You Can Sail The Seven Seas

We don't get many games like DMA's Grand Theft Auto 3 anymore. Games you can just start playing; anytime of the day, for as much time as you want. Have five minutes to kill? Boot up GTA 3 and take a Barracks OL out for a superbly destructive spin. Have a whole day to fill with gaming? Again, boot up GTA 3 and play through the assortment of missions. It doesn't restrict your playtime with lengthy story segments or anything like that. I swear, if not for the 3D graphics, you'd think you were playing an old school arcade beat em up/steal em/destroy em.

DMA pulled out all the stops with the latest Grand Theft Auto, giving the player any camera angle they want. Don't like the new 3D perspective? Change it to the classic overhead perspective of the 2D GTAs. If you yearn for a more cinematic approach, check out the cinematic camera setup. Works just like the ol' Driver feature, only you can control the car.

Moving along, the game stars a nameless convict set loose by 'a friend of a friend' in Portland (Portland in Liberty City, not Oregon). The Portland bridge to Staunton Island is destroyed, and the guy is taken to a hideout which will serve as one of the three save points in the game. From there, you can do one of a million things - beat up homeless people, run over homeless people, shoot homeless people in the face, or set homeless people ablaze. Oh yeah, there are 76 missions to be completed as well, most of them challenging and all of them fun. Eventually you'll get control of a boat and even a plane, though none of those are as exciting as stealing some of the many cars in GTA 3. Because this is Grand Theft Auto after all, so you know it involves cars to a big extent.

Gameplay can be best categorized into on foot-gameplay, and in-car gameplay. On foot, you can use a weapon, use your fists, ride the subway/monorail, or run around until you find a car or truck worthy of being hijacked. In car, you'll handle most of the missions and can generally do the most damage (especially if you've got the Barracks or Rhino Tank). Missions mostly involve getting somewhere, and killing someone or frightening them. Other times, it's as simple as deliver someone here, pick up a stolen car there, ditch the cops after aiding in a bank robbery or destroy a whole tanker ship. Missions vary in length and difficulty aside from objectives.

There are several mafia factions you do these missions for. Similar to GT Interactive's Driver, you must pull up in front of a communication point to activate a scene explaining the mission. It's usually funny, the dialogue of your bosses that is. Every boss has his/her own personality, leading to some hilarious insults of other mafia leaders and those that get in the way of business. More in depth are these mission briefings than Driver. They load quicker too, thanks to the game engine being used instead of long-loading CG cutscenes.

The actual missions are the best part of the game. Killing/stealing rampages get old quickly, so going on the missions is a must to completely enjoy the game. Most missions are timed, rewarding laziness with failed mission status and some potentially-useful wasted time. You can also die rather easily if the wanted level is so high that the army and CIA are called in. Don't worry, you can restart any of the missions as many times as you want if you screw up.

The game is sort of branching, as well. You can choose to work missions for almost all of the gangs in Liberty City. The core plot is linear though. No matter who you work for, the player ends up on a rescue Maria of the Leone's mission in Shoreside Vale. Still, the basic missions comprise only 35 or so percent of the game. There's much more to do in here than the basic stuff.

It's hard to get bored with Grand Theft Auto 3, unlike countless other PS2 games. Aside from the mentioned plane and boat segments, you can also pull police 'eliminate the criminal threat' missions, do taxi cab transportations similar to Crazy Taxi, drive a Tank into a subway station or go mad with a missile launcher until the cops bust you. It gets especially exciting once you've unlocked this 'fun' stuff.

Could you ask for a better playing game? Sure you could, but you wouldn't get one because there isn't a better playing video game than GTA 3. The indulgement of options and simplistic control scheme will hook almost anybody (sans Senator assholes). Unless you're a graphics whore and use that as your single target, GTA 3 is virtually perfect in it's gameplay.

Visually, GTA 3 doesn't fare as well. It looks pretty good, but the graphics are noticably dated and the draw distance could have been a little better. None of this directly or even indirectly affects the gameplay, but it does make it look a little last-generation. A little. Thankfully, DMA focused on gameplay rather than graphics. Sure, they could have spent another year in development making GTA 3 the next Wreckless or Final Fantasy X, but who would care? The public are more weary than ever of "dumb blondes" nowatimes (good lookin' games that are shallow and boring when you get to know 'em), and so you'd have a beautiful piece of crap on store shelves and a void where a killer app should be.

Now we get to my favorite part of the game... the sound. Strange, no? I typically avoid rambling on about how 'appropriate' or 'inappropriate' the music is in the game. That stagnates a review worse than the author being afraid to use pronouns (cough:GameSpot:cough). But alas...

In GTA 3, the music is broadcast over radio stations. I'm not quite sure if this is the first game to use radio stations, but I'm damn sure it's the first to use them this well. The most notable would have to be Chatterbox, where DMA parodies "Dear Abby" on-air call-in sessions with the pretentious Lazlow at the helm. There's even a bit where an angry mother calls in about video games warping her son's mind. You just know DMA had a field day with that one.

Then there are the music stations, which all rock (pun intended). They're all owned by Donald Love, who even becomes your boss later on. Anyway, you have: Flashback, featuring some old school soft rock and disco/techno. Game Radio for rap, Rise for dance, Lips for... I dunno what, K-Jah, Double Cleff, and MSX for other music. There is no heavy metal station, but that's a given. Depressing or even mildly hard rock/metal would kill the humorous mood of the game. Never once is GTA 3 taking the crimes it explores seriously, so what would be the point of having music that does so?

Overall, you must buy this game. I don't care if you don't have PS2, swallow your damn pride and get it for this game only. Don't wait for the ports, which will suck or won't be as good as the original. If there is one functional, enjoyable and hilarious jewel of tempestuity in the gaming market, this is it. Forget all the two hour survival horrors and style-over-substance racers, GTA 3 outclasses them all. It finally gives PS2 owners something to gloat about, after almost a year and half drought.

Overall: 10 /10