Grand Theft Auto III

As in real life, there are consequences for your criminality. As your random acts of mayhem mount up, the police start hounding you, eventually calling in SWAT trucks, the FBI, and even the army if you continue down the path of destruction. Shaking these pursuers is easily the most fun part of the game, especially when a bunch of friends are packed in the room to witness your narrow escapes.

Grand Theft Auto III is fine-tuned to near perfection in every category. All the vehicles, from slick sports cars to lumbering dump trucks, handle exactly as you'd expect and smash apart realistically when abused. The three islands in the game are rendered in terrific detail considering their size, and are packed with traffic, pedestrians, and hidden jumps. The audio is equally amazing. Pedestrians talk, cops scream at you, and you can tune in nine different radio stations whenever you are in a car. It all adds up to a monumental achievement: the rare console game for adults that manages to get everything right. --T. Byrl Baker

Pros:

• Offers an enormous world for players to exploit, rendered in staggering detail
• Equally fun whether you go on plot-based missions or run around as a freelance crook

• Ultraviolence, foul language, and adult situations mean you'll want to keep this far away from kids
• It takes too long to get from one island to another, making some missions tedious

Players are put at the heart of their very own gangster movie, in which anything can happen and probably will. With a cast of hundreds, 50-plus vehicles--including sports cars, ice-cream trucks, boats, and buses--three hours of music, (including opera, reggae, house, drum and bass, pop, and disco), a huge array of street-ready weapons, and some of the seediest characters in video game history, Grand Theft Auto III is a sprawling epic that will show you that sometimes crime can pay, and that sometimes it pays you back.