History VideoGame / GrandTheftAutoIII

''Grand Theft Auto III'' is, naturally, the third game in the ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' series by Creator/RockstarGames (then still DMA Design; they would be rechristened as Rockstar shortly after the original release), which first hit store shelves in 2001.

In Liberty City, a FictionalCounterpart to New York, you play a [[SilentProtagonist silent]], [[NoNameGiven nameless]] [[note]]later games reveal his name to be Claude[[/note]] protagonist who escapes from a prison transport and climbs the city's criminal ladder. You are hoping to get revenge on your ex-girlfriend/partner in crime Catalina, who shot you and left you for dead after a bank robbery. It won't be an easy journey. Some will backstab you, and others will think you are in the way. But if you fight the good fight, this will be one hell of a ride.

Released on Platform/PlayStation2, then on the Platform/{{Xbox}} and [[Platform/IBMPersonalComputer PC]], then eventually got released on iOS and Android for its 10th Anniversary in 2011, and finally for Platform/PlayStation5, Platform/PlayStation4, Platform/XboxSeriesXAndS, Platform/XboxOne, and Platform/NintendoSwitch in a CompilationRerelease alongside ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoViceCity'' and ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas'' for the game's 20th anniversary on November 11, 2021, with a version for mobile devices that was released on December 14, 2023. This game was the first of the ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' series to actually feature a full-fledged 3D graphics engine that took advantage of the state-of-the-art hardware of its time to render an entire city, basically setting the roots for the WideOpenSandbox genre as we know it.

Released on Platform/PlayStation2, then on the Platform/{{Xbox}} and [[Platform/IBMPersonalComputer PC]], then eventually got released on iOS and Android for its 10th Anniversary in 2011, and finally for Platform/PlayStation5, Platform/PlayStation4, Platform/XboxSeriesXAndS, Platform/XboxOne, and Platform/NintendoSwitch in a CompilationRerelease alongside ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoViceCity'' and ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas'' for the game's 20th anniversary in late 2021, with a version for mobile devices planned for the first half of 2022. This game was the first of the ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' series to actually feature a full-fledged 3D graphics engine that took advantage of the state-of-the-art hardware of its time to render an entire city, basically setting the roots for the WideOpenSandbox genre as we know it.

** During the Taxi Driver, Paramedic[[note]]You do have to complete Levels 1-12 in one sitting[[/note]], Firefighter and Vigilante missions, you do not have to do most of them in one sitting. With the exception of infinite sprint at Level 12, you can do these side missions in as many sittings as you want. You just have to get to a certain number total to unlock bonuses at your safe houses.

* ArmedBlag: An early mission, and a Portland docks side quest.

** Ally AI is simplistic and allies will often run into enemy gunfire.

* BrooklynRage: A large portion of the cast, including the protagonist.

* CapsLock: SPANK's name is always capitalized.

* HeroicMime: Even if Claude isn't quite a hero.

* DarkerAndEdgier: Fans who play this game after ''Vice City'' and ''San Andreas'' will be surprised to find that it's surprisingly very low on laughs and sentimentality, playing many of missions relatively straight and not having much to explicitly say about Liberty City itself, good or bad. The city itself, however, is designed have a level of gloom and melancholy that even ''IV'' didn't reach, with inclement weather almost all the time and graffiti painted all over the trains.

* CrapsackWorld: Liberty City, whose representation of the organized crime is largely based on ''Series/TheSopranos''. Furthermore, backstabbing and betrayal are very common themes in the game, and the characters include a corrupt mayor, and a CorruptCorporateExecutive whose master plan [[spoiler:is setting off a gang war between the Yakuza and the Colombian Cartel to cut down real estate prices for the city]]. The playable character is shot and left to die in the opening scene, to set the tone of this game.

* DarkerAndEdgier: Easily one of the darkest GTA games of the entire series. New generations of gamers who come to this game after playing the series' later installments might be surprised by how this game is less sentimental and less laughable. As for the storyline, the entire plot is about a silent killer looking for the psychotic woman who betrayed him. Furthermore, there's a gritty atmosphere, dirty streets, dreary weather around the city. It certainly doesn't help the fact that most characters are sociopaths, unpleasant or hostile towards you. The ending, however, is more ambiguous in tone, with Claude actually getting everything he wants, compared to both of [[spoiler:''IV'''s actually-sober endings where Niko's left heartbroken upon losing a loved one]].

