It's so crazy to me how this was the first 3d gta game and Rockstar nailed it so perfectly. Liberty city is just as fun to traverse as it as in gta 4 and when mixed with memorable characters this game makes for a great time. I don't have an strong opinions on the story in gta 3, I think for their first try it's pretty good. My main criticism is that Claude doesn't talk, which for me at least makes me feel less involved in the story similar to gta online. I also feel like the story just kind of ends rather abruptly, like one minute your doing missions normally and then all of a sudden the credits are rolling. On the topic of missions, some of them in this game as just SOOOOO hard for no reason at all, I'm looking at you "grand theft auto" and "grand theft aero". The gameplay in gta 3 is also not the best, gunplay can be tricky at times and it feels like you die after 3 shots which makes the game extra hard during missions with big shootouts. Overall, gta 3 has a lot of good and a lot of bad which when put together make for a fairly solid start to the 3d gta games.