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GTA3, Stealing a car, PC Version
Grand Theft Auto 3, or GTA 3, is a video game designed by DMA Design, published by Rockstar Games in October 2001 for the PlayStation 2 video game console and in November 2003 for the Xbox video game console. It is the third in the Grand Theft Auto series.
The player controls a character in Liberty City (a generic, fictitious East Coast city) who is never named (though he is referred to variously as "Fido", "The Kid", or "Mr. Black"), who starts out as a local thug and rises in power as he works for multiple rival crime gangs. The principal activity in the game is carjacking: the player may walk up to the side of a passing car and press a single button to yank the driver out of the car, get in, and start driving. Each car has its own particular performance characteristics; for instance, a "Mafia Sentinel" car is much faster and able to corner much better than a minivan.
The player is able to go on missions (shaking down a local business for "protection money", clearing the streets of drug dealers, or assassinating leaders of rival gangs, for example) in order to advance in the ranks of his gang. Alternately, he may choose to drive around the city, stealing cars, running over pedestrians, and avoiding (or opposing) the police. If the player acquires a taxi cab, taxi missions became available in which the player can pick up fares and drop them off at different parts of the city; carjacking an ambulance lets the player pick up injured people and drive them to the hospital for a cash reward.
The game is remarkable for its depiction of what seems to be a very large city with things happening all the time in different neighborhoods as the player drives around. Passing vehicles and pedestrians are not just cosmetic "flavor" for the environment, but are actually part of game play: cars can be stolen and smashed, and citizens can be beaten up, robbed, run over, or shot. Law enforcement and members of rival gangs will respond with weapons of their own.
GTA 3 was a smash hit and became the #1 selling video game of 2001 in the United States. It continued to sell well at its US$49.95 price and went on to become the #2 selling video game of 2002 (Second to its newly released prequel Grand Theft Auto: Vice City). This was a remarkable achievement in an industry where most games suffer price discounts several months after their debut and, despite this, experience strong drops in sales, as gamers have a strong tendency to purchase only the "next new thing".
GTA 3 is controversial because of its graphic content, and it generated moral panic upon its release. The player is rewarded for various illegal and immoral actions: one allegation, frequently cited in the press, was that in the game, players had to carjack a car, pick up a prostitute, have (implied) sex with the prostitute, and then kill her and steal her money (this action, while permitted, is not actually required to fully complete the game). The game was banned in Australia—the only country to do so—and an edited version of the game was released in its place. Various critics hypothesized that if children were to play the game, they might acquire sociopathic attitudes toward others, and indeed several minors arrested for car theft in the United States claimed their motivation was derived from playing the game.
It was because of GTA 3 that the Wal-Mart chain of retail stores announced that, for games rated "M" by the ESRB, its stores would begin checking the identification of purchasers who appeared to be under 18.
GTA 3's sequel, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, was released in October 2002 for PlayStation 2 and was the #1 selling video game of 2002.
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