Grand Theft Auto III turns 10

Penn

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

****ing amazing game at the time though I haven't played it in manys the year

my favourite thing about it was being able to throw your own mp3s into the music folder and making your own radio station. yeah I could have just run winamp in the background, but that wouldnt have been as fun

god... so many hours sunk into that game. kinda scared to install it again in case it looks truly awful

Tried playing Vice City on a 42" telly this time last year. Didn't get very far. After GTA4, everything in Vice City just felt too clunky, and I don't just mean the graphics. I know GTA4 was a bit of a disappointment, but it did improve a lot of things. Driving and running in Vice City just felt so wrong and controlled really poorly. Might give it another try soon though

Roar

Twilightning wrote: »

I'm pretty sure I spent a large portion of my gametime with this sitting in the menu and listening to Chatterbox FM. Oh Lazlow.

i actually recorded all of chatterbox FM on to a tape! simpler times really!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bPUNR_-vtg

Fernando's new beginnings FTW

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAbfaHE_T4w

"you change diapers and then you are a french maid? Fernando thinks not. Fernando knows not"

Benzino

I loved the GTA 1 & 2 so I couldn't wait to get my hands on this. When people talk about 9/11 and what they were doing etc at the time, I always remember GTA 3 been delayed for a couple of weeks as a result of it (due to that mission where you had to shoot down a plane with a rocket launcher). Was gutted at the time!

cherryghost

Ah yeah Chatterbox! The best radio of all GTA games.

weiland79

Penn wrote: »

Driving and running in Vice City just felt so wrong and controlled really poorly.

Funny you say that because i was just thinking, how did they get the driving so wrong in GTA4. I tried playing it there last month and it is sheite to control (PS3) I remember zipping around in 3/vice city and san andreas and it being a joy (rose tinted glasses perhaps)

moomooman

Amazing game, a real breakthrough at the time. I had it on PC, bit jerky on my GeForce2 MX, but an upgrade to a Radeon 8500LE had it zipping along.

Night driving in the rain, listening to some great tunes

Who can forget Donald Love and his "Morgue Parties" :eek:

Retr0gamer

weiland79 wrote: »

Funny you say that because i was just thinking, how did they get the driving so wrong in GTA4. I tried playing it there last month and it is sheite to control (PS3) I remember zipping around in 3/vice city and san andreas and it being a joy (rose tinted glasses perhaps)

They made everything in GTA 4 physics based, even the driving and this changed the car controls. They tried to make it more realistic but it ended up less fun.

The Sparrow

This was the first game I absolutely loved. I had a PS2 for a few months and was pretty bored with it after getting sick of Gran Turismo. Then one day in town at lunchtime from work I wandered into Game on Dawson St. for quick gander. I saw GTA 3 on the second hand shelf for a tenner and remembered vaguely hearing something about it. So I figured, sure why not... I may as well give it a bash for a tenner and give the PS2 another chance as it was literally collecting dust.

I had absolutely no idea what to expect having never heard or played the other GTA games and having never really played anything other than Mario/ Sonic games in friends houses or football or driving games. I was completely blown away by it and I must have lost weeks to the game. So many great hours spent staying up until 4 or 5 in the morning tearing around the map.

My favourite memory was the mission towards the end where you had to drive to the airport and shoot down the plane and collect the packages of drugs and get them back to the other side of the island. I tried it so many times and failed because my car would blow up due to damage from the cops chasing me on the way back. So I decided that the only way I would ever be able to clear that mission was to learn to fly the dodo. It took me ages to master it but it was so sweet finally collecting all the packages and flying back to the other island. Oh, what bliss to fly over all of the cops!!:D

By the way, for anyone who wants to relive the nostalgia, the full GTA collection if available on sale here for a tenner or so.

