Okay, everything that makes GTA3 a bad game:
Knocking off pedestrians is fun but the AI is so utterly pathetic that it makes them a waste of processing power. There is no challenge to taking out a bystander--absolutely none. While beating one of these people to death the rest of the populus walk on by as if nothing is happening. Why do they even have them in the game? They don\'t make a realistic effort to get out of the way--the move slowly and predictably so you can kill them easily. Clearly they were put in the game for this very reason and it is an utter waste. Remove them from the streets and maybe one or two of the major problems to the graphics engine could be improved.
Between the cars that are essentially the same and those that you want to drive in the first place there really aren\'t that many to chose from.
The game is easy.
Way too many missions are terrible (phone booth hopping to kill this guy, to help me escape to sniping these guys)--very rarely is this fun or again tough.
The whole police/star system is completely unbalanced. 1 star anyone can outrun the cops--no problem. 2 stars it\'s a little tricky, but doable. After that is nearly impossible (it can be done at 3 though) without the use of the paint and spray. The police AI is pathetic--they drive terribly--often crashing all by themselves, put up road blocks that don\'t stop anything, etc.
One of the worst engines I\'ve ever seen. Road blocks/buildings etc appear 10 feet in front of you, terrible fogging, slowdown, clipping--you name it, it\'s in this engine.
It is not a "living" city as the game boasts. Commit a crime and police do not chase you down, they appear on the next block. Same goes for rival gang members, etc. Trying to outrun the cops, as if by magic a road block is formed. This is lazy programming and takes you right out of the experience.
Far too easy to steal cars--because of this the experience isn\'t fun or rewarding for very long. The damage model of the game is completely unrealistic--the cars get wrecked far too quickly. Blowing up cars happens too often and too easily--after a while this no longer excites. If they made it tougher to blow up cars it would happen less frequently and prolong the thrill of the game. it doesn\'t, it happens every 5 minutes and thus becomes boring. This last bit applies to almost every aspect of the game, but everything about this games happens very quickly, often and with very little effort or skill.
You can have the FBI after you in the middle of a huge shoot out and the people and traffic are unaffected by this--again it is as if nothing is happening. Occasionally a panic will hit them, but it either doesn\'t last very long or doesn\'t happen at all.
What about a persistent world?--at least while within the same city. This is the "next" generation.
And the AI--damn is it bad. Walk around the corner and kill them in piles. They jsut keep come and keep dying. This too is lazy programming.
Everything I want in a game isn\'t here: good AI, a long challenge, replayability, a good graphics engine, some depth of gameplay. This is a game that offers only violence. Violence for violence\'s sake. Rockstar wanted controversy because controversy sells and it popular. I was reading a different forum and one person was saying basically the same things I am and he asked the question: "If this game was set in the forest and you could blow away squirrels and chipmunks with an assortment of weapons only to have Smokey the Bear and Boy scouts chase after you--would this still be a popular game?" No probably not.
I got the game for christmas, did manage to finish all the missions, but I will never play this game ever again. I played it for about two weeks.
