GTA 3 - blimey, how do they manage it (Grand Theft Auto III (PC))

Member Name: will r seymour

Product:	Grand Theft Auto III (PC)
Date:	28/03/03 (833 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: fun, exciting, never get tired of it

Disadvantages: none

Grand Theft Auto Three

When "Rockstar Games" set out to make their games they make them but with a difference to all the rest, they make them perfect at all angles and it is my opinion that they have succeeded in doing that with Grand Theft Auto Three.

The game starts with a small time crook "Tommy" who is betrayed and left for dead in the dark and unpleasant Liberty City-Portland (the industrial zone) where a bloody turf war has been underway for months and Tommy just happens to be placed in the middle of it.

It starts with "Tommy" as I have already said being betrayed and sent to prison where an escape plan has been organised. He luckily escapes with the help of a fellow prison mate 8-ball who is a bomb expertise and luckily for Tommy a friend of "Luigi", the right hand man of Leone, the Mafia boss. Tommy begins his new life as a crook when Luigi gives him the job of an errand boy. But after over seventy missions, each one getting harder as Tommy's name grows and grows on the streets; the Callahan Bridge incredibly reopens (after the damage inflicted on it during the escape attempt is repaired) opening up a whole range of new opportunities for Tommy to explore.

And the same thing happens in Staunton Island (the central business district) except this time Tommy is doing jobs for another set of boss figureheads.

And just like the Callahan Bridge, the bridge connecting Staunton Island to Shoreside Vale (the Suburban Island) opens up this time after a mechanical malfunction.
Allowing Tommy to visit the airport and hijack a plane and other things, which will put a grin on your face. And that's the plot of the game really; when your not busy with missions you are free to explore your surroundings but be careful not to tread ground on enemy property, as it will guarantee you being shot or something nasty like that.

On each level you have a kind of home where you ca

n lie low, store your cars or save the game. It will be very useful to keep cars in your home as lots of missions involve fast cars and so it spares you the trouble of having to search round Liberty City for a fast car.

Transport is another important aspect of the game because it can get pretty boring walking around the whole of Liberty City and so Rockstar Games have provided Grand Theft Auto Three with hundreds of different cars ranging from tanks to Ferraris. But that's not all, as I said earlier you could hijack a plane, hop on the subway, go by train, steal a boat or of course you can just walk. But be careful some people will be scared and will give you their car and then run away but others are quite happy to fight you for it.

When in a car you can listen to nine different radio stations ranging from a talk show to a 70's music show, each one with their own hilarious adverts which will take a long time before you've heard all of it (i've had the game since Christmas and I've still not heard all of it).

If you want some extra dosh you can keep an eye on your pager, which is always beeping, telling you of extra missions, there are also payphone missions (if your standing around a payphone and you hear it ringing you can pick it up and someone will tell you of a mission that needs completing).

If you're getting bored of your usual lifestyle you can even help the community by becoming a public services employee. All you have to do is hijack a police car, Ambulance or fire engine and press the caps lock key and then eliminate the criminal threat, pick up injured pedestrians or fight car fires, you can choose. You can even be a taxi driver, and I'm not sure if it's true but it's rumoured you can be a pizza deliverer.

During the game you can take part in feeling the pleasure of choosing from machine guns, rocket launchers, Molotov cocktails, grenades, mini guns, and all sorts of o
ther
weapons and then just letting go all your anger on a unsuspecting pedestrian. You'll find that as you kill more and more people your wanted level goes up and up until the F.B.I or the SWAT team manage to kill you.

Sometimes it can be hard navigating around the whole of Liberty City and so in the bottom left hand corner of the screen there is a little radar map, this will show you where you are and where you want to be heading, it's very handy if you've got yourself lost.

It took me weeks to complete this game, as there are so many levels to do and so many things to look at. You'll find that as soon as you've completed the game you'll want to do it again as you can guarantee you've missed out on something. You'll also find that there are also hidden missions and just last week I found a most peculiar car that I had never seen before, so the second time around try not to miss out on anything. There are also many differences you can make like, downloading skins, faces, cars etc. With so many cheats that will make you laugh, such as invisible cars and making a tank fall out of the sky and then you can make it fly and stuff like that.

The reason I said not to tread on enemy turf is this. Throughout the game you work for different Gangs, and all the gangs hate each other. For instance you are working for the Chinese Triads and you have to kill the leader of the Columbian Cartel, if you succeed the Cartel will hate you and so if you walk on their turf, their number one priority is to kill you, get the picture. And so basically at the end of the game every gang in Liberty City hates you and so you need to keep your eyes peeled for where you are treading. The gangs also each have their own car. The mafia car is practically bullet proof and the Columbian Cartel's car is fast and can go over rough terrain easily etc.

The installation is quick and easy and takes about five minutes and the system
requiremen
ts (seeing as the graphics are top of the range) aren't unbelievable.

Minimum System requirements

.50Mhz Intel Pentium 3 or AMD Athlon processor
.96Mb of RAM
.4x speed CD / DVD drive
.700MB of hard disk space
.16MB of video card with DirectX 8.1 compatible drivers
. DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
. Keyboard
. Mouse

This is a game that will blow you away, you'll be amazed by the amount of work Rockstar Games must of put into this to get it as good as it is. Although GTA Vice City is coming out on the PC in May it's still worth buying, and I don't see how Vice City can be any better than this so please buy it, seeing as it's only £20, it's cheap as chips. A bargain for those who don't watch David Dickinson (I don't, I hate him).

Summary: