Grand Theft Auto III

"You do ‘dis for me . . . and I’ll make you a made man . . ."

Grand Theft Auto III is not the pile of moral refuse that CNN would lead you to believe. It is not the equivalent of a NC-17 movie. Rockstar’s magnum opus is merely an unapologetic look at the epitome of an inner city, and how the shadier characters of the world operate. Think of Grand Theft Auto III as the digital personification of Chicago’s south side, or Yakuza headquarters in Japan. Think of Liberty City districts as LA’s Compton, with its violence, or Minneapolis’ Warehouse District, with its prostitutes and sex shops. A game like this captures what our corrupt world is really like and instead of scorning it, turning our heads away, we should embrace the title as one of our own and commend the developers for staying so grounded in reality.

One cannot think of Grand Theft Auto III as an excuse to beat up random civilians. That would make you feel guilty for playing it. Think of it as a way to get rid of all of your curiosities - so you will end up safer in real life. You will have already blown up a bus, so you shan’t need to do it again. Grand Theft Auto III is a way to get rid of all your foolish desires, your inner demons, so that your reality may remain safe and sound (and lawful).

Instead of being squeamish about Grand Theft Auto III do to its violent content, concerned parents can see this game in a new light: as an educational aid. I mean, can you really find a better way to prevent your daughter from becoming a prostitute? In GTA 3 when you need to ‘energize’ yourself, you find yourself a hooker, and invite her into your car. After the deed, you beat the hell out of her to get your money back - our lovable hero has to make a living too.

Prostitutes are glamorized as gods of the street and duchesses of the darkness in films and on television. At least paranoid soccer moms can know that Rockstar gave them a realistic representation of the life of a hooker as they chatter busily on cell phones while driving their Caravans.

The inclusion of prostitutes in Grand Theft Auto III is not for shock value alone. It is the method of healing your character. Yes, it’s an odd one, but no more odd than Duke Nukem going to the can. GTA 3 is not about shock value. All that the game does is give developers the freedom to create a world in which the law does not really matter, crime is rampant, and Italian mafia lords run the show. Think of it as a 1920’s Capone flick, but set in the modern day.

Sure, you may be a bit dismayed by the violent content, but you will likely be more surprised by all the good you can do. If you jack a police car, you can ride around town and bust up the other crooks. Stealing a taxi gives you the option to go on Crazy Taxi-esque missions in a much more realistic setting. And if you manage to pilfer an ambulance, you can take the victims that you just assaulted to the nearest hospital, in a driving simulation better than Sega’s dedicated Emergency Call Ambulance.

One addition that I would like to see in a future installment of Grand Theft Auto III is a more in-depth aiming system. Maybe one that sets of spasmodic reactions in the arm if you shoot a shoulder, or one that causes him to limp around if you nail his thigh. If the target is running away from you, and you cannot get a clear shot, just aim for the legs somewhere, to slow him down. Perhaps some objectives involving interrogation can be added, where you can threaten to shoot off a toe or finger to get the guy to talk. This would add another touch of realism to a game already grounded in reality. It would also allow the sadists in the world to have a bit more fun - “I want to see the arm shake! Hit the nerve in the shoulder!”

Another thing that will help make Grand Theft Auto IV even better than number 3 would be a few more mini-games. For example, say you drive past a basketball court. If you go out on to the court, you should be able to get a street game of two-on-two going. Maybe you can stop at a golf course and practice your putting, our get out at a tennis complex to play some mixed doubles. There are tons of things that Rockstar could add - bowling alleys, arcades, paintball - all of which would allow even more things to do. While I doubt that DMA Design will include any of those things in their sequel, I would hardly be surprised to see a new vehicle mini-game up, like 18 Wheeler. I think stealing semi’s and delivering their contents on time may be the newest addition in Grand Theft Auto IV.

While the sideshows play an enormous role in making Grand Theft Auto III the game that it is, the title would be nothing if it were not for your mercenary missions giving it all some form of purpose. There are a few crime lords within Liberty City, all of which have some business they would love for you to carry out for them. Each mafia kingpin has a specific order of missions, and they’ll cycle through that order until you have exhausted the supply of what they need you to do. These missions are quite varied, from destroying a few supply trucks to picking up some robbers from a heist at a bank downtown to sniping a vile foe from the top of a building. There is almost as much variety in these missions as there is in the wide open game itself, which is certainly a great thing.

The graphics in Grand Theft Auto III relay the gritty realism that Rockstar wanted Liberty City to respesent with authority. You will not be finding any cartoonish Mario-esque characters anywhere near this game. Rockstar tried to make anything and everything as true to life as humanly possible, and they succeeded for the most part.

