Grand Theft Auto III
Since I eventually played Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto has been my biggest gaming blind spot. Most of my previous experience with the series involved friends and cheat codes, accumulating Wanted Levels and creating general carnage. Having now played GTA3 more deeply, it’s easy to see why it became the sensation that it did. I’m not sure it can be overstated how liberating it must have felt in 2001 to be able to just steal any car at any time and go on a minimal-consequence rampage in an organic, realistic city. In subsequent decades, I developed a distaste for large open worlds, but in hindsight, a crime sandbox is genius. It means that players will invite attention from antagonistic law enforcement just by trying to travel quickly, which escalates into even more reckless escape attempts, which creates even more opposition. It’s a feedback loop that spawns exciting moments and emergent narratives seemingly from thin air.
Unfortunately, there’s a reason GTA3 is remembered as “the game that codified the modern sandbox genre” and not “the game with the super tight gameplay loop.” Trying to engage with it from start to finish as a video game instead of as a cathartic party trick reveals a multitude of frustrations and omissions that would make a less revolutionary game not worth playing at all. Combat is extremely unwieldy; you have limited camera control and do damage at about the same rate as opponents, so victors are determined largely by who gets the first shot in and/or by prayer. Additionally, the speed at which the player can be arrested or commandeered vehicles can be destroyed is shockingly abrupt. All of these things can end missions, and when that happens, all of your weapons are taken away and you respawn at a specific location regardless of where the mission started.
But here’s the real kicker: there’s no in-game map. There’s a mini-map in the corner that shows the location of the weapon shop for a few hours and then takes it away – a design choice so phenomenally bad that I still cannot believe it was made by professional developers. I understand why the travel time between respawn and restart exists, but forcing players to constantly restock on weapons while not letting them find the weapon shop is several steps too far. In fact, everything that interferes with mission completion becomes tiresome over time, from the slippery vehicle physics (presumably also intended to organically attract police) to the fact that your Wanted Level follows you into missions that have nothing to do with outrunning cops. On the plus side, the inclusion of satirical radio stations while driving was brilliant. It’s a shame that they’re largely decoupled from the game’s overall obnoxious identity where every named character is a sociopath, gang member, and/or prostitute.