Grand Theft Auto 3 Review

By Gestalt Published 30 May, 2002

Review - Grand Theft Auto comes home to the PC; can it steal our hearts (and wallets) again?

Version tested: PC

A Good Shoe Starts From The Ground Up

01b

Big trouble in little China

Grand Theft Auto 3 practically sold the PlayStation 2 single-handed last year, ending a famine of must-have titles in style. But with that exclusive period now over, the console's finest game has finally found its way back to the series' spiritual home on the PC.

And what a homecoming it is. To all intents and purposes you are in a living, breathing, brawling, pimping city. Blocks of buildings stretch out to the horizon, the streets bustle with cars of varied shapes and sizes, pedestrians wander down the pavements and run screaming as your car slides past them at speed, trains rush by overhead on elevated tracks and rival gangs indulge in turf wars, taking pot shots at each other, and at you, if you've done something to upset them.

It's also a very open, non-linear experience. I spent my first couple of hours with the game completely ignoring the preset missions and just cruising around in stolen cars, running people over and getting chased by the police. Once the novelty starts to wear off there's a dazzling array of jobs for you to carry out for gang bosses, bent cops and dirty business men, ranging from simple parcel deliveries and escorting other characters to taking out police informants and battling SWAT teams and FBI agents on the streets of Liberty City. However long you play the game for, you'll never run out of things to do - after the best part of a week playing non-stop I've still not reached the end of the storyline and my "completion" score is barely at 50%.

We Get To Play With Knives

02b

I fought the law, and the law won. Luckily I can respawn at the nearest police station though.

Although this freedom of action may be a little bewildering at first, the game does ease you into the world of Liberty City a little at a time. When you begin the game you have only a baseball bat, a hideout and a mafia contact who might be able to throw some work your way. You are also restricted to just one of the three islands that make up the city, as the bridge connecting you to the neighbouring island of Staunton was destroyed in the opening cutscene.

As you progress through the game your options multiply rapidly though. Most of the time you will have two or three different bosses that you can carry out missions for to push the storyline forwards, which means that if you get stuck on one mission you can ease your frustration by trying something different while you come up with a new plan. This is lucky, because some of the missions are incredibly difficult, and the most obvious approach is not always the best one. One mission, involving taking out a police van transferring a witness, was proving utterly impossible until I finally gave up on it and went off to work for another gang boss. This soon opened up a new weapons shop, giving me access to a bazooka for the first time, at which point completing the police van mission suddenly became a doddle.

The arsenal at your disposal by the time you've unlocked all three islands is certainly an impressive one. From your humble baseball bat you soon progress to a handgun, before moving up to uzis, shotguns and assault rifles. As well as being useful for taking out cops and gang members, you can also threaten passing pedestrians by targeting them with one of your guns, encouraging them to drop all their money and run. If you're in need of something a little heavier, grenades, rocket launchers, molotov cocktails and flamethrowers are eventually available, while a sniper rifle can prove useful for picking off targets from a safer distance.

Yesterday, I Made A Dollar

03b

Fly the friendly skies

Completing core storyline missions and holding people up at gunpoint in the street aren't the only ways to make a quick buck in Liberty City. Steal a cab, for example, and you can indulge in some Crazy Taxi style action, racing around the streets picking up punters and dropping them off at their destinations. Similar mini-games can be unlocked by stealing police cars, fire engines and ambulances.

The game also includes a selection of optional side missions, which aren't necessary to finish the game but will add to your completion score tally and can earn you extra money and equipment. Most of these are picked up by stopping at ringing telephones, and work in much the same way as the game's main missions. Others are more freeform and can be dipped into whenever you're not busy with something else, such as a Gone In 60 Seconds inspired mission that has you stealing a list of cars and delivering them to a warehouse near the harbour.

Then there are the more esoteric distractions, such as the bonus points you can earn by pulling off insane stunts, flying off a bridge or hitting a ramp at speed and cartwheeling through the air. The more impressive your jump and the better your landing, the more money you earn. There are hidden packages to recover, unique jumps to pull off, and bizarre little bonus games to find like an assault course for off-road vehicles. All of these accomplishments are recorded in a lengthy list of statistics that reels past you when you select the appropriate option from the game menu, and even once you've reached the end of the storyline, the chances are that you'll still have a whole host of things to see and do before you get anywhere near 100% complete.

Always Running .. From Something

04b

Eat your heart out, Keanu

All of which will no doubt be familiar to PlayStation 2 owners. And that's the only problem - GTA3 on the PC doesn't really add anything to the game except high system requirements, low framerates and hardware conflicts.

Yes, you can create new skins for your anti-hero and import your own MP3 files to supplement the hilarious in-car radio stations, but that's about as far as Rockstar have gone in exploiting the PC's capabilities. There's no multiplayer, no mod tools, and the developers haven't even managed to fix the rare graphical glitches that afflicted the original PS2 version. If anything they've got worse. Bits of road or even entire buildings can vanish from view, and driving across the Callaghan bridge with nothing beneath your tires but the river far below is a disconcerting experience to say the least.

The translation to the PC has been a rather quick and dirty one by the looks of things, and performance is uneven. Whatever it says on the back of the box, if you have a graphics card with less than 64Mb of memory you're likely to run into problems. Framerates vary from low to near stationary on a GeForce 2 GTS, producing an ersatz bullet time effect in the midst of a major shoot-out or car chase as the game grinds to a halt. Some people have also experienced lock-ups, which seem to be caused by the game choking the AGP bus in an attempt to shift data back and forth between graphics card and system memory.

Conclusion

If you're thinking about buying GTA3, you have to ask yourself two questions - do I already own the PS2 version, and is my PC much more than a year old. If the answer to either of these questions is yes, you can probably forget about it. If you have yet to witness the splendours of GTA3 though and have the hardware to handle it, you're in for a real treat. GTA3 looks great, sounds great and plays great, will keep you busy for months, and has the kind of production values most PC games can only dream of.

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
Picture of Gestalt.

About Gestalt

Read more articles from Gestalt by visiting the Gestalt archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (186) Latest comment 9 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • brokenkey #1 10 years ago

    Have you stopped handing out scores?

    Not that I really care, I got this game last week and I love it. I don't have frame rate problems, but that'll be because its' running on a v.new computer.

  • Concrete #2 10 years ago

    And the score is?

  • Errol #3 10 years ago

    A score clearly isnt appropriate (it would get the same as the PS2 version). Basically the conclusion is the 'score', so to speak - it enables you to make a buying decision.

  • Blerk #4 10 years ago

    Yay - no scores! Gestalt bucks the system!

    "And if those pencil-pushers back at head office don't like it they can sit on thi.... oh, hello sir. Yes sir, just adding the score now sir. Sir."

    ;-)

  • Gestalt #5 10 years ago

    Sorry guys, we are still doing scores, I just didn't put one on this particular review because there isn't a "one size fits all" score you can give GTA3. The score really depends on what kind of hardware you have and whether you have the PS2 version of the game already, so read the conclusion. :)
    Edited by Gestalt at 30/05/02 @ 11:40

  • Whizzo #6 10 years ago

    Well I've got both and Gestalt is on the button in the fact that there are practically bugger all differences gameplaywise between the two versions. Hopefully users will mod the funt out of it like previous versions so new missions will turn up.

    One thing about the conversion I am really annoyed about though is the replay function. I thought it would have been along the lines of the one in say Carmageddon TDR2000, allowing you to change camera angles etc and save as an AVI. It does none of these things it just replays a script within the engine with no sound that may or may not actually play the same as what really happened! For example one replay had the car I was driving explode on me (which didn't happen in the game!) and when I exited the replay it was still perfectly alright! Very sloppy.

  • Killerbee #7 10 years ago

    I've been putting off getting this for my PS2 for a while now, just in case the PC version offered something new and improved. It seems from Gestalt's review that there's very little difference. My PC is a PIII 700mhz with 256MB RAM and a Geforce3 Ti200, so I think it should run okay - or can anyone tell me otherwise?

    The thing I'd really like to know is how the controls for the game have been altered - is the mouse & keyboard combo better than using a Dualshock2? Any views?

  • Gestalt #8 10 years ago

    "I think it should run okay"

    It *should* do. I think the graphics card (and how much memory it has) is the main thing for this game.

  • Gestalt #9 10 years ago

    Oh, and the controls is the one thing I forgot to mention in the review. :) The mouse and keyboard works great for the on-foot bits (probably better than the dual shock), but controlling cars with just the keyboard takes some getting used to. After a couple of hours I got the hang of it though, and I was merrily handbrake turning my way through the streets of Liberty City in a stolen taxi. Some of the cars handle terribly, but get your hands on something like a cab, police car, yakuza stinger or mafia sentinel and you're in heaven.
    Edited by Gestalt at 30/05/02 @ 11:47

  • Whizzo #10 10 years ago

    is the mouse & keyboard combo better than using a Dualshock2?
    Shooting is better and as Gestalt says it takes sometime to adjust to driving with the keyboard but with some practice it ends up just as easy as using a pad.

  • Pirotic #11 10 years ago

    i hope they release a demo so we can test its performance on our system without having to waste £30 first. i refused to get a choddy PS2 conversion but now the xbox port is canned this could be my only option.

  • bionutz #12 10 years ago

    is it possible to drive cars with the steering wheel? I mean in the game not in real life

  • binky #13 10 years ago

    im looking at getting a game or 2 this weekend.

    Think this might be on the list.

    Also fancy either , on XBOX, Spiderman (have to wait a week i know) or Jedi starfighter... I have a new game to trade so i wont be paying full price.

    any thoughts?

  • Pirotic #14 10 years ago

    i would recommend spiderman, its a good solid game.. not brilliant but if you ever played the PSone titles you'll feel right at home.

    Jedi Starfighter is nothing special.

  • Nemesis #15 10 years ago

    Well this Friday you have Morrowind, but personally I'd wait for some reviews on that one before committing to it. SOF2, which is quite cool in the demo once the gore is enabled. The ship level was superb, very MGS2. Bit fast though, an inherent problem of Q3 based games IMO.

    Must admit Starfighter has caught my eye, I'll play this before buying.

  • Pirotic #16 10 years ago

    Morrowind is a brilliant game, but sadly its the most bug-ridden peice of software i've played in all my life.

    the indoor scenes use about 2/3 times the amount of polygons that the outdoor sections use, so you keep having to change the resolution down when you go into a house, then raising it again when you go outside.. which is very bad game design.

    Combat is surprisingly fun, and the character creation is fanastic.. i have a short cloaked assasin with a sniper cross-bow atm :p

  • Jesus: Action Figure #17 10 years ago

    HAving recently seen the new Star Wars movie, I'm really tempted by the Clone Campaigns expansion for Star Wars Battlegrounds this weekend.

    It would involve me having to buy the original game though :o(

  • bionutz #18 10 years ago

    I have both Morrowind and Sof2. My opinion is that Sof2 gets a bit boring (and it's quite difficult compared to sof1) with the time. Besides even with my high end system I sometimes have slowdowns/ have to wait a lot to load the first time a save. For Morrowind, I just started to play, and besides the fact that it looks awesome I liked a lot the generation of my own custom character class. But now I have to explore the village and find out what it goes on around.

  • binky #19 10 years ago

    aye Jedi starfighter caught my eye due to the film :)

    good marketing me thinks

  • GrahamS #20 10 years ago

    i refused to get a choddy PS2 conversion but now the xbox port is canned this could be my only option

    Seems to me that there is one other rather obvious option...

  • bionutz #21 10 years ago

    I think I'll reinstall the system again... I have win98 and its install is at least 6 months old... Athlon1466/gf44600/256megs/hdd@7200rot/min.
    Edited by bionutz at 30/05/02 @ 12:26

  • brokenkey #22 10 years ago

    if you are going to re-install 98, get yourself over to www.98lite.net and use that. Makes 98 super stable.

  • binky #23 10 years ago

    ooh just found GTA3 on play.com for 19.99

    gotta be worth it i spose :)

    /me places order.

  • Nemesis #24 10 years ago

    I think your best bet is to leave Morrowind alone for a while until Beth' patch it, which seems to be a normal thing for their stuff.

    Play the original first Jeez. I picked it up the other day as I knew the expansion was coming out and I wanted to have a mess about, but oddly I haven't cracked open the box. Still messing about with JK2.....friend and I are linking up on DSL for arena style 1on1 lightsaber fights tonight. Should be a laugh.

  • brokenkey #25 10 years ago

    just found? it's linked to at the bottom of the review!!

  • binky #26 10 years ago

    LOL oh yeah.

    thats my subconscious telling me to type in things again

  • Aka #27 10 years ago

    This game is fantastic!

    Controlling the character with the keys and mouse is great, then grab a car and use your joy pad - just like a racing sim.

    On my system (Athlon 1.4, Geforce 2 64mb, 512 mb) it's beautiful @ 800x600. I was very disappointed with GTA3 on PS2 cos it was soooooo slow, this is wicked!

  • GrahamS #28 10 years ago

    I was very disappointed with GTA3 on PS2 cos it was soooooo slow

    Eh? I don't think its slow on the PS2. Just about right if you ask me. Its pretty hard to control some of the best cars a top speed, I think any faster would be completely impossible.

  • otto #29 10 years ago

    "if you are going to re-install 98, get yourself over to www.98lite.net and use that. Makes 98 super stable."

    Interesting, but actually I've never had 98 crash on me in the three years I've had it. Must just be lucky I suppose.

  • Whizzo #30 10 years ago

    Strange that you have had these problems not only have I and several mates been able to change the camera angles in when playing back
    Yes you can move the camera around with the mouse but I meant that there are no fixed camera options that allow you to setup the action very well such as in C:TDR, Driver and a lot of other games that have replay functions. In comparison to other games the replay function is pretty poor.

    playing these back it did not generate something that had not occured.
    I've had strange things happen a few times and the replay function is definately bugged here's an easy way to complete fire truck missions : get in fire truck, start the fire truck missions then hit replay. As soon as the replay is finished or you quit it the fire is extinguished instantly with you doing nothing!

  • Super Stu #31 10 years ago

    On my system (Athlon 1.4, Geforce 2 64mb, 512 mb) it's beautiful @ 800x600. I was very disappointed with GTA3 on PS2 cos it was soooooo slow, this is wicked!

    See, I prefer it on a 28" widescreen and in Pro Logic.

    Speaking of which.. I'm about 52% done, having just finished the last Columbian mission and decided to have a faff about with the options... and discovered that there was a widescreen and pad vibrate option. D'oh! I've had this since Christmas and haven't noticed til now ;)

  • Amnesia #32 10 years ago


    GTA3 lubs a GF3 to death. First game I've really *really* felt required one rather than it just being nice.

    BTW if anyone's having graphical hitches with a GF3 or d3d8.dll errors in Win98/ME try reinstalling Nvidia 21.83 drivers in the archive section of nvidia.com. The game would not work fullstop with the current 23.82 drivers for me. WinXP users may also have the same d3d8.dll error but it's something different to do with the .dll itself requiring a small update from m$.com. Details on GTA3.com.

    Lastly, if you've got slow frame rates make sure you turn off 'trails'.

  • Whizzo #33 10 years ago

    The game would not work fullstop with the current 23.82 drivers for me.
    Works fine for me on my ME setup with a Gf3-Ti200.

  • ssuellid #34 10 years ago

    "See, I prefer it on a 28" widescreen and in Pro Logic. " - you should try it with ProLogic II which does wonders with a normal ProLogic source. Either that or try DTS NEO.

  • Concrete #35 10 years ago

    Talking of Morrowind - Anyone know when the Xbox version is due to be released?

  • GrahamS #36 10 years ago

    "See, I prefer it on a 28" widescreen and in Pro Logic. "

    Absolutely - GTA3 is a good example of a game that I prefer to sit on the couch and play on a big screen, rather than hunched over my PC.

    Glad you found the widescreen option - didn't it look a bit wierd without it?? Personally its the first thing I check for in a new game.

  • Blerk #37 10 years ago

    I don't know how gta3 plays on the ps/2

    What, that old PC range from IBM? (showing my age)

    Seriously though, the PS2 version plays fine. A little bit of slowdown when there's tons going on, but not so much that you get annoyed.

  • Super Stu #38 10 years ago

    Why didn't they iron out the bugs before release, or is that a rhetorical question?

    Sounds like Renderware hasn't exactly been optimised for the PC, does it?

  • Super Stu #39 10 years ago

    surprised it sold so well, the console market must be pretty desperate :)

    Nope, we're just happy to buy polished games. The PC market is apparently happy to buy buggy shite (RL notwithstanding).

  • Blerk #40 10 years ago

    the controls are over simple

    How can the controls ever be 'over-simple'? You don't like it because it's not hard enough to control?

    "Well, it's okay... but I wish I could just sort of rotate on the spot and get killed sometimes instead of going in the direction I want to..."

  • Whizzo #41 10 years ago

    surprised it sold so well, the console market must be pretty desperate
    Perhaps it's because it's an incredibly fun game that even in the 6 months since I bought it I'm still playing on it on my PS2?

  • Aka #42 10 years ago

    > Also make sure your HD is up to speed

    Good point - if you have've got a fast HD you get stutters. (However they do smooth out once all the textures are in memory.)

    Blerk - ps/2; We've still got our old ps/1!
    Edited by Aka at 30/05/02 @ 14:55

  • Super Stu #43 10 years ago

    Nero was 5MB/sec and the dude at the PC shop said it was ATA-100 >:(

    ATA-100 means that you'll get burst transfer rates of 100mb/sec. The sustained transfer rate will be quite a bit slower.

    Whizzo: absolutely. I'm still playing my copy of GTA3 having bought it last Christmas.

  • Blerk #44 10 years ago

    Blerk - ps/2; We've still got our old ps/1!

    What the heck do you use it for? Keeping the door open? :-)

  • eviltobz #45 10 years ago

    ATA-100 means that you'll get burst transfer rates of 100mb/sec

    additionally, thats the spec of the bus, not the speed of the hard-drive. high bandwidth busses like this really come into their own when you have a number of devices connecting a communicating simultaneously, such as if you stripe your data accross a raid.

  • Nemesis #46 10 years ago

    "Well, it's okay... but I wish I could just sort of rotate on the spot and get killed sometimes instead of going in the direction I want to..."

    That'll be Resident Evil then........

  • miffo #47 10 years ago

    http://www.teamxbox.com/news.php?id=3273&fc=1
    for volleyball affecionados

  • Blerk #48 10 years ago

    That'll be Resident Evil then........

    You read my mind! :-)

  • binky #49 10 years ago

    ok with all the fuss with slowdown (which generally annoys me) should i buy this game for pc?

    (i haventclicked buy on play.com yet)

    My pc setup is....

    1000mhz athlon
    256mb ddr
    gf2 64mb

    Or should i just borrow my brothers ps2 with it over the next week, play it and be done with?

  • Blerk #50 10 years ago

    Or should i just borrow my brothers ps2 with it over the next week, play it and be done with?

    It'll take longer than a week. Seriously.

  • Super Stu #51 10 years ago

    That depends on if you want to play it for

    a) free
    b) £20

    ;)

  • Tricky #52 10 years ago

    That 98 lite link was very interesting - cheers for that. Whatever you do though don't make the mistake I made of typing in 98lite.com otherwise you'll get a site that Errol would probably recommend ;-)

    Oh yeah and as for the latest Nvidia drivers... don't even get me started. They're really quite bad - I had something like a 30-50% frame rate drop on most of my games compared to 21.83 so I went right back to them.
    Edited by Tricky at 30/05/02 @ 15:27

  • binky #53 10 years ago

    point being, i dont really want to buy pc games anymore, ESPECIALLY if they are gonna run shite on my pc...

    but i wouldnt mind playing this game. and 19.99 seems good value to me for a "new" game.

    so dya think im gonna get annoying frame rates with that pc setup?

  • ssuellid #54 10 years ago

    "Whatever you do though don't make the mistake I made of typing in 98lite.com "

    not as bad as the experts exchange URL. I sent an email out not giving the full address to a group of senior managers at my last job. Most of them ended up at some "expert sex change" site instead.

  • Gestalt #55 10 years ago

    "they do smooth out once all the textures are in memory"

    I think that's maybe the problem - it just hasn't been optimised for the PC, so unless you have enough texture memory on your graphics card the game keeps thrashing your hard drive and trying to shuffle all the textures back and forth between graphics card and system memory. The faster you drive, the faster it has to load textures, and the choppier it gets.

    Given that the PS2 isn't exactly renowned for having a huge reservoir of RAM, this isn't very impressive.

  • Errol #56 10 years ago

    'you'll get a site that Errol would probably recommend'

    Heh.

  • Tricky #57 10 years ago

    Yay Errol - thought that might get you to pop your head up... or should I rephrase that?

  • Errol #58 10 years ago

    'pop your head up'

    Now thats just disgusting.

  • Aka #59 10 years ago

    Correct if I'm wrong, GTA3 was built with Renderware. How does Renderware work? Do you create a game for a platform, like PS2, or is it PC based?

  • Errol #60 10 years ago

    Basically, they should have included multiplayer. This would have been game of the decade with a full suite of mulitplayer options.

  • Blerk #61 10 years ago

    How does Renderware work?

    If I understand correctly it's a middleware graphics library. Basically a standard API that you can use on a number of machines so that you don't need to rewrite your graphics code when you port to another platform. A bit like Direct-X, but for machines rather than graphics cards.

  • Tricky #62 10 years ago

    This reminds me though - I really need to get my PS2 copy back off my mate. He's had it for a couple of months now. Especially as I've now come badly unstuck in Final Fantasy X with that bloody Seymour bloke - 35 hours in and I can't beat him for love nor money. Grrr.

  • Moonbender #63 10 years ago

    I haven't had problems with the game's speed on my more-than-a-year old Duron 800 with a less-than-64-MB GF2 MX. I had to lower the resolution to 640x480 when I arrived at Staunton Island, and I turned off the trails both because of speed and because I thought they looked a bit weird.
    None of my friends had any real problems with the speed, all of them running GF2 MX on CPUs with less than 1Ghz. The only one who did have a problem was one with a relatively high end graphics card, who didn't bother to download the MS Windows XP Hotfix.
    There are some issues, but I don't know how widespread they are, and I don't think it's valid to say that you're more likely to be affected if you've got an old graphics card. It seems to be quite random.

    Morrowind is awesome BTW, kept me playing even longer than GTA3, and I haven't had any problems with it either. Well, it did crash on me every once in a while, like every 5 or 6 hours, but I always had a quicksave that was 3 minutes back, I suppose that's the game telling me I shouldn't spent more then 6 hours consecutively playing Morrowind. Apart from that, it's bloddy brilliant, I usually hate first-person RPGs, but this one must be the best CRPG since Baldur's Gate, so it kept me playing for about 50 hours.

    Can't understand how anyone can play GTA3 for 6 months, the only game I played for that long was Half-Life, and that only because it was an online multiplayer game. There is just no single player game that can hold my attention that long. I think I played GTA3 for about 40 hours so far, and I doubt I'll spent another 40 in it, even though I agree with the review in that it is an awesome game.

  • Aka #64 10 years ago

    Excuse my ignorance, but what's Morrowind?

  • binky #65 10 years ago

    I had to lower the resolution to 640x480

    so to get a decent speed u have to do this? on a 1gighz with a gf2mx ? hmmm not sure i can be bothered with that tbh..

  • Whizzo #66 10 years ago

    Can't understand how anyone can play GTA3 for 6 months
    Obviously not continuously but if I'm feeling up for a bit of criminal fun I can easily waste an hour or two causing havoc in Liberty City. I'm not sure I'll ever get bored with long chases all over the city with the cops.

    Excuse my ignorance, but what's Morrowind?
    First person solo RPG that comes out tomorrow in Europe. Morrowind's home page give more details.

  • Moonbender #67 10 years ago

    1 Ghz? No, on a Duron 800 with a GeForce 2 MX 32MB and 256 MB of RAM, in other words, on a computer that was very low end 18 months ago. :)

    Aka, Morrowind is The Elder Scrolls III, ie the follow-up to the infamous RPG Daggerfall. Rumours about it being anywhere as buggy as TES2 are quite invalid, though, and people who played both games (I haven't) routinely roll on the floor laughing when they hear this.

    Ah another thing on Morrowind, re: the detailed in-door scenes. I could imagine they did this because you have (optionally) extremely long draw distances outside, while inside the draw distance is necessarily very short, no matter how high you set it. I could imagine that, with the drawing distance set to the upper half of the slider, you'd have about the same performance inside and outside.
    Anyway, I never noticed the difference in performace interior and exterior, TBH. It looked spectacular, anyway, easily the best-looking terrain I've ever seen in a game.

