Grand Theft Auto III [PS2/2001]

System Played: Playstation 2

Year Released: 2001

Year Reviewed: 2017

From Scottish developer, DMA Design (rechristened following their success, as RockStar North), Grand Theft Auto III is the original carjacking crime sim, well, that’s not true, there’s a ‘3’ in the name, but you know what I mean...

Structurally similar to previous games in the series, GTA3 took the big leap into “3D”, which propelled the franchise into the AAA mega leagues, from which it has never looked back.

The game could be described as a sandbox action game, a crime simulator, a controversy magnet, and certainly one of the most influential and imitated games of the 2000’s.

The intro sequence see’s your silent and unnamed protagonist (although he is called Claude) betrayed during a botched heist, and ending up on his way to the big house.

On the way, your prison transport vehicle gets jacked, busting some other prisoner out. It’s a lucky break for you and your mate, 8-ball, who make a run for it.

Set again in Liberty City (a caricature of your typical US metropolis), you start out at the bottom, doing seedy and criminal jobs for various scumbags.

Each success earns you some cash, further job opportunities, and eventually a second and third island become accessible, as you work your way up the ranks of various and competing crime organisations.

A mix of driving and on foot sections, missions are all variations on the theme of driving around and murdering folk.

To the developers credit, you never feel like you’re just doing the same things over and over. It feels like there is some variety, even if there isn’t.

On foot, you run around the streets causing mischief with various guns, a baseball bat, or failing that, your fists.

The lock-on mechanics for firing guns that don’t have a first-person view aren’t great. You have little control over who it decides to target, often the innocent civilian closest to you rather than the guy stood next to him obliterating your health bar with a machine gun.

Luckily, most of the missions are more vehicle focussed.

“Borrowing” cars is literally as straightforward as standing in the street, ripping the current occupier (/owner) out, jumping in and driving off. Maybe even back over them a few times if you feel like it...

Once behind the wheel, you follow mission objective markers on the sat nav style mini-map displayed on the bottom left of the screen.

Different cars handle with various degrees of comfort. Some missions mandate you to use a specific type, while others allow you to select something appropriate. Your vehicle can make all the difference of whether you succeed in a mission or not, with considerations like whether you require speed, weight, etc.

It’s usually more convenient to just mow a guy down or perform a drive by from the comfort of your recently borrowed car, rather than reverting to on foot. It also provides protection from enemy guns, up to a point, until the engine sets alight and you have a couple of seconds to get clear, before it explodes.

Whether straight-up murderin’ folk in the street for a mission, or just for ‘fun’ as you play around in the sandbox environment, committing blatant crimes raises your ‘Wanted’ level.

This attracts the attention of the authorities, starting with the boys in blue of the LCPD. A couple of Stars on the meter, you can come back from by keeping a low profile (or collecting special tokens).

Even a single Star is enough for a cop to bust you on the street, but continued bad behaviour will see their response increase to squad cars and SWAT helicopters, as they decide it’s less trouble to just kill, rather than apprehend you.

Persist up to five and six Stars, and you attract the no nonsense attention of the Feds and even the Army. It isn’t going to end well for you by this point.

Luckily, this is a video game, so whether you’re arrested or outright blown to smithereens, it’s nothing a quick respawn at the closest hospital or police station can’t instantly remedy.

The only consequences are the loss of all your weapons, a bit of cash, and increasingly, wasted time.

Failing a mission multiple times can be very annoying, especially since you’ll have to find your way back to the objective marker each time to reinitiate the mission (which could be on the other side of the game map).

Even with the mini-map and objective markers, the road layouts can be confusing. A level of familiarity is required, especially for missions with a strict time limit, which are as fun here as they always are.

Fancy a break from missions or aimless destruction? You might like to moonlight as a cab driver, hop into a fire truck, ambulance, or become a vigilante cop for a bit.

In addition to the various vehicles, you can also commandeer boats, tanks, helicopters and planes, kind of, with no wings...

There’s some colourful characters walking the streets of Liberty City, mostly clones of The Village People apparently. The streets aren’t too crowded in GTA 3, perhaps more due to hardware constraints?

Graphically the game isn’t going to impress anyone today, but the production values were high for the time. Voice talent includes various actors familiar with the genre. Joe Pantoliano, Michael Madsen, and anybody else from Goodfellas and/or The Sopranos.

The standout are the radio stations, offering a diverse musical selection and spoof talk shows/commercials, as you’re driving around like a deranged maniac. The comedy is still decent, lampooning the idiocy of the US, with Chatterbox and Flashback my preference. I’m not keen on any of the others here.

The stations are on much smaller loops than in the sequels, with only around 3.5 hours of audio across them all in total. This isn’t a lot compared to the games runtime, and so they do get repetitive.

There isn’t as much side ‘stuff’ to do in Grand Theft Auto III compared to a lot of more modern sandbox games, but I kind of liked that focus.

A few elements aren’t quite perfect, like the weapon lock-on mechanics, or the limited radio selection. Or it could set it in the 1980’s! But it still stands as one of the greats.

9/10