Grand Theft Auto III

"Incredible game, but doesn't live up to the hype..."

If you are even vaguely familiar with the world of video games, you've undoubtedly heard about the infamous ''Grand Theft Auto 3'', the best-selling game of 2001. Its free-roaming gameplay and violent content made it a hit with hardcore gamers and the mainstream public alike. The PC version of ''Auto 3'' retains all of the exciting features of the Playstation 2 version, while adding some nice extras.

''Auto 3'' places you in the role of a mafia lackey who's just been busted out of prison after being betrayed by his girlfriend. You take jobs from various crime bosses who live in the fictional metropolis of Liberty City, a seedy hole filled with corrupt cops, prostitutes, and criminal scumbags. In case, you haven't gathered this yet, this game is not for the young or squeamish. Throughout the course of the game you'll perform assassinations, rob banks, and blow up lots of public property, so you might want to pass on getting this one for those impressionable little ones.

The game's structure gives you plenty of freedom. At any given time, you can visit various criminals for jobs to carry out for them. Once you complete the mission, you're automatically awarded the cash, and you can start a new mission if you want to. Most of the missions advance the storyline, but there are plenty of optional missions for you to complete. Missions vary from killing off a rival to racing cars around the city to sniping gang members while protecting an ally.

When you're not on a mission you're free to do whatever you want. You can steal a taxi and start picking up fares or hijack an ambulance and pick up patients. However, most players will probably spend their time going on rampages killing as many people as possible. A meter in upper left corner keeps track of how alert authorities are to your violent acts. One star is pretty trivial and goes away quickly. Kill a few cops or a lot of people to reach two stars, and cops will start swerving wildly to stop you from driving. Keep up the carnage without being killed yourself and you'll reach three and four stars and helicopters will be sent in to take you out. At five stars the FBI and SWAT teams will be on your tail. Max out at six stars and the military will come in with tanks. Seeing how far you can go is a lot of fun and an interesting challenge.

Controls in ''Grand Theft Auto 3'' take a while to learn. Fortunately the game practically leads you by the hand in the beginning to show you how to control the your hitman. Lots of handy little windows pop up to explain the intricacies of the game to you. One of the biggest complaints about the Playstation 2 version is that the auto-aiming feature is tricky to work with. The PC version virtually destroys this fallacy by allowing the player to aim with the mouse. When it comes to driving, steering the vehicles you hijack is easy and each one handles like you'd expect in real life.

''Auto 3''s' graphics, while not bad, aren't exactly eye-catching. However, the PC version boasts sharper textures than its console cousin and you can run it in ultra-high resolutions on your monitor. You'll need a fairly powerful computer to run the game though. My PC meets all the ''recommended'' specs on the box and I still had to turn all the settings (draw distance, frame sync, frame delimiter, etc.) all the way down for the game to run smoothly. It's unimaginable how choppy the game must be on a PC that just meets the ''minimum'' requirements.

The audio is no slouch, however. You can choose between eight different radio stations whenever you're riding in your car. The music varies from rap to techno to opera, so there's plenty of variety. You can also play your own mp3s on a separate station. The developers employed professional voice actors for the characters, including Hollywood talent like Michael Rappaport, Kyle MacLachlan, and Joe Pantoliano. The extra effort pays off big time; every character's voice fit his or her part. Cops sound like cops, taxi drivers sound like taxi drivers, and prostitutes sound like prostitutes (not that I know anything about that).

The game picked up a couple of extras on its way to the PC. You can create custom skins for your character. A number of skins are downloadable from different fan sites. Some people have figured out how to hack into the game and customize the cars you drive. Finally, you can also download mods for the game, and there are sure to be plenty as time goes on.

Once you complete all the missions, there's plenty of stuff left to do. 100 packages are littered throughout the game's three massive environments that unlock free weapons for you. There are some hidden ''rampage'' mini-games that challenge you to kill a certain number of people in a given amount of time. Of course, if nothing else you can always resort to the usual pedestrian-hitting, cop-killing, rocket-launching, tank-stealing carnage we've all come to love.

Overall, ''Grand Theft Auto 3'' is a landmark game that will be talked about for years to come. Any faults the game has are dwarfed by the sheer number of things you can do at any given time.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/05/02, Updated 12/05/02