  • binky #68 10 years ago

    there aint that much differnce between 800 - 1gighz thats all i was saying (ie i have 1g)

    Think i'll have a go on my brothers ps2 and see if i think its worth the outlay. specially as im getting overwhelmed by games atm.

    SSXT xbox... Jedi starfighter Xbox..... Marioland.....GBA

    im really looking forward to Turok as well :)

  • bystander #69 10 years ago

    there aint that much differnce between 800 - 1gighz thats all i was saying (ie i have 1g)

    Depends if your 1gig is a Duron or not. There is fair performance difference betwen an Athlon and a Duron, due to the cache size and FSB differences between the CPUs.

  • Moonbender #70 10 years ago

    The difference between Duron and Athlon is usually averaged at like 10%, depending on the application, of course. A TB 1Ghz would be about 30% faster than my meager Duron, a bit less if I run it at 133Mhz x6 instead of 100Mhz x8. Oh well. :)

  • Max Diablos #71 10 years ago

    A bit like Direct-X, but for machines rather than graphics cards.

    Direct X is the collection. Direct 3D is the graphics API. Bearing mind D3D is proprietory OpenGL would be a better comparison.

  • Gestalt #72 10 years ago

    Which patch is this? If it's a GTA3 patch of .. ahem .. dubious legality, I've heard that they can interfere with the save game system.
    Edited by Gestalt at 30/05/02 @ 18:07

  • Moonbender #73 10 years ago

    "GeForce patch" sounds like he's talking about the MS hotfix including the updated d3d8.dll. Never heard of any problems with that.

  • FWB #74 10 years ago

    I think the performance issues must be Geforce based. I'm running a P3 866 512mb RAM (which helps) and a Radeon 64 DDR. It ran very damn well in 1024x768 32 bit with everything maxed except the draw distance (which I set to one or two notches from the top). The only time it slowed down was when it rained/got foggy and the action was getting intense. I switched to 960x720 (still 32 bit and same graphic settings) and it runs perfectly, come rain or shine. I've also only experienced one glitch, which was water polegons breaking through low lying jettis. I haven't seen any other graphical problems (well except for the rain entering the auto dealers on the first island).

    As for the game... it is everything I waited for. Fantastic. My only "issues" are gameplay ones:

    1) Cars shouldn't immediately burn once they're flipped - pedantic, but still....

    2) Multiplayer would be nice

    3) Different ways of progress through the game. Maybe I'm wrong here, but I think you have to side with the Italians on the first map to make any progress. With that said, the game isn't very linear anyway.

    4) Editing tools... although there was a rumour that a GMax pack would be released.

    5) Losing cops. It appears to have changed from GTA2, in which even if you're warrant level was pretty high, you could still lose track of the guys. I'm not suggesting reducing warrant levels above 1 star after a while (because that isn't logical) but I had s shit load of cops after me at one point and made my getaway into the subway (it is kind of stupid that they don't follow you into certain places). When I got to my destination and exited the subway they immediately showed up.... telepathy I think. In addition, I don't see cops arresting, or attempting to, other gang members who start causing havoc. This was one of my favourite tactics in GTA2. Cause a fight, wait for swat to turn up and let them and the gang members kill each other while you make your getaway.

    6) Some other review I read made two very good points being that there aren't enough things to buy (more items would increase the reward factor of earning cash) and a point based character progression would add a neat RPG element.

    Lastly, I think it is rather amusing how the law tends to commit more murders and cause more damage than you ever could, in their attempt to hunt you down. Even better, they seem to blame you for it. I witness one cop car take out 5 civlians in its bid to get to me and the result was my warrant level going up.
    Edited by FWB at 30/05/02 @ 19:28

  • Moonbender #75 10 years ago

    0) It might be related to Nvidia graphics cards, but I know there have been reported slow downs for people running Ati cards, as well. Of course you never know if they're related to the graphics card or sun spots.

    1) Well, they don't. If you're flipping a car in a good condition, it takes a while for it to take fire and explode. It's still stupid though, the car shouldn't explode at all, cars don't do that, even if flipped. Not that I tried in RL.

    2) GTA 4. It won't be in Vice City. Some people suggested someone would mod it into GTA3, but that's just ridiculous.

    3) Yep. Not sure if you can decide between two paths on the second island, at one point you kill Kenji, possibly you can side with the Yakuza there, but I never tried.

    4) Editing car properties is very easy, it's a large plaintext file, an editor is already released. Rockstar has been quoted that modding should be easy for anyone who knows how to handle Renderware files, however I read on GTA3Mods.com that it's actually quite difficult since the files are so messy. So, we'll see, but as it is a single player game I don't put my hopes too high when it comes to modding.

    5) I also think it's downright annoying that other gangs can pretty much break as many laws as they want without suffering any consequences. Especially when you run around town without any kind of weapon.

  • FWB #76 10 years ago

    1) Well, they don't. If you're flipping a car in a good condition, it takes a while for it to take fire and explode. It's still stupid though, the car shouldn't explode at all, cars don't do that, even if flipped. Not that I tried in RL.

    Sorry, that's what I meant. They shouldn't light up at all. Hopefully in the sequel we might even see some "thrown from vehicle" animations.

    Especially when you run around town without any kind of weapon.

    Another feature that got lost. I remember in the original pulling out a weapon (yes, yes, all laugh :) ) would make civlians run away. Doing it in front of a cop should make you wanted. I'm also missing the bikes, but I gather they'll be in Vice City.

    Mod wise, I'm thinking more of maps, than vehicles. Ohh, and should also add that the MP3 feature is really neat (so are the sounds that come with the game... I love Chatterbox FM, especially that vegan with the lisp). Nothing like driving around to some punk.

  • Moonbender #77 10 years ago

    Ordinarily the MP3 feature would be great, but since the standard radio is so good, I found myself rarely listening to my own stuff. :)

  • Whizzo #78 10 years ago

    They shouldn't light up at all.
    Well being realistic now they wouldn't however the massive chain reactions that can happen when they do more than makes up for the lack of realism! :-)

    For everyone having performance problems make sure you have the frame limiter switched on in the video settings, this makes a huge difference to how smooth the game is. Playing around with FRAPS it shows it locks the framerate at 30FPS but without it on even if the FPS is 70+ it will not be smooth. FRAPS is also handy for taking screenshots anytime you want.

  • Moonbender #79 10 years ago

    Well being realistic now they wouldn't however the massive chain reactions that can happen when they do more than makes up for the lack of realism!

    That's actually one thing I miss from the original. In GTA 1 and 2, there'd be chain reactions all the time. Explode one car, and all the other cars waiting behind it at the traffic light go up as well.
    One of the best ways to get points in GTA 1 and 2 was getting a bunch of cars near each other, get a wanted level to attract a bunch of cops with their cars and explode one car - all the cops went down with higher points awarded for each consecutive kill.
    I guess this is still possible in GTA3, but much much harder to do. I have yet to see more than 3 explosions in a row.

    Edit: Another thing I miss is the word "kiiiill freenzyy" which is just way cooler than "rampage", and some guy shouting "WASTED" when you're down. Much less frustrating that way. ;)
    Edited by Moonbender at 30/05/02 @ 19:53

  • otto #80 10 years ago

    I dunno, when it came out for PS2 I was really jealous & couldn't wait to see it on PC, but now it's here, I'm not really that excited about it. Not enough to rush out and buy it. Like Binky, I guess I have too many other games to be getting on with. Also I have a feeling it'll suck gibbon gonads on my old TNT2. Like so many other AAA PC titles I think I'll wait & get it on budget.

  • Whizzo #81 10 years ago

    I have yet to see more than 3 explosions in a row.
    Get the police after you in a big way (2-3 cars), then toss a grenade. They'll all go up and any other cops screaming in afterwards will get caught in the blast and proceed to start to go up too. Oh and in the PC version the amount of bodyparts that explosions cause is rather large too.. :-)

    Also I have a feeling it'll suck gibbon gonads on my old TNT2.
    It wouldn't work too well on that, if you had something more beefy I'd say rush out and get it. Alternatively you could buy a PS2 and play it on that as I know you luuurve Sony so much.... ;-)
    Edited by Whizzo at 30/05/02 @ 19:57

  • FWB #82 10 years ago

    Well being realistic now they wouldn't however the massive chain reactions that can happen when they do more than makes up for the lack of realism! :-)

    True, but the sudden lighting up of upside cars is pushing it a tad too far. More importantly I'm then unable to a)tip it over again with another vehicles or b) get some really neat screenshots of huge crashes.

