Grand Theft Auto III Review (The Original)

You... You're just small time

Yes, that's right. Despite taking all the time in the world to remaster the 3D trilogy of Grand Theft Auto games to their utmost perfection in the 'Definitive Edition', Rockstar didn't manage to win over my money for all of their hard efforts. (I guess the problem must be me) For whereas I think we would all have been much better served with a port of the many little handheld platform GTA's to PC, completely and entirely nuking the original catalogue from all online stores is already pretty provocative as it is, I suppose. I, however, did buy a collection of all the Grand Theft Auto games that I wanted years ago, and hearing that they've been delisted only drove my curiosity to go and replay them. Luckily Steam is still abiding by something resembling an honour system, and as such the games I bought all those years ago are still available to me, thus I've been remembering my past with these games whilst all the time trying not to give into my fear over the fact that these versions of the games aren't going to grace the world ever again. It sucks and I really hope for sort of seismic regime change over at 2K so that their scummier elements can get more level-headed replacements.

But that's not the purpose of this blog today. Here I wanted to talk about my time playing through, for the first time, the one game in the Grand Theft Auto collection that I don't have a great recollection playing through: Grand Theft Auto III. (The 'one that started it all', so they say.) Liberty City as a location hasn't been some vague rumour to me or anything, I did used to play tons of Liberty City Stories back in the day, but the original implantation of that world was relegated to vague recollections drawn from the back of my mind that I couldn't accurately solidify. Until this past week where I gave myself a total refresher course and came away from the experience decently satisfied. So let's start by getting into the nitty gritty of the systems around the game, because I think this is important.

Lest you walk around with the idea that Rockstar were paragon's of their craft before the release of these Definitive dunces, let me assure you, these PC ports had their own problems. From removed music, III's inability to run on modern devices without compatibility mode and, most salient for me, the actual botch job they did with controller support. Yes, incredibly, despite the fact that many of these games were made for consoles, the PC ports have a bizarrely unfinished controller support set-up which doesn't register back triggers, ignores the 'looking' analogue and makes it impossible for players to pause using their controller. Also, the game doesn't even have console face buttons in it's database, so setting controls requires deciphering Rockstar's Sanskrit of 'Joy 1, Joy 4, Joy 10'. (What the heck is 'Joy 10'? Guess I've got to start changing things to find out.) There are, for the time being until 2K's dogs set upon it with their ghoulish bloodlust, mods that fix these controls, but I didn't know about them during my time playing GTA III so I was playing at a distinct disadvantage.

From the very beginning I was reminded of both the soaring strengths and wild pitfalls of Grand Theft Auto III, and they seem to come in great pairs that offset one another. The world is big and beautiful with the typical amount of Rockstar attention shoved into every nook and cranny so that secrets, jokes, and collectibles and be found in every corner; but the game has no built-in map, so you need to try and memorise points of interest in the tiny, unhelpful minimap. The driving of these games always feel so right, a mix between the floaty silliness that'll let you have fun and the heavy weight that gives cars impact and makes you feel like you're actually in something wrought in steel; but the game has a tendency to immediately explode cars when they roll on their back, and in this game, due to that very weight, if a car flips a single time you have a 50/50 chance of it rolling upside down and refusing to shift back to safety. Rockstar of the time seemed to recognise their strengths, and the name of the game, and based most of their missions around the use of cars; but that might because the combat is really pretty awful and difficult to control, with enemies that auto-lock and gun you down before you can even centre the lazy camera on them.

This game marked Rockstar's first attempt to try for an action-fuelled cinematic-styled storyline for their games, which would be a style that they stuck with for the rest of their career. And how was their first go of things? It was fine, entirely relative to the competition at the time. The camera angles are amateurish, the storyline is fed-by-machine and the voice acting is entirely serviceable. And I'm no bore, I recognise the age we're talking about in gaming and what the other titles of the age were doing. But by the exact same merit I recognise what Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2 had achieved, or Ocarina of Time, and this presentation doesn't really hold a candle to those classics. One thing I keep coming back to, and it really does stick with me the entire game, is Claude and trying to nail him down as a protagonist. He is by no means the only silent protag of this age of gaming, but I can sort of see why he isn't one of the much lauded classics like Gordon Freeman or Link. He has no personality or agency beside what other people put upon him. Sure, he is betrayed by his 'girlfriend' at the beginning, but from there it's just doing odd jobs for everyone around the city until she just sort of just shows up out of the blue again. If this was meant to be a revenge tale, I didn't realise it until pretty much the last 10 missions.

