Grand Theft Auto III

The Good
This game has received insane amounts of praise from virtually every possible place. However, after playing through it, I must say that I am actually dissappointed.

The playing arena, Liberty City, is large and life-like. At morning, the rising sun shines to your eyes, partially blinding you, while people rush to their job. Later, it starts to rain, and you turn the shiny new sports car of yours off the main road, and drive through a Yakuza-owned casino, holding your breath when the awesome neon lights reflect from the wet asphalt. At night the police patrols around the harsh areas of the city, while you go pick up the nearest hooker and have a little midnight fun. Unfortunately for her, you are low on cash - so she must be killed.

The graphics, as you probably know are quite good. Especially the car models are awesome, just look at that Cartel Cruiser... all that chrome. And the reflecting wet asphalt... and that really evil looking spotlight from the chopper just overhead. And weather & time effects are extremely beautiful. All those orange-colored sunrises and gloomy, foggy nights... Unfortunately the console history shines through in very low quality, blurry textures.

There are very many things to do in Liberty City. You could do the story-missions. Or you could try to help people by putting out fires or being a vigilante cop. Or you could try to find all those Unique Jumps or Hidden Packages. Or you could just get the biggest guns possible and cause some serious mayhem.

The game is much more down-to-earth than GTA2. No more busloads of people for hot dog factory, or trashing entire corporation construction yards because they are on Krishna holy ground. Just ordinary pimping, drug-pushing, assassinations and general driving here. Not sure if thats good or bad. I kinda liked the insane neo-retro style of GTA2.

And yes, continuing the GTA tradition, the game is a parody of the USA, and pretty much the whole western culture. Radio ADs for 12-seated family cars, Pogo the Monkey for president of USA, Belly-Up fish marketing, mafia bosses calling radio shows, pop-music parody (that sounds frighteningly similar to "real" pop-music)... everything is twisted, and you can easily spend time just listening all the nine radio shows through. Just to make sure you won't miss anything when you start blasting your own mp3's.

And last but not least, the ending of the game is both hilarious and very grim. One of the best endings for a game I've ever seen.

The Bad
The biggest mistake is seen immediately in the beginning. While GTA2 was pretty much 100% non-linear, and you could make almost anything you wanted to complete the game, here you absolutely have to complete certain missions (something like 40 that you absolutely must do, and a bit under 80 in total). To make things worse, most of the missions are utterly stupid and boring. Now just WHY do I have to shoot those gang members with UZI from my car? Why can't I go on the streets with my flame-thrower? Why must this honour-debt be paid in six minutes? Is that "old oriental gentleman" just stupid, when he selects the longest possible route through hostile territory? Why can't I handle those death-squads all by myself? In GTA2 this was not such a problem, and most of that game's missions were generally much funnier. Of course, there are a few cool missions (All three area-finishing missions are great!)

The original console controls are really bad. There are two ways to control the game. Either 100% keyboard, with automatic aiming, or the standard FPS-style controls with mouse aiming. In the first method turning and running in circles was very hard, and when you auto-aimed, the camera usually didn't really show, who you were shooting at, causing too many dead grannies piling on the sidewalks. The latter method is pretty good otherwise, but it felt slightly clumsy to first drive the car with keyboard only, and then suddenly rushing to get the mouse when you exited the vechile. I got used to it, so it wasn't that much of a problem.

Another problem is the range limitation on many weapons. Especially with the rocket launcher and sniper rifle you might see someone or something that you want to shoot, but can't, because the target is not in range. When I can see someone in the sniper scope, I should be able to shoot him.

Another huge annoyance is caused by the other drivers in the city. They don't really follow the traffic at all, causing zillions of crashes by switching the lane, or making U-turns with no apparent reason. They ARE, however, much more realistic that in GTA2. And you can always drive close to that annoying truck filling the whole street, and shoot it with the Uzi without even leaving your own car.

The sound effects in the game are very lame. Choppers sound like choppers, but even the large V-8 engines sound like little scooters or something. The guns are lacking bass and so are almosta all of the radio songs.

And finally the system requirements. I'm not sure, if my computer is somehow super-fast, or does everyone else have a really crappy computer. My friend with a 1800+ Athlon XP complained about choppy framerates, and I've heard many people with Radeons and GeForce3's accompanied with 1500+ MHz processors complaining that the game is almost unplayable. I have a 750 Athlon, with a GeForce 2 MX 200, and the game runs pretty well. Not silky-smooth, but easily playable - and the framerate is quite constant. Are people forgetting that there is a menu called "Display Options", where you can decrease the viewing distance and turn off the "trails"-motion blur effect. Of course, the 450 MHz minimum is most likely a really bad joke, and there is really not much to do, if you cannot achieve acceptable frame rates.

