It's crazy to think about the amount of things this game does in terms of content and variety in side-activities compared to the games that followed it. I enjoyed a lot of what the game had to offer and experiencing the entire story for the first time was a very enjoyable experience for the most part. I found the missions to have enough variety to keep me engaged when compared to GTA IV for example, which I thought became a bit repetitive by the end. I have the same problem with this as I had with GTA IV though, only to a lesser extent, which was the lack of checkpoints and unfair enemy placement. It was incredibly frustrating to spend minutes progressing through a mission only to die and have to restart from the beginning. Controls definitely aged pretty poorly as well. The driving is ok, but the shooting and vehicular combat are both quite terrible, but it didn't necessarily ruin the experience for me.

I really liked the story as well, it might be my favourite in the franchise, or at least on par with GTA V. I really liked how it was structured, taking you to different and distinct areas of the map in each chapter of the story. The characters were very entertaining and well written, building up to a satisfying and enjoyable finale.

I really wish Rockstar kept this level of creativity going in the future GTA games, as for the time this released, the innovation is really astounding.