P4. Grand Theft Auto III

System: PS2
IGN Score: 9.6
Release Year: 2001

Grand Theft Auto III was the first game in the GTA series to abandon the traditional overhead view in favor of the now more familiar elevated third person perspective. It has the unfair advantage of being the first "modern" GTA, and thus was most likely to be last in this list. Unlike in movies, sequels are typically better in video games. With that being said, the game holds up well against time, as it is still quite enjoyable to play today. Everything in GTA III is simpler than in the newer games. The stages are shorter, the cut-scenes are shorter, driving is easier, etc. This isn't always a bad thing. There are still plenty of great GTA moments here involving the mafia, local rivaling gangs, drugs, and numerous murders and driving over pedestrians. The final scene is fantastic, involving a shootout on top of a dam in Liberty City. The plot, from Wikipedia, is as follows:

"The player character has robbed the Liberty City Bank with his girlfriend, Catalina, and a male accomplice. While running from the scene, Catalina turns to him and utters, "Sorry, babe, I'm an ambitious girl and you ... you're just small-time". She shoots him and leaves him to die in an alley; the accomplice is also seen lying nearby. It soon becomes apparent that the player character has survived but has been arrested and subsequently found guilty and sentenced to jail. While he is being transferred, an attack on the police convoy aimed at kidnapping an unrelated prisoner sets him free.

With the help of a fellow escaped prisoner, the player character then takes on work as a local thug and rises in power as he works for multiple rival crime gangs, a corrupt police officer and a media mogul. In the process, Maria, the mistress of a local Mafia boss, begins to take a liking to him. The Mafia leader, Salvatore, grows suspicious and lures the player to a death trap; but Maria saves him, remaining close to him throughout the storyline. He later goes to work for others, including the Liberty City Yakuza and media mogul Donald Love. Eventually, his exploits attract the attention of Catalina, now affiliated with a Colombian drug cartel, resulting in the kidnapping of Maria. This gives him the opportunity to face Catalina once more, which results in a large firefight and Catalina's death."

In this game you see many of the features in newer GTA games being born, but most of this stuff just isn't done as well in this game as it is done in newer games. First off, the protagonist Claude is my least favorite of all GTA main characters. He never talks, has no personality, and you never really feel connected to him at all. He is basically a lifeless puppet. The only reason we even know his name is because Catalina screams it over the phone to CJ while having sex with him in San Andreas. In fact, none of the characters from GTA III are memorable.

GTA games are well known for their soundtracks, and GTA III has the worst soundtrack of them all. That isn't to say that it is bad, just not nearly as good as the soundtracks the other games have.

There is another part of the game that I have major issues with, but I am not going to mention it until a future post because it actually shares this feature with another Grand Theft Auto game.

Overall, GTA III is a great game. It clocks in at around 10 hours, so if you have some time before that new game comes out and want some nostalgia, GTA III still ranks highly on the fun factor.