    Ordinarily the MP3 feature would be great, but since the standard radio is so good, I found myself rarely listening to my own stuff. :)

    It was neat to hear "Grand Theft Auto" again (I think that's the name) - the track from GTA1. Twas a favourite of mine for cruising around.

    Something else that just dawned on me, the save game is very cheap. It doesn't cost a penny and you get your car back in mint condition. I'd have liked to have seen a cash requirement.

    That's actually one thing I miss from the original. In GTA 1 and 2, there'd be chain reactions all the time. Explode one car, and all the other cars waiting behind it at the traffic light go up as well.

    Arhh yes, that was great fun. The "wasted" and "kill frenzy" were also cool.

    Oh and in the PC version the amount of bodyparts that explosions cause is rather large too.. :-)

    Does that happen on the PS2 version? I was playing the PC one with a mate whose played the PS2 alot and he said he believed he hadn't seen it before, that and the fog.

    I'll wait & get it on budget.

    Well my version was $20 from Play.com.



    Edited by FWB at 30/05/02 @ 20:00

  • Moonbender #83 10 years ago

    Oh, one annoying thing, probably a PS2 heritage, is that the cars around you aren't really saved. Turn around 180° two times, and when you're back where you started the cars you saw originally will be replaced by others.

  • Whizzo #84 10 years ago

    More importantly I'm then unable to a)tip it over again with another vehicles or b) get some really neat screenshots of huge crashes.

    Remember it was originally made for the PS2 having too many objects remaining on screen at once would have completely killed the framerate.

    Something else that just dawned on me, the save game is very cheap. It doesn't cost a penny and you get your car back in mint condition. I'd have liked to have seen a cash requirement.
    You don't have to save to get the "magic garage elves" to do their job, just put the car in and let the door close, open it again and the car is mint again. Money really has bugger all effect in the game to be honest, getting the secret packages to get free weapons means you never really have to buy them very often (bazookas excepted you need 100 packages for them) so even if it cost money to save it wouldn't really matter much.

    Does that happen on the PS2 version? I was playing the PC one with a mate whose played the PS2 alot and he said he believed he hadn't seen it before, that and the fog.
    Bodyparts coming off only happen with a cheatcode on the PS2, fog happens in the PS2 version just as often as the PC one.
    Edited by Whizzo at 30/05/02 @ 20:05

  • FWB #85 10 years ago

    Arhh... ok, thanks for the tip.

    Money really has bugger all effect in the game to be honest, getting the secret packages to get free weapons means you never really have to buy them so even if it cost money to save it wouldn't really matter much.

    A shame really. I would have liked to have seen more use for it. I think we're also missing the stats page on total kills, maimings, thefts etc etc.

    And as you pointed out, those elements from the console version are a tad annoying, but hey, it could have been alot worse... I think.

  • Whizzo #86 10 years ago

    I think we're also missing the stats page on total kills, maimings, thefts etc etc.
    Hit escape during the game and the stats option is there.

  • Moonbender #87 10 years ago

    There were similar discussions before, I think the bottom line was that, yep, the scores suck, but there's a lot of demand for them as especially casual readers want scores. I'd prefer your version as well, but looks like that's not gonna happen.

  • Gestalt #88 10 years ago

    "I don't see cops arresting, or attempting to, other gang members who start causing havoc"

    True, it is a bit annoying when a Columbian drugs cartel starts shooting you as you drive through their territory and the cops just ignore it, but if you start running people over or shooting stuff they're all over you. Not a big issue most of the time though.


    "there aren't enough things to buy"

    True again. I've got a huge amount of money and not much to spend it on, as I prefer running people over to shooting them (call me old fashioned). And if my car gets beaten up, I either limp back to my home garage and leave it there overnight to magically regenerate, or just dump it and steal another one. To (mis?)quote Jet Li from Romeo Must Die, "I love America - free cars!"


    "a point based character progression would add a neat RPG element"

    Your stamina does increase the more you run AFAIK. So if you spend a lot of time on foot, you can run further before you get exhausted and have to slow down again. After a few days playing the game the difference is noticeable.


    "Not sure if you can decide between two paths on the second island"

    Don't think so, but you can certainly decide to kill Kenji before you've done all the jobs for him. The end result is the same - you just miss a few missions.


    "make sure you have the frame limiter switched on in the video settings"

    Didn't have much choice - if I switched frame limiter and frame sync off the game blue screened after a few minutes. :( GTA3 is the only piece of software that's completely locked up my entire system since I switched to Win2k a few weeks ago, but I think it's because it's straining my graphics card and causing it to overheat, rather than crashing in the conventional sense.


    "I have a feeling it'll suck gibbon gonads on my old TNT2"

    How much memory have you got on that thing? If it's less than 16Mb the game won't even load. :) If it's 16Mb or more it'll just run at a lousy framerate and be choppy as hell. Either way I'd recommend upgrading your graphics card or biting the bullet and buying a PS2 to play it on.


    "Get the police after you in a big way (2-3 cars), then toss a grenade"

    Grenades and rocket launchers (and to a lesser degree molotov cocktails) are truly god's work. :) Nothing like causing a huge pile up, clambering out of the wreckage, running down the street as the cops fire at you, turning round and lobbing a grenade into the tangled mess of cars and watching the whole lot get lifted into the air. Lovely.


    "the cars around you aren't really saved. Turn around 180° two times, and when you're back where you started the cars you saw originally will be replaced by others"

    Yeah, I spotted that, but I just assumed that either a) I was hallucinating or b) they were popping off down a side road while my back was turned. It is a bit freaky though.

  • FWB #89 10 years ago

    Hit escape during the game and the stats option is there.

    Ok, I'll have to take another look. I thought last time I saw it it just gave me a single rating.

    I really hope we see the London GTA in 3D at some point (highly unlike, I know, even if most of the team are Brits). Don't get me wrong, I love the US setting too, but I really enjoyed the 1960s mission disk and the cockney missions.

  • Whizzo #90 10 years ago

    I really hope we see the London GTA in 3D at some point (highly unlike, I know, even if most of the team are Brits). Don't get me wrong, I love the US setting too, but I really enjoyed the 1960s mission disk and the cockney missions.

    Well hopefully "The Getaway" will provide something of that. It was on show at E3 yet there seems, still, to have been little said about. Anyone that went and saw it come on spill the beans!!

    The thing with the cops not actually bothering to arrest other gangs can sort of be weakly explained as that the law enforcement agents are just another gang and they've already been paid off by the other gangs so they don't touch them, you just get to do it a lot slower by using the bribes or by losing a chunk of change when you get busted. It's a gamey explanation but it sort of works! :-)

  • Khab #91 10 years ago

    As well as being useful for taking out cops and gang members, you can also threaten passing pedestrians by targeting them with one of your guns, encouraging them to drop all their money and run.

    Oi! I didn't know this? How's it done then? You just point it at them and use the 'target' key? - I'll have to go experiment.

    Can't understand how anyone can play GTA3 for 6 months, the only game I played for that long was Half-Life, and that only because it was an online multiplayer game. There is just no single player game that can hold my attention that long.

    I played Civ for four years. Civ2 for five or so. So there. :)

    and some guy shouting "WASTED" when you're down. Much less frustrating that way. ;)

    I've just taken to shouting it myself... am I weird?

  • Moonbender #92 10 years ago

    I've just taken to shouting it myself... am I weird?

    Not that much, although I usually shout "AWW FUCK THIS" when I die. :p

  • Khab #93 10 years ago

    I only scream "AW FUCK THIS" when I fail a mission for the, say, fourth time. Like I just did - the 'Payday for Ray' piece of shit on Staunton Island - the one where you have to go to all the phones. I just missed it with circa 2 seconds... I REALLY HATE the timed missions... takes the fun out of it, and was the real reason I never played the original too much. Seemed like there wasn't as much of that in this one initially, but now I'm starting to get frustrated... any tips?

