Quite Possibly The Best Game Ever (Grand Theft Auto III (PC))

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Product:	Grand Theft Auto III (PC)
Date:	18/10/02 (57 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great Graphics, Long Life, Sheer Fun

Disadvantages: ?

Grand Theft Auto III.
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So I've finally got round to doing this op. I had it planned as my 10th on Dooyoo. Now, here I am, writing it for the 21st slot. Hope you enjoy it and find it useful. Richard.

When I say this is one of the best games of all time, I really do mean it. It truly is superb. There is no other game I think can think of that allows you to drive around a vast, incredibly realistic city with all the freedom you want, like this does. There is a great feeling off satisfaction you can get by just speeding off down the highway, swerving around other cars and running away from the police. No other game lets you be speeding down a street in a fast car one minute, then riding the waves on a speedboat the next. Grand Theft Auto III will take you from Airport Runways to cliff tops, huge suspension bridges to the roofs of skyscrapers, and much, much more.
But some people may find it a little gory. You can literally blow limbs off people, or even set fire to them, and watch them die in a bloody massacre. You can run people other, blow up buildings and crash cars. That is why the game is rated 18!
If you're planning to buy this game, buy it now.

So What Is It?
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Grand Theft Auto III follows the tales of one nameless, criminal bloke around a huge city, Liberty City. After being betrayed and left for his girlfriend, you take control of him and lead him between the huge rival gangs that roam the city, completing dangerous missions whilst trying to avoid the police and other gangs just to try and survive.

Grand Theft Auto III is officially the sequel to Grand Theft Auto II, but you wouldn't believe it. For one thing, it's been made mostly by a different developer. But the main difference is how differently the game plays. No longer are you limited to almost 2D, over-head graphics, now you're down on the street from a first-person view, with stun
ning graphics.

Grand Theft Auto III is also available on the PlayStation 2, but this op focuses on the more recent PC version.

The Setting
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The game is set in a fictional city called Liberty City (one of the cities in the original Grand Theft Auto was called Liberty City, but that's the only thing they share in common). Liberty City is full of towering skyscrapers, shops, offices, houses, and many more interesting features. Having visited both those places, I can say that Liberty City is clearly based partly on New York and Chicago, over many different reasons, although no doubt it's also based on others as well.

Liberty City is full of interesting locations to find an explore, like the observatory and the sports stadium. Doted everywhere are rude and subtle adverts. One for radio station Head Radio reads: GIVE HEAD Radio a Listen. I'll leave you to work that out for yourself...

In the Original Grand Theft Auto game, there were 3 small cities available. Now there is just one, divide into 3 large sections. Liberty City is divided into three islands. You start off only with Portland, but as you progress through the game, the over two become available individually. All you have to do is drive between the districts and wait just few seconds for them to load up, that's all it takes.

Portland:
A small industrial district featuring Chinatown, a red light district and the Mafia base. The main feature here is the Industrial Districts, full of warehouses, Bus Depots, and of course the Docks, where you will find, huge, working cranes, container vessels and lots of vacant vehicles.
Staunton Island - (clearly based on Manhattan, with elements of Chicago). This area becomes available after completion of Portland. It is here where you will spend most of your game playing time.
Shoreside Vale - the small, residential area featuring an airpor
t and a dam. The Airport is an interestin
g feature. Huge planes take off and land here, but they're not solid, and simply complete a circle over the city. It?s still good though, because wherever you are in the city, look up and you will see these planes flying overhead. Brilliant touch.

Vehicles:
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As well as the obvious road transport available, there are others as well.

Cars/Trucks: There are many, many different kinds of road vehicles available, operating at different speeds and manoeuvrability. These include sport cars, pick-up trucks, buses, vans, station wagons and much more. Cars are a little easily damaged as well, and although the effects are themselves realistic, the causes or not (like by riding over a curve, you can get your windscreen smashed, or a car door falling off when you hit a lamppost . Cars are easy to nick. Just run up to them and hop in. Sometimes, however, the drivers are aren?t too happy about this and try to kill you. Nice folk in Liberty City.
One of the great things about this game is you can get certain kinds of cars and do bonus missions, where you have a small amount of time to complete a task
Police Cars/Police Vans/FBI cars: You can steal these and hunt down other criminals, pretending you're the good guy! Oh, the irony!
Ambulance: Steal one of these and go on missions picking up people in a bloody mess, and take them back to the hospital before your time runs out
Fire Truck: Drive around putting out small fires with a WORKING HOSE! Still have to do it in a certain time
Taxi: Like Crazy Taxi but with better graphics, and positively more fun.
All bonus missions earn you cash.

Train: You can travel around Liberty City by subway as well, with realistic tunnels and stations (the steps down are, strangely, wide enough to fit a car down!)
You can also ride around Portland by a train that runs on tracks above road-level (note Chicago element here)

Boat: You can steal different kinds of moo
red boats to get between the 3 districts of Liberty City. You will generally only use these on missions as it's quicker crossing the bridges. It's still fun in the boats because the superb wave effects are incredibly realistic, in bad weather, riding over towering waves can actually make you sea-sick!

