6. Grand Theft Auto III

 

Developer: Rockstar
Release: Oct 23rd 2001
Metacritic Score: 97
Format: PS2
Sales: 11.6 million

 

Adam Thomas: Who knew vice was this fun? It takes a lot of courage to try to change what works, even though the Grand Theft Auto franchise didn’t sell millions of copies, it did get them to where they were as a development studio. Not just that, they were riding a pretty high wave of critical acclaim. The titles were solid gaming platforms.

In 2001, Rockstar did change what they were going for, and the gaming world would never be the same. In one fell swoop, they created the 3D sandbox platform and ingrained into the social consciousness the world of Grand Theft Auto.

Grand Theft Auto III let players into the world of Claude, a criminal who seemed to catch unlucky break after unlucky break. He lost his ability to speak, and was shortchanged on a robbery, which left him on the ground, bleeding to death in an alley. It is up to you to get his revenge.

Throughout the game you rob, lie, and kill your way to the top. This isn’t different from most gaming plots. The deciding factor was the fact that the setting, Liberty City, seemed alive. You were not forced to go to missions. There were no time limits. No game over to hold you back. Anything you saw, you could do, from robbing innocent people on the street, to being a vigilante saving people from criminals. You could be a psychopath killing people, or jump in an ambulance and try to save them. This title presented you with options, the kind of options that were never executed on a title of this size.

Sure this game came with its fair share of hits from the public morality squad, but in the end it won, spawning several spinoffs and sequels that to this day still sell like hotcakes as well as seeing its most public detractor, Jack Thompson, disbarred because of his obsession with this series. There were many imitators, some good (Saint’s Row) and some bad (True Crime), but at the end of the day, there is only one Grand Theft Auto.

Who knew that the world of crime was fun?

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