Grand Theft Auto III

Description:

Grand Theft Auto III was released in October 2001. The game's setting takes place around that time,[4] in fictional Liberty City, which is loosely based on New York City, but also incorporates elements of other American cities.[5] Grand Theft Auto III brought a third-person view to the series, rather than the traditional top-down view of earlier titles (although the view is still made available as an optional camera angle). For the first time, the problem of navigating within the huge sandbox game was solved by implementing a constant GPS triggered mini-map that highlighs the player's position as well as those of current targets. Graphics were also updated with a new 3D game engine. While not the first of its kind, the gameplay engine expanded the explorable world of GTA III, doing away with a traditional game structure where the player faces a "boss" at the end of the level and moves onto a new level, opting instead for more realistic mission-based approach. Multiplayer was discarded (third party mods were later released, allowing for multiplayer gameplay), but GTA III improved in many other areas such as voice-acting and storyline (in previous GTAs, there was speech only in short animated cut scenes between levels, other communication was simply subtitles running on the bottom of the screen). Grand Theft Auto III sold very well and became the first blockbuster game in the series.

After the success of Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was released in 2002. This game was set in 1986 in Vice City, which was based on Miami. Vice City was the first game to introduce fully functional flying vehicles that could be used by the player, such as sea planes and helicopters.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, released in October 2004, had its setting in 1992, focusing on California gang life and the awakening of the drug epidemic brought on by crack cocaine. The setting was in the fictional state of San Andreas, which was based on some California and Nevada cities, specifically Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Las Vegas. Their counterparts are Los Santos, San Fierro, and Las Venturas respectively. The game also included a countryside in between Los Santos and San Fierro and also between Los Santos and Las Venturas, and a desert in between Las Venturas and San Fierro. San Andreas also attracted controversy when a sex minigame that was cut from the game, but remained in the game code, was discovered in both the console and Windows versions of the game. Dubbed the "Hot Coffee mod", the minigame allowed players to have sex with their in-game girlfriends. As a result, GTA: San Andreas was pulled from a number of retail outlets and was re-rated from "M" (Mature) to "AO" (Adults Only) by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), making it the first game in the series to be given an AO rating. Rockstar has since released an edited version of the game for the Microsoft Windows, Xbox, and PlayStation 2, and has reclaimed the "M" rating.

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