The area of Grand Theft Auto III that I have the most problems with are the character models. Each of the characters seem to have the same general body structure with just some changes drawn on, especially when looking at the characters head on. Well, this works just fine for the male characters, but it makes the female characters look, well, horrible. They end up look like men wearing a t-shirt with their outfit drawn on, with a pyramid stuffed down their shirt. Not a pretty picture.

While Rockstar Games seems to have spent an awful long time making GTA 3’s environments full of life, they could have designed some more variety in the scenery. Cities that are true to life do not have buildings all in the same general style. In the real world, you will find an adobe house over here, a stucco tower over there, a brick building next door to a concrete facade, et cetera. In Liberty City, you will find row after row of concrete, drab, gray buildings. While I know that Rockstar wanted Grand Theft Auto III to have that criminal sort of feel, and drab colors heighten that feeling, they could have perhaps made their masterpiece more realistic with some varieties in the edifices populating the violent town.

Speaking of drab and boring, how about those character’s outfits? If you are a goth, you will feel right at home playing Grand Theft Auto III. Every character seems to be wearing brown, gray, or black. We need some color in these outfits! Something else that would have been kind of cool is to get some name-brand clothing licenses in here. You know, some preppy guy could be wearing Ralph Lauren, the hookers could be wearing a really slutty Vera Wang number, the mob bosses could be styling in their Armani suits - we need insane detail like that in games today!

The car models featured are quite varied as well. However, for most of the specific models, only one color choice is featured. I want to see all of the different car models with various color choices to help liven up the roadways! A few more vehicle models would not hurt anything either. Once again, some more variety within Liberty City would make it seem a more realistic destination, which would make Grand Theft Auto III even more eerie and earthly. Currently the metropolis is one in which you carry out the vile deeds of earth in a monotonous parody of an earth city. Changing things up would make GTA 3 a far deeper beast, one of the few things you could compain about in this game.

One thing that no one can complain about in Grand Theft Auto III is a lack of musical variety. By default, you really will not hear much music in this title. But, by flipping on the radio you can come across a wealth of music stations, from classical to rock to talk. You are sure to find a station that comes to your liking. Even if you are quite selective in your musical tastes, the talk station, called the ‘Chatterbox,’ should hold your interest as you listen to the DJs banter with callers. Or else you could simply play Grand Theft Auto III without music, helping to relay the stress that your hitman should be feeling in the middle of a high speed police chase.

While the music in Grand Theft Auto III is quite diverse, I still have some issues with it. I first of all would have liked to have a ska station available. So if DMA Design and Rockstar are planning on adding any stations for a sequel, I hope that one is considered. (I’m from Minnesota - land of the crappy radio stations. If a ska station was found in GTA 3 it would be the only one in my state.) Also, I would have really liked a barrage of good licensed music. This was an opportunity to include a variety of quality music across multiple genres, and I feel that the developers fell short. With the monstrous success of Grand Theft Auto III, I hope Rockstar will have enough in their budget to spring for some high buck songs for the motley crew of stations.

The sound effects in Grand Theft Auto III are spectacular. The intricately crafted dialogue really brings life to the game on many levels. Especially entertaining are the crime lords with the Godfather accents. Almost every character in all of Liberty City will have a realistic vocal reaction to your every whim. If you try to jack their car, they’ll not only yell and scream, but they’ll fight back as well. (Which allows for some punching and kicking effects.) If you shoot some poor guy with your Baretta, you will probably hear a gasp from a shocked woman nearby.

As I mentioned before the ‘battle’ sound effects are great too. I already mentioned the punching, and gunfire, explosions, and the like are certainly on par. Some of my personal favorites sounds are those of the whirring helicopter blades overhead as you are chased by the police and the military. Voices are altered by megaphones as a sergeant threatens you, sirens blare as you cruise down busy downtown streets, cars honk every single time you cut them off - Grand Theft Auto III captures the essence of how atmospheric good sound effects can make a game.

It is quite evident that Rockstar had DMA Design spend a lot of time working on a good control scheme as well as the sound effects, because everything - from driving the vehicles to aiming your guns - works with near perfect accuracy, which is something quite important when trying to snipe a target. The control scheme is so simplistic that it works like a charm. Walking, jumping, firing your weaponry, all has been reduced to a two-button interface that is so basic it is genius. No flaws come when maneuvering your character around.

