Grand Theft Auto III

aka: GTA 3, GTA III, GTA3, GTA: Liberty City, Grand Theft Auto III: 10 Year Anniversary
Moby ID: 5189
PlayStation 2 Specs
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Description official descriptions

After leaving San Andreas and going on a crime spree throughout the country, Claude Speed and Catalina head to Liberty City for a life of crime. During a bank heist, Claude is betrayed by Catalina and her Colombian friend Miguel, and he is shot by her just as they are leaving the scene of the crime. Claude fully recovers....in a prison cell. However, while being transported to a prison, Colombians ambush the prison van for an inmate riding with Claude. Claude and his friend, 8-Ball, escape in the process. Now it is time for revenge. Claude slowly rises through the ranks of the local gangs, gaining trust from local mob bosses and turning on others. Claude gains influence, trust, and most importantly, money along the way. It is time for Claude to rise from the dead and get revenge for what Catalina has done.

Grand Theft Auto III is similar in its concept to its predecessors: the player is cast in the role of a vicious (albeit novice) criminal, who performs tasks for crime lords and gradually raises his rank in the criminal world. Driving is the main gameplay element in the game, though the player can also fully explore the city on foot. For the first time in the series, the entire game is rendered in 3D. Different camera angles are available for driving, and free camera rotation is available when on foot.

As opposed to the previous games, Liberty City is the only city the player can explore in the game. The game puts more emphasis on the story, displaying cutscenes before each mission. In order to complete the game, it is necessary to perform all the main story missions; however, the player often has the choice between several missions at a given moment. The missions include chases, races, short third-person shooter sequences, as well as various mini-game-like activities. Outside of the missions, the player is free to explore the city and undertake sub-missions, for example working as a taxi driver, delivering sick people to the hospital in an ambulance car, etc.

Spellings

  • 侠盗车手3 - Simplified Chinese spelling
  • δΏ η›œη΅θ»Šζ‰‹3 - Traditional Chinese spelling

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Credits (PlayStation 2 version)

213 People (185 developers, 28 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 92% (based on 102 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 455 ratings with 27 reviews)

Guns, violence, harsh language and ice cream trucks. What more could you want?

The Good
As an Australian who missed out on the original GTA3 on PS2 before it was replaced with a cut-up version, the fact that the PC version has every little detail as it was originally intended is a big bonus.

Anyway, the game itself is a real blast. Although at first I was a little worried that the transition to 3D might hurt the series, after a few hours blasting my way through the biggest virtual city I've played in, those doubts were thrown out the window, shot to pieces, left on the road and run over by an incoming ice cream truck.

Gameplay itself is varied, very varied. There's so much to do in the city, it's crazy. There are, of course, objectives to be met and thankfully DMA and Rockstar have allowed for some form of open ended adventures since you can complete the objectives to open new areas and items, or just blast around the place ignoring everyone and everything.

Nothing tops grabbing a rocket launcher and blasting everything in the world the to bits. Only Red Faction comes close to creating an environment that can be totally destroyed with pleasure beaming on the players face.

The Bad
There are some slight problems with the graphics (only slight, nothing really to worry about) and you need a fairly strong computer to get the most out of it.

Oh, and if you don't like Ice Cream trucks, stay well away.

The Bottom Line
I'm sure it will get a fair share of "Kids should not play this game, it is a disgrace". What a minority of people don't understand is that this game was never built with kids in mind, therefore developers and publishers should not be put to shame over their ideas, but parents who allow younger children to play it. Not that I want to fight over this.

GTA3 is a sign that the older generation of gamers (from the 20-30 onwards range) don't want to be left out in the cold. DMA and Rockstar should be proud of this achievement. I certainly am.

Now if you will excuse me, I have an Ice Cream truck waiting for me.

Windows · by Kartanym (12418) · 2006

This is not a game

The Good
I played this one a few times at a friend of mine. I don't own a playstation. But I was impressed by the graphics and the way it sounds. I hope the PC-version will be so good. If I decide to buy it.

When I played it for the first time, I thought it was funny. Kill innocent pedestrians, destroy everything what moves or stands still. I was surprised that the gameplay of the other GTA-games was intact and now in 3d. No more bad graphics, like in the first GTA, but now very smooth graphics.

The Bad
The bad side of the game, is not directly done by the programmers. They have done a great job. But it is the fact, it is to realistic. The other GTA-games have a more comicstyle. So It feels ok to do bad stuff, but now it look likes you are doing things in real.

Don't understand me wrong on this, the most people now the different between fiction and non-fiction. But there are also people outside who don't know the difference. What will happened then, will they play the game. But now in real life, will they walk through New York and shoot every cop they see on the street, will they run to a driving car and kill the driver, so that he or she can sell that car or use it to run over people.

I hope these people do not exist, but when you hear the news, you must know how crazy and sick this world can be. This game only gives it a perfect reflection of that sickness.

