What they said about Grand Theft Auto III at the time

Grand Theft Auto III is one of the most important video games in history. She regularly makes the list of projects that have the most impact on the industry, and Time magazine even included The 50 Best Video Games of All Time in her top of the best games of all time. GTA III made open-world games popular, and turned Rockstar developers into real rock stars. Without her, there would be no series like Watch Dogs, Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Just Cause and Red Dead Redemption.

What the press said about the game

When the game was released in 2001, almost all critics realized that they had a historically important project ahead of them. There were almost no publications that would give GTA III a rating less than 9 points out of 10. So, "Igromania" rated Grand Theft Auto III - Action verdict at 9, 5 points out of 10, and the publication AG.ru Review of the game Grand Theft Auto III gave he was rated at 95%.

The reviewers primarily noted the unprecedented degree of freedom.

Absolute freedom intoxicates and sometimes makes you commit the most absurd acts: steal trucks from the parking lot, smash supermarket windows and, in fits of inexplicable delight, shoot into the sky from a portable grenade launcher.

Matvey Kumbi, author of "Gambling addiction"

Despite the impressive size of the city by the standards of 2001, Rockstar managed to make it reliable. People walk along the streets (and different - depending on the area) and cars drive. Policemen chase criminals, gangs sort things out. As noted by 3DNews journalist Grand Theft Auto III, the game developer managed to create an amazingly detailed picture of a living city.

Also, GTA III surprised with the interactivity and the amount of detail: if you knock down a hydrant, water will gush out of it, and an ambulance will come for a crippled person. Many critics drew attention to this: the reviewer of "Igromania" urged readers to "think creatively, come up with a 'homework', organize their own personal fight club." And the HonestGamers journalist praised the Grand Theft Auto III (PlayStation 2) review of the developers for the ingenuity and thoughtfulness of the world.

One of the innovations was also the radio. Nine stations, each with a dozen tracks, advertisements, talkative DJs, talk shows. As they wrote in "Igromania", "Liberty City is the city of endless radio."

Why the game is important to the industry

Although GTA III did not create an open-world action genre (even The Legend of Zelda, released 15 years earlier, can be attributed to it), the game showed that it can be completely three-dimensional, incredibly realistic and full of possibilities.

Before that, there were no projects in which it was possible to move around a huge three-dimensional city without any restrictions, get into any cars, engage in fights with passers-by, work as a taxi driver or plant bombs in cars. For people who are used to fully linear 3D games, Liberty City truly was the epitome of freedom.

A novelty was the absence of any transitions between driving and walking: the hero just got into the car, he could stop and get out at any moment. This created an additional degree of freedom and made it possible to use the car tactically: to hide behind it from bullets or to block the path of fleeing enemies.

There was no full-fledged radio in games before GTA III either. As it turns out, it works great for immersion, helping players believe in the reality of the shown world. The madness in Liberty City matched perfectly with the madness on the local radio. What is at least an advertisement for a device that forces a person to exercise during sleep using electrical impulses, or a drug that allows you to stay awake all day.

In addition, the action game Rockstar Games popularized the gangster theme in video games. Now it seems strange, but there were almost no games about criminals before, except for the previous parts of the series and the Driver franchise. Thanks to GTA III, the theme became fashionable - for example, the True Crime and Saint's Row series appeared - and it remains so to this day. In 2016 alone, the action games Watch Dogs 2 and Just Cause 3 were released in the open world, the main characters of which constantly break the law.

Along with the popularity of the gangster theme, there appeared a fashion for more adult stories. GTA III had an 18+ rating, and the developers took advantage of it, not only to show violence, but also to tell a story that would be understandable and interesting to adults. The characters were spelled out characters, and the main character now and then performed morally questionable acts.

It was not like the plots prevalent at the time, in which the characters were often clearly divided into good and bad. The protagonist himself acted only on the basis of his own interests and did such things that it is impossible to call him a positive hero.

But perhaps the main achievement of GTA III is that the game gave Rockstar Games confidence in its ideas and powers. After 17 years, the studio has become one of the richest companies in the world and has created many games, almost all of which influenced the industry in one way or another. Without Grand Theft Auto III, there wouldn't be the Rockstar we know today.

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