Grand Theft Auto III

Grand Theft Auto 3 has you in a new adventure in the seedy underworld of Liberty City! Avoid damage and bad weather to get away clean, or else!

With Grand Theft Auto III, Rockstar proves that not all developers are concerned with toning down the violence in their games. This sequel is even more bloody, violent, and sadistic than its popular predecessors, offering up an enormous 3-D city in which nearly any criminal act is possible. Players are free to steal cars, beat up the local population for their money (or weapons), make time with prostitutes, or simply roam to their heart's content. Those seeking more structure can embark on dozens of plot-driven missions or steal cars that let them play minigames. Nab a cop car and you can go on vigilante missions. Grab a cab and you can play a deadly version of Crazy Taxi. Take a fire truck and you can earn money putting out fires. The game just never gets boring.

As in real life, there are consequences for your criminality. As your random acts of mayhem mount up, the police start hounding you, eventually calling in SWAT trucks, the FBI, and even the army if you continue down the path of destruction. Shaking these pursuers is easily the most fun part of the game, especially when a bunch of friends are packed in the room to witness your narrow escapes.

Grand Theft Auto III is fine-tuned to near perfection in every category. All the vehicles, from slick sports cars to lumbering dump trucks, handle exactly as you'd expect and smash apart realistically when abused. The three islands in the game are rendered in terrific detail considering their size, and are packed with traffic, pedestrians, and hidden jumps. The audio is equally amazing. Pedestrians talk, cops scream at you, and you can tune in nine different radio stations whenever you are in a car. It all adds up to a monumental achievement: the rare console game for adults that manages to get everything right. --T. Byrl Baker

Pros:

• Offers an enormous world for players to exploit, rendered in staggering detail
• Equally fun whether you go on plot-based missions or run around as a freelance crook

Cons:

• Ultraviolence, foul language, and adult situations mean you'll want to keep this far away from kids
• It takes too long to get from one island to another, making some missions tedious

You've been betrayed and left for dead. Now you're taking revenge, unless the city gets you first. Mob bosses need a favor, crooked cops need help, and street gangs want you dead. You'll have to rob, steal, and kill just to stay out of serious trouble. Anything can happen out here. Grand Theft Auto III features a fully 3-D living city, a combination of narrative-driven and nonlinear gameplay, and a completely open environment.

Players are put at the heart of their very own gangster movie, in which anything can happen and probably will. With a cast of hundreds, 50-plus vehicles--including sports cars, ice-cream trucks, boats, and buses--three 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 III is a sprawling epic that will show you that sometimes crime can pay, and that sometimes it pays you back.