane Dam. The tunnels connect to each other at an underground T-junction. Another tunnel branching off at the intersection leads to Upstate Liberty, however it is innaccessible to the player. The entrances are only accessible in Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, while in Grand Theft Auto III, the tunnel is under construction and it is innaccessible to the player, as mounds of dirt, and construction signs are visible. It would also appear that the tunnels connect to each other as seen in the interior. However, they appear to lead up towards the city limits (edge of the gameworld) as seen through the radar.
Radar text[]
Close to the edge of Shoreside Vale in GTA III there are several names that can be seen on the radar: Chris's Town, Gary's Town, Adamton, Obbeburgh, Woodcunty, Les County, and Aaronsville, all of which were named after some of the programmers and developers of the game as an easter egg. To see these names the player would have to learn how to fly the Dodo and fly it behind Cedar Ridge.
The fact that these are named as towns indicates that it might be depicting a rural upstate area with many small towns, emulating Upstate New York towns.
| Name | Programmer name | Position |
|---|---|---|
| Aaronsville | Aaron Garbut | Art Director |
| Adamton | Adam Fowler, Adam Cochrane | Technical Direction, 3D Artist |
| Chris'sTown | Chris Rothwell | Design By |
| Garystown | Gary McAdam | 3D Artist |
| Les County | Leslie Benzies | Producer |
| Obbeburgh | Obbe Vermeij | Technical Direction |
| Woodcunty | Alisdair Wood |
 The unused map of northern Shoreside Vale. Note that the tunnels don't actually stretch that far from Shoreside Vale.  The radar names.  Accessing the radar text area using a Rhino combined with the flying cars cheat in GTA III. |
Access[]
The main mean of reaching the boundaries in GTA III is by Dodo. Another way to reach it is the use of cheats in combination with the Rhino tank. The player cannot reach it by boat as there are invisible currents that cut off Upstate from the water around Francis International and Portland. However, in GTA Liberty City Stories, the inclusion of a floating car cheat allows the player to drive through the boundaries which would normally prevent boats from entering. Also if the player has obtained a Maverick they can use that to go past the boundaries, but not the height limit.
Gallery[]
See Also[]
- ↑ Named on the official website, including the observatory: Grandtheftauto3.com -> Flash website -> Shoreside Vale -> Cedar Ridge Observatory (pop-up only, not interactive)
- ↑ “We didn’t take an island out of the game. There were only ever the three. We think what people refer to as 'ghost town' is just the small area of a city we built for the bank heist scene at the very start of the game. It never had a name, but we wanted it to be somewhere separate from the liberty map and so we built these few streets floating in space and assumed no one would ever find them.”