  • Moonbender #94 10 years ago

    Seemed like there wasn't as much of that in this one initially, but now I'm starting to get frustrated... any tips?

    Nope. Timed missions suck. I think I needed four or five tries at the one you mentioned, and god was it frustrating. Now that I have all three islands, I don't do any missions at all anymore, because all I've left are timed I think.

  • FWB #95 10 years ago

    Seemed like there wasn't as much of that in this one initially, but now I'm starting to get frustrated... any tips?

    I've done a couple, but I have a feeling they're the easy ones. It is incredible how you can screw up a good run by just clipping something. I was just trying to break some guy out of jail. All was going fine and dandy until the my swat van got clipped by some taxis driver (I get this huge urge to get out of my vehicle and give "bad" drivers a good slap, kind of weird since a)I'm the one speeding everywhere and b)in realy life I've never got annoyed driving once; I don't think I've ever even used a horn). The van spins around and I end up in some lake, 100 metres away from the respray place. What a laugh.

  • Khab #96 10 years ago

    I just did the jailbreak one - don't worry about the respray place, just take the cop star on the way out, and then get to Kenji's place and pick up that star - then you'll be down to 1 star, and just have to lay low for a minute or two before you're clean and can take the man to the dojo...

  • Khab #97 10 years ago

    Nope. Timed missions suck. I think I needed four or five tries at the one you mentioned, and god was it frustrating.

    The thing is, I get so pissed of at hearing him ordering me around every time I get to a booth that I'll probably waste him big-time if I ever finish the mission...

  • FWB #98 10 years ago

    Hehehe. Yeah, it is irritating hearing them going on about it. You can usually skip the missions description with spacebar or fire, but sometimes there is a cutscene that you can't bypass.

    Thanks for the tip on the star. I got one coming out of the cop parking lot and was doing ok, until mr taxis driver came along. I've actually only given it one shot so far.

    Does anyone know whether pickups return once you take them, specifically health at the hospital?

  • Khab #99 10 years ago

    Don't think they do, but in the case of health, just shoot someone, wait for the ambulance, and get in - it'll get you 50 health...

  • Moonbender #100 10 years ago

    AFAIK nearly all pickups return. Health pickups most definetly do.
    The most important thing to do before timed missions is a) learn to drive really fast, and b) get the fastest car you can. Even if it takes you a couple of minutes running around to find that stinger, it's usually worth it. Also, knowing your way around the city obviously helps tremendously.

    Edit: Hmmmm ... maybe I'm wrong about the health pickups, but I'd be surprised.
    Edited by Moonbender at 31/05/02 @ 00:31

  • Whizzo #101 10 years ago

    For the timed missions if your driving is a bit crap use the Stinger, it's nice and quick and the handling is the best of the sports cars even if it isn't the fastest.

    I'm pretty sure the health does respawn but it takes ages, however there are plenty of them hidden away on each island so just learn where they are and it'll help and always wear armour, which is also scattered quite nicely around the three islands. If you complete a certain amount of ambulance missions a health pickup will appear at your home. Ambulances increase health by 20 points but will decrease your health to 100 if you've been enjoying the "freelance nurses" that walk around Liberty distributing health bonuses...

    Oh and remember to do the police vigilante missions too, for every 10 you get a police bribe at home, to the maximum of 6 when you've done 20 missions on each of the three islands.
    Edited by Whizzo at 31/05/02 @ 00:52

  • Khab #102 10 years ago

    b) get the fastest car you can.

    Actually, I find that that should be

    b) Get a cop car and turn on the siren.

  • Moonbender #103 10 years ago

    Not really. Cop cars are neither the fastest nor the most nimble cars in the game. I like Stingers the most, but the other sports cars all seem to be pretty awesome. Cop cars are pretty stable, though, which might be a reason to use em.
    The siren is very cool, you just have to love how all the other cars actually break and try to make room for you, but I preferred to drive without it, since I found the other cars behaviour to be pretty difficult to predict, for instance if and which way they would drive to avoid you.

    BTW, I didn't know about the police bribe and health appearing at your hideout, that's pretty cool. Gotta try it right now. :) How many hidden packages did you find so far? I'm at 35 (without any walkthrough, of course) right now, I've got the pistol, the uzi and grenades at my hideout.

  • FWB #104 10 years ago

    Out of interest, what tracks do you listen,if you do, on the MP3 player? I'm talking about songs that you think are ideally suited to causing destruction and chaos. A few that I have running are:

    Sabotage - Beastie Boys
    Been caught stealing - Jane's Addiction
    I fought the law - The Clash
    Wonderful world - Louis Armstrong (this is great to produce that surreal atmosphere)
    Anarchy in the UK - Sex Pistols (there are so many you can pick, but this is probably the most fitting one)
    Ignite, Looking for action and Born to kill - The Damned
    Perseverance - Terrorvision

    Edited by FWB at 31/05/02 @ 01:42

  • Moonbender #105 10 years ago

    LOL ... my mp3 subdir contains a couple of songs randomly pulled out of my main MP3 archive. The songs aren't anarchic at all, quite to the contrary actually - a couple of songs by Elton John, Sandstorm by Darude and Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm by the Crash Test Dummies. As I said, very random bunch.
    If I had to choose a couple of songs that fit the mood, then Jimmy Eat World, Marilyn Manson and the Prodigy would be it. Neon Genesis theme songs would qualify as creating a surreal athmosphere. ;)

  • FWB #106 10 years ago

    Yeah, I have a large collection of alsorts in my directory, but I thought I'd just name a few that really are neat during intense action. There's just something about hearing...

    I've been caught stealing, once when I was five
    I enjoy stealing, its as simple as that
    Well its a simple fact
    When I want something, man, don't want to pay for it

    ...while driving a hijacked car. :)

  • oxinan #107 10 years ago

    Rearviewmirror by Pearl Jam is an old but good one. Bad Habit by Offspring would also work quite well I guess:

    I open the glove box
    Reach inside
    I'm gonna wreck this fucker's ride

  • Gestalt #108 10 years ago

    "More safe houses or more flexible saving options would be nice"

    The most annoying bit is the missions, as you can't save during a mission. That means that if you fail the mission, you not only have to repeat the entire thing over from scratch (which is fair enough), but you also have to monkey around driving out to see whichever gang boss it was to get the mission again and wait for the cutscene to load up, skip through it, wait for it to drop you back into the game... It's just plain annoying if you end up retrying the same mission several times. I want to be able to just jump right back in while I'm still worked up, not have to faff around driving a couple of miles across town just to get started.


    "the one where you have to go to all the phones"

    That one's a bit tricky - I made it on my first try, but only with literally one second left on the clock when I finally reached the end of the phone trail. All I can suggest is steal a fast car and park it so that it's facing in the right direction before you go to get the mission, so you can just hop in and screech off once the timer starts.


    "I get this huge urge to get out of my vehicle and give "bad" drivers a good slap"

    The funny thing is, some of the other drivers are just as bad as you. You'll sometimes see cars punting each other off the road, colliding at junctions, mounting the pavement and generally messing up. Staunton seems to be the worst for that - must be all the rich idiots with their Ferrari and Porsche substitutes. ;)

  • Tricky #109 10 years ago

    Bah - you're all an uncultured bunch. I always tune into the classical/opera radio station (been a while since I played it so can't remember the channel's name) - nothing like cruising liberty city to the strains of some diva belting it out, especially when the action is really getting hot as it makes it kind of surreal ;-)

  • Pirotic #110 10 years ago

    i think a bit of Sinatra would go down well

  • Gestalt #111 10 years ago

    "Start spreading the news..."

  • binky #112 10 years ago

    nothing beats driving around in RALLISPORT on the XBX with either the star wars theme or some music from Clockwork Orange. TOP STUFF

  • Super Stu #113 10 years ago

    b) Get a cop car and turn on the siren.

    Pah, I've got an FBI car in my Staunton Island lockup ;)

  • Super Stu #114 10 years ago

    Can't understand how anyone can play GTA3 for 6 months

    Well, I haven't been able to play it non stop for 6 months because I have to go to the toilet occasionally :p

    I'm still playing GT3 a year after having bought it - a mark of a good game.

  • skalmanxl #115 10 years ago

    Pah, I've got an FBI car in my Staunton Island lockup ;)

    Overrated car, I think.

