2.5/5 ★ – kubachowicki_'s review of Grand Theft Auto III - The Definitive Edition.

For years, most of my friends have been playing Grand Theft Auto at one point or another, but I just never got myself into GTA. With GTA VI around the corner in 2026 (hopefully it does not get delayed again!), and with the new trailer dropping recently, I got hooked and ultimately went and bought myself Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition, consisting of the three main-line 3D era games, GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas, and then also the two main-line HD era games and one of the additional stories, GTA IV, Episodes from Liberty City, and GTA V. The hype train is real, and this says a lot coming from someone who has not played a GTA game until this GTA III playthrough. Yes, I have played GTA in passing at friends' houses, but I do not really count that. I am so late to the party, and I am going into this almost blind, so here we go. Grand Theft Auto III is a culturally significant game. Originally released on the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox consoles, and on PC, it marked a turn in gaming, one that would change it forever. Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto is the highest-selling video game franchise of all time after Tetris, and those thanks have to go to GTA III. This game was the game-changer back in 2001. It was the first 3D GTA game, it set the foundations, and it became the blueprint for every GTA game that followed it. Yes, the later games of course expanded on what III did, and I am hoping that they are even better than III is, but it is undeniably clear that Vice City, San Andreas, IV, V, and hopefully soon-to-be VI all owe their thanks and gratitude to this game. As for the remaster of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition, I thought it did the job perfectly well. I have not played the original version of the game, so of course I cannot compare the two, and I have not played this remaster before Rockstar took back control from Grove Street Games either, so I did not experience all the bugs and performance issues that this trilogy once had before its update. Mine played perfectly fine. It did not crash, and it did not act up. Of course, it is a recent remaster on a newer engine, but it does not change the fact that it is a remaster of a 24-year-old game. I mean, GTA III is older than me... Liberty City is iconic and a great setting with a gritty atmosphere. The graphics are something I am not going to go into about much. They do the job. It is a 24-year-old game at the end of the day, despite being remastered. Although, even for 24 years old, they are not even too bad. Fair play, Rockstar. This might be an unpopular opinion, but Liberty City itself is the only positive I have to say about this game. The weapons pool is also very limited, making things feel extremely repetitive, and it does not help that the combat itself sucks. Saving the game was annoying, too, as no matter how far away you are from a safehouse, you have to drive there every single time just to save your progress. The story lacks any real significance. Most of the missions are just do x, y, z for this or that person, working toward no real goal and getting progressively more frustrating along the way. The missions are so random, in the sense that sometimes one mission will continue from the previous one, but sometimes you do something completely different, to the point where there is zero link between them. Claude, our protagonist, is mute. We do not know anything about him, and he does not speak, so it is very difficult to connect with the character. Whilst the driving itself is fine, it is the AI that is unbearable. The game is overflowing with traffic congestion and drivers who are complete and utter idiots, making driving a flip of a coin. It can be the most unpredictable thing ever at times. Cars and trucks randomly speeding around a bend, multiple cars not letting each other through on junctions causing either crashes or making like 5+ cars stop in the middle of the junction and start beeping at each other. Moreover, during chases, if you get rammed or if you ram someone, 90% of the time you will either spin out or your car will flip and explode, whilst the AI will be nearly untouched. They are usually always glued to the ground no matter what. This makes the chases feel like an absolute chore, not even a challenge. The side content of this game is also filled with a whole bunch of slop. The taxi fares while easy, get boring really quickly, and the imports/exports are just rinse and repeat with different vehicles, with some of them being an absolute chore to obtain, vigilante in a police car, an Enforcer or an FBI car either becomes frustrating when you are constantly chased by a million cops or boring because once again... it is rinse and repeat, and it is only reasonable in a Rhino tank, firefighter is also just rinse and repeat, rampages are quite cool, I guess, albeit once again ridiculously repetitive, whoever made the off-road missions wanted us to suffer, and do not even get me started on the paramedic. The only bit of side content I genuinely enjoyed was the 100 hidden packages purely because of the rewards and the fact that I get to drive around Liberty City while vibing to the radio stations. Also, the whole idea of side missions that are OPTIONAL and not relevant to the story getting harder as you progress more through the story does not sit right with me. I understand making the story harder, but the side content? Really? Some of the trophies also fall under the above requirements, making the platinum an absolute chore and a frustration pit. There is no denying the importance of GTA III. It paved the way for every GTA game that succeeded it, as well as paved the way for so many other open-world games and story games such as Mafia, among others, making it one of the most influential video games of all time. However, that does not change the fact that there are a lot of negatives and that it is no longer 2001, we are no longer in the PS2 and Xbox generation, and the game is definitely outdated, even on the remaster. I do not see myself coming back to this game anytime soon. I genuinely had to force myself to finish it, purely because I already put a good amount of hours into it. Finally, Grand Theft Auto III is my first GTA game. Despite me not really liking it, I am definitely glad to have played through it, and probably even more glad to have started with it as based on what I have heard about Vice City, San Andreas, IV and V, as well as my predictions and hunch, it is only up from here. I also wanted to play GTA in release order starting from GTA III to see how the franchise has changed and evolved over the past three decades. I have heard that it is the hardest game of the lot, too, so I am also glad to have started with it for that reason, as this was a big learning curve for me. Being new to GTA, it felt a little overwhelming at the start, but getting used to the hang of things with the hardest entry is one way to grasp things nicely, and I am sure it will do me the world of good moving forward with Vice City and beyond. Speaking of which, onto Vice City next! Lastly, despite all the criticism I have given it, there has to be something going for it as it still somehow managed to keep me hooked and playing, and even getting 100% and the platinum trophy. I have not done this in my reviews before, so I think I will start doing it with GTA, and that is noting the time it took me to get both 100% and the platinum trophy, obviously if I got one or both of them, which in GTA III's case, I got both. 100% time - 63 hours Platinum trophy time - 64 hours