The one thing you most probably know about GTA3 is the ‘living’ city. The setting for the game is Liberty City, a wretched hive of scum and villainy if there ever was one. There are thousands of NPCs milling around the city and you can interact with any one of them, more often than not ‘interaction’ involves killing them with a high calibre sniper rifle. But these NPCs make the city feel ‘alive’, you can drive around at any time of the day or night and see various different types of inhabitants. It’s quite incredible. Not to mention gruesome, if you choose to run them over. You sicko. But not all of the NPCs are defenceless, oh no, not by a long way. Dotted around the city are various gangs and organisations, such as The Mafia, The Yakazua, The Triads, Yardies, and some very nasty Colombians. These guys can be very dangerous if you are not in their good books, so be warned…

Of course, you can just steal a car and go on a rampage, but you aren’t going to get very far without some money. To make money, you need missions, to get missions, you need contacts, and boy, are there lots here. The first group that you will meet will be the and before long you will be running around doing missions and random acts of for them without a care in the world. Missions can consist of something as simple as escorting someone, or executing a villain (or innocent, you decide), or big jobs such as destroying an entire drug running operation by sinking a harboured boat. Of course, you can choose who you want to work for and even double cross your employers, resulting in Gangland chaos. Very neat stuff Indeed.

The sense of freedom in GTA3 is incredible. If you don’t feel like doing a mission you can just steal one of the hundreds of different models of motor vehicle and drive around, performing drive-bys and killing innocents and police officers left, right, and centre. You can even take on the Army if you are brave enough (or well armed enough). The playable area is absolutely massive, there are three main areas for you to explore, but only one is available at the start, as you progress, more will become accessible, giving you an even bigger area to run amok in. It can all seem a little daunting at first, but you’ll soon be into the flow and should be able to navigate the islands like your own home towns.

As for the control system, there will be no problem here. If it can work so well using a pad, it should be even better on the keyboard, giving you complete control of your hoodlum. Hopefully a mouse look function should even see the game become better as it would allow you to run from the cops a lot more effectively. Will shall wait and see.

All in all, there is no way that this game can turn out bad, not unless there is some gigantic cock-up in the conversion (such as leaving out the controls or something). This could well be a must have game for all of you PC owners who like a bit of the old ‘ultra violence’. Let’s hope that I’m not proved wrong, eh? PC gamers will be able to enjoy the unique pleasures of Games’ 3, come the end of May.

By Ben Jackson