The Bottom Line
Only buy it, when you are not mentally ill. And only play it with a lot of sarcasm and irony of how this world can be.

PlayStation 2 · by Buuks (197) · 2002

Addictive as smack. Funny as hell. Best damn thing to happen to my hard drive.

The Good
You've been capped by your girlfriend and left to die. The cops pick you up, but you're out again fast than you can say "Jailbreak". Your only friend leads you to work for a Mafia pimp chauffering a hooker. Thus begins one of the most addictive games I've seen in my life.

Grand Theft Auto 3 is pretty much Grand Theft Auto 1 on drugs. It's present day Liberty City and (thank god) the Zaibatzu Corparation (remember GTA2) isn't in power. The people in Liberty City seem as real as they can be, talking about things from how their mother is also their sister, to humming tunes from the radio.

Speaking of the radio, it is one of the best game improvements I've seen in the GTA series. Head Radio, for example provides Rock and Pop music, while the DJ Michel Hunt, Mike Hunt, says cheesy cliche after cheesy cliche. My favorite is Chatterbox, a talk radio channel that's hosted by Lazlow, a DJ who seems to be the one sane person in Liberty City. Everyone calling in is messed up, such as a guy who makes his seven-year-old child work for a living or a Englishman who's looking for a nanny, because he's been a very naughty boy. Also you can add in your very own mp3's and listen to them as you cap grandma's or pick up hookers.

The meat and potatoes of the game are the missions. Many of them are varied and exciting, from driving around hookers and bank robbers, to acting as bait for the National Guard to chase as the real crooks get away. These chases are a mix of World's Wildest Police chases and The Blues Brothers. Helicopters, and massive car crashes kick ass. If you don't get an adrenaline rush and you're probably not playing it. That's why there is a button that makes a 30 second replay of you just did. You can also moonlight by jacking cars to make cash. Jack a Police Car and you can play Vigilante, killing criminals to save innocent civilans. Jack a Taxi and rush around Liberty, using every available shortcut to make sure that the hooker gets to Ammu-Nation or that grandpa gets to Sex Club Seven in less time than it takes you to deliver a pizza (im looking forward to GTA: Vice City for the PC). Also you can do all of this with your own face on the nameless character. Rock on!



The Bad
Of course, this game has it's flaws. My main problem is that all of Liberty City's islands weren't immediately available. It wasn't a real problem to finish my missions on dreary, dirty Portland Island to get to colorful, corrupt Stauton Island, but there were times I thought that it was a bad idea to seprate the two in the first place. Another problem is that running Stauton Island is slightly laggy on my machine, but it could be my car mods, but it still shouldn't happen.

My last problem is that even after porting it to the PC, it still isn't as graphically improved as I'd hoped.

The Bottom Line
One of the best games I've ever played.

Windows · by Jason Lee (10) · 2002

[ View all 27 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Pirates / unofficial cover PavelDAS (1408) Nov 22, 2021
Terror attack date wrong in trivia. CheerioDM (33) May 7, 2014
Holy crap! What just happened? Deleted (197) Nov 25, 2010

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Grand Theft Auto III appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Australian release

Grand Theft Auto III has been banned in Australia due to displays of graphic acts of violence. Rockstar/Take-Two are working in conjunction with the Office of Film and Literature Classification in Australia to release a revised version of the game in January 2002. A few copies of the game were sold there before the ban was put in place.

After lengthy talks with the Office of Film and Literature Classification, DMA removed certain sexual content and the final version has been approved. However, many people are asking for an R18+ rating to be added to the games rating system (which currently only goes up to MA15+, meaning restricted to over 15) so this will not happen again.

Cancelled port

A 2D driving-based version was in the works for a release for the GameBoy Advance, but it was ultimately cancelled.

Controversy in Japan

Shortly after several Japanese prefectures planned to legally ban GTA III's sale to minors, a 17-year-old Japanese fan of the game stabbed his parents. The coincidence of these two events sparked an effort in the Japanese game industry to work on an ESRB/PEGI-style rating system.

Cut content

  • A multiplayer mode was planned for the PC version, but later cut.
  • Originally, the player had to solve missions for a homeless man named Darkel. There are many rumours about him being a terrorist with missions like blowing up a bus full of children or flying the dodo into a building (sometimes connected to Donald Love's sudden disappearance). Because of the last bit, it is rumored that the character was removed shortly before release because of the terror attacks of 11 September, 2001. The official line is that the mission rumors are baseless, the character was cut because he didn't fit into the game and his missions were sub-par, and he was removed several months before release.

Flashback radio

The playlist for Flashback radio is:

Rush Rush - Deborah Harry
Shake It Up - Elizabeth Daily
Scarface (Push It To The Limit) - Paul Engemann
She's On Fire - Amy Holland
I'm Hot Tonight - Elizabeth Daily

If it sounds familiar, that's because all five songs come from the 1983 movie Scarface.

