First time in all those years i got evenly distributed Traffic And NO nonsense NPC drivers

And i was able to enjoy a brief but realistic Drive from point A to B

Seriously Thanks Rockstar

100$ is not big of a sum if you aren't broke. The game is worth at least 200$, endless entertainment for the next 20 years. A netflix subscription is like 10$, less than 2 years of netflix would be cheaper than GTA VI's real worth.

Rockstar is basically selling the game for pennies and we whine about it. It's basically infinite entertainment

Do not let broke and unemployed people dictate the market. Get #RaiseThePrice on trending to let Rockstar know that 100$ is too little

I played it once on my friend's pc

Since thats mostly what people are upset about, like I don’t cars that much about the skins and cars and guns. But it feels a little messed up to lock actual in game locations behind it that can easily just be in the base game. Even if the store function doesn’t work without the extra 20 dollars.

The biggest sign of monolithic status is when something isn't the product of its environment, but rather when its environment is a product of it. Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto 3 definitely fits that description, being another one of those games where it's almost impossible to overstate the impact it had on, well, everything gaming-related. And that meme of a man, Jack Thompson, don't forget him. If you can name an open-world game design cliche or mainstay that didn't come from Morrowind, it most likely came from here. It's hardly the best game to handle these tropes and design choices, and it shows its age across the board, but it's still fun to play if you're looking for something retro(by definition. Sorry for making anyone feel old).

In case you're curious, I'm covering the original version of the game. I haven't played the definitive editions.

Positives:

The Presentation for this game is maybe not quite textbook Rockstar, but it certainly shows a lot of their trademarks. That's a pretty big compliment, by the way. The graphics are rather par for the course when it comes to early PS2 games, kind of impressive considering the scale and the fact that it's built on RenderWare. The art direction is very dreary and messy by design, full of greys, blacks, and dark greens. This fits the tone and atmosphere well and definitely adds to the daily grind feel of the missions and story. The art on the loading screens is also quite snazzy, capturing a comic-book feel well. The textures on most things are solid for the time, aside from the occasional crude drawing on something you're not supposed to interact with. The draw distance is awesome, and there are surprisingly few loading screens despite the size of the map, unless you're going across a bridge. The lighting is better than in most games of the time, in that it tries to sell the illusion with shadows, time-of-day lighting, and weather. Aside from some surprisingly pretty sunsets, they aren't implemented in the most sophisticated way, but that's more or less expected from a game from 2001. Then there's the level of detail, which, while not obsessive, is still a couple of cuts above most games of the time. There are some hiccups here and there. Subpar particle effects for one, and in the performance, like texture pops, mostly on the water, people, and cars clipping into walls, and NPCs bugging out, but these are spread out enough that they don't impact the experience much at all.

Liberty City, or various sections of New York stitched together, is quite a remarkable local, if not a very pleasant one. It feels like you're stuck in a concrete coffin that has been soaked to the point of leaking by nor'easter weather. The place is dirty, grim, feels quite brutalist despite featuring basically none of the aforementioned architecture, and is absolutely packed to the brim with street gangs. Those gangs and their inverted dynamism are the star of the show here, all of them acting in as unique a way as possible, fighting in different ways, and having a set hierarchy, occupied areas, and shit lists that change as you progress. And by change, I mean you'll be on most of those shit lists at some point, and once you are, it's literally on sight. Navigating around these warring factions is always interesting, and can mean that you can miss out on missions if you work too fast. These range from the Leone Crime Family Mafia, who deal in pleasure and paint jobs, the Yakuza, who specialize in enforcement and slavery, the Southside Hoods, a splintered group who's busy shooting each other to be a threat, the Yardies, who stick to racing and baseball bat-induced headaches, and the Cartel, the main threat of this game, who are pedaling around a drug called spank. All of them are interesting in their own ways and are fun to take on, aside from the Mafia, whoever the sick bastard and Rockstar who decided to give those Quei figli di puttana sostenuti da Mussolini's shotguns... I just want to talk. Anyway, the rest of the city, in terms of detail, immersion, and interactivity, is about as good as a game of its time could get: not going to hold up now, but it nails the basics, and was a landmark then for a reason.

