Grand Theft Auto 3D Trilogy Retrospective

A look back on the Grand Theft Auto Trilogy (GTA 3, Vice City and San Andreas). This video explores the history & development of the franchise, and then dives into each game, providing an overview and seeing how the series has evolved over time. It's something like a retrospective, review and remembrance all in one.
00:00 - Introduction
01:54 - History & Development
05:43 - GTA 3
30:14 - GTA Vice City
56:43 - GTA San Andreas
1:33:09 - Conclusion
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#grandtheftauto #gta #gtatrilogy

[@itsbreadbin]

Grand Theft Auto 3 is one of the most important video games ever made. Dated by today's standards, sure. But it changed gaming forever.

[@DeadPixel1105]

Classic Doom (1993), Quake (1996), and GTA III (2001). Most important and industry-changing games ever. For sure. People like to throw Halo in there as well, but Halo was a spiritual successor of Marathon, which in turn received a good deal of inspiration from Doom.

[@samuelgeaney7556]

​@@DeadPixel1105 Halo is industry changing in the sense of what it did for console fps. So yeah it's basically the Doom of console fps.

[@CoralCopperHead]

@@samuelgeaney7556 *coughs in Goldeneye*

[@samuelgeaney7556]

@@CoralCopperHead Goldeneye was great but Halo is what changed everything.

[@nickbangr]

RIP Ray Liotta, love this trilogy. These games were really mindblowing when they come out; one of those games you finish playing and immediately start over. The TV ads are all fresh in my mind. I've always been partial to San Andreas, can always go back to that game; but being Miami born, Vice City holds a special place.

[@antoxin93]

if only they were able to make proper remasters...

[@ravirosmarys301]

Well, Miami-Born, you're about to have a blast in about a year. Congratulations!

[@avace917]

GTA III is actually my favorite of these. Mostly for nostalgic reasons. Being a New Yorker, Liberty City (both 3D and HD versions) is the environment I related to most. I loved VC, VCS and San Andreas. The simplicity of III is what stood out to me most.

[@marvinesquibel2625]

The quality of your content is insanely good i cant believe your channel is this underatted i hope this garners more attention

[@acritical]

Thanks for the kind words.

[@TheDuneDovah]

Such fond memories with these games. The first game I remember playing was Vice City in 2004

[@TheCFD_Dude]

For those wondering about the FPS limit, at least in the case of GTA SA on PC, it's default lock is actually 25 FPS. Having a high frame rate breaks an undernoted amount of game physics. Examples include permanant vehicle breaking, limited mid air vehicle control, reduced swim speed, inability to dive underwater as the dive animation ends before the player is dived enough, dying instantly while mounting fences, reduced input needed to turn on siren (essentially, you can't hold the key to switch for more than like milisecond, otherwise it will just honk the vehicle,) etc. Silent, a very reputable modder, made a modpack that ups the limiter to 30 FPS and fixes a majority of the FPS tied bugs. It's the Silentpatch. It includes stuff like increased render distances as well, and in 2023, is the most optimum way of playing GTA San Andreas.

[@BIGwillTHEGAME]

San Andreas is my favorite video game since childhood.

[@LBTennis]

Grove Street 4lif

[@njnjnnj100]

A real treat of a video, your war 3 vid brought me to your channel, lovely long form retrospectives man. Also, Toni's voiced by Michael Madsen in 3, who's also a pretty big star, you didn't mention him with the other, figured you might not know and find it interesting.

[@acritical]

Cheers mate. I appreciate it.

[@MPS72192]

I really wish more content on KZbin were long form like this, instead of shorts and small video clips.

[@Josh-cm9jw]

My only experience of the 3D universe had been GTA SA up until the part where CJ gets exiled to Whetstone (and general open world shenanigans), but when the GTA VI trailer came out, I decided to do a marathon of the 3D trilogy and the current HD releases. Just got to the end of San Andreas and can honestly say the 3D games have really impressed me in just how enjoyable it's been to get through them. Only one I wouldn't return to to complete 100% is GTA 3, but VC and SA were absolute game changers.

[@cattrucker8257]

It's almost weird to see such well-done retrospectives and reviews with so little attention. I hope the algorithm wakes up for you. Speaking as a lifelong singleplayer GTA enjoyer, it's pretty nicely done from a more general, less deeply-involved point of view, it's more accessible to a regular viewer who's not a GTA fanatic that's "in" on everything. We're already at a time when that kinda retrospective you gave to the 3D trilogy is warranted simply to introduce more people to them because by now they're no longer a near-universal gaming memory, a whole generation grew up that never partook in them. I personally find GTA 2 also worth thinking about, remembering the experience I had playing it early on, but it is indeed true that the 3D series was the out-of-the-park hit and a near-revolutionary expansion of what GTA could amount to with every step. It's a common sorta shakeup between VC and SA for people's favourite GTA game; I personally lean more towards SA but I spent many a schoolboy afternoon having fun in VC.

