Toad

Just curious what all the fuss is.
I'm looking at getting it.

sararekuforever

Most people love the open ended gameplay, and the air around it..crime..the mafia..drugs..peoplel ove that stuff..

But...I really disliked it. I'd love to see the open ended game play aspect seen in another type of game, maybe something more heroic..or something really sweet..or something really goofy..

But then again, what bored me about the game is that most of it is just arcade style driving with a few shoot outs...now that I think of it..Virtua Cop 2, Police 911, Time Crisis 2, fun 3d police games..made much happier.

The game does have little aspects that make it quirky..like the radio stations, the voice overs, etc.

But the game is really not worth $50, it is worth $10 or $15..most everyone here will disagree though.

If you want to drive, get a good racing game, if you want to shoot, get a good FPS or cop game.

Maybe you'll like having sex with prostitutes and killing grandmas?

evenflow

Or maybe sex with grandmas and killing prostitutes?

NC-36

You are in luck. There will soon be a Simpsons game that takes the open style of GTA III and puts it in Springfield.

Sounds like you played it for about a half-hour, and quit when it wasn't what you thought it would be.

I certainly disagree. GTA III and GTA:VC are 2 of the handful of games released in the last couple of years I would consider worth the full price. The fact that GTA III is a GH title makes it a steal.

The variety of things to do is what makes this series so good. You have to do lots of things and combine all your skills to succeed.

Depends on the prostitutes. And the grandmas

Toad, get it. At the $15 price at Best Buy (w/coupon), I guarantee you won't feel ripped off.

TOPDAWG

No idea I could not stand this game. The car handing was bad shooting was bad missions was all the same and was bad :P I did gave the game a good shot but I just could not stand the thing. I'm happy to say I did not buy it but a friend lit me play his copy.

I'm talking about Vice City by the way I never played the first GTA.

j123vt_99

just rent it and give it a shot

Captain Harlock

I loved the fact that Liberty City is this huge place that you can go ANYWHERE and do just about anything in it. You can do taxi missions, drive a firetruck, be a vigilante, fly the Dodo, or just drive around and explore. There really is an endless variety of things to do and places to go. The radio stations also make it more "immersive". Like Rockstar has created this little world you live in with its own personality.

There is a "cop game" coming soon, True Crime: Streets of LA. But for $15-$20 GTA3 is a winnner.

menaz

GTA games are highly overrated. What Rockstar did was make you THINK you have all this freedom to do whatever you want and people were dumb enough (no offense ) to fall for it. What is all this freedom people keep talking about? There is none, it is a pretty big city, but for god sakes, all the freedom rockstar gave you was to be able to drive any car you want and beat the crap out of pedestrians. Is that really THAT impressive? I think not. It would be much more impressive if I could walk into any building in the city and interact with all the items, or I would be happier with it if you could interect with all the items outside, but you cant! Its all one big sharade and the people who fell for it are praising this game like it was a messenger from god. Save youself the $15 or $20 and get another game.

tenaciousdave

I agree it's very overated. Although I did have alot of fun with part 3 just killing everyone. I have problems...

MasterofDVD

I loved GTA3 but when Vice City came out it was just more of the same with not enough new stuff to keep me playing it.

You do have some freedom in this game but it's nothing epic like a RPG. You can beat up a person, upset a cop and then run from them for as long as you can. THAT is why I played GTA3 so much. The missions bored me once I was half 3/4 done with the game.

Jackskeleton

It's a guilty pleasure. it's very open ended. You don't like the missions? Just go around killing people. wide range of cars and events to do leaves this game very much enjoyable for all.

PixyJunket

Fun. Yes. Overrated in an Understatement.

I am also in the camp that found the actual missions down right boring, but the random carnage enjoyable. Alas, as you can tell, that only lasts so long.

Toad

You get to fly a plane??

Also, how do you get a $5 gaming coupon at Best Buy? (I know, that's probably better left to some other forum, but it came up here ).

Decker

Yes, but not for quite a while.

Quote:

Also, how do you get a $5 gaming coupon at Best Buy? (I know, that's probably better left to some other forum, but it came up here ).