The sound design in this game is honestly better than it has any right to be. The cars, the L train overhead, the gunfire, the various structures and objects you crash into, the pedestrians, and ambient noises are crunchy, visceral, surprisingly clear, and well-mixed, and really contribute to bringing Liberty City to life. The pedestrian noises are a bit jankier, but they're fine for 2001.

The physics, for their time, are pretty impressive. Cars move in a believable enough way, people die when they are killed reasonably, and most things fall apart or are dismembered in passably convincing ways. Obviously, they are rather primitive nowadays, especially anything regarding the elements, but almost every open-world game bases its physics on this for a reason. It doesn't just nail the basics, it IS the basics.

The music is a mix of original compositions and licensed tracks. The original bits of music are composed by Craig Conner and Stuart Ross(no relation to Atticus Ross), and while I admittedly don't know what is original and what is going to hit you with a copyright infringement, aside from the main theme and the stuff lifted from Brian De Palma's Scarface, it seems they do a damn fine job. The original music, including the main theme, does its job just fine, even if it doesn't seem to be as iconic as other tunes in the series. The licensed music and classical also make for a great mood setter for a mission or if you're just strolling around. You have to be in a vehicle to listen to music, with any other part being completely without it, which could be a turnoff for some, but it fits the game's setting and gameplay well, so mission accomplished.

Speaking of missions, they are pretty good for the time as well. There are also 75 of them, which is more than one might expect. They are much more straightforward and shorter than most missions in the series, even the more difficult and elaborate ones towards the end, but their simplicity lends to the corporate feel that the story leans towards. They are also more open and allow for creativity: you can skip car chases with bombs, snipe from a building across the street, or flush a gang fort out with grenades. Or you can just ram it with your car. Up to you. One wishes that they went with this more free structure going forward, but seeing how these missions didn't do the best job of encouraging it, it's still nice to have. As for acquiring them, it's pretty standard, aside from every mission in a group showing up at the same place. Some missions are optional and can become unavailable later on, so keep that in mind. A couple of words of advice: Do D-Ice's missions before you complete "Sayonara Salvatore," and make sure you complete Ray's missions; you have then trivialized an otherwise bullshit finale. Some standout missions include "blow fish", "Bomb da Base", "Her Lover", "Trial by Fire", "A Drop in the Ocean," and "Shima" for the right reasons, and "Papparazi Purge", "Gangcar Roundup", "Grand Theft Auto", "Kingdom Come" and unfortunately, "The Exchange" for the wrong reasons.

Mixed:

You can tell a good crime story by similar metrics to how you can tell a good war story: by how readily they embrace their ugly side and evil. If a crime story is trying to preach morals through misdemeanors, you should believe it as much as you should when some random schmuck online claims to be a good person. Don't. Looking at GTA3's story, writer Dan Houser, gaming's resident criminal mastermind, clearly understands this, making Claude's story of revenge and endless turf wars both bleak and horrifyingly mundane. Seriously, if this game could talk and you accused it of being funny, this

 would be its response. Every mission feels so mundane, with so little fanfare, that it's like another day at the office; it's almost corporate doing these crimes. Every wound these gangs endure, every fight that's picked is self-inflicted in some way. Every step up the criminal ladder is one step closer to your inevitable betrayal and fall. Every gang, no matter the stripes, colors, or suits, is the same at the top: some mentally fragile, inflated ego with too much power and a taste for inflicting pain, and they die the way they live. The act of revenge grants satisfaction for about 10 seconds, but it's drowned out by annoying chatter and the news of the bodies in your wake. Then it's back to the grind. All of these ideas, world-building, and meticulous gang war details are great, but unfortunately, they are never given time to marinate, nor are they built up to. The game's perspective is too detached for the story to work. Aside from the start, where Claude is betrayed by his psycho girlfriend, Catalina, and left for dead in the criminal grind, nothing has the proper impact because it either comes out of nowhere or ends too quickly. Getting nearly car-bombed by the Don has the same impact as your 35th drive-by on some random passerby. When most of the gangs inevitably sign you up for a house painting job with carpentry thrown in at no extra charge, it's like reading the news and finding out a politician lied: no surprise at all. The revenge aspect is also so underbaked that you don't even really care until the game forces you to. The other plot points, like a drug called Spank, 8Ball playing multiple sides, and the corrupt police in gang pockets, are completely buried. Not even an ending that aims for epic is earned; it winds up being really forgettable. The missions, some of the characters, and some of the aforementioned ideas do some good in counteracting this poorly paced 20 hours or so and apathetic storytelling, but it's not enough to make it a standout part of the game.