Released on UsefulNotes/PlayStation2, then on the UsefulNotes/{{Xbox}} and [[UsefulNotes/IBMPersonalComputer PC]], then eventually got released on iOS and Android for its 10th Anniversary in 2011, and finally for UsefulNotes/PlayStation5, UsefulNotes/PlayStation4, UsefulNotes/XboxSeriesXAndS, UsefulNotes/XboxOne, and UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch in a CompilationRerelease alongside ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoViceCity'' and ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas'' for the game's 20th anniversary in late 2021, with a version for mobile devices planned for the first half of 2022. This game was the first of the ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' series to actually feature a full-fledged 3D graphics engine that took advantage of the state-of-the-art hardware of its time to render an entire city, basically setting the roots for the WideOpenSandbox genre as we know it.

* BrokenBridge: Played literally. The bridge to Staunton Island was blown up in the opening cutscene (thus justifying it in that case), the drawbridge mechanism on the bridge to Shoreside Vale was broken, and the tunnel connecting all three islands was still under construction. Doesn't quite explain why the subway entrances are closed off, though.

* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: Catalina, of course. This also applies to Claude, given the sheer number of times he shifts allegiance from one gang to another. You can hardly blame him for that, since almost every faction he works for eventually decides to get rid of him. It's an entire world of CBD!

*** She's also featured in the manual as one of 'the people who run this town'. In actuality, despite being fairly close to Joey, she's just a local prostitute working for Luigi.

* ProlongedVideoGameSequel: ''GTAIII'' expanded on its predecessors by including three islands, various mission threads in addition to the main story, and collectible packages.

** You can still do King Courtney's missions even after doing Kenji's missions where you learn that [[spoiler:the Yardies have teamed up with the Colombians and you disrupt their SPANK peddling operations.]] This also spoils King Courtney's final mission where [[spoiler:he betrays you on orders by Catalina.]]

* HeroicMime: Even if Claude isn't quite a herred: When pedestrians are decapitated with a headshot or have one of their limbs shot off, a torrent of blood will shoot out from where their head or limb used to be before falling to the ground.

** Near the Import/Export garage in Portland is a magnetic crane where you can sell off stolen emergency and government vehicles for cash. It's not immediately obvious where the crane is and unlike the garage, the game will not tell you what vehicles it needs nor does it keep track.

* HeroicMime: Even if Claude isn't quite a hero. And apparently he's a literal mute, too, as even when he returns in ''San Andreas'', he never says a word.
* HighPressureBlood: When pedestrians are decapitated with a headshot or have one of their limbs shot off, a torrent of blood will shoot out from where their head or limb used to be before falling to the ground.

* InfinityMinusOneSword: The Rhino tank is this surprisingly, as all you need to do is advance the story to unlock the third island, achieve a maximum wanted level, steal a tank near your Staunton Island hideout, park that tank inside the huge garage, and save your game to erase your wanted level. The main challenge is keeping authorities away from the doors to your tank and eliminating or taking cover from the M16 troops. The tank is slow under its own engine power, but you can aim the cannon behind you and use it like a rocket engine to solve this issue. Being completely invulnerable to explosions and bullets while able to instantly destroy nearly all vehicles vulnerable to collision damage (other Rhinos are immune to this effect, they take ages to chip down) main weakness is fire damage, but enemies rarely have fire weapons so just be careful not to drive the tank through Molotov fires or hit it with your own Flamethrower. Or you could just type a cheat to spawn the Rhino.