Vehicles also control with ease. Grand Theft Auto III uses the basic PlayStation racing controls for your vehicle, ‘X’ being go and ‘Circle’ being stop (not that you will be breaking a whole lot). My one problem with the vehicle controls is that the cars are a little bit too drifty, and you will likely encounter some difficulties going around the sharpest corners, which can cause you to lose some valuable seconds in a high speed chase. After a while you will learn to combat the drifting, though, and then you should be outrunning the police with ease.

Even when not controlling a vehicle, Grand Theft Auto III is certainly a game that has an ability to suck players in, because of how wide-open the game is. (I am terribly sorry if I sound redundant). Even if you hate the missions, you could probably have fun with GTA 3 just playing the mini-games, or cruising around Liberty City, seeing the sights and hearing the sounds. My personal favorite Grand Theft Auto III activity is to get a high-speed chase going. What better way to kill a few hours around town than to get the cops all in a frenzy? Exactly! There is not one!

Even if getting the L. C. P. D. riled up is not your idea of fun, you’ll find something to make Grand Theft Auto III worthwhile, be it street races, taxi runs, or ambulance rescue missions. Maybe just owning the game to see the look on your grandma’s face will provide you with enough fun to make a purchase. No matter how you go about it, Grand Theft Auto III has something for everyone, except those highly conservative types that listen to Dr. Laura and Rush Limbaugh, and spend afternoons watching Martha Stewart Living.

For some, just wandering around this busy metropolis will provide fun enough, just to see all of the secrets that Rockstar and DMA Designs included in every orifice. Each time you will travel through an area, you will find some little nuance, a detail that you have missed each time previously, even if you are standing at a spot you have come across two dozen times before. Grand Theft Auto III causes you to be always watching for where the action is, eyes scanning the horizon for the next thing to do. It kind of makes you feel like you are the star of The Fugitive, even when you are completely abiding by the laws, even stopping at every light and crossing the street only at crosswalks.

Grand Theft Auto III is by no means an easy game, whether you try to play it as law-abiding or as rebellious as you can. Your felony rating moves up quite quickly after you get the first star filled, and it is a painstaking, boring, next to impossible process to get that rating down again. Some of the missions require absolute precision - one wrong step, turn, or shot will cause you to fail. Your foes, targets, and law enforcement officials will do everything in their power to prevent you from reaching your ultimate goal, and Rockstar has put such advanced artificial intelligence in all of the drones, that they actually hinder your progress. If you go into Grand Theft Auto III expecting a cakewalk, you are in for a rough ride. It is far better to go into every mission expecting the wrong thing to happen at the wrong time. You know, the taxi cab turn in front of you in a high speed chase, some idiot hooker to walk in front of your target while you are sniping and alert him that you are there, things like that. If you prepare for the worse-cased scenario you should be able to handle everything that Grand Theft Auto III can throw at you.

Liberty City has a wealth of things for you to do, which is sure to keep you playing Grand Theft Auto III for quite a while, probably until you finish out all of the missions from all of the crime lords. But even committing various acts that are morally reprehensible can get boring after a while. Once you do beat all of those missions, there really is not a whole lot of life left in GTA 3. I occasionally go into my file, drive around a bit, shoot some stuff, and play the police mini-game, but that is really about it. Luckily it will take quite a while to finish off all of the missions, which makes Grand Theft Auto III still worth the purchase, even with the light replay value. Even committing various acts that are morally reprehensible can get boring after a while.

Grand Theft Auto III is only as violent of a game as you let it become. If you want to attack random passerby on the off chance they have fifty bucks in their pocket, so be it. However, a more conservative player could get a lot out of GTA III easily. They could merely steal a taxi, a cop car, or an ambulance, and do some of the less violent mini-games and still get quite a bit out of Rockstar’s landmark title. Do not let Joseph Lieberman make your gaming decisions for you - Grand Theft Auto III is a title that cannot be missed, even if you’re squeamish and afraid of what your clergy would think.

PROS
*Completely wide-open gameplay design.
*Plenty of distractions are featured.
*Rockstar has attention to detail like no one else.

CONS
*Character designs could slightly be improved.
*Media has made Grand Theft Auto III out to be the devil incarnate.
*There are only three ‘boroughs’ of Liberty City.

SCORE SUMMARY

GAMEPLAY--10
GRAPHICS--8
MUSIC--9
SOUND--8
CONTROL--9
FUN--9
CHALLENGE--MEDIUM TO HIGH
REPLAY VALUE--MEDIUM

OVERALL--9

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/04/02, Updated 08/04/02