Grand Theft Auto III

As the game goes on, it's hard to judge it by its own merits rather than in terms of its sequels. The gap between GTA3 and Vice City seems significant, but is really just the result of a few new features and improvements - an in-game map on the pause menu, a narrative to tie the missions together, more and better radio music, helicopters, motorcycles. I've already discussed the incremental development of the GTA series, but I cannot overemphasize how easy it is to miss the sequels' improvements when returning to an earlier entry.

On its own, GTA3 feels like it has a very solid formula that needs more polish before it can really be great. The improvements in subsequent GTA games make it seem obsolete and irrelevant, but that also speaks to the strength of the core mechanisms at work here. So yeah, it's good, but you're not missing anything if you skip it for the later games.

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