** Ray Machowski's bulletproof Patriot is the strongest vehicle you can get in expected gameplay (the virtually invulnerable Cheetahs you can obtain from the "Turismo" mission require exploits), and all you need to do is complete all of Ray's missions and his Patriot is all yours. It's not fireproof or explosion proof, but as long as you steer clear of those dangers, you're fully protected from bullets. As a bonus, unlike the Cheetahs, it has better off-road capability, so you can utilize more escape routes with it.
** The [[CoolCar Cheetahs]] you face from the ''Turismo'' mission are basically Infinity +3 Swords. They're bulletproof, fireproof, and explosion-proof, so they can only take damage from collisions. Unfortunately you can't just hijack the car at the start of the race as they have their doors locked... but if you can flip one over then ''push the vehicle all the way into your garage'' (or just overturn it near the garage, as the track passes it at some point. The car won't catch fire and explode like other vehicles, though it might despawn if it is out of your sight during the mission, but after it's over the driver will crawl out and walk away, giving you a much better shot), it will be repaired back to new and becoming usable. You still need to be careful of crashing too much and being dragged out of the car, but otherwise it keeps its immunity against the 3 things above.

* DarkerAndEdgier: Easily one of the darkest GTA games of the entire series. New generations of gamers who come to this game after playing the series' later installments might be surprised by how this game is less sentimental and less laughable. As for the storyline, the entire plot is about a [[TheSociopath remorseless, callous killer]] looking for the psychotic woman who betrayed him. Furthermore, there's a gritty atmosphere, dirty streets, dreary weather around the city. It certainly doesn't help the fact that most characters are sociopaths, unpleasant or hostile towards you. The ending, however, is more ambiguous in tone, with Claude actually getting everything he wants, compared to both of [[spoiler:''IV'''s actually-sober endings where Niko's left heartbroken upon losing a loved one]].

* WretchedHive: This version of Liberty City might very well be the worst city in the series. It's dank, it's dirty, it's home to at ''least'' nine feuding gangs[[note]]The Leone family, Forelli brothers, Diablos, Triads, Yardies, Yakuza, Cartel, Red Jacks, and Purple Nines[[/note]] alongside other small-time crooks, a highly addictive drug called SPANK is being pushed in the streets, the police force is corrupt and brutal, and the resident media billionaire is building his own criminal empire. And knowing how the GTA-verse works, the government is also buried in corruption when it's not being incompetent.

* AxCrazy:
** The obviously insane Marty Chonks is a man in financial difficulty and has grievances with many people because of it. But he took care of these grievances by killing those who were the cause of the grievances and turning them into dog food.
** Catalina, full stop. She lashes at Miguel for the slightest provocations and she also sports a mean streak.

* HateSink: Marty Chonks is an AxeCrazy businessman who has financial problems and blames other people for it. However, as seen in the entry below for HoistByHisOwnPetard, he is done in by the man his wife was having an affair with.

** Marty Chonks kills people by inviting them to his warehouse. Eventually when his wife's lover Carlos discovers this, he kills Marty.

* HumanResources: Marty Chonks disposes of his victims by grinding them up and selling their remains as dog food.

** After [[spoiler:you kill Salvatore]], any side mission that involves crossing mafia territory will become much, much harder due to the hostile mafia all wielding deadly shotguns.

* DarkerAndEdgier: Easily one of the darkest GTA games of the entire series. New generations of gamers who come to this game after playing the series' later installments might be surprised by how this game is less sentimental and less funny. As for the storyline, the entire plot is about a [[TheSociopath remorseless, callous killer]] looking for the psychotic woman who betrayed him. Furthermore, there's a gritty atmosphere, dirty streets, dreary weather around the city. It certainly doesn't help the fact that most characters are sociopaths, unpleasant or hostile towards you. The ending, however, is more ambiguous in tone, with Claude actually getting everything he wants, compared to both of [[spoiler:''IV'''s actually-sober endings where Niko's left heartbroken upon losing a loved one]].

