Actions and Consequences.........................
In many ways,Grand Theft Auto III’s systems-based design centers the game on
actions and their consequences. For instance, players are given the freedom to drive
recklessly in the city and run over whatever pedestrians happen to be in their way. But
if there happens to be a police officer nearby who witnesses the wanton slaughter, play-
ers will suddenly become wanted by the police for their crime (which is represented on
the players’ wanted meter) and will need to avoid the pursuing law enforcement until
their wanted level decreases. Similarly, players are able to steal any car they want in the
game, but if a police officer witnesses the theft, the players’ wanted level will increase.
Stealing a police cruiser is also possible, but the police become especially mad when
players do so and will pursue them even more doggedly. Outside of just the police react-
ing to crimes, if players shoot a member of a gang, the other members of the gang are
liable to come after them with guns blazing. Players are allowed to drive their car as
recklessly as they want, careening into the sides of buildings or making insane jumps.
But every time players hit something the car takes damage and, after it has sustained
enough hits, will eventually blow up. Thus players are forced to make interesting and
sometimes difficult choices: they can cut corners to get somewhere more quickly, dam-
aging their ride along the way, but if they damage it too much they will find themselves
without any kind of transportation. If they play it safe, their travel time will be longer
and they may fail the mission. Similarly, the police make players think twice about the
choices they make. Players may need a car right now to get through a mission, but
there’s a police officer watching. Can they outrun the cops? Or do they have time to run
around the corner and try to steal a vehicle when out of sight?
Grand Theft Auto III’s level design is another key component of the game that
gives players meaningful choices. Though there are many mini-games and other diver-
sions players can participate in to refine their skills or earn extra cash, the core of the
game sends players on a variety of different missions. The missions are quite well set
up to provide players with a good variety of goals to accomplish, all of which exploit the
game’s same core mechanics but reuse them in interesting ways. Players will have
missions where they need to assassinate a particular enemy, steal a specific car, pick up
a person or a package and drop them/it off at a second location, and so on. The missions
are set up to make sure players explore all the different parts of the city, frequently
crossing the whole island to accomplish a specific mission. From a level flow perspec-
tive, what’s most interesting is how players can take any route they like through the
city to get somewhere. Furthermore, in some missions the target of the job may move
around the city space freely and unpredictably. A battle that starts outside of a specific
restaurant may lead to a chase through the city that plays out differently each time the
user experiences it. Some missions are timed, meaning players will need to make care-
ful choices about what route they take or how long they let a battle play out. This makes
the flow of the map inGrand Theft Auto IIImore like a strategy or sports game, where a
battle can naturally and dynamically flow around the environment. There is no critical
path to the map.GTA3’s Liberty City is so large, navigating it can be quite daunting at
first, with players spending a good amount of time getting lost before they figure out
their way around. This experience is much like moving to a new city and needing to
learn the lay of the land. Fortunately, every inch of Liberty City is completely unique
480 Chapter 24: Game Analysis:Grand Theft Auto III