Grand Theft Auto III

"My Hands Are All Messed Up, So You Better Type, Brother"

Grand Theft Auto has come a long way. But, who can forget the game that really gave the series it's name? The game that took some mediocre games from the PS and created a blockbuster game? Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto III did.

The game revolutionized games. It was so shocking (at the time) and so over the top and that's why I've decided to take this old game back out and write a review for it.

You are Claude (you learn his name in GTA: San Andreas at the end) and in the opening scenes of the game you are betrayed by your girlfriend, Catalina. She shoots you in the face and runs off with your partner Miguel. The cops take you in and on their way of transporting you a bunch of Colombians bail out a prisoner you're with. In the process you and your prison buddy of sorts, 8-Ball, escape. You make your way to Luigi's Club and that's where the story begins.

This is one of the funnest games of all time. If you don't feel like doing the storyline missions, you can just cause mayhem across the city. Or do races and various other little extra missions. Including missions where you have to kill a certain number of gang members in a time-limit. There's also missions where you can control RC cars and you have to blow-up gang cars in a enclosed time.

Most people cheat on this game, but mostly just to mess around. Using the weapon cheats and using the tank cheat to wreck the city is just plain entertaining.

I've read reviews where people bash the game. Why?! I don't see anything much too wrong with it besides a few setbacks. The game is near perfection! People, don't listen to the bad reviews. This game is a game no one should miss!

There are a lot of little easter eggs that you can find. For example some of the billboards have the Rockstar logo on it and there is a guy named Tanner in one of the Yakuza missions on Staunton Island. Tanner is parodying the character Tanner from the Driver games. Rockstar makes him run like a girl, it's funny. Plus the Yakuza girl says, "He's pretty much useless outside of his car," which is a great joke at the developers of Driver.

There is a lot of other little things you can do while walking around. This includes finding all the hidden packages or even picking up a hooker. When you pick up a hooker, your life increases over a hundred. So, if you're about to undertake in a difficult mission, grab a ho!

The way Ammu-Nation is set-up in this game is kind of weird. The guns are just floating in the store and the armor is a blue floating thing with green on it. Thankfully, Rockstar fixed that in the new games.

There are "police bribes" in which you can pick up to bring your wanted level down. These are especially helpful in missions when the cops are just bombarding you! You can also go to the Pay 'N Spray (if you can find it) to lose the heat.

The game can be pretty difficult at times and at times pretty easy. At first the games missions are pretty easy. The missions are pretty much to introduce you to the main characters and get you started on the game. Also to get you a little into the storyline.

Then the missions get difficult. Sometimes you'll spend so much time focusing on one mission then find an easy way to do it and beat it with a lot of ease. After a few hard missions, the difficult slows down a bit so you can get back into the story without having to worry about what the next mission might hold. The missions soon get hard again and etc.

Money is a lot easier to come by in this game then the newer versions. You can get well over 200,000 just on the first island without doing any extra missions! I'm not complaining, but that takes some of the difficulty out of the game that the newer ones bring. Especially in San Andreas, where all you get is respect. I think that aspect should've been in this one, but oh well.

There are some other types of missions you can do. Like, side missions for the guy that works in the Dog Food factory in Portland. You can also do Taxi Missions. All you have to do is get in a Taxi and push down on R3. Then you can drive around and pick up fares then take them to wherever they want to go. This is a great way to get money, even though I doubt you'd need extra money for something.

There are also Ambulance Missions. These are where you pick up injured pedestrians and take them to the hospital. This is also a way to get money. Something else you can do are Fire Truck Missions where you drive around and put out fires.

I found the street races in this game to be extremely difficult. The cars in GTA III blow up faster then in Vice City or San Andreas so you have to be careful. Also, you can't really get a fast car on the first island (besides the Banshee).

One of the setbacks to this game is that it's too short. Sure, there are extra stuff you can do, but the main storyline isn't long enough. If only this game was longer, maybe it could've reached the perfect ten.

The controls are pretty straight-forward. You can run, shoot etc. But, NO swimming. Nobody in Liberty City can swim, apparently.

The aiming in this game is pretty junky though. When you're in close-range gun fights it becomes difficult to take out your opponent before he gets in some critical shots. The only way to really pick off enemies and be successful is by standing far away and getting out the sniper rifle.

The jumping is pretty low-rate too. You can only jump straight and forward, which looks pretty dorky. You can't grab onto edges to pull yourself up to places which makes some of the missions that should be easy more difficult.

The map is also a problem in this GTA. In the Grand Theft Autos after this, the map shows whether your destination is above you or below you. Which really helps in picking out what route to take on a timed mission. There is also no map on the pause screen, which can become very annoying when you can't find a place. This is especially so with Ammu-Nation and the Pay N' Spray, because even if you're close to them, they don't appear on the map. So, unless you want to memorize the citites, hope that the game you rented or bought came with a map.

The graphics are kind of low-rate. The people look like they are segmented and the lights bring out this little string thing that gets annoying. The people's hands look weird, but graphics don't make a game fun. So, I'm not going to down it for having bad graphics.

The sound in this game is spectacular. If you're bored you can get in a car (the cars actually have some good graphics, by the way) and listen to the radio stations. Most people listen to the game's ChatterBox radio station because it's hilarious. I would find myself laughing while on a very difficult mission, which helped me clear my head and I calmed down a bit (this game is really tough).

The pedestrians are funny too. When you're walking around or driving around you can hear their shouts to each other that are all so funny.

Like I said, the game is pretty short. It might actually take you a few days, though, because of some of the difficulty of the missions. I wouldn't play it again, because who would want to relive some of those nightmarish missions?!

You should rent this game. Since the newer Grand Theft Autos are out, and it's pretty short. It's a great game though, just plauged by aiming, the map system, and it's game length.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/02/06