Retro: Grand Theft Auto III
Retro: Grand Theft Auto III
Somewhere in 2002 I was back from school and browsing web on our 56K dial-up connection. Folks were at work, so I could block our phone line freely to indulge in the Internet. Being generally into games I stumbled upon a game review, describing a beautiful and free world where you could steal, kill and escape like never before. It was the world of Liberty City, and I was 11.
What was described to me eclipsed every other gaming experience I knew prior. As I read every word of this review article, I became more and more anxious to find this game and play it. So the following weekend I grabbed my father and we went to a local kiosk that sold pirated copies of popular games. I looked through jewel cases layed out in front of me and finally was able to locate the one and only I wanted: Grand Theft Auto III. It installed, it ran and I was hooked. Barely translated into Russian and oozing so much smirk that I could not possibly comprehend the game felt just incredible. It was gory, it was dirty, but it was freeing. My excitement was so big that my father, who mostly played strategic games, became somewhat interested. That was an awkward conversation, where I tried to explain that it was an adult game and you could, you know, fuck and then behead prostitutes. Never bothered my parents, really. It was not long before I found cheats and mods, and never got to finish this game.
An error that followed me through the most of my childhood. I had never got to finish Vice City and San Andreas neither, albeit for different reasons. Funnily enough, several years later I had actually finished my first game ever. It was one inspired by GTA series: True Crime: Streets of L.A. So, on a whim, I had decided to correct my error 18 years later. Guys, it's 2020 and I've finally finished GTA 3! (And I am almost thrice as old)
Wait, is it actually that small?
You experience time different as a kid. Maybe, it is due to the fact that most of your time is filled with boring curriculum, that is required of you. Maybe you are simply smaller, and so you physically perceive time slower. A year for a kid is like a whole decade for an adult. Whatever the cause, playing games in the afternoon or the evening for a year could feel like hundreds of hours of experience. Besides, Grand Theft Auto III was a perfect sandbox game. You could do main story missions, you could experiment, you could take side jobs in taxies and fire trucks, or you could simply enjoy yourself. Your ToDo list was very saturated, giving you every excuse to be engaged.
The beauty of it was: you were never forced to do any of these tasks. There were no constant reminders to experience this and that, not even an in-game map to show you myriads of icons. Modern games tend to overwhelm players with checkboxes to tick. But that tendency did not exist in early 2000s. The game had statistics, that showed you how much you had missed, what was your best score in any given activity, etc. But your attachment to these tasks came naturally, or did not come at all if it were not your cup of tea. You were exploring the world and you were finding things. Then things clicked, and you were experimenting with them. And this is where the entertainment was born. Like, "Wait a second, this rampage mission is awfully close to that adrenaline pickup! I wonder..." This is how you get people reaching 6 stars wanted level to get a tank to fly it over a delapidated bridge by the force of acceleration from firing behind yourself.
I blame that lack of gameplay loop for my failure to finish the game.
And today I stand in awe, as I finally understand, that you can casually beat Grand Theft Auto III in 13 hours or less. All 66 story missions were short, to the point and mostly didn't require retries. I remember getting to the last island as a kid. I now know, that I have been just a few missions away from finishing the game. Damn. However, those 66 missions accounted for about 40% of what game offered. Outside of main missions I collected a little more than 30 hidden packages and did like a single unique jump, no sidejobs, no rampages completed. And I sit on 45%. It was rather astonishing, that developers had counted the meat of the games as low as 40%. But, I guess, that is because gameplay design in GTA 3 is not too far from GTA 1 and 2. Famous storytelling of Dan Houser did not emerge fully yet.
More Saint's Row than GTA IV
It was easy to forget how simplistic things were back in the day. Modern GTA games have evolved into detailed masterpieces of gangster lifes set in American cities. Even though GTA Online is full of silly gamemodes these days, the single player mode is rather grounded and does not get more ridiculous than an action movie (which it actively spoofs). But in GTA 3 things often resemble Crank more than Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. This is rooted in earlier Grand Theft Auto titles, which relied on simple gameplay tropes of driving agressively and shooting groups of people. 3D games demanded more refined objectives, but GTA 3 was not ready to be that yet. I mean, it even had top-down camera mode! So much of the game felt like it was still GTA 2, but in different camera perspective.
