I love this game to death. I feel it’s better to get this out of the way and not beat around the bush. This is one of my favorite games ever made, and I don’t typically say that for that many games. While by no means one of the best crafted games, as that’s a completely different discussions and usually games that fall under that typically fall deep into my 100% achievements backlog even though I plan to get to them eventually (such as Dark Souls 1, Yakuza 3, Final Fantasy X, Dead Rising 1, Minoria, Touhou HSiFS, Dragon Quest XI S, etc, etc), it’s still one of the most joyful and engaging games for me. The simple quick gameplay loop, the chaotic sandbox, challenging obstacles, amount of things to do and find, great music and short but sweet playtime all make for a stellar experience in a stellar series that consistently delivers. GTA V was the last great GTA game (and hopefully not the last GTA, period) but GTA III was the first truly phenomenal GTA. Though GTA 1 and 2 were awesome, you should check em out. Great music in those two also.
DMA Design (now known as Rockstar North) realty knocked it out of the park with this one.
I played the console versions. So no mods and I don’t recommend having too many of them as to not risk breaking the game. For instance, physics are tied to framerate so having that unlocked can cause some hilarious but very unfortunate deaths. although I do recommend having some kinda manual aim enabled as well as a map. Otherwise some parts can feel unnecessarily difficult and half weapons can become useless but other than that, the game is perfectly playable. Even the difficulty of missions like Bomb Da Base II are highly overrated as once you realize where all the guards are, it becomes a matter of simple trial and error. Got it on my second or third try as you’ll see with most missions in this game.
This game does not take long to 100% as all you have are story missions, one or two minigames, a few vehicles missions and a bunch of easy collectibles. A lot of this nets you awards such as an access to a tank before beating the story, infinite sprint and weapons spawning at your house including a rocket launcher. You can earn a lot of money also but that quickly becomes useless since there’s not much to buy in this and game and most of it can be unlocked for free.
As for the main content itself, there’s a story which I feel goes largely under-appreciated purely due to the whole package feeling disconnected, the protagonist’s personality being incredibly vague and the game not having any kind of resolution. However, none of that undermines the talent and passion behind this work, and that’s not a blanket statement. Voice acting is quite rich for its era and it’s a pretty astounding achievement to get so much of its production right in what is definitely one of the first 3D crime drama action adventure games (unless you wanna think of Driver 2, which I unfortunately haven’t played).
Not just that, but things like pedestrian dialogue, an aspect which still is largely given only the minuscule amounts of care and effort in their creation (except in Yakuza, interestingly enough,) is done amazingly here. The mocap and animation ain’t really half bad either. Combine this with the characters’ rich dialogue and clear homage to classic crime dramas such the good fellas and scarface and you got a completely memorable experience that’s unlikely to be forgettable. Even the unnamed Protagonist (who was later revealed in San Andreas to be just called “Claude”, likely a nod to the GTA 2 protagonist “Claude Speed” who was most likely used as a basis for this one especially when comparing the outfit of the GTA III protagonist to the one seen with Claude Speed in the GTA 2 live action intro (also worth noting the inconsistent numerical values is not unintentional. That’s what the games were actually called)) is actually a fairly decent character in his own right.
Speaking of Scarface, did you know the Scarface ost is in GTA III?
Wait, you didn’t know? Or maybe you did? I’m really not sure because for whatever reason, no one seems to bring this up. I thought people liked Scarface. Or maybe internet dwellers don’t watch movies.
Speaking of the OST, the OST is great! While unfortunately could’ve used a few more tracks as I don’t agree with the opinion that the radio takes a while to loop. It doesn’t. It loops so freakin’ frequently because there’s not much music in there but what we DID get was completely outstanding and a lot of my favorite GTA songs come from GTA III, a lot of which are composed specifically for the game by real artists (whom you can find on YT).
A couple of highlights are:
-“Change” by Connor and Jay
-“See Through You” by Frankie Fame
-“Pray it Goes ok?” by Boyz 2 Girlz
-“Rubber Tip” by Funky Bjs
-“Shake” by Chris Walsh and Terry Donovan and pretty much every track composed by those two (AKA the entire Rise FM Station)
-The entire Scarface soundtrack. No, really.
“Change” is without a doubt my favorite in this game. Such well written lyrics. Really spoke to me.
