Here was a living, breathing playspace which, for the time, offered an epic sense of scale, complexity and freedom that our young minds had never known before. Through a hypnotic coalescing of uneven window frames, we snatched juicy glimpses of what would soon blow our minds.
Hell, I think I anticipated a bit of in-engine footage, set to hard rock and centred on smushing conga lines of pedestrians, out for a sidewalk stroll.īetter yet, Rockstar Games suggested an experience that was to be more considered, filmic even. Sequel-informed players would have guessed on a bombastic intro video – murder, mayhem, more explosions than Michael Bay with a permit for WMDs. Something – and it feels odd to say this, given the title, premise and OFLC banning that was to come – classy. When you booted GTA III for the first time on a PS2 in 2001, as I did, you felt like you were in the presence of something new.
