Immoral enough to be fun I haven't heard anyone say a bad word about this game, which says something about gamesplayers in general. GTA3 is hailed as the most violent game ever, and to be fair, it is pretty shocking. But whereas this game will be demonised by some American moral group for 'inciting high-school shootings' or something, it is done with it's tongue firmly in it's cheek. The plot is a sort of crime-drama fayre, where you play a goon-for-hire, doing all kinds of illegal activity for various gangs, indulging in plenty of driving and shooting on the way. People here go on about how great the plot is, but it's no Scorcese. And people call it 'ground-breaking'. Well, the first GTA deserved that epithet, this one just looks nicer. But don't get me wrong; it's a lot of fun. In fact GTA3 is a rare breed of game where doing nothing is half the fun. Shooting gangsters, stealing cars, fleeing the police, all part of the action and always impressive. I'm sure Rockstar had allusions of this being some great social commentary about violence in movies or something, but really it's just an excuse to allow players to beat old ladies to death with a baseball bat. The most impressive thing about GTA3 is the city itself. It's really clever, with everything you'd expect to find an American city; subways, ghettos, affluent downtown areas, hospitals, gun stores, petrol stations, multi-storey car parks, the lot. It's fun to explore Liberty City, trying to to find little secrets or cool places to perform stunts. It's a bit much saying this game is a new benchmark, when it really just fuses together ideas from lots of previous games (Driver being the biggest influence). But it does it so well, it stands up proud on it's own two feet. Bad points? No motorbikes, which is a shame because they'd have worked well in this (unlike the two prequels). That rubbish plane. And it's maybe a little shallow for most gamers, as it relies heavily on it's shock value. But still, you have to a least play it once or in ten years time, everyone will laugh at you.