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Being the first 3D game in the series, many things are different in this game compared to future entries:
** The original [=PS2=] version was the final ''GTA'' game (and the only one in 3D) developed by DMA design before its rebrand to Rockstar North the following year. Later versions replaced all mentions of DMA with Rockstar North.
** There is an option for a top-down perspective akin to the 2D games, which ''Vice City'' onward removed.
** There is no map is shown in the pause menus. This made the included fold-out map a valuable utility. The map function was eventually added to the mobile version and ''Definitive Edition''.
** Claude cannot buy property in this game, being restricted to a single safehouse per island instead.
** Claude is the only [[HeroicMime silent protagonist]] in the 3D games. As a consequence, he also gets messages from contacts via a pager rather than a mobile phone as would be standard in all later games; ''Vice City Stories'' is the only game after ''III'' whose protagonist uses a pager rather than a phone, and that is to fit the game's time period (1984) rather than to accommodate a mute protagonist.
** There are still instant monetary awards for street crimes, once again akin to the 2D games.
** Everything is 10x more expensive in this game.[[note]]An example would be the Pay n' Spray, which in this game costs $1,000 compared to ''Vice City's'' $100 cost. Conversely, reward payouts are adjusted to inflation as well.[[/note]]
** No Pay n' Spray and Ammu-Nation icons are on the radar outside of missions.[[note]]The Staunton Island locations are marked for a while after it's unlocked.[[/note]]
** You can't move the camera while driving in the original versions. The ability was added in the mobile rereleases.
** Rather than using actual textures, photographs and decals serve those roles.
** There are no motorcycles in this game.[[note]]Later explained on in ''Liberty City Stories'' where an ordinance was in effect during the events of ''III'' that disallowed motorcycle usage around this time.[[/note]]
** Despite the "Strong Language" label featured on the game's content ratings, not a single F-bomb is dropped in the entire game, which is quite a glaring difference when compared to the later games in the series. A few milder profanities are being used and some characters use "shit" and a few variations of it. However, there is one pedestrian who nearly says the F-word just before getting cut short. There's also a moment with Toni, a high-ranking Mafia member who says "shit" fairly often, nearly saying "fuck" before swapping it with "freaking" on the radio due to Lazlow saying that swearing on the show isn't allowed.
** Unlike all future games, Liberty City isn't on a completely isolated island. Shoreside Vale really is a 'shoreside', as its northern boundary features a steep hill with two blocked-off road tunnels going through it. This design decision is largely thanks to the lack of flyable aircraft in ''III'', with future games choosing to put their cities on islands to discourage players from trying to fly out of bounds.
** EarthDrift has yet to take effect. Instead of [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoViceCity Vice City]], a very prominently placed billboard on Staunton Island advertises flights to Miami (''Definitive Edition'' does alter this one), and Ray Machowski also explicitly says he's headed to Miami in his farewell pager message.[[note]]This is especially weird considering that Vice City already existed in the [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoClassic first game]].[[/note]] The DJ of MSX FM namedrops [[Franchise/StarWars Darth Vader]] and [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Pikachu]] during one of his freestyles. There are also a few BlandNameProduct versions of real-world brands you can find, as opposed to future games that prefer to create something more original.
** Compared to ''Vice City'' and especially ''San Andreas'' onward, this game's depiction of Liberty City takes far more liberties with being a NoCommunitiesWereHarmed version of its real-world counterpart. Very few New York City landmarks are replicated in this game, and the ones that are have many clear geographical and design differences from their real life counterparts. This makes Liberty City come off more as a generic composite of various northeastern US cities rather than a scale compressed version of New York specifically.
** Your health is not restored after saving the game. Starting with ''Vice City'', your health is replenished after you save your game.
** While future 3D Universe games would play a snippet of their respective themes whenever a mission is passed, ''III'' uses a completely different, upbeat theme for that purpose.
** Its [=PlayStation=] 2 memory card save icon is a simple cube with the ''GTA III'' logo on each side. Future games use a representation of their respective save markers with the game's subtitle.[[note]]Aside from ''San Andreas'', which puts the game's cover art on its floppy disk label instead.[[/note]]
** While there are still many fictional brands in the game, most of them would not be seen again after ''III'', and more iconic ''GTA'' brands such as Sprunk, Burger Shot, and Weazel are nowhere to be found. This would be corrected in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoLibertyCityStories'' as well as in the ''Definitive Edition''.
** This game marked the debut of the now-iconic comic book-style cover art, but as visible above each panel is monochromatic, a stark contrast to all future covers in the series. This cover art was also made for the North American release; the European release instead had [[https://cdromance.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/12647_front.jpg a splash of characters and action]] as its cover art (which was originally going to be the North American cover as well).
** The in-game text that tells you what to do or what's happening is very snarky and abrasive. For example, trying to pick up an NPC when your car has no more room for passengers will have the game sarcastically tell you that your escorts are not sardines. Another example is where the game outright mocks you for losing in a race. This is likely a carryover from the 2D games where the text and characters were more colorful and wacky. Later games tone this down before the HD games dropped this altogether.
** Every mission starts with a title card before its intro cutscene. In every subsequent game, the mission's title is displayed along with the intro.
** There is no crouch button. Every ''Grand Theft Auto'' game beginning with ''Vice City'' implements a crouch button to help with aiming guns.
** NPC limbs could be shot out and dismembered in this game, and because of this, models are given a disproportionate and cartoonish appearance. The ability was removed from ''Vice City'' onward due to changes in models, making them more realistic.
** The car models are also rather different, and cannot be dented with melee weapons or have the the windows and tires shot out. This was changed from ''Vice City'' onward.
** You are also unable to bail out from a car in movement. Even if your car is about to explode, you need to stop it before leaving it. This also was changed from ''Vice City'' onward.
** Cars are much more fragile in this game than in the posterior titles, needing only some gunfire damage or a couple of crashes to catch on fire.
** The story very basic, which can be summed up as "Your partner-in-crime betrayed you and left you for dead. Go find and kill her." You basically do favors for several gangs just to get a lead on Catalina's whereabouts and once you're finished with a gang, they stop being relevant to the story. Later GTA games would give deeper and more developed storylines and characters. ''III's''' setting is also much more grounded with some comedic scenes here and there compared to future games that would have more wacky and action heavy themes.
** Weapon slots do not exist in this game. It's possible to carry every weapon in the game, something that is not possible to do in later games beginning with ''Vice City''.[[note]]''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoAdvance'' is an exception.[[/note]]