By Plane: Here's the bad part. Only one plane remains available for flying. It's a tiny little, one-seater plane, with clipped wings, meaning it's incredibly difficult to master, and you can only fly for short times if you do. (Look on the Internet for Flying Guides; www.gamefaq.com is a good place to start looking.

Sounds
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Each vehicle has it's own engine sound, from the throttle of a truck to the purr of a sports car. People in the street shout things out randomly, even abuse if you're driving dangerously. The best bit of the sounds though, is the music. There are many radio stations, some featuring real songs, others with songs exclusively written for the game. There's also a custom MP3 station included as well.

Radio Stations:

Head Radio: The pop and chart music station, with Mike Hunt (repeat that name several time to get the rude pun). Songs were written for the game here. Call me sad but there?s some catchy and realistic tunes in here.
Double Cleff FM: Like Classic FM. Real songs reproduced by real classical musicians.
K-Jah: The Jamaican Music Station
Rise Fm: The Euphoria style music station.
Lips 106: Another pop and chart radio station. Songs written for the game.
GAME FM: A good mixture of music like Dr. Dre style stuff, with real artists.
MSX FM: Real MCs and DJs playing on this fast paced station.
Flashback FM: Now here?s an interesting one. The songs were taken from the 1984 motion picture ?Scarface? soundtrack, and really are quite cheesy and 1980s.
Chatterbox FM: The call-in radio station, presented by the sarcastic insulting presente

r Lazlow. Has all the best parts of real call-in shows including prank callers. Great stuff.
MP3 Radio. Here you can download music from things like WinMX and put them in this file, it then plays them all for you to listen to, this is great when you get bored of the in-built ones.
All radio stations (excluding MP3) come with the funny adverts. You'll have some laughs, some sound very familiar...

Graphics
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Graphically this game is superb. From weather effects to cars, this game has it. People, vehicles, and places look real, the cars don't look big, square and chunky, instead being finely streamlined. There's no black-out loading time when you step in cars, either, instead the camera just moves round to the right position and off you set. Whereas driving games like Crazy Taxi are bright and colourful, Liberty City is usually grim, with the odd sunny spells. The weather changes frequently, from high winds to thunder storms. When it does rain, the roads become slippery and you lose handling.
People are vast and varied. Big Fat Party Animals (complete with Hawaiian shirts), rednecks, prostitutes (at night), rich daughters, tramps and of course, gang members litter the streets.
There, is, sadly SOME pop-up, and, say, if you see a car heading towards you, then turn around, then turn back again, that car will have gone.
Liberty City has all sorts of little graphical details, right down to newspapers blowing down the street and small adverts pinned to lampposts. Shop windows look a little 2D up close but look great from a far.

Missions:
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Getting to missions is simple. Simply get to the 'employer' (locations shown on the maps for you) and watch a brief cut-scene explaining it to you, then off you go. You usually have more than one 'employer', so if you?re stuck on one mission you can try another employers.

Buying Information
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Minimum System Requirements:

To run this game on your PC properly you should have AT LEAST:

- 450 MHz Intel Pentium III or AMD Athlon processor
- 96 MB of RAM
- 4X speed CD / DVD drive
- 700 MB free of free hard disk space
- 16 MB video card with DirectX 8.1 compatible derivers
- DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
- Keyboard
- Mouse (how can you have a PC without those things?!)

I know all that is quite difficult to run on; thankfully I had just got a new PC when the game came out. It is well worth it though.

The game is priced around £39.99 at all good computer games retailers) but with the forthcoming release of GTA: Vice City the price should drop. It?s well worth it for the quality though.

Official Website:
www.rockstargames.com/grandtheftauto3

Official Company Website:
www.rockstargames.com

After Grand Theft Auto III?
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Coming soon to the PC (but nearly out on PS2) is Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Set in a 1980s Miami-style town, the game will play very similarly to GTAIII but with many added features. These include being able to shoot people in cars, shoot tyres, much more graphical detail on people, and the ability to fly a helicopter. Watch out for it on the PC soon...
From the looks of things the game is based around the film 'Scarface' (in that the film was set in the 1980s, in Miami, and the characters are based on real characters etc)
There are many rumours currently flying around the Internet. Check out the official page on www.rockstargames.com/vicecity.

GTAIII is a fantastic game. It manages to get the balance right with have elements of a driving game and a adventure game without putting too much into one of them. It?s also incredibly easy to get into. Just load the game up, get in your car and go! Probably the best bit of GTAIII is just the freedom of driving around at your own wil
l, taking the missions when you want the, And even when you've completed the game, there's still things to do! Try the bonus missions, or looking for the 100 hidden packages spread out over the city. Even after that it?s still fun just going around wreaking havoc and, well, blowing things up. The fact that it feels so realistic is why people who are easily offended should steer well clear of this game. Quite frankly, it's rude, violent, and full of blood and swearing. Which, for people like me, makes it all the fun, but for others...
GTAIII is a game you'll want to keep for years, and you?ll rediscover time after time. When you've completed it you may even want to do it all again, if you missed things out. 5 stars for being such a brilliant game.
Thanks for reading, Richard.

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