Welcome back to Liberty City for those of you that have played the past GTA games and are wondering what GTA3 has to offer. GTA3 takes everything that makes GTA great and makes it way better. For those of you who are not familiar with GTA, it is basically a game where you travel around the city doing jobs for a mafia boss while eluding death and arrest. Walking around the city's a drag, so your main mode of transportation is hijacked vehicles. The city is huge so don't worry about getting bored of the scenery, which by the way is rendered in stunning graphics. As you do well in the game, you get money which you can use for various things such as buying weapons. This game appeals to the gamer on so many levels because it blends in elements of different genres of games in such an ingenious way. If you like driving games, GTA3 will be a nice twist on your average driving game (the closest comparison I can think of is "Crazy Taxi"). Fans of shooting games and RPGs will also enjoy GTA3 because it offers a wide variety of weapons (ranging from the molotov cocktail to the sniper rifle) that you can use to complete your missions and advance the storyline. But one of the best things about this game is that you can either play it seriously or not seriously and still have a great time.

Here's how it works: you can go and do your jobs like a good lackey, keeping a low profile and pleasing your superiors. If you decide to play the game seriously, the police are going to be one of your biggest obstacles. First of all, hijacking vehicles and carrying out assassinations is already shady stuff, but if you throw in reckless driving or start killing innocent civilians with your weapons of destruction, then the police are going to give you a hard time. Oh, and in GTA, the police don't know what the term "police brutality" means or if they do, they don't care. They won't give a second thought about putting a bullet through your chest. So the best thing to do if you're playing for real is to keep a low profile so that you'll only have one thing to worry about, carrying out your mission, instead of two. But almost all players eventually cannot resist the temptation. "Screw the storyline; I want to see how much carnage and havoc I can wreck on this city before the SWAT team comes and takes me down!" they'll say. And so, much sadistic glee ensues as the player mows down pedestrians while driving on the sidewalk at 80 miles per hour or starts blowing cars up with a rocket launcher. There is just so much you can do in this game that it'll keep you entertained for hours.

What kind of improvements were made; how much progress has GTA3 made since GTA came out? Well, this game has gone a long way. It seems like everything has been thought of. While driving in a car, you can select from a multitude of great radio stations featuring awesome music from all genres and amusing commercials. The kinds of different weapons in the game has increased; never in the original GTA would you dream of going up a hill and blowing off people's heads with a sniper rifle. Speaking of killing people, it's hard to get tired of it because the people don't die generic deaths. So you can explore what happens if you shoot a guy in the neck as opposed to the kneecap. One of the most obvious changes is the option to change camera angles. In the original GTA, you played with a top view camera angle, which at the time was sort of innovative and had people learning how to drive in a new kind of way. The option is still there in GTA3, but many people will find themselves choosing the "normal" view, the kind that you see in driving games. Also, instead of the yellow arrow pointing in the direction of your destination, there's a radar that shows a small map centered on your position. The list of improvements is too long to name. There are changes in weather as time goes by, great codes and cheats (very fun when you're not playing seriously)... the list goes on.

Some people might think something is wrong with me. "Why or how," they ask, "can you find pleasure in killing people and destroying a city?" My guess is that people like that have not played a lot of video games. It's hard to explain. I'm not a violent person, but I find this game incredibly fun. But, due to it's nature, it is rated "mature", so think twice before giving this as a present to your ten-year-old.

Perhaps the only negative thing I can say about this game is that it is only for one player.

Recommended: Yes