** Rampages in particular suffer from this. The game is attempting to have an actual story to it with a protagonist who has a goal beyond just [[PsychoForHire killing people for fun and profit]], which clashes completely when you find a random skull icon floating in the game world and are promptly given temporary access to a powerful weapon and told to kill an arbitrary number of people with it in two minutes. They're what remains of a set of missions that got heavily edited during development, most of them cut ''because'' the devs realized they didn't fit the tone of the rest of the game, and the ones that made the cut are given without context because the guy who would have given them to you got the boot.

* CentralTheme: Betrayal and revenge drive not only the plot, but also the missions. Claude is apparently motivated by his desire for revenge against Catalina. Salvatore Leone is paranoid about his underlings betraying him (and rightly so). Donald Love gets the player to betray Kenji.

* DarkerAndEdgier: Easily one of the darkest GTA games of the entire series. New generations of gamers who come to this game after playing the series' later installments might be surprised by how this game is less sentimental and less funny. As for the storyline, the entire plot is about a [[TheSociopath remorseless, callous killer]] looking for the psychotic woman who betrayed him. Furthermore, there's a gritty atmosphere, dirty streets, dreary weather around the city. It certainly doesn't help the fact that most characters are sociopaths, unpleasant or hostile towards you. The ending, however, is more ambiguous in tone, with the protagonist actually getting everything he wants, compared to both of [[spoiler:''IV'''s actually-sober endings where Niko's left heartbroken upon losing a loved one]].

** Toni Cipriani serves as this to Salvatore Leone and the Leone Family Mafia.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Being the first 3D game in the series, several things are different in this game compared to future entries:
** The original [=PS2=] version was the final ''GTA'' game (and the only one in 3D) developed under the DMA Design name. Later revisions updated it to Rockstar North.

** There is no map is shown in the pause menus. This made the included fold-out map a valuable utility. The map function was eventually added to the mobile rereleases.

** Claude is the only [[HeroicMime silent protagonist]] in the 3D games. As a consequence, he also gets messages from contacts via a pager rather than a mobile phone as would be standard in all later games; ''Vice City Stories'' is the only game after ''III'' whose protagonist uses a pager rather than a phone, and that is more due to the game's time period rather than to accommodate a mute protagonist.

