A Fairly Belated Look

I will admit that in general I have a hard time keeping up with games. I tend to get a year or two behind on releases, unless it's something I know I'm gonna have to have, like the next Mario or Mario Kart game. Finally now, I have been able to play GTA3, and so I write on it... and no, this isn't in preparation for GTA San Andreas. You can be sure I'll play that game at least two years after it comes out.

Back, oh 6 years ago, I picked up GTA with the special GTA: London bonus disk. That was fun, although I always tended to get lost and disoriented when I had to go from island to island. London was more fun, since it was laid out in straight lines. Plus the car crusher was an easy way to make money.

Anyway, since I rather enjoyed GTA, I figured I'd give GTA3 a whirl. Once I got past the, "oh hey, it's in 3D," factor, it felt a lot like the same old GTA. That's a good and a bad. GTA was great for quick missions or killing sprees, but whether it's the first game, or the 3rd one, it does get boring after a while. I'm on day 4 real time of playing it, about half way through the game, and I'm a bout done.

Part of my problem is honestly that I get lost easy. I lack direction sense. Like, bad. I get turned around, and if it wasn't for the mini-map, I'd be so lost it aint even funny.

Beyond that, the game has mission where you have to kill people with weapons. I don't know if it's just me, but the evolution from 2D to 3D made using the weapons way harder. I now have problems aiming at all, and I'm not normally someone that has that problem in games. I tend to just say fuck it and run the people over with my car.

Also, there's a lot to do in the game, and if you really want to do anything, you have to scour a lot. I mean a WHOLE lot. I'm the kind of guy that doesn't feel the need to search every freaking polygon to find everything. Sure, I could use maps and FAQs, but that's too much like cheating for my taste.

So yeah, it's fun for a while, but I think once I can do that last bits of stuff in the game over the next year or two, I may not ever touch it again. Especially with Vice City and San Andreas having more stuff to do and more vehicles to do it with. Vice City, what I've played of it, is the same game, with motorcycles, helicopters, and a different layout. Why play GTA3?

I guess I would have liked it more when it was one of a kind.