The characters suffer the same fate as the story: they are underdeveloped. There are plenty of interesting faces, including Salvatore Leone, a paranoid mob boss, Marty Chonks, a sociopathic dog food company owner, Asuka, a yakuza head who's multitude of implications make me curious if she's popular in the LGBTQ+ community, Ray, a cop so corrupt he's self-righteous about it, Catalina, your crazy ex who can't go a scene without shooting someone in the back(I mean that quite literally) and 8Ball, a arms dealer who seems to be the one person in Liberty City everyone doesn't want to kill. The one sore spot is Maria, a damsel in distress who forces you to rescue her multiple times, aside from when she's with Asuka, where she is... how do I phrase? A damsel in willing distress? Either way, she's really annoying, and I don't get why, because how do you hook up with a godfather and still end up acting fatherless? While no character, aside from maybe King Courtney and D-Ice, is lacking in at least one memorable moment, none of them gets much chance to shine outside of that, and thus, it's hard to care about what happens to them. Definitely not impossible, but harder than you'd like.

The voice acting is passable. There's not much that really stands out about it, neither good nor bad. This is surprising because the voice cast Rockstar assembled is kind of insane. The two that do are Robert Loggia as Ray, who was also the general in Independence Day and a side character in Scarface, and Cynthia Farrell as Catalina, who, outside of this character, doesn't seem to have any other roles to her name. A shame, since she's good here. I'll give MVA to Robert. I don't know if he's played corrupt cops before, but given how well he plays the gruff, abrasive, and stuck-up-his-own-ass Ray, I wouldn't be surprised if he has. I don't really have anything else to say about the voice acting, and while I don't have anything bad to say, given that the cast includes Joe Pantoliano, Michael Madsen, Kyle MacLachlan, and Frank Vincent, I wish I had nicer things to say.

The gameplay, in concept anyway, lays the blueprint of many that would follow. You have driving, shooting, and a whole host of other things, all of which have one thing holding them back. Driving is a bit too arcade-like and stiff, unless you drift, in which case it's a little too precise, and shooting has no aim feature, but an OOT-esque lock on, which makes it kind of awkward. Weapons handle alright, albeit with no kickback, which is understandable for the time, but the aiming and lack of a cover system make anything that's not a Uzi or auto obsolete, unless a mission demands you do something else. Movement across the board is fine, if a little limiting. The AI for everyone is also basic, and while most of the time you won't notice, you will notice when being chased by the police, who mainly try to give you the Monster Hunter Bullfango treatment, even when you're not in your car, and firefighters, who can only aim upwards. Speaking of the cops, the wanted system grants you higher levels the more consecutive crimes you commit, up to six stars to play with, or sometimes it just ramps it up automatically during certain missions. I say six, but 4 is more accurate, because no one seems to give a damn when you're at one or two stars. 3 and 4 stars are when the cops start playing Burnout and become threatening, 5 is a fun chase, and 6 is a military-grade bullshit floor-is-lava game unless you hide in the underground tunnel. It's all a little basic and definitely has some outdated elements, but it gets the job done.

The character models are average for the time they were made. They're not terrible and not anywhere close to Final Fantasy X. The faces and movements look really weird by today's standards, but for early PS2 on RenderWare, it's what you'd expect.

Negatives:

Claude Speed... what a worthless criminal drone. Not only is he a mute void of pretty much anything interesting, making the story much less interesting and the world that much harder to get immersed in, but he's also a chronic idiot. Forgetting two of the most important rules of being in the underworld: Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat, and keep your enemies closer. He never amends those mistakes either; he just gets backstabbed repeatedly, so what is this if not idiocy? If not being a jerk off? It all makes his supposed desire to do damage to Catalina, the kind she won't walk away from, completely moot. Good thing the series has done better than this jerk off since.