** Despite the "Strong Language" label featured on the game's content ratings, not a single F-bomb is dropped in the entire game, which is quite a glaring difference when compared to the later games in the series. A few milder profanities are being used and some characters use "shit" and a few variations of it. However, there is one pedestrian who nearly says the F-word just before getting cut short. There's also a moment with Toni, a high ranking Mafia member who says shit fairly often, nearly saying "fuck" before swapping it with "freaking" on the radio due to Lazlow saying that swearing on the show isn't allowed.

** EarthDrift has yet to take effect. Instead of [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoViceCity Vice City]], a very prominently placed billboard on Staunton Island advertises flights to Miami (''Definitive Edition'' does alter this one), and Ray Machowski also explicitly says he's headed to Miami in his farewell pager message.[[note]]This is especially weird considering that Vice City already existed in the [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoClassic first Grand Theft Auto]].[[/note]] The DJ of MSX FM explicitly mentions [[Franchise/StarWars Darth Vader]] and [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Pikachu]] during one of his freestyles. There are also a few BlandNameProduct versions of real-world brands you can find, as opposed to future games that prefer to create something more original.
** Compared to ''Vice City'' and especially ''San Andreas'' onward, this game's depiction of Liberty City takes far more liberties with being a NoCommunitiesWereHarmed version of its real-world counterpart. Very few New York City landmarks are replicated in this game, and the ones that are have many clear geographical and design differences from their real versions. This makes Liberty City come off more as a generic composite of various north eastern US cities rather than a scale compressed version of New York specifically.

** While future 3D Universe games would play a snippet of their respective themes whenever a mission is passed, ''III'' uses a very different, upbeat theme for that purpose.
** Its [=PlayStation=] 2 memory card save icon is a simple cube with the ''GTA III'' logo on it. Future games use a representation of their respective save markers with the game's subtitle.[[note]]Aside from ''San Andreas'', which puts the game's cover art on its floppy disk label instead.[[/note]]

** The in-game text that tells you what to do or what's happening is very snarky and abrasive. For example, trying to pick up an NPC when your car has no more room for passengers will have the game sarcastically tell you that your escorts are not sardines. Another example is where the game outright makes fun of you for losing in a race. This is likely a carryover from the 2D games where the text and characters were more colorful and wacky. Toned down in later games.

** Weapon slots do not exist in this game. It's possible to carry every weapon in the game, something that is not possible to do in later games beginning with ''Vice City''.[[note]]Grand Theft Auto Advance is an exception.[[/note]]

* ExcusePlot: After the initial plot hook of Catalina betraying Claude, most of the game is finding the next job to go do some random task with very little story structure. What hints of plot there are usually a bare minimum to justify the next conflict, and there isn't exactly much of a character arc to follow. Compared to even ''Vice City'', the story mostly just wants to justify Claude's hunt for {{Revenge}} and burn down half the city in the process.
* FaceHeelTurn: About a third of the way through the game, [[spoiler:Salvatore Leone]] sends Claude to pick up a car that [[spoiler:he's had rigged with a bomb in an effort to kill him.]]
** [[spoiler:Claude]] may have one when he [[spoiler:kills Asuka's brother and starts a war with the Cartel (Asuka had been nothing but supportive of him after Salvatore's betrayal, though the brother in question [[{{Jerkass}} is another story]]). Claude possibly killing Maria may also qualify.]]

** If the player makes a careful observation with the Leone Family Mafia in Saint Marks, they're the only gang in Portland to only wield pistols. [[spoiler:This is a subtle hint that they'll turn hostile later on in the story. After Claude whacks Salvatore, they now carry shotguns along with pistols. Traveling in Saint Mark's after "Sayonara Salvatore" is ill-advised, because the shotgun blasts will nuke Claude in a heartbeat.]]

** Despite the Red Jacks and Purple Nines are rival gangs in-story, attacking either one will have both factions shooting at you.

* GourmetPetFood: An ad for Bitch'n' Dog Food the [[AllThereInTheManual manual]] is probably the most logical {{Aver|tedTrope}}sion, bonus points for admitting they use "the scrapings off the abattoir floor". Of course, in the game, the company is more into using HumanResources.

