Grand theft auto 3 ps2

Grand Theft Auto III

Developed by: DMA Design

Published by: Rockstar Games

Released: October 22, 2001

It's quite impossible to overstate the impact of Rockstar North (then DMA Design) and Rockstar Games' first fully 3D debut of their traditionally top-down gangster sandbox epic. The first time one actually got deposited into the middle of Liberty City -- saw it teeming with activity, with people having conversations, saw the seemingly limitless amount of stuff to do, streets to explore, missions to run, storyline threads to chase down, taxis to commandeer, ambulances to pilfer, cop cars to jack and the idea that quite literally any car on the road could be yours with the press of a button -- was a revelation as much as it was a revolution.

Grand Theft Auto III was the tipping point, when games went from being mostly linear, fairly confined experiences to existing inside a virtual world. DMA's carefully guided hand made for a shockingly enjoyable experience no matter what you did. You could get just as much satisfaction heading up on to the roof of a building and lobbing grenades or shooting rockets or sniping with a rifle as you could running around down on street level just punching people until the cops came after you. The radio stations were phenomenal (RISE FM and Chatterbox are still unbeaten as far as some of us are concerned), the Mafioso-heavy dialogue a treat to listen to, and the missions completely open to being tackled just about any way you could see.

The fact that we talk about the game so fondly -- and at such length should show just how much of an impression the first 3D GTA had on all of us. For the first time, we were talking to each other about the random stuff that we did in this world, not in how it made us go from one on-rails objective to the next. Though future games may have surpassed it in scale and scope, it's likely that no game will be the quantum leap that Grand Theft Auto III was, and that's precisely why it's our number one pick for the greatest games on the PS2.