I think the coolest thing is that you have this living, breathing, absolutely MASSIVE city, where you can do anything you want, and then you stick in the scripted events that are part of the story.
I\'ll give you one example of one of the earlier missions, (SPOILER) - but not too much of a spoiler since I think it\'s only the 3rd mission which most people will get to in 15-20 minutes of play.
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I got my orders from Luigi that some crack dealers have been selling some **** to his hoes, he\'s not to happy about it and he wants me to take them out. First I go to the back of the Ammu-nation to pick up a gun, and then I have to find those two (who are driving around the city) and kill them. I steal a cab and drive to the Ammu-nation gun store, get the gun, get back in my car, and look at the radar. The crack dealer\'s car is only a few blocks away, I start driving and I turn onto a major street, and I can see now from my radar that the crack dealers will be driving down the road a few hundred yards away that intersects the street. I slam my foot on the gas (or, ahem, my thumb on the X) and approach the intersection, sure enough they\'re begging to cross (it\'s a red light for me). Now my original plan was to pull up along side them and take \'em out drive-by style, but now I\'ve got another idea....it\'s a red light but I still haven\'t taken my finger off the accelerator. I swerve past a truck and almost lose control of the taxi, the crack dealers\' hot rod is just at the middle of the intersection before I run the red light and slam my taxi right into them. Both cars go spining and my car hits a truck and stops quickly. The crack dealer\'s car is on fire. Immediately I jump out of my car with my glock, the crack dealers slowly get out of theirs, but to my surprise they\'re armed too!! (I know what you\'re thinking, \'what did I expect?\') I manage take down the guy with the pump action shot gun, however the other has an Uzi and he won\'t leave the cover of the smoking car. He shoots me twice and my health is low, I run back to the cover of the big truck I hit before, but he\'s still spraying the lead and killing pedestrians too.
Suddenly I hear siren\'s in the background. Things go from bad, to worse. I figure I have to take this guy out NOW cause the cops will be on the scene any minute now. I step out from behind the truck, line up a shot and BOOOM!!! The crack dealer\'s car EXPLODES, taking the second guy with it!!! Once I raise my jaw from the floor, I throw the truck driver out of his truck and leave the scene pronto. Luckily I got away before the cops made it so they didn\'t chase me.
And that\'s just the 3rd mission.......
What a game.