Now, the year currently is 2005. I've seen most of the reviews for GTAIII during 2005 and they are garbage to be honest; partly because they're bashing a game from 2001. These "gamer reviews" come after the release of San Andreas -- the best one in the series. People have to understand for it's time, it was a revolutionary classic. Anyway, enough ranting, onto reviewing.

From the opening of the game, it proves to be action hard game -- you're girlfriend, Catalina, leaves you dead in the gutter after a string of bank robberies. She leaves the nameless character (we'll call him Claude), "Heartbroken". The next time we see Claude is in the back of the paddywagon being shipped away by cops. The basic backdrop for the story is: revenge. And on your way to revenge, you must go through many vibrant characters who have their own personal problems for example, Toni Cipriani, who must deal with his mother's constant nagging or Salvatore with his paranoia. Now, right away you notice Claude does not speak a single word in this game. This is because he is a mute, we the players don't know why, he just is. Continuing on, the minute you see the cutscene, you understand Rockstar wanted you to feel you were watching a movie. The presentation that Rockstar put forths is just as amazing until the end of the game. They produce the same consistant quality and put in some hard work to give the players what they want.

Now for graphics. At the time, this was a decent looking game -- not the best mind you, but an okay looking game. The pedestrians (or "peds) are all blocky and cut into sections which is noticeable; as for the main characters in the actual game, they have much finer detail put into them. The cars and the car damages were decent as well, but with games like Grand Turismo 3, GTA falls short of this marker. The weathers effects, lighting and shading were pretty well done.

Audio. Audio had to be the best part of this game; production quality from the radio to the voice acting was perfect, something Rockstar should always be proud of even before this game. They recruited B-List actors to do the voices; but this proved out to be a wise choice because the actors and actresses voices were excellent. The sounds of the radio were amazing as well; having a variety of genres with the exception of rock music but including a talk show featuring the key comedian to this game: Lazlow Jones. The final sound aspect is the sounds of the bustling Liberty City. It sounds just like a real city, the car honks, the insults flaring, it's like a regular day New York City without the accent!

Gameplay department, the most important part of the review. Now, GTAIII introduced a whole new aspect of gaming which many companies have incorporated into their games. Freedom is one word that describes GTAIII -- you are free to do whatever you wish; kill someone, jack a car, do missions or just walk around the large geography of Liberty City. Missions are some what non-linear however they are required to progress through the storyline. But the amount of things there is to do is massive! This is what has kept this long franchise going on for the past seven years.

But through the gameplay, this is also what flawed GTAIII. After completing the storyline missions and everything after the storyline missions -- it's a dead boring game. Let's face it, this game was wonderful at the beginning but the story is the core part of the game and that's where the replay value is. After you're done 100%, the game is OVER, finished...nothing else to do. This is why any reviwer of GTA should not be trusted because they forget to mention this part of the game.