And then, to a much lesser degree, we have the many narrative fallacies of the game, which don't unravel the seams of the game but still manage to irk at me. For one, there's the issue with mission givers seemingly tracking you down all the time without any vague link to your previous mission outlets. Which basically makes you the most easy-to-reach criminal on the streets whilst simultaneously becoming the cities most wanted criminal. (How is that sustainable?) Then there's the way that the story seems to frame Claude as having literally no morals or loyalty and for no decent reason. He'll do missions for a mission giver one time only to turn around and stab them in the back 5 mission's later simply because someone told him to. And finally, there are logistical fallacies that prove Rockstar of this age weren't quite on the ball when it comes to the bare basics of open world games; finding a basically reasonable excuse for your mission. What's that, your high-ranking Yakuza member was recently arrested and you want me to blow a hole in the prison to get him out? So then what... the Police can make the simple jump in logic to figuring out who ordered this, roll up to the Yakzua casino and arrest him again, this time with vastly more severe charges, and now you too for being complicit? Did anyone think about that mission description for more than 6 seconds? And don't even get me started on the sheer amount of late game missions that saddle you with a timer for no good reason whatsoever! I know that I'm kind of poking holes in a inherently silly game, but these are the sorts of things I think about.

One of the main characters of any Grand Theft Auto game is, of course, the city; and Liberty City's take on New York is nigh-on iconic. It's a great microcosm of the various islands with distinct feeling areas and islands as well as even some distinct traversal terrain nearer the latter half of the game world. Unfortunately, exploration is hurt by the lack of a map as well as the fact that traversing through the story has Claude steadily piss off everyone to the point where you are shot at no matter where you go. And allow me to hammer in the absurdity of that fact for all of you a little bit. You get shot at  All The Time. There was perhaps a single mission in the game where the developers were smart enough to turn of passive hostiles (because the mission required the transportation of a car with no damage) How am I supposed to take in the sights when every gang member wants my head? And it gets pretty bad, the mafia have automatic weapons that can destroy most vehicles in about 3-5 seconds, making certain places like their area of Portland pretty much inaccessible once the story kicks you out of there.

There are some collectibles and minigames also available in the game for those who find the city worth exploring enough to endure the roving death squads, and those are rather basic but peaceable in that simplicity. Taxi driving is always my favourite in it's discount 'Crazy Taxi' presentation, the Vigilante missions are, as always, far too demanding in expecting you to have basically unlimited ammunition and an explosion proof car. The Hidden packages dotted around the world map are only really worthwhile for the free weapons they discharge at your hideouts for finding them, but seeing as how that's more than modern day Assassin's Creed do with most of their collectibles, I'll call that a positive. I was a little disappointed, and I realise that this is a bit of applying modern expectations on an old game but I can't simply ignore my disgruntlement, by the lack of really unique vehicles to find. All I could get ahold of was a bullet-proof car (which proved invaluable for that final mission due to combat being so weak) and I really wish the minigames had some more special vehicles of their own to make those modes worthwhile.

Finally, there is atmosphere, which for these sorts of games is a mixture of the game's presentation, the story and, importantly, the music. I never felt relaxed or at home in Liberty City, which I think is indicative of the poor controls and general feeling that the game was actively antagonistic against me. A sense that is intentional in some games, but for a sprawling open-world affair, that feeling can get exhausting fast. It sort of reminded me of the Assassin's Creed Origin's Egypt wherein the ambient world felt so busy all the time that I never had the opportunity to just take a break and take something in. Maybe that's a consequence of me not exploring every area fully before undertaking the missions that would then make that area uninhabitable because of the violent gangs that rule it, but should I really be punished for progressing through a game? I think not. The music track was at least top tier, as any Grand Theft Auto game has to be, and that ambient measure does an always surprisingly powerful job of dating the world. (I guess that's why it's the one world building tactic of Rockstar's that has never changed all these years later)

So the final question is thus; does Grand Theft Auto III hold up after all these years? And in my opinion the answer is kind of no. Don't get me wrong, the spirit of Grand Theft Auto is recognisable here, but it's far too tarnished for me to even squint through the muck at the gem that used to be here, and a large part of that comes down to the shoddy port. This game sucks with the way that Rockstar delivered it on PC, whilst I'd imagine that with decent controls (the only thing that Definitive edition did for these games) it would only be a mildly frustrating title. It isn't a terrible game, and I'm sure that people who share interest in it's historical significance will have a field day looking over the title, but after playing through the storyline I can say that I don't feel like enduring the campaign was worth it, and practically all of the set-piece moments were disappointments. I don't want to play through it again and I'm not even really feeling like recommending it, but for the good few turns I've mentioned in this blog the game saves itself from being a total mess. Still, given that I'm grading this game a D+, none of those positives proved themselves too transformative for my experience. But don't lose faith in old school GTA, or my respect for it, just yet; because I'm already headfirst in Vice City and let me just say from the 5 or so hours I'm into it so far- this is where GTA really begins!