Finally..... (Grand Theft Auto III (PC))

Member Name: Bezuk

Product:	Grand Theft Auto III (PC)
Date:	16/06/02 (901 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Amazing freedom of choice, Like many games rolled into one, Works on every level

Disadvantages: Similar missions, Money system doesn't really work, Very system intensive

Sequels, especially to very big or high profile games, can have a lot of trouble living up to expectations based on the success of the original. They have to try and maintain the good elements from the original, while improving the bad things and evolving the game enough to make it worth the players' while. Needless to say, it's quite common for big sequels to fail to do this. Many people, for example, considered Grand Theft Auto 2 inferior to the original, myself included. However, once in a while a game comes along that shocks the gaming world by showing it what a sequel can be. This game is Grand Theft Auto 3.

Grand Theft Auto 3 (GTA3) is one of those rare examples of a game that's playable on every level. Almost every element in the game, from the outstanding 3D engine to the atmospheric and often hilarious radio, has been near-perfectly implemented. You really get the impression from playing it that this game is what Rockstar (formerly DMA Design) really wanted this series to be, even back when GTA 1 was first created. While the original GTA in particular was very enjoyable, it lacked the coherence of a truly great game. In any case, GTA 3 outclasses it and its sequel on every level.

Back to basics. In GTA 3 you play a criminal who is arrested for bank robbery in the introduction. After you are set free by an attack on the police convoy carrying you, you're plunged into the game. After completing a couple of simple tasks designed to get you used to the controls while on foot and in a car, and using the radar to find objectives, the game proper begins. And from there, you can do anything you like. This is one of the game's major strengths - there's simply so much to do!

Right from the word go, the game does an extremely good job of immersing you in a living, breathing city. Pedestrians go about their business; the roads are fully populated with vehicles of all shapes and sizes, with drivers that routinely hurl
insults at you when you get in the way. When in a car, the radio fills you in on current events, making you feel like you're in a real city, rather than a generic computer-generated environment. Planes take off and land from the airport. It's extremely convincing, and although I don't say this often, it's largely due to the amazing graphics engine. A 3D engine really puts you in the game, rather than the disconnected top-down view of the originals.

And short of entering buildings, you can interact with this world in pretty much any way you see fit. Start a fistfight with a pedestrian, for example; some will fight back, some will flee in terror. Sooner or later an ambulance will show up to tend to your victims. On foot you have limited mobility - a fairly slow speed, plus a limited ability to sprint, and you're vulnerable. However, you'll eventually have full access to a meaty arsenal of weapons, making you rather dangerous. Nabbing a car affords you much greater mobility and limited protection from harm depending on the vehicle chosen - just remember to get out when it sets on fire.

The city that comprises the game, Liberty City, consists of three islands, loosely themed as industrial sector, commercial sector, and suburbia. Initially you'll only have access to the first, Portland. The second and eventually third islands are unlocked by completing the career missions and thereby advancing the game. You can go and take a career mission from whichever crime boss you might happen to be working for at any time by making for one of the circles with a letter inside it marked on the highly useful radar. Career missions start out as simple errands but progress to much more dangerous and more 'criminal' activities. You can also perform optional payphone missions that become available as you progress through the career ones.

If you're ever bored of those, you can hop in certain types of vehicle and activate t
he special mission mode. If you grab a taxi, the special mission involves collecting people and getting them to their destination against the clock. Net yourself a police car and you can perform the Vigilante special mission and hunt down and kill criminals (incidentally, you can also do this mission in a SWAT truck, FBI car, or tank). Activating it while in a fire truck sees you putting out fires using the mounted water hose, and the trickiest of the lot, the ambulance, requires you to ferry the injured to the hospital against a very cruel timer, where even the slightest bump causes the timer to drop sharply. Completing these special missions nets you powerups at your hideout (vehicle storage and save point) on each island.

