Before GTA V, I would have wholeheartedly indulged myself in gleeful contrarianism and said this was the worst of the series. Its relationship with its aesthetic is the most shallow of the classic trilogy. Neon, drugs, Miami, Scarface - its 80s pizzazz operates as nothing but cool sheen, and lacks the haze of GTA III's nihilistic narrative and the vigor of GTA SA's expansive world. And is this game cool and fun? That's the kicker. Particularly after GTA San Andreas, it becomes eminently clearer by the year that this game only had a year's worth of development. Contemporary reviews celebrated its motorcycles, rickety, awkward wheelers that could careen you off the edge and into a body of water you could not swim in. Its graphics have never done it favors, particularly in so many brightly lit locations now that make you miss the softening effects of GTA III's shadows. Its story is once again stuck between its III and SA. An amoral rise to power that feels too much bloat from III's treatment of gangster sociopathy and nowhere near as expansive as San Andreas's elements of customization and development that still remains unmatched in the series. What's left is at best a massive substantive expansion pack that changes the mood and injects some color: the Ballad of Gay Tommy. At worst, it is Scarface without de Palma, Pacino, and pathos.