Copied from FAQ's due to laziness
Q: Where do I get these $5 Best Buy video game coupons I keep hearing about?
A: Gamer's Gift Cards are in CD cases w/ a greenish cardboard backing. Most Best Buys have thousands of them. They could be in the video game section, customer service area, front counters, or in the Gift Card only display near the front. You can put as little as one penny on the gift card depending on the cashier. On the back of the cardboard is a $5 coupon good until 12/31/03 on any video game or accessory. It says that the item must be 19.99 or up, but the computer will deduct $5 from any item, even items under $5. To get one, just buy the card and put a small amount of credit on the card ($5 or so). Use the card and the coupon on your next game purchase! Circuit City company policy is to accept all competitor coupons, so these are good there, although you may have to ask for the manager if you get a clueless cashier

BTW: There are always plenty of then in the stores near me.

PPS: I think the qames are both great and tons of fun. I've put in countless hours in both and have enjoyed my time emensely. If you like it, great, but no game is really for everyone. I, for example, often bore with RPGs and their seemingly endless, pointless battles and dungeons. Also stealth games, by and large drive me nuts with unpredictable and cheap AI. I never even finished the fist mission on Hitman 2 as I found it so frustrating. But that's me. I got a kick out of the missions in GTA 3 and trying new inventive ways to complete them. I thought it was brilliant. Plenty of reviewers and gamers did too. Thank goodness for the wide aray of games and genres available to us these days. I remember when we had Ataris and almost every game was either a blocky shooter or blocky 2-D race game. Yuck.

Captain Harlock

Actually, yeah it is impressive. The "freedom" comes from not having a set pattern or strict parameters to follow if you choose not to. Take the Getaway for example. Same type of game, but you have to "go from point A to point B". Sure it gives the game structure but it's very restrictive. GTA gives you the enough leeway where you can where you can do what ever where ever you want. "Oh a back alley, I wonder what is down there". "Oh cool!! The docks. Let's have some fun pissing off the long shoremen". The fact that pretty much no place on the map is "unattainable" ( interiors aside mind you) is impressive.

I don't think we are at the point where you can have a virtual city and every building is open to exploration. But I really do think there is alot of freedom in the game.

einTier

GTA is impressive. However, it's subtle in its impressiveness. No, it doesn't have great graphics. No, the driving isn't a particularly impressive experience. No, the FPS aspect of the game isn't exactly top of the class.

What's amazing is that the game isn't scripted. There are certain events that must happen to advance the story, but you determine when (or if) those events happen, and you control how they happen.

Let me explain that last part. GTA doesn't have a typical strict rules set to the game. It has a general set of environmental rules, and that's how it determines what happens in the game. For example, in many puzzle type or RPG games, to accomplish a task, there is a very strict order to the things that must be accomplished and the way they must be accomplished. For example, a task will be "If you look directly overhead, you will notice a chandelier hanging just over the bridge. Run straight across the bridge and jump over the pit. There is a ladder nearby, but it is too high out of reach. Climb the windowsills and head
over to where the chandelier is. Jump on thechandelier now and it will come toppling down on the bridge. The supporting
pillar has been weakened. "

By contrast, a typical mission in GTA 3 will have multiple, different solutions -- some of which were never anticipated by the designers, but still work. It's almost like the game rewards you for finding a different, creative solution to the game. A typical mission is Farewell 'Chunky' Lee Chong. The way you're supposed to solve the mission is to track down Chucky Chong in Chinatown on foot and kill him. He's surrounded by guards and will start to run when he sees you. If he runs too far, he'll get into a car, drive off, and you'll lose him. This makes completing the mission nearly impossible.

But wait! You're not supposed to be able to drive cars into the area, as there are concrete pylons set up to keep you out. However, if you get a sports car and park it next to the pylons, you can use it like a ramp for some of the bigger SUVs in the game. Then, you can simply run over Chucky and his bodyguards with the car before they can run anywhere at all.

But that's not the only way to solve it. You can go around and steal all of Chucky's cars, have them outfitted with bombs, and park them back in their original spots. When he runs, he'll go for his car, start it up, and set off the bomb. This kills him, and completes the mission.

