GTA III was not my first GTA. I had played the very first game in the series, which was a very different-looking game, released in 1997. I didn't care about it much, as I didn't think it was any fun to play. It had clunky controls, and I just never got that far in it.
Then, a couple of years later, in 2001, DMA games, which later changed its name to Rockstar, hit a home run with the 3rd entry to the series. Gone was the top-down world view and terrible controls, replaced with 3rd preson pespective view of Liberty City, where you could control Claude through various missions for the criminal underworld of the city. It was everything the original games were not: an action-packed story, set in an interesting world that felt alive, to a degree. A 3D game in 2001 that felt alive. It was also very cinematic in the way it presented its in-game cut scenes and story.
The game begins with a betrayal. Claude is doing a bank heist with his girlfriend Catalina, who points a gun at him, takes all the money and leaves him wounded waiting for the cops to arrive. On his way to jail, an attack by the Colombian Cartel on the prison transport helps Claude to escape, although he wasn't the one whom the attackers wanted to free. Together with another prisoner, 8-Ball, Claude escapes and, in doing so, is introduced to the Liberty City mafia.
He starts doing missions, mostly against the Triads, for them until he gets on the Don's bad side and escapes narrowly with the help of the Don's trophy wife, Maria. She introduces her to the Yakuza, who becomes Claude's next point of contact for missions. Then there's Donald Love, a crooked businessman. Not to mention Ray, a crooked cop.
During the missions, Claude keeps crossing paths with Catalina, who is trying to rise higher in the criminal underworld. Finally, Catalina kidnaps Maria, and this finally leads to the final confrontation and the end of the story missions. After the story and the end credits are over, you are free to roam around Liberty City and complete any of the remaining tasks, if you so feel like. These tasks you can get from specific pay phones, which range from races to assassinations. Other missions are vigilante missions you get by stealing a cop car, driving a taxi, ambulance and firefighting. If you choose to do the main story only, the game is around 10 hours long. With all the rest, including the hidden packages and hidden activities, maybe double that. I've never really seen any reason to go all in with the playthrough.
The story itself isn't anything spectacular. It's not even that well-strung together. It's more about having all kinds of seedy criminals bossing you around until you move ot another one. Although Catalina is the main antagonist, even her part in the story is somewhat sparse. She pops up here and there, but never becomes anything bigger than the woman who betrayed you, just like the Mob bosses don't become anything beyond stereotypical mob bosses. Ray, the crooked cop, is the most fun of all the contacts you make, because among all the over-the-top characters, even he stands out as being over the top.
To be honest, when I started playing GTA III again for this review, I was thinking there would have been more in the story, but what seemed like grand storytelling in games back in the day now comes out as rather plain. Don't get me wrong, there's fun stuff in it, but GTA III feels something of a prototype for what could be done with the engine. It's a solid show, but also a pretty simple game in many ways.
The game is played in a 3rd person view, either on foot or by some vehicle. Only cars and boats are available to drive. The only drivable plane is a wingless Dodo that doesn't officially fly, but people have found a way to make it fly. Claude can carry a solid arsenal, from baseball bats to a missile launcher. So there's enough weaponry to make sure the other criminals won't be much of a hindrance. While driving, it's possible to do drive-by shootings with Uzis and pistols.
Liberty City is divided into three islands. At the beginning, you have access to only one, as the bridge was blown into pieces at the beginning of the game. After the Mafia betrayal, the 2nd island opens up and soon after that, the 3rd. For its time, GTA III offered unparalleled freedom on a huge map with a lot of activities. It was the kind of game you'll remember, as before it, there hadn't been anything like it. It wasn't because of the violence; shooters had been a thing for a long time, but the freedom it had.
You had an open map, and you were free to either do the missions or just drive around and seek out the secrets of the world. And the missions were triggered by going to the crime bosses on the same map you were on, and the missions were done on that same map, seamlessly. Even the game cinematics were done with the same real-time engine.
The city itself was already presented in the previous games, but this time, you had a brand new perspective on it, filled with all kinds of interesting landmarks. The islands are connected by bridges and underwater tunnels. The different areas are distinctive, and there's a surprising amount of personality in all of the areas.
And then there were the radio stations. While driving around, you could choose from 9 different stations, parodying real stations from talk radio to classical music. All the stations have their own hosts and own style of music. They might not be as expansive as what the later games had, but they should offer a good variety of different tunes during the mayhem.
But how is the Definitive Edition, which was released in 2023? Mostly the same, as the original, at least as far as I can remember. Sure, the controls are better, the supported resolution increased, and textures sharpened. The visual effects were modernised with better lights, shadows and explosions. That said, some of the AI upscaled textures look rather bad as the original textures were so low resolution. In the original game, it was also possible to play the game in a top-down view, just like the first two were, but this was removed from the Definitive Edition.
The game is also a lot easier than I remembered. With the original, I remember dying a lot. Now, dying took actual effort. I don't know if the game itself is easier or if the more modern controls make it easier. Or maybe I'm just far more accustomed to the kind of gameplay it offers. But GTA III is not a difficult game.
Here's the big question, though: would I recommend playing the Definitive Edition? Yeah, I would. Some purists might not, but I think it's a pretty solid way of getting to know where the modern series really started. The way the GTA series is now, it didn't start with the arcade games the first two were. Or it started with them, but the series found its form and style with GTA III. It found the way it wanted to present the game and its world, as well as how it wanted to be played. There was the story and the side activities. It had the somewhat cinematic, action-packed experience tied to the open-world mayhem. You could complete the game and then continue it, if you so wanted.
In a word, GTA III was a similar spark as Doom was. It was a prototype for a brand new way of playing games. A portrayal of a new kind of interactivity. It was fun, and the Definitive Edition continues to be fun. And that's really all you can ask for from a game like this. That said, I wouldn't recommend getting it at the full price. The collection is in 50% sale often enough, and as it comes with three games, around 30 bucks seems a far more sensible price to me than the 60 bucks they are trying to squeeze out of it.
GTA III is available for consoles, and for PC, you can find it on Steam.
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