Grand Theft Auto III
2001
- shooter
- racing
- simulator
- adventure
- action
- sandbox
- open world
- single player
The story
Featuring a fully 3-D living city, a combination of narrative driven and non-linear gameplay and a completely open environment, Grand Theft Auto III represents a huge leap forward in interactive entertainment. For the first time, players are put at the heart of their very own gangster movie, and let loose in a fully-realised 3 dimensional city, in which anything can happen and probably will. With a cast of hundreds, 50 plus vehicles, ranging from sports cars to ice cream trucks and from boats to buses, 3 hours of music, including opera, reggae, house, drum and bass, pop and disco, a huge array of street ready weapons and some of the seediest characters in video game history, Grand Theft Auto 3 is a sprawling epic which will show you that sometimes, crime can pay and sometimes it can pay you back. Available now for PlayStation2, Xbox, PC and Macintosh.
What it’s like
Hazy, rain-slicked open city at night, its 3D streets lit by sodium streetlamps, neon signs, and headlights smearing across wet asphalt, with a washed, slightly soft early-2000s polygon look that feels like a film shot through a dirty windscreen. Days cycle from grey dawn to harsh, sun-bleached afternoons, and the soundtrack shifts from opera to reggae to house and disco as you cruise between districts on the radio. The vibe is seedy, restless, and darkly comic: a wandering, low-stakes-until-suddenly-not drift through sprawling streets, where a getaway can turn into a chase and a car ride into a long, aimless night. Violence is constant and cartoonish, with gunfire, car crashes, and explosions, plus strong criminal content, drug dealing, prostitution references, and crude racist and sexist caricatures in the dialogue and satire; it is more stylised spectacle than gore, but it lands hard and is not gentle. Pacing is open and self-directed, with missions dropped into a huge, living map that rewards wandering and mayhem alike. It suits late-night solo sessions and players who want a sprawling crime sandbox with a satirical bite, not a cosy or relaxing escape.
More games like Grand Theft Auto III
Closest in mood, pacing and theme. Tell us why you loved Grand Theft Auto IIIand we’ll explain which ones fit you.