Retr0gamer

The Sparrow wrote: »

My favourite memory was the mission towards the end where you had to drive to the airport and shoot down the plane and collect the packages of drugs and get them back to the other side of the island. I tried it so many times and failed because my car would blow up due to damage from the cops chasing me on the way back. So I decided that the only way I would ever be able to clear that mission was to learn to fly the dodo. It took me ages to master it but it was so sweet finally collecting all the packages and flying back to the other island. Oh, what bliss to fly over all of the cops!!:D

This is what I miss about the old GTA games. You could do any mission any way you want to, even in the craziest of manner. The missions in the new game are preset and scripted. When you begin a mission the game world resets. I know a friend of mine was having trouble chasing down a guy in a mission so before it started he parked a barricade of cars across the path the guy was taking and blocked him off. In the newer GTAs the world would reset and become scripted and these cars would disappear.

Penn

weiland79 wrote: »

Funny you say that because i was just thinking, how did they get the driving so wrong in GTA4. I tried playing it there last month and it is sheite to control (PS3) I remember zipping around in 3/vice city and san andreas and it being a joy (rose tinted glasses perhaps)

When I replayed VC (or tried to), everything just moved too fast. The smallest nudge of the stick and I'd swerve wildly across the road. So hard to just inch past cars without crashing. Maybe just out of practice. I'd completed the main GTA4 game about 3 times, and both DLCs twice before replaying Vice City, I'm sure I'd get used to it again, but I find the driving easier in GTA4.

Same with the walking, just seemed to be moving too fast, though it may be the screen size amplifying that. But felt like a harder game to control

Icyseanfitz

Retr0gamer wrote: »

They made everything in GTA 4 physics based, even the driving and this changed the car controls. They tried to make it more realistic but it ended up less fun.

i actually loved the car physics in gta 4, it actually took time to get good at driving unlike the other gta's, gta 4 was my favorite game on consoles this gen without a doubt, people didnt like it because it took on a more serious tone compared to other gta's, although i think the two dlc's did a good job in bringing back some of the silliness.

gta 3 wasnt as nuts as SA and VC either sure, really cant wait to see what the next gta is like now that they have their new game engine properly tested and working

Agricola

One of the few games that I can clearly remember buying. First year in college and I believe it was the last day before the mid-term break. Headed up to the local Xtravision after skipping the last lecture, just couldnt wait any longer!

I'd been following the coverage in magazines and just thought if the game delivered on even a fraction of the hype, it would be amazing. My only knowledge of the GTA series up to then was watching a friend playing the original game on an old PC back in '97 or so.
Playing it that first weekend, it blew me away. I had always been a console gamer up to then and didnt have the breath of experience of others with big RPG's etc so after coming from a fairly constant diet of linear shooters, platformers, racing games and sports sims, this was jaw dropping stuff.

Another reason I can so vividly remember it was because 2 friends arrived at my house on the Saturday evening to check it out before we were due to head out. This was around 8pm. We were still saying "one quick blast for the road" at 7am the next morning! It was just so addictive, there was always something new to try, somewhere new to go, someone else to run over or club to death with a bat!

It was such a huge leap forward. Nowadays gaming just seems to be a graphical arms race. I hope it wont be too long before another mould breaker like GTA3 comes along.

Penn

I'd owned the three GTA games before (London 1969), but I didn't think GTA3 would be that good, especially because I was skeptical of how it'd work in 3D, although the two Driver games made me think it might be alright. Holy hell, still hands down one of the most amazing gaming experiences of my life, and probably still the game I've played the most. Had to have sunk at least 200 hours into it, as I rarely had the money for new games and had more free time. Every hour was a joy though

TiGeR KiNgS

My save file corrupted on PS2 right before I got to the 3rd island. 3 years I started the game again and completed it.

Great memories........twice

Glico Man

Anyone else make the same mistake as I did by trying to fly the dodo under one of the bridges?

For anyone that didn't, the bridges may look like actual bridges that you can fly under but they are in fact completely solid objects...

Retr0gamer

Two over my friends got into a really stupid argument and decided to settle it with a 50 euro bet decided by who could fly the dodo the longest. First friend put in a really good effort, staying up for about 3 minutes before hitting a building. My other firend then took his go. At about 2 and a half minutes in he was heading straight for a building and the other guy was getting really excited about it until the dodo just past right through the building The programmers didnt bother butting collision detection that far up the building. Anyway that started a bigger argument.