Game dealt with some serious themes, but its execution did not support a darker tone. Our mute protagonist Claude was doing everyone's dirty work, changing sides at every opportunity. He had an endgoal, but it was not expressed in any way that he was trying to reach it. He just kind of stumbled on it by the end, doing absolutely nothing to progress, other than killing people for criminal bosses and then turning on said bosses for other bosses. A lot of story was implied rather than told or shown. Most of missions were given in short cutscenes, sometimes featuring only a voiceover by one of bosses (they do love leaving notes for Claude). And, shockingly, there was no kind of banter in cars as you drove around. Can you imagine a GTA game, that does not fill its time with people talking to each other while you drive? A lot of sweet exposition is fed to you in later titles this way, but in GTA 3 you can only rely on radio stations to break your silence. Lazlow is good, though.
Early open world design
At least, driving around was engaging in itself. As you had no in-game map to rely on, you were constantly required to pay attension to your surroundings. Many games these days picture a beautiful open world, that you fail to recognize, because you spend most of your time plotting your way between two waypoints on your map, following a GPS trace or just teleporting between spawn points. But GTA 3 did not suffer from the scale of modern games. It was, in fact, very small, which helped immensely with navigation based on landmarks and a general sense of familiarity with the world.
My progress through out this game as a kid naturally halted the more I played. I was intimately familiar with the first island of Portland, had less experience on Staunton Island, and was practically lost on Shoreside Vale. As I returned to Liberty City two decades later, I had no problem remembering what I had learned before and figuring out what I never had a chance to learn. Grand Theft Auto III gently asked of players to spend some time in the city to get its feeling. There was no rash, no sense of pressing timeline. You had time to explore and find what each location had for you. But if you were in a rash to progress, you would almost never be punished for your lack of knowledge about local roads. Rockstar cleverly planned out streets and districts that you almost never had any problem finding your way to an objective. I wouldn't mind a clearer indication, when you had to get to another side of the map, but within islands you were never lost.
Part of this cleverness came from limitations of technologies available at the time. World was not constant, and it was not even streaming as in modern games. You had three big locations in those islands, with a loading screen between each of them. Of course, the game looks dated and ugly. But lack of details allowed for a smoother gameplay, while the world design team had to rely on general familiarity of New York City instead of a direct replica. It is often today to have a virtual world, that is recreated closely to what it imitates, but turns out hardly playable. It is incredible, what we can achieve nowadays, but we should not forget that every part of the game must serve its gameplay.
You would think that such a small world would feel constricting, that surrounded by an infinite ocean you would find yourself on an island. To my surprise, it did not feel this way at all. Cityscape hid the horizon, various limitations made it impossible to try and escape the world or even look at it from an unnatural angle. It was planned at some point that planes would be a part of the game, but 2001 attack on the World Trade Center resulted in some changes across all media. GTA 3 was left with Dodo plane, but its wings were cut. With no reliable method of flying around, you only had one perspective on the entire world, and it sold the illusion perfectly.
Fine driving and clumsy shooting
Back in the day when a game was called Grand Theft Auto you would better believe it was about driving stolen cars. Having its roots in a racing game, GTA did one thing better than a lot of modern titles: driving mechanics. Vehicular physics in this game were solid, and, what is most incredible, data driven! Everyone who ever modded an old 3D GTA game knows about configuration files, storing every part of vehicle properties. When you downloaded new models, you often had to adjust those settings to reflect what that model should feel like. And default cars felt different too, had their uses beyond their durability. Sport cars and supercars were quick and responsive, while some older and heavier models had problems breaking and a big turning radius. Police and gang specific models could withstand more damage. And offroaders had better suspension to reduce the roll.
Speaking of durability, cars crumbled like a cookie, which could be infuriating. Especially in some missions, that put you against a lot of police forces. Remember, how GTA was born out of an accident that turned cops in a racing game to be more agressive? Well, it was still their M.O. in GTA 3: constant ramming and blocking, completely destroying your car if they got a chance to stop you. And while random chaotic drivers added to the feeling of a living city, getting slammed by a passer-by while you were trying to keep pristine condition while on timer... You better hope that you had your save file recent, otherwise you may need to travel a lot just to reset your ammo situation and restart a mission.
That ammo was rarely put to good use, unfortunatelly. As shooting mechanics were subpar, game was not relying on it often. You could not run and gun. Shooting while driving was possible only to the sides and only out of an SMG. Aim was inaccurate and hard to pinpoint on a bigger resolution. All in all, a room for improvement was enormous. I am planning to continue my retro experience with the series, so we will see, how fast the games have improved.
Final notes
I really enjoyed revisiting the game. During these 13 hours I never felt like I was not enjoying myself. Yes, it was rough around the edges, but just like 18 years ago it left me wanting for more.