[@acritical]

Thank you very much. I'm sure views will come in time. I did wonder about a deep dive into each game, going through every mission and all that, but I felt a more general retrospective would be more appropriate in the end. Initially this video was meant to incorporate GTA 1 and 2 as well but I had trouble getting them to run properly so I scrapped the idea. Thanks again for this comment and the various others you have made across separate videos as well.

[@cattrucker8257]

@@acritical I recall someone else doing a pretty chonky GTA overview, and going into plenty of detail on 1 and 2 (exactly the "for those already initiated into the trivia" approach that can be kinda hit or miss). Going from what I know of the games myself and from what I've seen talked about them, I'd think it'd be best to go with 1 and 2 in one go just as you did the 3D-era "main" trilogy. Just taking 2 by itself, while it's an interesting quirky game, can get a bit flat - remarking more on differences and evolution from the first generation would give a lot more meat to such a review, and for that, the first generation gotta get looked into as well. Honestly I kinda miss GTA2 sometimes, it was a unique little experience too that nothing really recreated since. Like weird late-90s low-scifi cyberpunk more than anything else, really cool in that way. I hope you might find a way to run those games - I know speedrunners can run 2 well, could use looking into how they do it.

[@a.j.9359]

Actually in III if you know the weapon spawns there's no need to spend any money in gun stores. There is a flame thrower on top of the Head Radio HQ, a shotgun in the alley of Saint Marks, also an AK, an SMG on top of the Sawmill in the harbor with an armor pickup. Also you can get 30 packages for few extra guns.

[@acritical]

Ah, that's true. I didn't think of that at the time of making this video. Still, that seems like it would quickly get irritating if you had to do it over and over. Oh well.

[@Coco-Don]

I grew up with San Andreas. I played it EVERYDAY. I LOVE how the planes control. You can do some wild stunts with them.

[@kegleo]

my first gta was gta3 even tho gta 4 was out but i didnt know cause my parents didnt allow me to be on internet for long, and before that i had ps1 and this shit blew my mind, i played it nonstop it was funny then to realise there so much better gtas out there and i was already impressed by third game. Thank u for retrospective, brings a lot of memories and thoughts.

[@brojep8297]

Great video And the stairs problem is I think due to the higher refresh rates could be something else tho

[@acritical]

Thanks for watching.

[@WinstonBuford]

yup

[@DrLazyCreature]

Great video. I love those types of analysis. I can't wait for GTA 4 (my fav) and GTA5. Maybe in the future Fallout or Mass Effect? :)

[@acritical]

Thank you, glad you enjoyed it. Mass Effect is potentially on the cards in the future but I cannot say when.

[@NureinBeobachter]

great review, 'enjoyed the watch :)

[@acritical]

Thank you.

[@JonBruzza]

wow, just wow, I expect this quality from a channel with millions, this standard of both quantity and quality is just breath taking, crushing it dude! Earnt a sub.

[@wedasantika6079]

Fortunately in PC version there's mod to view the entire map. This is really lifesaver.

[@ItsAnGoose]

What version of the games were you playing? The ps2 originals are hard to go back to now due to frame rate issues and low resolution but the better alternatives have been removed from stores by Rockstar 😢

[@princegroove]

San Andreas is my favorite because it symbolized that magical 90’s West Coast hip hop culture and urban setting that I was exposed to while growing up in L.A.

[@Leafsfanforever]

I read somewhere that Ryders voice actor said that was all they wanted him to do. It still seems off how you kill him and everything

[@katoahirou8151]

Will you be making a retrospective for the gta stories duo?

[@Coco-Don]

Wrong side of the tracks was SO hard when I was a kid. I’m currently playing through right now on PC and it was SO much easier.

[@officialneverfar]

underated asf

[@lornbaker1083]

I grew up in a city that was used in movies to replicate newyork for cheaper then actually filming there. so for me liberty city will always have my heart. both in 3 and 4. i was never to places like miami or la so as amazing as those game areas are. they dont have the deeper connection to me that the grime and rain slick streets of Liberty City.

[@peter-w]

Hope this gets more views 🙂

[@rolandswamp]

22:12 this bug relates to too much high FPS, with the limiter on or fps manually lowered this bug is no more. same in GTASA, when you try to climb roofs, but get smacked by something to death

[@AronHallan]

And that's why GTA SA is the GOAT.

[@d.fortner6653]

When are you going to do the gta 4 and gta 5 videos?

