Grand Theft Auto III is easily my favourite in the series. Maybe it is because I view the game through rose-tinted glasses, but no other GTA has had a better sense of what it wanted to be. Vice City was great, but was pretty much Rockstar’s take on Scarface. San Andreas was their version of Boys in the Hood and seemed to be too large for my liking. Finally Grand Theft Auto IV was a turn towards a more serious game for the franchise. GTA III is the pinnacle of the series in my opinion then.

Taking control of a unnamed (and speechless) character you escape incarceration when another inmate is sprung from the vehicle transporting you to prison. You then make your way up the criminal world by taking on missions from transporting prostitutes to high-end assassinations. The storyline never had me hooked in any Grand Theft Auto game, the weird and wonderful characters are what makes GTA’s world. The script is top-notch and so many little details had me laughing, whether it was the radio adverts for an overnight pet delivery service or overhearing pedestrians insult me.

All the content in the original GTA III is there and as good as ever.  I was surprised that the game fit so nicely on mobile devices but it just works. There are no additional loading screens or anything, just the old game as you remember it.  The missions in GTA III are still the same too and are as great as ever. I loved  how varied they were and the sniper level with bomb expert 8-Ball is still one of my favourite missions from any game.

 

So the content of the game is the same and as good as ever, but how does it handle? When I saw the game was coming to mobile devices I was struck with fear. How on earth are Rockstar going to make a PS2 game work on a smartphone? The usual problem that haunts games on touch screen phones in the lack of buttons and here Rockstar have worked hard on using as few as possible. The game has 10 buttons on the screen at once but it never feels like your screen is over encumbered as usually you’ll only be using two or three of them at one point.

GTA III does have its flaws emphasised by moving to mobile devices though. Aiming in particular seems too hard as the game automatically locks you onto the closest enemy and gives you no option to cycle through enemies in your vicinity. Likewise the melee combat feels even harder too. Beating up random pedestrians is actually a struggle at times as I’ve got to rely on my own skill rotating the camera and my character to the correct position in order to bludgeon ongoers.

The graphics have also started to look outdated and extremely blocky, but GTA III just about gets away with this on a mobile phone. There is a clear issue with draw distance too with buildings in the background popping up as you storm down the roads of Liberty City. Occasionally the game does slow down too, but this seemed pretty rare and could have been due to other apps running in the background.

Maybe I liked it more for the nostalgic value than anything else. Rockstar released GTA III on mobile devices to celebrate its 10th Anniversary and I think it is a fitting tribute to one of the most iconic and influential games ever released. That said the game is showing its age and there are problems with porting it over to touchscreen devices. If you are a fan of the GTA series or never played the third game in the series then this is worth a try, especially as it is only £2.99.