Honestly, I always feel as if I have to explain that bit, even if 99% of the readers here already feel the same way. Anyway, the most important part of Grand Theft Auto III is the gameplay. For those who haven't ever played the series (GTA1 and GTA 2 on PC and PlayStation), Grand Theft Auto III is a hybrid game comprising driving, shooting, exploring, and in the truest sense, role-playing. Players start off as a nameless criminal, who in the midst of a bank robbery, is double-crossed by his girlfriend, shot, and left for dead. As the "kid," "friend," or whatever your latest boss decides to refer to you as, you escape from the police through a mysterious high-level hit-and-run, and begin life again with the help of your friend 8-Ball and the Italian Mafia. From there, the game leads players through an odyssey of non-linear missions for various factions of organized crime, from the Italian to the Japanese mafia and on. The 3D world of Liberty City is on a scale that's truly epic, consisting of three large urban areas, the industrial, commercial and suburban districts, each with appropriate architecture, landscapes, and aggressive, distinctive AI.
What makes Grand Theft Auto III so different than other games in the series is the volume of characters, cut-scenes, and story imbedded in nearly every mission, large or small. Players find that their missions are packed with characters who are acted out at a professional level, and who perhaps sound more far more realistic than their simplistically visual caricatures reveal. The game actually does have a beginning, middle and end, too. Players can choose missions from telephones like before, or they can be paged like before, but most often, there are central characters whose missions drive the story, and whose missions tell the story, too. Thus, players find that in amongst the throng of distracting missions and the humungous landscape that must be traversed, there is a central focus, and it's there when they're ready.