The Bottom Line
Well... this is the hard part. After seeing this game receiving dozens of "Game of the Year"-prizes and very good reviews, I cannot really say that they are deserved. Of course, this is a great game, and your money certainly won't be wasted with it, but it really isn't the best game out there. It might get into my personal top-10, but not in the top-3. Of course, it's the second-best console game I've played.

The Good
The game has really good graphics which remind me of Max Payne - they have the same style, the same dark mood. And the game's level of detail is simply stunning: there's life everywhere - people walking around, occasional carjacking, gang fights... not to mention the seedy looking, dark alleyways where the typical backdoors to the sex clubs are... the gang members with their tattoos and cruel faces... simply unbelievable. All the cars drive different, and if you collide with an object, the car WILL break down (and explode if you do it really bad). There are brave people who will try to beat you when you steal their car, others just cry or run away; there are people running to help when someone gets killed (or, in one case, stand there just watching and crying when I squashed some gangster with his own car :) Sunsets, sundowns, rain, fog, night... the weather is simulated with great detail, too.

The sound is the like: when in a car, you can hear radio from quite many really different stations, and the sound effects are cool aswell. All dialogues are dubbed with speech which is credible and well spoken. Foreign versions have subtitles, retaining the original english, curse-littered gangster-talk.

Best of all is the variety. Don't like to do another "kill-this-guy" job, but still need money? No problem: either get some other job - there are tons of sub-plots which can be followed. Or maybe just get normal, "borrow" a taxi and drive some stupid people around? You will get cash from them and you learn how to drive, so that's a good idea. Too easy? Get the ambulance and rescue wounded people - that's MUCH harder! Or do some crazy stunts with a stolen hod rod, or even - kids, that nothing for you! - get yourself some whore girls, f*** them and steal their money afterwards! Everything goes, just don't mess with their pimps since it could be deadly for you :) But the normal jobs are cool, too - blow some mafia guy's car up (with him behind the wheel :), help some poor dog food company owner in murdering his wife (a sub-plot with a surprising end!)... your possibilities are virtually endless.

The coolness factor is very important in this game. In which else game you can wake up (load a saved game, you only can save "at home"), go to your garage next door, jump in your (stolen) car, turn on some cool muzak and drive outta there like Satan on wheels, crashing some cop's lame vehicle in the process? See, no other game gives you this!

The Bad
Some clipping errors are quite visible, but it's not that bad. And there is no blood at all, this is more bad since it's an adult game with a very violent theme (and where's violence, I expect blood). Controls are really good, but the automatically following camera is sometimes a bit jumpy.

The Bottom Line
Strictly for adults - this stuff contains quite explicit expressions and you can do too much you never should in reality. But if you are adult and want to swap the real, boring world of work and worries for some very entertaining hours of racing, raping, cop-killing mayhem - it's simply the greatest game you will have ever played! Absolutely worth the money!

The Good
This probably is one of those games your mom and dad didn't want you to play :) But, it is the taboo that every kid even adults think about (which is why the Simpsons was a hit). This game is the first GTA series I've played and my brain still can't get over it. How in the hell did they manage to create a game this big, this magnitude? If they can create technology like this now, I'm waiting in awe of what they'll think of next.

Where to start...that's hard. This game is big, that's one. I remember the days when you only play a computer game for a whole week then finish. This usually applies to adventure typed games such as this one. This game however takes a loooooooooong time to play. Here's the background:

You appear to be some criminal that was busted out (you weren't the target) en route to a prison. Now your stuck in liberty city trying to make ends meet by doing odd jobs for the local crime lords. The game tries to give a wide variety, for instance the crime lords. You have the Italian Mafia, the Japanese Yakuza, the Chinese Triads just to name a few. Each are in the city is divided into territories between those crime lords, just be sure not to be around when a gang war starts, or just join in the fun!

As most of the perspective used is 3rd-Person Perspective similiar to games like Tomb Raider, these adventure type games acquire a lot of real-time movement. Considering the immense size of the city, that probably a lot walking. It would probably take more than 3-5 hours to walk from one city edge to the other. That's why God invented the sports car!

