Review #506: Grand Theft Auto III

 One for the history books.

Classic. That's what this cover says.

 Even if you don't play videogames you've heard of Grand Theft Auto, and we've GTA III to thank for that, the game that catapulted the series into the mainstream and became a trendsetter, to an even grander degree than Street Fighter II. For all intents and purposes, GTA III is an undeniable classic, but has it gone out of style?

 The game pits you as the mute, and then unnamed, Claude who gets betrayed, does the time... or some of it, since he gets away after the police vehicle transporting him gets assaulted. Thus begins Claude's story of taking jobs from the mob and the Yakuza until he gets to have his sweet revenge. The story is much less present than in future games, and while you can tell that a few characters, like Asuka, have very distinct and engaging personalities and quirks it's not as pronounced as it would be in future games. There're a few interesting characters waiting to be met, but you might be left wanting to learn more of them.

Claude be rolling, they be hatin'.

 While not the first sandbox game ever, this one is the one that set the standard. You're left to your own devices on a wide, open city. A random passerby looks at you funny? Kill him. Fancy a ride? Steal it. Fancy doing paramedic missions? Steal an ambulance and bring wounded people to the hospital. But be careful, cause too much mayhem and the police will be on your tail, ready to catch you, rid you of your weapons and forcing you to pay the bail. And once you tire of all of this, just run to the nearest named NPC and complete missions, from tailing people, murdering people, performing in races, stealing cars and what have you. There's a nice variety of missions to partake in and you'll never be doing the same things for too long, since they like putting twists here and there.

 Most of the missions involve driving and can be finished without stepping out of the driver's seat, and that's for the best since the shooting is clunky to say the least. You must get withing a certain distance of the enemy and hold R1 to aim at them, and then hope that your bullets travel in the right way towards their target. Some weapons will root you to the ground, while others let you shoot while running. Regardless, most firefights feel as if it depends on luck whether you get hit or not. Dying or getting arrested means losing all your weapons and ammo too, so you might as well just reload your savefile, lest you want to scavenge and spend money on weapons all over again. But don't get too attached to your supplies, the final mission takes away all your coveted guns and ammo. Lame!

The construction site is one of Liberty City's few memorable places.

 Mind you, while driving has aged better than gunning, it has aged nonetheless. Cars feel stiff to turn, yet will easily slip if it rains. They also seem very fragile and will spin out when bumping tiny obstacles. You have almost no control of the camera, you have to hold L2 to look to the left, R2 to look to the right and hold both to look behind you, but you don't get all 360 degrees of camera control. It's even worse on foot, since you can only look behind you by holding R3. To say that the camera sucks is an understatement. The cherry on top is that there's no big map of the Liberty City, you only get the mini-map... which is lacking icons for Pay 'n Sprays(Shops to fix your car or change your car's paintjob and thus elude the police) and Ammunation(Gun shops) which is pretty lackluster. Lacking a big map hurts the most though, some missions are tougher because you aren't too sure of where you're going to.

 Another issue is Liberty City itself: It's boring. The city is made up of a lot of grays and dull-looking buildings and architecture. It's a boring city that lacks color or memorable landmarks. Both issues are addressed in subsequent games, mind you, but it's hard not to notice just how dull GTA III's city is in comparison to future games' cities. Another problem are the gangs, you'll make enemies in the city and they're deadly, it gets so annoying that combing the city for stuff that you're missing, any of the 100 hidden packages or the optional telephone missions, becomes a hassle since there's always someone on your tail, and some gangs are downright deadly with their firepower. It also gets annoying since in this game the police will only target you, and if you fire back and there's a cop nearby, well, the cop will join the gang in taking you down. Fun.

The Police Department is a good place to stock up on shotgun ammo.

 All things considered, the game has held up relatively well. The controls while clunky are serviceable, and you can get used to them. You won't like how guns work, but you can get used to them. But even then, the missions in the game are pretty fun, and it's always interesting seeing what comes next. That said, while the game can still be fun to this day, there's something that can't be denied: Every single GTA game that came afterwards blows this one completely out of the water, to the point that there's almost no reason to return to this rendition of Liberty City unless you're interested in GTA's 3D roots. And that's the problem: Future games improved too much upon it, fixing what didn't work and polishing what did.
6.5 out of 10