[@DudiestPriest]

One thing about the obeying driving laws in the games is that in LA Noire, they push the player to drive this way rather than how you would see the average player drive in GTA.

[@bouncingbluesoul5270]

Could you cover the two stories games ?

[@peconi47]

you shouldve played with silentpatch, makes the experience so much better and fixes a lot of bugs in each game

[@SupplementalSense]

San Andreas is a masterpiece. It was so good that GTA 4 was a bit of a disappointment to me. It's still very enjoyable today.

[@youreprettygood2603]

Donald Love is probably the most degenerate character in the trilogy, he is a cannibal and a necrophile. I know this video is specifically about III/VC/SA and not LCS/VCS, but in LCS he is seen eating human ribs during the cutscene for the mission Cam Pain, saying that it tastes like chicken. He has Tony steal the remains of Avery Carrington (from Vice City, his business rival in the real estate market) and Ned Burner (who tried to expose his degeneracy) from the morgue so that he can "eat one and fuck the other" for his enjoyment. In GTA3 he is more tame but still admits to throwing morgue parties on a regular basis and having dead bodies delivered directly to his table. In 2009 series writer Dan Houser said that Donald Love left Liberty City in a hurry to escape from law enforcement after crossing the line one too many times even given his wealth and influence, considering this he probably also left the United States altogether.

[@GeorgeValentineIV]

From what I've noticed in GTA IV, when you get to Alderney it's the same deal as in GTA III with Shoreside Vale... The missions are fewer than in the other 2 islands until the game is over, or at least that's how I remember it... Also, personally, for continuity sake (I know that they are in a different universe), I try imagining that Shoreside Vale is in fact somewhere close to Hove Beach and the airport, only not shown in THIS version of the map (as if the "movie" isn't taking part in this portion of the island and that it exists, only not shown), thus Red Light District and Portland in General could be somewhere in Alderney or Alderney in Portland... We'll never know 😂🤭 Hopefully, however, someone in Rockstar could make a connection between each universe... To me it would be better than a remake or even than a AAA game with lots of new characters... IF Rockstar could make a new game with 20% of the "cast" being new characters (main characters included) and the rest consisted of old ones that reappear to show us what happened to them after we left them (perhaps some of them being MC's too), I'd be extremely happy... Like Imagine that fanart wallpaper which shows all the GTA protagonists inside an apartment. When I first saw it, I was like "YES! This scene in a GTA game would be AWESOME!"

[@CoralCopperHead]

My favourite thing about the 3D timeline is the fact that the first game released in it is the chronological ending of the overarching narrative.

[@noobamooba]

And the last one (gta vcs) is the begining

[@riccardomallardo7779]

49:25 don't forget about toni

[@leonbell5141]

Just noticed Wang-Cars is “Wankers” classic 😂

[@louie602AZ]

GTA is definitely the PICASSO Of game design

[@Sorot777]

Acritical: Ryder i never care for 1:21:44

[@Max_Mustermann]

Vice City probably works so well because the somewhat cartoonish graphics of the 3D universe games fit the stylized aesthetic of the game perfectly, while GTA 3 and San Andreas are trying to be gritty and realistic. Both are good games in their own right, but they feel a bit more dated graphics wise.

[@WinstonBuford]

you meet phil cassidy in both gta3 and Vice City

[@Pimpgamer101]

Ah GTA, the only series where the original trilogy started with 3.

[@AyoKeyloGaming]

the base pc version are downgrades, like for example - GTA SA pc not having the orange sky, missing object, mission changes, missing or changed objects, car reflections, etc. i suggest the essentials pack from mixmods before really reviewing these bad pc ports

[@At-px6rm]

Aw shit. Here we go again

[@BIGwillTHEGAME]

48:51 HEE HEE

[@JaimeAndreiHeramizArnado]

one time i was playing gta sa on mobile and i heard freebird on the radio.💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀

[@Supreme-AMVs]

No gta 3 has the most difficult missions of any gta game

[@wolfpackwarriors]

Zero

[@2011multisam]

I remember my first time playing Vice City I had to look up how to complete the game, even then it took me forever to find the print works, then I had to get enough money to purchase it because I hadn't done so prior to this. One of the reasons I tend to not go back to it in all honesty

[@john_marstonof1911]

Also gta 3 was delayed cause of 9/11 cause their offices were at ground 0 and also didnt want people too buy a violent video game right after a terrorist attack and had too change alot of things too make it less like new your and no 9/11 similarities

[@tim3172]

They changed the color of the police vehicles, changed the US artwork, and removed the word "terrorist" from one mission. That is the comprehensive list of changes. That is not "a lot".