And I feel that about wraps it up. Safe to say I built a strong emotional connection with this entry. I actually didn’t think that much of it when I played it for the first time on my ps4 back in 2018, but replaying it and 100% it on my Xbox has suddenly helped me grow something of a bond with it. For that, it’s safe to say this is a more personal than it is a recommendation, but if this looks like something you could enjoy I honestly can’t see anything wrong with giving it a go. If not, no harm done.
DMA Design (now known as Rockstar North) realty knocked it out of the park with this one.
I played the console versions. So no mods and I don’t recommend having too many of them as to not risk breaking the game. For instance, physics are tied to framerate so having that unlocked can cause some hilarious but very unfortunate deaths. although I do recommend having some kinda manual aim enabled as well as a map. Otherwise some parts can feel unnecessarily difficult and half weapons can become useless but other than that, the game is perfectly playable. Even the difficulty of missions like Bomb Da Base II are highly overrated as once you realize where all the guards are, it becomes a matter of simple trial and error. Got it on my second or third try as you’ll see with most missions in this game.
This game does not take long to 100% as all you have are story missions, one or two minigames, a few vehicles missions and a bunch of easy collectibles. A lot of this nets you awards such as an access to a tank before beating the story, infinite sprint and weapons spawning at your house including a rocket launcher. You can earn a lot of money also but that quickly becomes useless since there’s not much to buy in this and game and most of it can be unlocked for free.
As for the main content itself, there’s a story which I feel goes largely under-appreciated purely due to the whole package feeling disconnected, the protagonist’s personality being incredibly vague and the game not having any kind of resolution. However, none of that undermines the talent and passion behind this work, and that’s not a blanket statement. Voice acting is quite rich for its era and it’s a pretty astounding achievement to get so much of its production right in what is definitely one of the first 3D crime drama action adventure games (unless you wanna think of Driver 2, which I unfortunately haven’t played).
Not just that, but things like pedestrian dialogue, an aspect which still is largely given only the minuscule amounts of care and effort in their creation (except in Yakuza, interestingly enough,) is done amazingly here. The mocap and animation ain’t really half bad either. Combine this with the characters’ rich dialogue and clear homage to classic crime dramas such the good fellas and scarface and you got a completely memorable experience that’s unlikely to be forgettable. Even the unnamed Protagonist (who was later revealed in San Andreas to be just called “Claude”, likely a nod to the GTA 2 protagonist “Claude Speed” who was most likely used as a basis for this one especially when comparing the outfit of the GTA III protagonist to the one seen with Claude Speed in the GTA 2 live action intro (also worth noting the inconsistent numerical values is not unintentional. That’s what the games were actually called)) is actually a fairly decent character in his own right.
Speaking of Scarface, did you know the Scarface ost is in GTA III?
Wait, you didn’t know? Or maybe you did? I’m really not sure because for whatever reason, no one seems to bring this up. I thought people liked Scarface. Or maybe internet dwellers don’t watch movies.
Speaking of the OST, the OST is great! While unfortunately could’ve used a few more tracks as I don’t agree with the opinion that the radio takes a while to loop. It doesn’t. It loops so freakin’ frequently because there’s not much music in there but what we DID get was completely outstanding and a lot of my favorite GTA songs come from GTA III, a lot of which are composed specifically for the game by real artists (whom you can find on YT).
A couple of highlights are:
-“Change” by Connor and Jay
-“See Through You” by Frankie Fame
-“Pray it Goes ok?” by Boyz 2 Girlz
-“Rubber Tip” by Funky Bjs
-“Shake” by Chris Walsh and Terry Donovan and pretty much every track composed by those two (AKA the entire Rise FM Station)
-The entire Scarface soundtrack. No, really.
“Change” is without a doubt my favorite in this game. Such well written lyrics. Really spoke to me.
And I feel that about wraps it up. Safe to say I built a strong emotional connection with this entry. I actually didn’t think that much of it when I played it for the first time on my ps4 back in 2018, but replaying it and 100% it on my Xbox has suddenly helped me grow something of a bond with it. For that, it’s safe to say this is a more personal than it is a recommendation, but if this looks like something you could enjoy I honestly can’t see anything wrong with giving it a go. If not, no harm done.