  • pjmaybe #116 10 years ago

    Hahaha! I love it! Everyone moaned about the frame rate on the PS2 version and it turns out that the PC version is WORSE!

    Excellent.

    Peej

  • Blerk #117 10 years ago

    I like that enormous army surplus truck you can get from the arms dealer on the second island. Almost completely indestructable, cars just bounce off it! Excellent fun to just plough along a busy road sending cars flying in all directions. Helped me to finish many a difficult mission, that one - not fast, but the cops can't touch you! :-)

  • skalmanxl #118 10 years ago

    ->Blerk

    I love that one too. I pick it up, and just bully everyone else by going in the opposite direction of the lane. I usually take the small bridge by the constructionsite, just to get to bob a few of them down down down. I specially like hitting Landstalkers with it, since they do some quality bounching.

  • FWB #119 10 years ago

    A couple more that I have:

    Caught by the Fuzz - Supergrass
    Crosstown Traffic - Hendrix

    Hendrix's one has some really great lyrics:

    You jump in front of my car when you,
    you know all the time
    Ninty miles an hour, girl, is the speed I drive
    You tell me it's alright, you don't mind a little pain
    You say you just want me to take you for a drive

    You're just like crosstown traffic
    So hard to get through to you
    Crosstown traffic
    I don't need to run over you
    Crosstown traffic
    All you do is slow me down
    And I'm tryin' to get on the other side of town

    I'm not the only soul who's accused of hit and run
    Tire tracks all across your back
    I can, I can see you had your fun
    But, darlin' can't you see my signals turn from green to red
    And with you I can see a traffic jam straight up ahead

    You're just like crosstown traffic
    So hard to get through to you
    Crosstown traffic
    I don't need to run over you
    Crosstown traffic
    All you do is slow me down
    And I got better things on the other side of town

    It is a fantastic track in its own right anyway... well, it is Hendrix.

  • Whizzo #120 10 years ago

    I like that enormous army surplus truck you can get from the arms dealer on the second island.
    The Barracks at full speed into oncoming traffic is lovely, just a pity it's as fragile as all the other vehicles when the Rhinos are on the streets...

    I specially like hitting Landstalkers with it, since they do some quality bounching.
    Hitting Landstalkers is just what they deserve, they're top heavy, unbalanced crap, one of the worst cars to be around when you really need to 'jack something to get away from the cops!

  • skalmanxl #121 10 years ago

    I love the Landstalkers myself, a pure challenge do drive. I tend to jack one, pop on Game Radio and go gangsta on people's polygonal asses.

  • Super Stu #122 10 years ago

    Pah, I've got an FBI car in my Staunton Island lockup ;)

    Overrated car, I think.

    You're missing the point - it's in my garage.

  • skalmanxl #123 10 years ago

    Well, I have one was well. I think the enforcer is crammed in there too,

  • Whizzo #124 10 years ago

    You're missing the point - it's in my garage.
    When you've gained a Rhino, without cheating, that's something to be proud of! ;-)

  • Super Stu #125 10 years ago

    When do you actually gain the Rhino? It was parked up in that mission where you have to protect the war veteran, but it was locked.

  • Super Stu #126 10 years ago

    Whilst I think about it... where on earth do I get a Mr Whopee? That's all I need on that list of cars you have to boost.

  • Blerk #127 10 years ago

    where on earth do I get a Mr Whopee?

    The easiest way to get one is to do Vigilante or Fire Truck missions. I got one on my second or third Vigilante mission - a crook had boosted it and I had to chase him down. Don't damage it too much and you can take it away afterwards. :-)

  • Whizzo #128 10 years ago

    When do you actually gain the Rhino?

    There are three non-cheating ways :-

    a) nick one from the army (the best way but v.dangerous)
    b) nick one from the army and complete the emergency vehicle crane requirements of one of each EV and you get the ability to pick one up from the docks anytime
    c) complete the game and the arms dealer's Rhino is unlocked and respawns.

    Until you hit the third island the army don't turn up, so there's no way to get one until you're quite far into the game.

  • Gestalt #129 10 years ago

    "Hitting Landstalkers is just what they deserve, they're top heavy, unbalanced crap, one of the worst cars to be around when you really need to 'jack something to get away from the cops"

    It's a pity really - the Landstalkers are pretty fast, fairly rugged and handle well, but as soon as you so much as tap it with another car it flips over and blows up. They must've modelled it on the Canyonero from The Simpsons. ;)
    Edited by Gestalt at 31/05/02 @ 11:04

  • Whizzo #130 10 years ago

    They must've modelled it on the Canyonero from The Simpsons. ;)
    Or early model Vauxhall Frontera's...

  • Super Stu #131 10 years ago

    Dear Mr Rockstar

    Please, please, please may we have an 18 wheel articulated lorry to drive in GTA4.

    Luv

    Stu.

  • Whizzo #132 10 years ago

    Please, please, please may we have an 18 wheel articulated lorry to drive in GTA4.
    And motorbikes, although if the cover of Vice City is accurate, they will be there!

  • Blerk #133 10 years ago

    And motorbikes, although if the cover of Vice City is accurate, they will be there!

    Oh yeah! A 'Steve McQueen-em-up'! Fantastic! :-)

  • Super Stu #134 10 years ago

    And a Segway!

  • skalmanxl #135 10 years ago

    Oh yeah! A 'Steve McQueen-em-up'! Fantastic! :-)

    You certainly have good taste Blerk, Steve McQueen is one of the coolest actors ever! The great escape (with the kindest germans ever in movie history) is my fav. movie with him.

  • Whizzo #136 10 years ago

    The great escape (with the kindest germans ever in movie history) is my fav. movie with him.
    The Great Escape is truly one of the best movies ever, now I've just to find some time to actually watch the recent DVD I bought of it!

    One thing that would add a certain McQueen influence to GTA would be whenever you're in a chase there should always be a green VW Beetle lurking nearby... :-)
    Edited by Whizzo at 31/05/02 @ 11:33

  • skalmanxl #137 10 years ago

    Wasn't it yellow?

    Besides, we all know that a 72 Ford Mustang have about 7-15 gears going upwards. Plenty of hubcaps too.

  • Blerk #138 10 years ago

    The great escape is my fav. movie with him.

    And precisely the movie I had in mind at the time I wrote that. :-)

  • Whizzo #139 10 years ago

    Wasn't it yellow?
    Nope dark green.

    Plenty of hubcaps too.
    Yeah I think it ended up losing about 8 or so, even for an American car that seems extravagant!
    Edited by Whizzo at 31/05/02 @ 11:43

  • LaundroMat #140 10 years ago

    Gestalt: The most annoying bit is the missions, as you can't save during a mission. I want to be able to just jump right back in while I'm still worked up, not have to faff around driving a couple of miles across town just to get started.

    That's not a bad thing, imho. I guess only one times in three do I actually reach the same boss again, only because I can't withhold from trying to fool around with pedestrians, other drivers, the cops eventually etcetera (and have fun in the process). Surely makes the game last a lot longer.

  • Khab #141 10 years ago

    i think a bit of Sinatra would go down well.

    I've got 'My Way' in my folder. :) It's excellent, whenever it comes around I can't resist going on a killing spree, running people over and doing drive-bys... :D

  • Blerk #142 10 years ago

    Surely makes the game last a lot longer.

    It's generally not too bad until you get to the second island and it starts sending you on missions to the first island. Get mission on island 2, drive to island 1, get killed, have to go all the way back to island 2 to get the mission again, then all the way back to island 1, get killed, shout, throw, swear. :-)

  • Errol #143 10 years ago

    For the PC version, it should have been possible to save anywhere, at any time.

  • bystander #144 10 years ago

    For the PC version, it should have been possible to save anywhere, at any time.

    Wouldn't that have made a bit too easy?

    Perhaps they should have made auto save points every place where you can pick up a mission? So just before you pick a mission the game auto saves, thus saving you from needing to backtrack to find the mission again should you fail it.

  • Whizzo #145 10 years ago

    Wouldn't that have made a bit too easy?
    Yes it would, unless the mission is timed you can do pretty much anything to get a new car, health, weapons and armour so if things go bad just back off re-stock and then go back, hell you can even pay a visit to a freelance nurse if you want...

    Never be afraid to scarper.

  • st3ph3n #146 10 years ago

    Suppose I should add my 2 pence worth on the graphics.