[@patmakesperfect]

Actually gta was made because of a glitch in race n chase that made all the police attack the bad guy outta nowhere

[@memazov6601]

you forgot vcs and lcs there 3d games

[@stupid90able]

You're supposed to be saving after every mission so if you die you can load a save instead of wasting time and money going to buy your weapons again.

[@Sorot777]

Bollas

[@aftrthejake6843]

I like GTA 3 more than vice City. 😅😐

[@abbasraza2493]

Great vid. But I could not sit and enjoy the footage with the slow swimming, slow boats, the rapid fire weapons, the back swinging cars and fast AI. You should have done a bit of research as to the best way to play these games. The stock, unmodified games from steam on PC are one of the worst ways to play these games. Now I'm not saying to load up the defective editions or mobile ports either. And although emulating the PS2 versions is a option, the best way to play these games is on PC with a bit of modding. These mods add nothing to these games which make them anything else but enhanced vanilla, instead they bring them to the PS2 original visuals, adding widescreen, restoring some music and fixing all the bugs. Some add weather effects from the PS2 and re-enable the 2DFX that had made the orange hue possible on the PS2. It enhances all these games greatly. And if you weren't interested in modding completely, just add reIII and reVC for gta 3 and vc. They are just single .exe files that greatly improve that broken default experience. Unfortunately, you do have to manually mod GTA SA to get it into a good, unbroken playable state. Great vid tho.

[@jqhtx]

Yappinator over here

[@EisensteinPrime]

Hidden packages.

[@tim3172]

14:00 "No hit markers"... you mean like in real life? "You can't move while firing most weapons"... you mean like in real life? "Cheap enemy placement"... you mean like in real life? I was just thinking about the time I was running around, shooting an AK47 accurately while sprinting, my targets loudly announcing themselves, *AND* they were visually showing that I was hitting them... good times, goooood times. 16:00 the Mafia Sentinel, Diablo Stallion, Police car, and Sentinel... are "pretty shit"? Yeah, okay champ. 16:05 "Only find good cars in Staunton"... the car selection in Staunton and SSV are identical. 22:00 it's because you're running the game at an unlocked framerate. It was designed to run at 30 FPS. You're likely playing it at 200+ FPS. The engine looks at the difference between frames to make calculations. There are various patches to lock it at 60 FPS, but the obvious solution is to enable the frame limiter or... not run down slopes. 23:00 "Boats do not have good handling in this game." In comparison to what? They handle, if anything, *too good*. Do you think a real-life boat handles like a hypercar? Bruh... load the game. Stop crying over paying for weapons and *load the game*. Top crying over getting a wanted level and load the game. This isn't a "baby's first video game" where you can instantly repeat the missions over and over before you can tap X to skip because you're incapable of doing it. "You only have one attempt to do it!" How many attempts do you think you should have to blow up a plane? 12? 26:38 "Ungodly amount of Cartel Members" (15 Cartel members. You probably run that many people over in a half hour of playing.) 29:00 "Very basic narrative, there isn't much going on here." You just spent what? 15 minutes summarizing the narrative and then you describe a hero's journey. Did you expect Lord of the Rings in a video game? What, specifically do you need to know about Catalina other than her being a crazy psychopath? Her hopes and dreams? If her mom taught her how to bake bread and her dad showed her how to ride a bike? "GTA 3 has NOT aged well." He said, playing it on a modern system with one, easily-fixed bug. "Stairs are no longer deathtraps." VC and SA suffer from the same physics calculation issues as GTA3 as it's inherent to the engine they share. 48:00... how did you *NOT* notice this in editing and remove it from the video along with the whinging about GTA3 for several minutes? 37:27 "Boat handling has been improved significantly" GTA 3 and VC use the same boat handling. The speeder uses the *literal* same handling.cfg file. You're comparing a better boat with a worse boat and claiming the game has better boat handing. DERP. 42:00 "I wound up using cheats" You know you could have... persevered rather than cheating, right? "Even with them, I barely scraped by." That's embarrassing. 43:28 That's... not what recoup means. 44:00 I'm saddened by how much you feel the need to dumb things down to the lowest common denominator. "If you pay attention, it's obvious. I still really. really need my hand held, though." 48:15 How is using a PS2, locked to max of 30 FPS with a terrible resolution, worse controls, and many, many slowdowns, "better" than playing on PC with a locked FPS or a patch to fix it? 1:26:10... did you just describe the gang territory missions as "nowhere near as arduous" as VC? That's certainly... an opinion one could possible have.

[@acritical]

Hahaha holy shit. This is hands down the best comment I have ever received. Mate... it's a KZbin video. There's _really_ no need to take it so seriously. Thanks for the laugh though.

[@jqhtx]

get a life wacko 😂