RobertFoster

I think I managed 23 minutes or so in the Dodo. You had to make sure you didn't fly over a Unique Stunt Jump or you'd end up in infinite slow-mo. I'm sure I still have the save on my memory card -- it tells you the Dodo flying time in the stats doesn't it?

Such a great game. I remember literally just driving around a trying out stuff. Trying to speed over a jump, fluffing the landing and ending up drowning, and coming right back and trying again and again.

All this talk of GTAIII makes me want to dig it out and play it again... the graphics might crack my rose-tinted glasses though!

grimm2005

Rockstar are re-releasing GTA3 on iOS/Android:

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/10/13/grand-theft-auto-3-coming-to-ios-android-for-10th-anniversary/

Can't see it working very well with touch screen controls, would have much rather a HD re-release on XBLA tbh

J. Marston

grimm2005 wrote: »

Rockstar are re-releasing GTA3 on iOS/Android:

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/10/13/grand-theft-auto-3-coming-to-ios-android-for-10th-anniversary/

Can't see it working very well with touch screen controls, would have much rather a HD re-release on XBLA tbh

The action figure is cool...



Even if he does remind me of Max Payne.

jill_valentine

Dude, that's what he was supposed to look like?!?!

EdenHazard

used to play it the odd time in my cousins gaff and loved it then the followin september on my first day in secondary school and my birthday my mum and dad got me a ps2 with fifa and gta. wanted to play fifa but decided to pop in gta just to see if it was as good as was in my cousins house...i remember i had no idea what to do in the first mission(what you had to do was get in the car i think so i rang my cousin up ha) i never actually completed the game i dont think, not even sure i got by the second island...maby in the future..it be rude not to ha

jill_valentine

I remember starting it up for the first time and thinking "Damn, this does work much better than I expected" - and then it started to rain, and I damn near lost my mind. I can't remember the last time a first impression of a game blew me away like that. There was so much to do, so much to see, so much to improvise. The moody radio music was perfect - I used to just drive around in the Stallion for hours, waiting for "Fade Away" to come on the radio, feeling like the city was mine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cA86iX1YAA

Ah, good times. Vice City may have been my favourite in the series, but old-style Liberty City and its grimy greyness will always have a place in my heart.

calex71

grimm2005 wrote: »

Rockstar are re-releasing GTA3 on iOS/Android:

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/10/13/grand-theft-auto-3-coming-to-ios-android-for-10th-anniversary/

Can't see it working very well with touch screen controls, would have much rather a HD re-release on XBLA tbh

Awwwwwwwwwwwww same here, when I heard this announcement I was hoping for a console release

That said, with the amount of other games getting the ''HD'' treatment on consoles, it may only be a matter of time....... I hope!!!!!

Krusader

GTA collection going cheap on Steam
http://store.steampowered.com/sub/4466/

hooradiation

Retr0gamer wrote: »

And the muppets at Edge gave one of the most innovative and influential games of the decade a 7/10 :rolleyes:

And they were right.
Mostly, because it got eight, not seven and for a game which is ambitious but flawed as GTA III, eight is the right score.

Though I know bitching about edge is a past time around here, but regardless. They were spot on.

Retr0gamer

hooradiation wrote: »

And they were right.
Mostly, because it got eight, not seven and for a game which is ambitious but flawed as GTA III, eight is the right score.

Though I know bitching about edge is a past time around here, but regardless. They were spot on.

They re-reviewed it and gave it an 8 iirc because they got it so wrong the first time.

Icyseanfitz

just traded in my gta 4 for my 360, and i just bought it again on steam today are a 1 gig gtx 460 and an i7 930 enough for this game? i heard its badly optimized on the pc

al28283

I miss listening to chatterbox, might download it for my ipod to listen on my way to work

Penn

al28283 wrote: »

I miss listening to chatterbox, might download it for my ipod to listen on my way to work

Yeah I got Chatterbox, KChat and VCPR a few months ago. Might listen to them again next week actually. Chatterbox was the best though

hooradiation

Retr0gamer wrote: »

They re-reviewed it and gave it an 8 iirc because they got it so wrong the first time.

That.... never happened.