That's just two alternate ways to win the mission, and there are infinately more. The only 'rule' is that Chucky must die. The game doesn't care how you accomplish that goal. Nearly every mission has multiple ways to accomplish the same task. In Vice City, one of the harder missions involves a race between you and another driver. You are deliberately handicapped with a much slower car, and the game tries very hard to keep you in that vehicle. You can win the mission by playing fair, but the 'accepted' solution is to shoot out the tires of the faster car as the race starts. That works, but is also hard. However, I managed to find that if you stole a much faster car and parked it a few hundred yards from the start of the race, it would be there waiting for you after the race started. I switched to the new car shortly after the race started, and won easily. I've also stashed the Apache helicopter in the same spot and just destroyed the car with the machine guns and rocket launcher. I've also destroyed the same car with the handheld rocket launcher just before the finish line. There's no 'correct' solution. You just have to cross the finish line first.

And that's what makes the game so magical. There's very little to limit you. Plus, many of the missions are optional, and there are a lot of side quests. You also don't have to do anything you don't want to do. I've heard of people who get their kicks driving around and obeying all the rules of the road. The game doesn't penalize you if that's what you want to do. Some get their kicks from attracting the police and then running from them for as long as they can. The game doesn't penalize you for that either. In fact, the game doesn't ever penalize you for playing outside the rules. You can even get to the other islands before you're supposed to and visit places the designers never intended you to go. The dodo wasn't supposed to be flyable, but because the rules are defined in the physics engine, and not "the Dodo can only fly for xx seconds and can't be turned at all", people have discovered that altough it is extremely difficult to fly, it is possible to master, and fly anywhere and for any length of time.

Understand that many people enjoy this game, but there is a sizeable population that just never gets it. This game is really like nothing else. It has elements of many different genres, but the flexibility and broad expanse of things to do is what really sets this game apart.

Superboy

While it's true that you can play the game however you want, that's true for many games. GTA doesn't limit the player, but it doesn't reward inventiveness. In fact, many of the so-called inventive methods concocted by players are merely tedious circumventions of the game's outlined play, and it doesn't make the game really any more fun, rewarding, or challenging. In fact, many of the "secret methods" you've "discovered" are boring and tedious on the level of Shenmue.

GTA III is massively overrated. How can anyone say that they appreciate the open ended gameplay when the actual gameplay itself sucks?

Thrush

Get Mafia instead, its soooooooooo much better.

Toad

Well I actually already got it.

I do like it, a lot, actually. That might be just because it's a completely different game than my other titles. But I like that I don't have to do things in a linear way that quickly makes other platformers tiresome.

trigun

I thought GTA and GTA2 were more fun than GTA3. I also thought the original Syndicate on PC was more fun in terms of completely destroying a city and everything in it.

Toad

When do you get to explore the other islands in GTA3?

Groucho

Assuming you don't use cheat codes, the other islands will be unlocked by doing certain missions.

The Franchise

I like how a "What's great about GTA3" thread got turned into a "Why GTA3 sucks" thread. I think einTier hit the nail on the head. I loved how I could do whatever I wanted in this game and whenever I wanted to do it. If a mission is frustrating you just go do something else for a while. Try to hit a unique jump, light some people on fire, try to get into the stadium etc. I liked that the game kept so many stats for you as well. One thing I really wanted, that Vice City delivered, was a way to leave the horizontal plane. I used to fly around for ages in a helicopter just checking stuff out. Kinda wish I hadn't sold the game now....

einTier

The islands open up as you progress through the game. They open roughly 1/3 and 2/3's of the way through the game. They'll be open before you know it.

If you want to find hidden packages, do the vigilante missions, etc, on the first island (which I highly recommend), you need to do them now. After the second island opens up, the first island is going to be hostile wasteland. There will be areas of town that you won't be able to safely enter without bulletproof cars.

I can understand why some didn't like the GTA3 / Vice City series. It's not as much 'mayhem' as the first two games, and in many of the areas that people rate games it does fall down, particularly if you are thinking it's a driving game or a third person shooter, or an RPG. It is none of those things. However, I also can't understand why you would say that it's not a ground breaking game -- unless you didn't fully understand it. I don't particularly care for RPGs, but I can certainly tell why many of Square's titles are benchmarks in the genre.

Superboy, can you please tell me a game you thought was more open ended than GTA3? I wouldn't say some the secret methods were boring and tedious, quite frankly, running Chong over with the car that I wasn't supposed to have in the designated area was one of the easiest ways to win the mission, and certainly not something you were supposed to do.

mtucker

What's so great about GTA III? It's fun. Why is it fun? I dunno, it just is.

I played through GTA3 and Vice City about 3 times each and enjoyed it each time.