German release

The German PC version is censored - no blood or gore is to be seen. Also missing are the rampage missions, the possibility to hurt people with melee weapons when they lie on the ground and money left behind by killed people.

Protagonist

The silent main character formerly known as "Fido" (among various other aliases) is actually named Claude. This is discovered if you listen carefully during one of the phone calls in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. It is rumored that Claude is the same Claude as Claude Speed, from GTA2.

Radio stations

A number of the fake radio advertisements that fill the game's wonderful made up radio stations have real websites registered by the designers.

For example, www.pogothemonkey.com will take you to a small website where you can play with Pogo and listen to all the 'reviews' of his new 'game'.

References

In one mission for Asuka Kasen you have to stop an undercover cop named Tanner. Tanner is also the name of the main character in the Driver games, where he is an undercover cop.

References to the game

In August 2006, Coca Cola launched a new TV commercial inspired by the scenery and gameplay of GTA III. At first, you seem to witness car chases, robbery and theft, but the tables are turned and the main character pays for his products, helps old ladies, and extinguishes fire. The link to the video can be found in the related links section.

Sales

  • The Playstation 2 version of Grand Theft Auto III has sold over seven million copies, and is now known as the highest selling game ever for the console. Sony has signed a deal with Rockstar making sure all future GTA games are PS2 exclusive until 2004.
  • Grand Theft Auto III is listed by Guinness World Records as the first full sandbox action-adventure and the biggest selling game of 2001.

Secrets

  • If you look hard around the city, you'll find little notes pasted on walls or signs like the infamous 'You weren't supposed to be here you know' sign on the wall, or the secret website links.
  • In Staunton Island, look for the internet cafe, and go inside. Check out what's on the computers.

Stadium

It is impossible to enter the stadium via normal means. Although by using several cheats you can get the tank to fly over the stadium.

If you look at the layout of the seats within the stadium the different colours spell out "Cocks"

Windows version

The PC version allows players to use their own MP3 files for ingame music. You can copy the files to a directory in the game directory, the game will then add the radio station "PLAYER'S MP3" which will be automatically used in random cars (or can be selected with the change radio button).

Awards

  • 4Players
    • 2001 - Game of the Year
    • 2001 - Action Game of the Year
  • Computer Games Magazine
    • April 2003 (Issue #225) – Game of the Year (Editors' Choice)
    • April 2003 (Issue #225) – Game of the Year (Readers' Choice)
    • April 2003 (Issue #225) – Funniest Game of the Year
    • March 2003 (Nr. 148) - #6 in the "10 Best Games of 2002" list
  • Computer Gaming World
    • April 2003 (No. 225) - Game of the Year 2002
  • EGM
    • February 2006 (Issue #200) - #9 on the "Greatest Games of Their Time" list
  • Electronic Gaming Monthly
    • April 2002 - Game of the Year (Readier's Voting)
  • Game Developer's Choice Awards
    • 2002 - Game of the Year
    • 2002 - Excellence in Game Design Award
  • Game Informer Magazine
    • October 2004 (Issue #138) - One of the "Top 25 Most Influential Games of All Time"
  • GamePro (Germany)
    • 2011 - #3 Handheld Game of the Year (Readers' Vote)
  • GameSpy
    • 2001 – Game of the Year
    • 2001 – PS2 Game of the Year
    • 2001 – Most Offensive Game of the Year
    • 2001 – Best Use of Radio of the Year
    • 2002 – PC Action Game of the Year
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • Issue 01/2007 - One of the "Ten Most Influential PC-Games". It is the first action game that adopted free worlds from Role Playing Games. Grand Theft Auto III stands for the connection between game and pop culture and is the role model for a new kind of games where not only the player reacts to the world but the world also reacts to the player's actions.
  • PC Gamer
    • April 2005 - #12 in the "50 Best Games of All Time" list
  • Retro Gamer
    • September 2004 (Issue #8) – #95 Best Game Of All Time (Readers' Vote)
  • The Strong National Museum of Play
    • 2016 – Introduced into the World Video Game Hall of Fame

Information also contributed by Archagon, Big John WV, Bob Shand, Entorphane, jaXen, Kartanym, Macintrash, MegaMegaMan, PCGamer77, phlux, Ray Soderlund, Sciere and Zack Green

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Syed GJ.

PlayStation 4 added by Flapco. PlayStation 3 added by Sciere. iPhone, Macintosh, Android, iPad added by Kabushi. Windows added by phlux.

Additional contributors: nullnullnull, Archagon, Unicorn Lynx, JL3001, phlux, Apogee IV, tarmo888, Alaka, Yoshy, formercontrib, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger, Victor Vance, FatherJack, SoMuchChaotix.

Game added November 5, 2001. Last modified March 12, 2024.