    They are perfectly acceptable on my 32mb GF2MX at 800x600. Anything higher than that and it suffers badly.

    And that's with me using an AthlonXP 1800+ with the rest of the trimmings.

    Should probably get a decent GFX card at some stage.

  • Errol #147 10 years ago

    'Should probably get a decent GFX card at some stage'

    Yes, you most certainly should ! Your otherwise ninja PC is being seriously held back by that shoddy graphics card ! Get a Geforce 3/4, and be astonished !

  • Gestalt #148 10 years ago

    "Perhaps they should have made auto save points every place where you can pick up a mission"

    Yup. I like the idea of limited saves, but in GTA3 it's just bloody minded because you have to drive back and forth across town every time you fail a mission. If you could just auto-save outside the hot spot where you go in to meet the boss, that would save a lot of time and unnecessary frustration.

  • FWB #149 10 years ago

    Well I figured out that pickups definately return, an dthat includes polic bribes. My next question is whether failed missions return, in particular the non gang related ones.

    Yup. I like the idea of limited saves

    Well the current save system isn't great. I'm one of those players who will save every other minute if I can, but I like restricted saving because it adds more tension.

  • mouse Verified Graphic designer, Eurogamer Network #150 10 years ago

    "My next question is whether failed missions return, in particular the non gang related ones."

    Yes, they do.

  • otto #151 10 years ago

    One absolute 100% surefire way of getting me not to buy a game: no quicksave.

  • Whizzo #152 10 years ago

    It's not the sort of game that requires a quick save, funnily enough of course the original GTA didn't have a save function at all...
    Edited by Whizzo at 01/06/02 @ 19:11

  • FWB #153 10 years ago

    One absolute 100% surefire way of getting me not to buy a game: no quicksave

    I'd still recommend this one though. It is extremely addictive and there's so much to do. I was at first hesitant in countinuing after I screwed up a mission, but I decided to give it ago once and found you really don't need to save. Sure, you might lose those weapons you've been collecting, if you die, but it isn't hard to pick them up again.

    I found myself chuckling as I did the Ocean Drop (?)mission: the one where you have to pick up the dodgy packages in the sea, dropped by the plane, and return them to the "business man". As I got back to land and entered my car Clapton's "Cocaine" came on my MP3 station. Quite amusing while being chased by the FBI for drug collection.

    Does anyone know what you unlock with the ambulance, police and fire missions? I decided to keep doing taxis fares until I found something, and low and behold at 80 I got a message that some store is now selling super-fast cabs.

  • Whizzo #154 10 years ago

    Gamefaqs.com will provide more than enough information about the pickups and things than you could possibly ever require.

  • Gestalt #155 10 years ago

    Performance seems to be pretty variable - I've got an Athlon XP, plenty of RAM, and a GeForce 2 and the framerate was awful on my machine.

  • Whizzo #156 10 years ago

    Does sombody have a patch or somthing. Please mail me
    You're are using Windows XP aren't you? Look in the readme that comes with the game it gives a specific link to a fix.

  • Khab #157 10 years ago

    That'd be your opinion, right? 'Cuz it certainly isn't mine.

  • st3ph3n #158 10 years ago

    Errol,

    I could buy a new Graphics card for £150-200, or I could just get some new games for PS2 or GC, or spend my winnings from World Cup betting on an Xbox.

    I know what I'll be choosing.

  • FWB #159 10 years ago

    I could buy a new Graphics card for £150-200, or I could just get some new games for PS2 or GC, or spend my winnings from World Cup betting on an Xbox.

    You forgot another option. Give the money to me.

  • st3ph3n #160 10 years ago

    nabil, you might want to buy a legal copy of the game then.

  • Aka #161 10 years ago

    Important news!

    New system requirement for GTA3

    ;)

  • eviltobz #162 10 years ago

    i'm in love dude

  • pjmaybe #163 10 years ago

    Pah! Needs a shit hot PC to run it in any decent resolution/colour depth. And I don't own a shit hot PC so I guess I'll just stick to the PS2 version which still kicks butt IMHO

  • M #164 10 years ago

    Lost Theory,

    Have you tried the no_cd patch? It sounds like it might be a safedisk issue. Perhaps you are using a CD-RW as your main CD drive?

    You can get the no_cd patch here:

    http://www.gamecopyworld.no/games/pc_grand_theft_auto_3.shtml

    I found the 22-05-2002 MYTH version works best for me. Just follow the instructions and make sure you back up your existing GTA3.exe

  • Gestalt #165 10 years ago

    AFAIK that usually happens with pirated copies of the game, or if you installed one of the less competent no CD hacks on to a legit copy.

  • otto #166 10 years ago

    [krackah] - 16-Jun-2002
    Okay, I just bought this f**kin game

    Either you have the wrong nick or you're a very bad liar :)

  • Killerbee #167 10 years ago

    Patch for the PC version now available. Download it from here:

    v1.1 patch

  • Killerbee #168 10 years ago

    --> Sam

    Follow the link I posted above and click on the FAQ section. There's a bit in there about how to create your own MP3 song list. But the radio stations the game comes with are really rather good! :-)
    Edited by Killerbee at 30/06/02 @ 19:09

  • Killerbee #169 10 years ago

    ---> KillerBee
    Do you mean the link to the v1.1 patch?

    Sam

    Yeah - sorry, the label I put on the link is a bit misleading.

    Here's a better one for the topic you want.
    here

  • Gestalt #170 10 years ago

    "i cant load a saved game on gta3 on pc why"

    Get the latest patch - that supposedly fixes this problem.

  • hulahoops #171 10 years ago

    Bryan - There wasn't when I completed it, and I doubt it would be a hidden extra.

  • Super Stu #172 10 years ago

    Yes there is. Go to www.gamefaqs.com for details how to get there. It's the small island containing (as I recall) the bank from the main game intro.

  • Dorag_kid #173 10 years ago

    i wouldnt care for the PC version but the PS2 is the best and will alwayse beb the best.

  • sam_spade #174 10 years ago

    Which glitch is this?

  • Gestalt #175 10 years ago

    The Glitch That Stole Christmas?

  • Whizzo #176 10 years ago

    There isn't one.

  • ssuellid #177 10 years ago

    whsepp - I had the same problems but I did not find a good map.

    But to get to the bridge back to the first island.

    From your base and garage.

    Go up the little hill from the garage to the main road
    Turn left
    Turn hard right at the traffic lights - almost 180 degrees.
    Drive follow the road along,( almost straight, there is a kink to the right) until you get to a crossroads with islands in the middle of it and the bridge is immediately on your left.
    Edited by ssuellid at 17/10/02 @ 20:03

  • sam_spade #178 10 years ago

    If you have the PC version and a bit of spare time you could go to <A href="http://www.ultimweb.com/gta3/?page=mods" target=_new>GTA3.UltimWeb</a> and get the GPS Map which makes things clearer. I think when you download it the instructions are in English.

  • Whizzo #179 10 years ago

    ssuellid, those directions are a bit out of the way. From your hideout on the second island, go up the exit ramp, turn right, take third left and you're on the Staunton bridge approach.

  • ssuellid #180 10 years ago

    Yes, but it does mean you can go past the place where you first get the missions from on the island.

  • Whizzo #181 10 years ago

    Well if you want to go there it's right, then first left and your in the same place, alternatively go right, then second left and jump off the overpass for a nice stunt bonus if you've got a nice low car (a Banshee say) that gets flipped by the kerb, a Perfect Triple Insane bonus is rather good.
    The GPS upgrade is quite nice though, would have been bloody useful on the PS2 version.

  • ssuellid #182 10 years ago

    Yes going that way would be probably quicker. I just normally stroll out of the base and borrow a car at the traffic lights - and its become automatic to go that way.

  • LaundroMat #183 9 years ago

    Is this another invaded thread à la WWF?

  • Blerk #184 9 years ago

    Well you've got a girl's name and quite obviously aren't a girl. Now who's got 'issues'?

  • Lynchman #185 9 years ago

    this is for Killer if you own windows xp you need the windows xp patch for gta3 or your text will just be blocks ill find the link later or you can search it on google

  • Lynchman #186 9 years ago

    heres the link killer for the blocked text patch for windows xp problem http://www.gta3r.com/patches.php hope that helps i dont know how to make a link to the here things i keep seeing sorry