It's a fugly glitch-fest, but you'll be having too much fun to notice.
After coming home from the midnight release I immediately installed and got right to it. You start off thrown right into a crazy mission back in Stilwater. You are robbing a bank dressed in a johnny gat costume, to conceal your identity which you have not yet set. This bank happens to be owned by a big time gang from a city called Steelport. The robbery doesn't end well and you are forced to surrender, at which point you design your character (or use one from the Initiation Station demo). The 2nd mission has you forcibly brought via Cargo-plane to the airspace just over Steelport, and by the end of that mission you will find yourself in the all new city finally able to do as you wish.
My first impression was that the graphics were not much different then SR2, maybe a bit more texture polish, but things still pop in all over and the glitchy problems from SR2 are back here in SR3. Still get light poles stuck in my hood, people get stuck in walls, although it can sometimes be quite hilarious driving a car out of an intense battle with 7 legs poking out all sides of it. They did tweak a few things I noticed first thing. 1st) the character has the ability to jump off high ledges and land on his feet! no more lame rag-doll fainting every time like in SR2. 2nd) is Cops and Gangs don't AIM their cars at you anymore, even at the highest notoriety. It feels so good not to get blindsided by EVERY squad car that joins the battle. I did notice there are a lot less cars in steelport, a lot of repeats (so many street sweepers). However I like most of the cars that were included, my favorite is still the "Blade". It was the first one I grabbed as soon as I was free to move, by running at the passenger side and pressing the enter/exit button causing my character to hop up, kick through the side window, and knock out the passenger and driver in a second. The driver was not pleased so I promptly ended his suffering with his own vehicle.
If you have been interested in SR3 for the last few weeks you have by now likely played with the Initiation Station? At the moment there is really no need to uninstall it since it's actually easier to create using that program. most of the options from the game are included in the demo, and using the demo you can make body and clothing alterations without going back and forth to the various stores. I was happy the stores have huge signs and very unique buildings making them easy to spot from the sky. I was little disappointing with some of the options in the customizers. In body design I was very happy with the new skin and eye colors, but very discouraged with the awful hair selections AGAIN (SR2 needed more good ones, SR3 has less). I need a flat-top haircut, and some more long hair styles.
In clothing they have removed belts and socks options and just attached then to pants and shoes, you also can't button or tuck your shirt, you just take it like it is. Although they do have many nice selections, certainly more interesting then SR2's clothes. I also noticed next to NOTHING is sleeveless. EVEN the bulletproof vest has sleeves!? at least the trench-coat flows behind you rather than being attached to your legs like SR2.
After you have a good character picked out you'll move on to your cars. each car you customize is instantly in your garage when ever you need it until you delete it, that's nothing new. What is new is now you can customize in your home garage, just the same you can pick up any of your cars from any "Rim Jobs" location on the map. The customizing options are mostly the same, the performance options have a few more levels to upgrade (rather then just torque, you have 4 levels of torque), otherwise it's as before.
Now you don't belong in Steelport and people know it. Cops will be extra touchy and at the slightest violation will start shooting. no more pepper spray or tazers, if you shove past a cop he will pull out the sidearm and call for backup. to even this out, any shop or safehouse you walk into will instantly wipe your notoriety, so you can buy clothes in peace without gangs and cops poking at you or shooting at you. Speaking of notoriety, I should now get to the upgrade system.
!Cheaters now hear this!
Those of you who went right for the cheatcode sites looking for god mode and infinite ammo codes, there are NONE. HOWEVER if you play the game you will attain that godlike status you seek with the use of upgrades. You no longer need respect to play missions, instead respect unlocks upgrades which you can buy with cash (there is a code for money btw) Depending on how you play you don't even need to play the campaign to get up to the top respect level, there are several ways to earn respect, it's almost impossible not to earn some. eventually you will unlock the right to buy upgrades such as "take no damage from bullets" and "unlimited rifle ammo". This explains why the story seems to so often rely on protection of someone else as the objective, otherwise there might be no challenge. There are also codes for Notoriety, although if you do the codes while enemies are still around, they will aggro you back to one star. If you earn enough respect you can unlock the ability to call it off, and enemies will leave peacefully. [Still I prefer to feel like I wiped them out rather then calling a truce.]
The only thing about this I could have done without is most of the "humor". I know the crude low-brow crap is the kind of humor expected from games like this, but this one is just overly saturated with it. I think the diIdo-bat they advertised pretty much plainly says the innuendos will not be subtle. Zimos, the T-pain pimp with an auto-tune trachea vox, was probably the dirtiest part [obviously, since he's a pimp]. The auto-tune joke got old after the first mission and he can be hard to understand. He deals with gimps, diIdos, sex machines.. I've seen it all before in the GTA games, so it was kinda 'Meh'. This constantly dirty sense of humor is for a particular crowd, if you like one joke you'll love the whole game, if you don't like the jokes prepare to cringe and roll your eyes a lot while playing this. I think I actually laughed at the glitches more often then the actual jokes in the game.
If there is anything I have been unimpressed with in this game I will just say this. Tanks make up for it ALL. With the new crush physics for cars, THIS is how GTA should have always done tanks. No more instant exploding cars, if they get in front of you, you Flatten them. I can't tell you, you must experience how GOOD it feels to have a cocky cop or soldier slide to a halt in front of you only to be immediately flattened without hesitation. They also have pegged something these games need, REACTION from the peds! when peds see a tank rolling toward them they will freak out. They run all over, they leave their cars, some turn around and go careening up the wrong side of the road, it's hilariously evil entertainment, JUST what I need to come home to after a frustrating day at work or school. The only problem I had with the tank is for some reason you have to use the left stick to steer and accelerate, rather then leaving the accelerator on the triggers. That can make it awkward to turn without going forward or backward at the same time :/
The VTOL Heli-Jet is of course also worth noting. It has no machine-gun, but instead a death-ray that incinerates things like a "War of the Worlds" tripod. with the noises it makes It feels like a transformer.
Even with all that didn't make it over from SR2, SR3 manages to easily destroy the now beautiful but boring GTA franchise. It's a fugly glitch-fest, but you'll be having too much fun to notice.