boneless gta 3

now, this game is not bad by any means. it's quite decent and there is definitely some fun to be had here. in terms of mechanics, LCS improves on 3 in every single way possible (barring crouching not being available). you actually have bikes now, the shooting isnt annoying, the cars handle normally compared to 3's cars which couldnt stay stable for a second.

however, it's a complete downgrade in every other aspect imaginable. somehow, LCS manages to have a less engaging story than 3's fairly simple and barebones story because around 80% of the cutscenes in this game are not motion captured so any sort of impact they could have had is thrown out the window (the final showdown with the main antagonist isnt motion captured lol). toni is a terrible protagonist with awkward voice acting and writing, it genuinely would've been better if he was just silent. the main antagonist is someone we've passed by once or twice in the game and he doesnt even know toni exists, gta 3's main antagonist on the other hand is someone we are familiar with the entire game so it works well. the pacing is awkward and it takes too long for anything interesting to happen. something else that makes this story less engaging is the fact toni is tied to the mafia the entire game, despite the story being more or less moving the same path as gta 3 did (working for a yakuza member, working for donald love, working for a corrupt cop, etc.), it does not work as well as 3 did because claude was a one man army, he wasnt affiliated with anyone and would do anything just to progress giving for interesting missions and ideas we dont see in LCS (i.e. sayonara salvatore and waka-gashira wipeout in 3).

3's radio is one of my personal favorites in gta because of how short the stations were and that gives almost a sense of comfort while playing the game, LCS's was also short but it felt more obnoxious than 3 despite them trying to imitate the same radio sound and a lot of songs were more annoying than nostalgic or good.

the missions were not nearly as chaotic or open ended as 3's were, i would always be excited playing 3's missions despite them getting really hard sometimes because of the chaoticness most missions provided. however this is not present here as a lot of missions rely on gimmicks such as following cars (ugh), just generally forgettable missions.

now, i have criticized this game to hell and the sensible thing to do would be to give it like a 1/5 or something, right?

despite all that i said here, i think there is still quite some fun to be had here with the game as some missions were still fun and the improved mechanics make driving around LC way more fun. i still prefer 3's more darker atmopshere in its city but it's still LC here so i had a lot of fun driving even if a lot of the songs sucked ("sing it back" fucks hard though). decent game that was a serious achievement as it was made for a handheld.

toshiko my beloved.

not as good as IV but it's still good
the concept itself isnt as badly executed as i thought it would be. im not sure if they updated the bikes here or if my version just has something but the bikes control way better than they do in IV and i found myself using the bikes way more than the cars. the missions are nothing special but i was enjoying myself.
the story is an absolute mess however, the pacing is all over the place and every character is way more interesting than johnny himself is, the writing has its funny moments nonetheless but that's to be expected from a gta game.
overall, while the game has a lot of flaws, there is still fun to be had here and the concept itself is interesting, the execution just could've been way better. despite this, i do not see this game being a full fledged game, it just could've been slightly longer to have more impact.