** The locations of the vehicle challenges are quite obscure, with them being out of the way and do not appear to be unique at a glance. The worst however has to be Multistory Mayhem, which actually requires you to drive a Stallion to the inconspicuous starting location, and then re-enter the Stallion to start it.
** A set of payphone missions are not marked in-game at all, although you may hear the phone in question ring when near Joey's garage.

* HeroicMime: Even if Claude isn't quite a hero. And apparently he's a literal mute, too, as even when he returns in a prequel, he never says a word.

** Marty Chonks kills people by inviting them to his warehouse. Eventually when his wife's lover discovers this, he kills Marty.

** El Burro was a potential employer of the player in the first game's San Andreas.

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: There are a few in-game billboards that feature movies staring actors with names like "[[Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger Arnold]] [[Creator/SylvesterStallone Steelone]]" and "Chuck Schwartz".

* PermanentlyMissableContent: The Mafia bosses' missions, namely those from Joey, Toni and Luigi must be done before Salvatore's final mission, or you'll miss out on their rewards. Also, [[spoiler:Kenji will get killed at a certain point]], so you need to complete his missions before then. Ditto Asuka after you take the construction site; you lose the condo missions.

* PrettyInMink: Maria's tiger skirt, and she mentions she knows a lot about leopard skin furniture.

* TheRemnant: Retroactive examples. In later 3D Universe games (all of which are set before ''III''), the Forellis are a major powerhouse and one of the three major Mafia families of Liberty City throughout the 1980s and 90s. By 2001, the Forelli Crime Family have no real turf and only appear in a few early mentions before falling to the wayside entirely. They're not even referred to as the Forelli Family, but as "The Forelli Brothers".

* SceneryPorn: Begins the GTA tradition of featuring intricate and detailed cityscapes that can be explored in-between missions.

** A notoriously difficult mission, where you must steal 3 cars and deliver them to the Yakuza within 6 minutes and without a single scratch, is called "Grand Theft Auto".

** In Portland, you are contacted by El Burro of the [[GenericEthnicCrimeGang Hispanic Diablo Gang]], plus you can find Marty Chonks, though he isn't marked on the map.

* WretchedHive: This version of Liberty City might very well be the worst city in the series. It's dank, it's dirty, it's home to at ''least'' nine feuding gangs[[note]]The Leone family, Forelli family, Diablos, Triads, Yardies, Yakuza, Cartel, Red Jacks, and Purple Nines[[/note]] alongside other small-time crooks, a highly addictive drug called SPANK is being pushed in the streets, the police force is corrupt and brutal, and the resident media billionaire is building his own criminal empire. And knowing how the GTA-verse works, the government is also buried in corruption when it's not being incompetent.

** Parodied. An AdBumper for Head Radio calls the station "the rock of Liberty City for sixty years". This would mean they started out in 1941, Rock & Roll wasn't invented by then.

* TakeThat: One of Asuka's missions involves Claude killing a "[[VideoGame/{{Driver}} strangely animated undercover cop]]." Even his car is the same. The mission in question? "Two-Faced Tanner".
* TitleDrop: A notoriously difficult mission, where you must steal 3 cars and deliver them to the Yakuza within 6 minutes and without a single scratch, is called "Grand Theft Auto". Later followed by an even more difficult mission involving intercepting an airplane, called "Grand Theft Aero", although the difficulty mostly stems from fighting the Colombian Cartel instead of finding the plane itself.

* LeftHanging: Both the [[spoiler:disappearance of Donald Love]] and the [[spoiler:ambiguous fate of Maria after the ending, in which she may be or may be not have been KilledOffscreen]]. Both aren't even answered in future games either.

* NotMeThisTime: When Miguel is captured late in the game, he truthfully denies responsibility for [[spoiler:assassinating Kenji Kasen. That was actually ''you'', acting on orders from Donald Love to trigger a gang war and drive down real estate prices, but you are obviously in no hurry to correct him.]]

* TakeThat: Asuka contracting you to kill a "[[VideoGame/{{Driver}} strangely animated undercover cop]]." Even his car is the same.