Your biggest opponent in Liberty consists of the various authorities. The extent to which they want you is measured by a set of stars on the screen. The more criminal acts you perform, the higher it goes. At one star, the cops aren't really bothered, and might chase you for a while before losing interest. Two sees multiple cop cars chase you more aggressively, and at three large numbers of cars will attempt to stop you at all costs, along with a helicopter being scrambled to assist and roadblocks being formed. At four stars SWAT teams are sent in with their Enforcer trucks, with dozens of police cars and multiple helicopters. With five stars the police give up on you and hand it over to the FBI, who'll smash into you with so many of their fast black cars that you'll be forced to abandon your vehicle very fast, at which point they cut you down with their AK-47s. If you survive to six stars, the Army are tasked with the dubious privilege of stopping you, with huge armoured transports and.. yep, tanks. Being overwhelmed by police, FBI or army officers (busted) or being killed (wasted) causes you to be returned to the local police station or hospital respectively, losing all your weapons and a small amount of cash, and resetting
your wanted rating.

One of the most fun aspects of the game is reaching and surviving each wanted rating, and having games with the police, seeing how long you can survive and how many enemy cars you can get to commit suicide by flipping themselves over or leaping into the sea. Although you'll find it impossible to attract the wrath of the FBI (five stars) while on the first island, and the Army (six stars) are never called out against anyone who's not reached the third island, one of the most difficult of the game's many tasks is capturing each type of vehicle that is sent against you. The FBI car in particular is very hard to get. Of course collecting a tank from the dangerous M-16 equipped Army officers carries rewards in itself, as the tank is equipped with a fully working cannon, and even incidental, minor collisions with it (from any direction) result in the immediate fiery demise of whichever vehicle happens not to be an armoured war machine. Joy!

Completists will find plenty to do in GTA 3. There are 100 cleverly hidden packages to find, for each 10 you will be credited with a free weapon at your hideout. Collecting the lot gets you near enough every weapon for free there. You can also complete the twenty Rampages, which require you to kill a certain number of a certain vehicle or gang member inside a time limit. There are also many stunts you can pull off with your car, of which 20 in the game are impressive enough to be named as Unique stunts and are waiting to be found. You can even take the time to learn to fly the awkward Dodo plane available at the airport on the third island. It's very hard, but as with most everything in the game, very rewarding.

In terms of presentation, the game is near flawless. Game engine cinematics introduce the missions, and a combination of this and excellent voice acting ensures a much more coherent experience than previous games in the series. The visuals cannot be faulted in any
way. Controls are great - mouselook makes aiming a breeze and keyboard controls for vehicles are fine, although gamepad aficionados may prefer that option. And the radio is simply superb. There are ten stations, offering a wide variety of music. Each also features some hilarious adverts, and is simply full of funny comments. The talkshow, Chatterbox, merits specific mention, as it must rate as one of the funniest things I've ever heard in a computer game. All radio stations suit the game perfectly and you can even make your own with MP3s if you like.

For all its brilliance, it's not without a few flaws. The game's missions are usually fairly similar, and despite the fact you continually move to new bosses the game doesn't really seem like it's going anywhere, until this improves considerably on the final stretch of missions. Also, the game gives you a lot of money, partially depending on how much of the optional portion you do, which there isn't really a lot of use for. Even the most expensive weapon, at $25,000, isn't comparable to how much money you'll have at that stage. And finally, a quick moan about the requirements. As always it's the graphics card that's the charm. With any GeForce 3 or GeForce 4 Ti card you'll be sitting pretty, and you'll also make the grade with a high end GeForce 2 or GeForce 4 MX. Radeon 8500 owners should also be fine. With any of this and a CPU at about 800MHz or higher and at least 256 MB you'll be OK.

It may have been a long time coming to the PC, but it's been worth every minute. It's a simply extraordinary gaming experience. Rockstar have outdone themselves. An absolute must buy to fans of any genre.

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