Grand Theft Auto III

The Good
Okay kids, set the wayback machine for late 2001.

A somewhat nascent PS2 had been available in the United States for about a year, and while some major titles had been released already (Final Fantasy X, for example) the platform had yet to see a truly revolutionary title.

Enter Grand Theft Auto 3.

Your nameless character, wandered the tough streets of Liberty City, taking jobs from various underworld bosses, all the while trying to take out the partner who (metaphorically) stabs you in the back at the beginning of the game.

Those of us who had played the PS1 religiously saw this one coming from a mile away. Back in the summer of 1999 there were three games constantly spinning in the PSs of the world, Grand Theft Auto 2, Driver, and Syphon Filter. Grand Theft Auto 3 was a combination of the best features of all three of these, inside of a car, the game was basically an update of Driver; your action on foot was almost identical to that of Syphon Filter; finally, the whole thing was tied together by the open ended, kill-em-all, gangster/gangsta style of Grand Theft Auto 2.

It was a veritable wet dream for PS1 fanatics; and a defining moment for the PS2 platform.

Part of the success of this game is due to the fact that back in 2001, open ended (or “sandbox”) games were virtually unheard of; they just were not as popular or technologically feasible as more linear games. This game changed all that, not only was the mission structure non-linear, but the missions themselves almost without exception, totally non-linear. Instead of the player completing a mission by following pre-determined paths or utilizing a highly rare resource at the exact moment the programmer desired, the player could play through a mission HIS way.

This carried over to the rest of the game; you could play through the mission structure in the order you preferred, using whatever tools you happened to find.

It was new, it was fresh, and everyone ate it up. The success of GTA 3 made “sandbox” games an industry standard, and a slew of them followed, for every type of platform and every type of situation; but it all started with GTA 3.

The Bad
Okay, back in 2001, when this game was first released, the only real complaints that one could have about this game were because of the 1) shoddy camera system and 2) the shoddy targeting system. Even 4 years ago these systems were hard to use/control and glitchy.

Circa 2005, however, there are a whole host of complaints one could make about this game.

Graphics: This game looks pretty ugly by modern standards, the graphics are only slightly better than what one could expect from a PS1. Textures, resolution, etc. all bite the big one, and just can not compete up with anything released in the last 2 years.

Sounds/Music: Unlike modern games or any of the later GTA games, the music in this game is generally pretty awful. Most of the tunes in this game were created in-house at Rockstar/DMA and do reach the standards set by the soundtracks of Vice City or San Andreas.

Control: As mentioned above, the camera and targeting control in this game was bad back in 2001, it is HORRIBLE by today’s standards. You will constantly fight against these systems during this game.

Story: This game has a very thin storyline, nowhere near as developed as later GTA games. I believe that DMA purposely created the game this way to accentuate the open-endedness of the gameplay, but it is lacking nonetheless.

Gameplay: This is the one category where GTA 3 matches up with later games. You can do basically whatever you want, to whomever you want, wherever you want. As long as you don’t want to fly a helicopter, the gameplay is almost identical to Vice City.

The Bottom Line
This game was an instant classic when released. It has become a bit dated in the following years as newer games have refined and revamped it's basic formula.

The Good
Rockstar games have made some pretty intriguing titles in the past. The Grand Theft Auto series has a cult following to rival Doug & The Slugs, at least among the computer saavy. Well, Grand Theft Auto just fell out the window. Whether this game is allowed to even wear that moniker is still under debate for me.

I don't know what game engine this runs on, but it's awesome. There is linearity in the story and gameplay, but you can mess around with Liberty City as much as you feel you need to. It's a living, walking, talking, and driving city. Realism? You don't even have to go outside anymore, if you're a criminal.

Just as in the real world, there are consequences. If you steal a car in front of a cop, don't expect the cop not to notice. If you punch someone, they punch you back, and they may even pull out a gun. Don't screw with the mafia, or they'll screw with you. Same goes for the gangs. You steal a gang car, and you're in deep.

But damn, is this addictive. Hours can fly by just painting the town red. You steal a sports car, bomb around until you trash it, steal a cop car when they're not looking, cause havoc with the cops, kill some pedestrians, and whadya mean it's eleven o'clock? I don't wanna go to bed yet.

The Bad
As with almost every game, it could use some improvements. Along with this strenuous realism comes a cost, and that cost is PC hardware. You need a real decent system to run this game. Celerons, video cards with 16mb ram, of computers with less than 256mb RAM need not apply. Windows XP beahviour with NVidia cards sucks, but thats because Windows XP sucks. I run AMD700 with 64MB Geforce4 and 320Mb RAM and I just squeeze by at a decent frame rate, for instance.

The Bottom Line
Overall, this is probably the best game for game addicts to come along in a long time. Just don't apply with anything more than a year old, or like me, you'll be frustrated that this fictional world suffers a devastating case of frame-rate indigestion.

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!