You always here people say they remember this or that; whether it was their first kiss or the first time they felt a sense of accomplishment. Well I remember the first time my eyes viewed Grand Theft Auto 3. I was sitting in my dorm in the year 2000 when my friend walked in and said "you have to come see this". I spent the next 30 minutes watching him walk around Liberty City bludgeoning people with a baseball bat and then stealing their money. It was at that point I realized that I was watching something truly special. Little did I know that Grand Theft Auto (GTA) was so much more than walking around and beating people to death; it was a truly ground breaking game in every aspect. It wasn't long before I had my very own PS2 and my very own copy of Grand Theft Auto 3.

Grand Theft Auto follows your character (he doesn't have a name) on his request for revenge. The game begins with your character escaping with his girlfriend from a bank you have just robbed. Outside in the alley as you are attempting to make your getaway when she turns and shoots you leaving you for dead. You survive the betrayal and in the next scene you are escaping with a friend from a prison transport truck. It just so happens that this friend is a well connected mobster, and you spend the rest of the game running errands for different mobsters and gangsters. Your dedication to your employers eventually affords you the opportunity to settle some unfinished business, in what ends up being a great narrative. Although your character doesn't talk, the rest of the characters in the game more than make up for your characters lack of personality. I was surprised by how great the story was considering the fact that the main character is a mute. Everything from the great dialogue to the well crafted personalities make Liberty City feel truly alive.

It's hard to put into words how great and innovative GTA 3 is. Everything from the well structured missions, to the side missions, to climbing to the top of the parking deck and firing rockets at cars (my personal favorite) feels so organic. You could literally spend unlimited time playing the game and still be at 0% completion. I think there in lies the true genius of GTA 3, the game offers something for everyone. If you are tired of trudging through the campaign you could take a break and do some races, if you are tired of killing random pedestrians you could pick up where you last left off. I guess what I like most about Grand Theft Auto 3 is that Rockstar designed the game for people who like to have fun. In GTA 3, if you can dream it you can probably do it.

In hind sight you can point out some of GTA 3’s negatives, but for the purposes of this review I am examining GTA 3 for what it was when it was released. In that respect I can honestly say there is nothing wrong with this game. Sure, I could point out how the graphics are not that great; but at the time they were petty good, especially when you consider how smooth everything ran with so many things going on at once. When it comes down to it, Grand Theft Auto 3 was so revolutionary and so captivating that I would be hard pressed to really compare or criticize it.

Since its original release, Grand Theft Auto 3 has been the gold standard. Although there have been sequels since the original (and more than a few knock offs), nothing has come close to capturing our attention the way in which GTA 3 did. Not only was it a ground breaking game but it completely changed the way video games are designed and played. I can honestly say that I don't know if any game will ever captivate me the way the way Grand Theft Auto 3 did in that dirty dorm room back in 2000.