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I will do this review library newsletter style.
Features:
- A totally open environment where anything is possible
- Lots of great cars
- Nice missions
- 3 different islands to play and explore
- Lots of cool stuff to do, you can even steal a police car!
The games best feature: The ability to crash and cause destruction.
Bet you were scared for a moment there... anyway Joshua Ho of 2B1, THIS is how you write a review!!
The game that gives conservatives everywhere a collective heart attack. Extremely immersive environments and superb replayability. It might have been made for the PlayStation first, but GTA3 is one of the best PC games of all time. And it's banned in Australia too!
Typically, when a console game gets 'ported' to PC the result is enough to make you scream like a maniac, because everything is imported straight from the console version. What's wrong with that? Well the graphics will look like crap for starters. The PS2 can't handle the graphics a PC can. The Xbox measures up well but it's already starting to fall behind. Also, lots get lost in the translation. Bugs pop up everywhere because what works on a console doesn't always work on a PC.
And that is why we should all give Rockstar Games a big big round of applause. GTA3 was good on the Playstation, and they made sure it was good on the PC too. Instead of just straight out converting everything, Rockstar redid all the textures and models to make them up to PC standards, as well as the sound. A patch will fix practically everything that's wrong with the release version, and it can be used on pirated copies too, just so you know. The patch also provides support for you to play your MP3s in-game as another radio station.
They also put in PC-specific features. Besides the MP3 support, you can download skins for the player character. Hey, is that Spiderman carjacking a taxi? Try www.gta3skins.net or www.gta3.com
Now before I go on, let's all remember that GTA3 is intended for "mature audiences" and is rated "Mature 18+".
The graphics are some of the best I've seen. It looks and feels like a real city. One minor gripe is that the buildings tend to appear before the other cars, especially when you're driving at high speeds. It's not really a big thing though. The cars are impressive too, high-quality modelling and realistic. Pedestrians aren't as great, but they look fine and don't detract from the rest of the graphical goodness.
There is also very little repetition. You will rarely see the same building texture more than once unless it's realistic, like advertisments. What I mean is, in Driver for example, there were hundreds of stores that were called "Sonoma Liquors". In GTA3, you have only one "House Of Roast Peking Duck" and only one "XXXX Adult Literature".
The numerous jokes around town make GTA3 more than just a computer game - it can also qualify as a parody of modern life. Just listen to the radio and you'll hear the ad for the Maibatsu Monstrosity, parodying Americans' love of gigantic petrol guzzling SUVs. "...so of course I needed a car that can seat 12 and is equipped to drive across Arctic tundra!" Pedestrians yell at you and give you more information than you need "My momma's my sister!!" "I've been wearing the same bra all week" And one whole radio station (Chatterbox 109) is dedicated to putting down the idiots who call in to radio stations (I mean seriously... have you heard how some people HERE react to winning $50??). And let's not forget the ad for the new movie, Badfellas. Calling Mafia bosses "good fellas" never made much sense when you consider that they like to shoot annoying people for sport.
The 'hidden' boss, Marty Chonks, (who calls you from a phone on the same road as Joey's garage), is a reference to a movie called "The Crook, The Theives, His Wife, Her Lover". Wanna guess the names of the 4 missions? And what about the double joke in "Arms Shortage"?
GTA3 has everything. Even the AI isn't neglected. Pedestrians run away and dive out of the way of your car, yelling "you crazy idiot!" and "Learn to drive!!!". You aren't the only lawbreaker either, even the master carjacker can get carjacked. Other cars have little accidents, run red lights and hit pedestrians. And when you get handy with your firearms, the reaction of those nearby varies. Some run screaming while others come up and punch you. Also the police can more or less tell if you accidentally bumped the police car off the road or if you meant it. When you do dastardly things to a gang, they will hate you for it and shoot at you every time you pass through their territory.
Even the simple carjacking the game is built around isn't so simple anymore. Some drivers will meekly let you go and try to convince the cops to arrest you, others will try to grab you out and punch you.
The game is incredibly immersive because it has incredible attention to detail. When someone gets shot or run over, no matter who did it, an ambulance arrives and paramedics singing songs from the game's radio stations (try to) revive the guy. Set someone or something on fire and the fire engine will come. The type of people and cars you encounter also varies from area to area. You'll only hear Chinese accents in Chinatown, and the area near the stadium is swarming with people in the home team's shirt. Don't expect to see many sports cars near the port, most of the traffic there is trucks. The gangs each have their own special vehicles and "uniform" and tend to stick to their own territory, although you can spot a Diablo in Staunton Island once in a while.
The traffic light system works, and there are also pedestrian crossing lights which work too. This is old news... Driver had it. And speaking of Driver, there is one mission in Staunton Island called "Two-Faced Tanner". Asuka says that Tanner is an undercover cop, who is "strangely animated" and "useless out of his car". Can you guess who this is? And in a bitchslap to Reflections (the makers of Driver 1 & 2), the Tanner in GTA3 looks almost identical to the Tanner in Driver 2, and drives a car that looks like one of those in Driver.
Also, the weather is uncannily realistic. The colour of the sky changes and you can tell if it's about to rain. Some mornings, fog builds up. The weather effects look good too.
GTA3 has a totally open environment. There's so much to do, Rockstar has to "force" you to do the main missions by making it the only way to unlock the other 2 islands. In fact, Liberty City is based on New York, with Portland being equivalent to Brooklyn, Staunton to Manhattan, and Shoreside Vale to New Jersey. They even had to change the colours of the Police cars, which were originally the NYPD's blue, to the black used in other cities, as a result of the World Trade Centre attack. They did leave in the mission where you shoot down a helicopter though. And you can still use the rocket launcher to play Osama at the airport.
What else is there to do? Oh yeah! Shoot people and grab their money, or just punch them or play baseball with their head. You can get a prostitute into your car, drive back to your hideout and regain health. And if you're the truly evil type, you can even kill the hooker once you've done with her and get back your money. That little detail caused GTA3 to be banned in Australia.
The one fault in GTA3 is a bad savegame system, reminiscent of the PS2 version, it requires you to go to your hideout to save the game, and you can't save during missions. Rockstar probably intentionally left this in to aviod GTA3 looking like a FPS or TPS (third-person shooter) game, and to give the hideout more use than a weapon repository (when you find enough hidden packages). But it still is pretty troublesome.
To sum up, GTA3 is the best game I have ever played. The gameplay is non-linear yet doesn't allow you to get lost, there's lots of interesting side trips, and it's graphically impressive and immersive. If you only buy one game a year, make this year's game Grand Theft Auto III. In fact, GTA3 is so bursting with goodness I've probably missed out alot of stuff. Even more reason you should get it if you haven't. And there's already another instalment to the GTA series, Vice City, in the making.
GOOD: Graphics, attention to detail, open gameplay, realistic behaviour of pedestrians and police, weather effects.
BAD: Savegame system.
FINAL SCORE: 97% (MUST BUY)
Reviewer's Comp Specs
AMD 1.3GHz Thunderbird
256MB RAM
Windows 98 2nd Edition
GeForce 2 MX 64MB
56x CD-ROM drive
Sound Blaster Live! 5.1
Lags a little when I first start the game but is smooth after about a minute.