On that city size subject, the city itself is divided into 3 major areas. The first time around, you can't access the other parts of the city, later on in the game if you follow the storyline, you'll eventually get access to it. My amazement is, after I finished the first area of the city that was barely 25% of the game...which is more than I can say for other games I've played for the same period of time. This game is totally your time and money's worth!

Oh, now the taboo part. In this game, there are no restrictions, no morals and possibly no brains...you can shoot anyone you want, drive anyway you want, blowup anyway and anyone you want. This game has total respect to violence. I really love driving down the road and hitting every pedestrian while I'm at it. Sometimes watch a car blow up and seeing those body parts flying (yes, body parts). I do understand why this game was banned in some countries. Some people aren't stable enough to handle this kind of "reality".

One thing I like that almost makes this game a kind of RPG (but it's not), is that it has a record of all the thing's you've done. How many people you've killed, how many cars you've blown up, even how many police helicopters you've downed with your handy rocket launcher.

And the most important thing is, it gives the player a lot of freedom of choice. It's not to rigid in the storyline, you can do thing's in a manner of different ways....well most of the time. GTA is probably in the great line of freedom of choice such as legendary series of Ultima and Final Fantasy. But I do agree, GTA has certainly began a new cult of its own.

The Bad
All great games with great ambitions usually have its downsides. Unfortunately for GTA, due to the immense creativity intended for the players leisure, it also created a lot of irritating creative bugs.

One thing I really hate is the "refresh rate" of people and cars in GTA, which is also by the way very stupid and unrealistic. For example, you look in one direction and see a grandma walking very slowly towards you, and yellow taxi cab behind her. Just look at another direction and look back...they're gone! And replaced by another citizen and different car maybe. What's wrong with that? Nothing wrong, unless you've broken the law or involved in a gang war mission. Unless you have a brick wall behind you, baddies have an irritating way of showing up behind your back, when you know and you just checked there was absolutely no one behind you. I hate the idea that they materialize in thin air. It's just not real and logical.

In this game, you really loathe cops. Probably because they only chase after you. I had this gangster shooting pot shots at me...hey, he fired first...why doesn't that cop do anything? Impatient at his passiveness, I fire back...the cop runs after me. Now I got the mob and the police up my beep.

I hate dying. Although in this game, you can't actually die...but if your health reaches zero...you wind up in the hospital...with all of your hard earned equipment gone. So it's not worth dying for...although this game gives you a lot of reasons: (1) You can't swim. Doh. If you even "touch" water to a certain level, you decrease your health. They should've changed the title to "grand vampire auto" or "grand didn't learn to swim in 1st grade auto". I can't recall countless times I fell of the edge of a boat by accident or run my car off into the big wide sea. There is one time, I was on a boat, I accidently blew up the boat with a grenade. I survived, the boat was ash, non usable. Now what? Stuck in the middle of the ocean, with a black ash boat...and you can't swim? Restore game. Totally stupid. (2) Your car blows up...with you in it. Not a problem really...you only need to get out...if you can get out. The idiot hero has to wait until the car reaches a full stop, to finally open the door. Did he know the car was on fire? Yes...but he's to afraid he'd hurt himself while jumping from a moving car. Might as well wait for the car to stop with the possibility of the car blowing up your body parts. Just brilliant. Another thing I hate is the view point. I have had numerous incidents where I was trying to get out of the car, but ended up running to the car instead of AWAY from the car and having the darn thing blow up in my face. (3) Grenades and Rocket Launchers. You throw the grenade to softly it blows in your face. Should've made a safety restriction there. Rocket Launchers are irritating. They're destructive, but you don't wanna get stuck with a rocket launcher with your pants down. If you have a rocket launcher, you can't kill guy next to you without a possibility of blowing yourself up...so you have to change you weapon...if you could. Not in rampage missions though. They give you one weapon and your stuck with it until the mission is over or failed. The fact that you can't run or jump while wielding a rocket launcher makes you a sitting duck in melee combat.

Another thing I reeeeeeeealy hate is missions with time limits. Now this is where I draw the line. Creativity ends when you put a deadline. I have enough deadlines in real life...don't need to be bothered in games. There are a lot of missions that have time limits...so this game can be pretty frustrating.

There are a lot of bad thing's I haven't yet mentioned...but it's really not that important to the gameplay. Just irritating.

The Bottom Line
I must admit, this is one of those games that you totally get what you paid for! If not more...