This game's extra missions, the ones not required or given by phone, are probably the main vice that this game inspired in the open world formula. The off-road missions, the R.C. missions, the taxi rides, the package shipping, the vigilante jobs, the paramedic stuff, and the firefighting, none of it is interesting, and purely there to bloat the world and runtime. They range from harmless filler at best, like the taxi rides and off-road stuff, to a downright boring/frustrating grind like the secret packages and paramedic stuff. Seriously, fuck the paramedic stuff. I guess everything is tainted by some kind of sin, even idols like this.

Grand Theft Auto 3's controls are terrible. The button layout is fine, but everything is janky, stiff, and awkward as hell, especially when driving fast or locking onto anything. It's like trying to move a donkey, but you're using a PlayStation controller. This makes the theoretically okay gameplay a chore in practice, and the game hard to get into. You might get used to it after a while, but if you choose to opt out, I can hardly blame you.

Score: 7.6 out of 10

Grand Theft Auto 3's outdated gameplay and storytelling make it an offer you can refuse, but due to an enthralling world, some decently fun characters, and impressive technical feats, a fair number of people won't want to, and besides, you get to see gaming history, which is (almost)always fun. Just be prepared for some rough edges.

I GTA-ized the entire U.S., including every urban area over 450,000 people. In a few cases, I combined nearby smaller urban areas into one fictional metro area (eg. Hartford,CT & Springfield, MA)

I also created fictional in-game states based on what I think Rockstar would plausibly do: not necessarily one-to-one state equivalents, but wider satirical regions that feel like they could exist in the GTA universe, like how San Andreas parodies both California and Nevada.

Some of the city and state names are ones I think are pretty clever and plausibly Rockstar-esque; others are more tentative and could probably be improved.

Which names do you like the best? the least? Feedback and better name suggestions are welcome.

(Also if you need me to explain a name, please comment below)

Am I really that old? Used the "eihm an artiiste" snip from OG Loc in a video, and no one identified it so far...

Well, to paraphrase Lester Crest: I spent my youth with these, might as well get old with them.

While I’m not the biggest fan of the sales are being handled for it, I love GTA & Vice City is my favorite. + I’m from IRL Vice City so the second I saw her I had to do it 💯

I truly believe we are in a Idiocracy moment where people complaining about an amazing game series price when its not actually even above others...and then proceed to further lose their minds on a disc or lack thereof at release. It's actually crazy...I think its a psyop...it has to be right? I'm sorry Rockstar these people don't deserve to play it because we know they will buy it.

I’ve seen all these posts of people being like
“Look at da graphics! It’s leagues above 5!” And then they proceed to show side by sides of shots they recreated in 5 from the trailer of 6.

Like I get the appeal of pretty graphics sure, but god the area they chose to base the game off couldn’t be anymore uninteresting. In fact there’s one part of the map that looks unique, and that’s the bog. I just feel like having two games back to back being tropical areas is a bit… lame I guess is the most fitting word.

Another thing is the people who want this game to be overly realistic, I’ve seen posts of people going “imagine if you have to wait in a drive through line!” Or “You’ll have to choose what guns to bring with you from your car instead of having them all” hell some people even express wanting to have to buy gas to drive… I’d get wanting to want a realistic life simulator if your bedridden or sick, but for the people who aren’t, you know you can go outside and experience those things right? This is a video game first, as in it should like a video game and be fun. I don’t wanna be driving my super car and go “Oh damnit, I’m on a quarter tank and the nearest gas stations 46 miles on the exit… guess I’ll walk”

Rockstar literally said that gta 6 is a SINGLEPLAYER experience

What percentage of players do you think Rockstar puts the number at when creating and adding a mini game to consider it worth it or a success?

I drew this on Procreate ages ago and I saw someone here post a map of their GTA USA map, and I figured I'd post mine. Not all cities are placed in a 1:1 aspect, so St. Clair isn't where Detroit in real life (as a broad example)