History YMMV / GrandTheftAutoIII

** Donald Love. See [[GrandTheftAutoLibertyCityStories here]].

* CompleteMonster: [[AxCrazy Catalina]] is a {{sadist}}ic, [[AmbitionIsEvil ambitious]], [[HateSink hateful]] thief and SpreeKiller turned [[TheQueenpin boss]] of TheCartel, who started her career in [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas San Andreas]], purposefully escalating the violence in her robberies, killing numerous bystanders and cops with glee. Having a history of using and discarding her boyfriends and partners, Catalina shoots protagonist Claude, leaving him to die during a robbery, before rising through the ranks of the Colombian Cartel and abandoning her next partner, Miguel, later killing him. Catalina starts an empire, flooding Liberty City with the especially potent and mentally deteriorating drug, SPANK, [[EvenEvilHasStandards turning even]] the [[Characters/GrandTheftAutoLeoneCrimeFamily Leone Crime Family]] and {{Yakuza}} against her. Among her distribution methods, Catalina spikes SPANK through coffee shops and street vendors across the city. Encountering a vengeful Claude, Catalina drugs multiple addicts into crazed suicide bombers to try to kill him. Out of spite, Catalina then abducts Claude's alleged girlfriend Maria, attempting to lure him into getting executed.

** "Big 'n' Veiny". You have to follow a long trail of porno magazines in a van with a high chance of tipping over. You have a strict time limit which goes up by one second for each magazine you pick up (so at least you can skip a few). The longer you wait to do this mission, [[DifficultySpike the harder it gets:]] if you wait to do it until you get to Staunton Island, the route will take you through ''three'' gang territories (Diablos, Triads, and [[spoiler:Mafia]]), whose members will shoot your van. And if you happen to build up a wanted level, forget it. One silver lining is that [[spoiler:after the Mafia turns hostile after Salvatore's assassination, they only have Uzi 9mm pistols instead of shotguns for this mission.]] It can also be made considerably easier, albeit longer, if you know where the trail of magazines ends, because you can push the van over to your destination; the timer doesn't start until you enter the van.
** The Paramedic mini-game is easily at its hardest in this game due to the wonky physics and the inability to repair or even change the ambulance vehicle (so if you are pulled out by an enemy gang member, your run is over). There is no map and the island layouts can thus be very confusing. The game also doesn't take the city layout into account, instead only calculating the timer according to their distance from the hospital, meaning that if you're given 30 seconds to reach an NPC who is nearby but can't be reached without a detour, you're pretty much fucked. Because of this system, Portland is probably the easiest island to complete the minigame in, followed closely by Staunton Island which gives you a generous amount of time; but the aforementioned [[spoiler:Mafia]] and the Triads make that impossible if not done right at the start of the game.

*** "Patriot Playground" has you go off-roading in Portland to hit 15 checkpoints off the coast near Saint Mark's. Half of the checkpoints are at the edges of cliffs or the tops of hills, making a preplanned route to meet the time limit necessary. It gets worse if you do this after [[spoiler:killing Salvatore and becoming enemies with the Leone Family Mafia]], since you' have to avoid the roads near Saint Mark's. The problem is, one of the checkpoints is right above the tunnel entrance near the train in Saint Mark's.

** All the missions requiring a visit to [[spoiler:Mafia]] territory after [[spoiler:killing Salvatore]] are optional, and thank goodness for that. Those easy Marty Chonks missions? The King Courtney mission where you have to steal a Mafia car? You better hope there aren't any shotgunner wiseguys along the way. "Rigged to Blow" by D-Ice luckily averts this, for the most part. While the final destination of the job ''is'' within the [[spoiler:Mafia]] territory, the gang AI for the duration of this job was altered to 'neutral'. This is a good thing, since the rigged sports car you're driving (under a time limit) can't take much damage before blowing up, meaning the job would be practically impossible to complete otherwise.
** "Turismo" is one of the most troublesome missions in the game. It’s a street race, but there are several factors that combine to make it frustrating. First, traffic continues as usual and it is all too easy to hit the other cars. Your opponents also have Cheetahs, the fastest cars in the game, and they tend to deliberately crash into you to slow you down, though they are not immune from ArtificialStupidity. It becomes very difficult, if not impossible to do [[spoiler:after you kill Salvatore, because the Leone Family Mafia's shotguns will destroy your car in seconds. As the racing course goes through Saint Mark's, you're better off doing this earlier than later on in the story.]]
** "Big 'n' Veiny". You have to follow a long trail of porno magazines in a van with a high chance of tipping over. You have a strict time limit which goes up by one second for each magazine you pick up (so at least you can skip a few). The longer you wait to do this mission, [[DifficultySpike the harder it gets:]] if you wait to do it until you get to Staunton Island, the route will take you through ''three'' gang territories (Diablos, Triads, and [[spoiler:Mafia]]), whose members will shoot your van. And if you happen to build up a wanted level, forget it... The good news is that this mission is optional. Another good thing is that [[spoiler:after the Mafia turns hostile after Salvatore's assassination, they only have Uzi 9mm pistols instead of shotguns for this mission.]] It can also be made considerably easier, albeit longer, if you know where the trail of magazines ends, because you can push the van over to your destination; the timer doesn't start until you enter the van.
** The Paramedic mini-game is easily at its hardest in this game due to the wonky physics and the inability to repair or even change the ambulance vehicle (so if you are pulled out by an enemy gang member, your run is over). There is no map and the island layouts can thus be very confusing. The game also doesn't take the city layout into account, instead only calculating the timer according to their distance from the hospital, meaning that if you're given 30 seconds to reach an NPC who is nearby but can't be reached without a detour, you're pretty much fucked. Because of this system, Portland is probably the easiest island to complete the minigame in, followed closely by Staunton Island which gives you a generous amount of time; but the aforementioned [[spoiler:Mafia]] and the Triads make that impossible if not done right at the start of the game or immediately after Salvatore Leone's final mission.

** All the missions requiring a visit to [[spoiler:Mafia]] territory after [[spoiler:killing Salvatore]] are optional, and thank goodness for that. Those easy Marty Chonks missions? You better hope there aren't any shotgunner wiseguys along the way. "Rigged to Blow" by D-Ice luckily averts this, for the most part. While the final destination of the job ''is'' within the [[spoiler:Mafia]] territory, the gang AI for the duration of this job was altered to 'neutral'. This is a good thing, since the rigged sports car you're driving (under a time limit) can't take much damage before blowing up, meaning the job would be practically impossible to complete otherwise.

** King Courtney certainly qualifies for [[spoiler:betraying Claude completely unprovoked and set up an ambush by lying about about a "stash" that he needed immediately]]. Worse, he [[KarmaHoudini never suffered repercussions for it]]. His grating voice doesn't help matters.

** "Big 'n' Veiny". You have to follow a long trail of, um... ''magazines'' in a van with a high chance of tipping over. You have a time limit which goes up by one second for each magazine you pick up (so at least you can skip a few). The longer you wait to do this mission, [[DifficultySpike the harder it gets:]] if you wait to do it until you get to Staunton Island, the route will take you through ''three'' gang territories (Diablos, Triads, and [[spoiler:Mafia]]), whose members will shoot your van. And if you happen to build up a wanted level, forget it... The good news is that this mission is optional. Another good thing is that [[spoiler:after the Mafia turns hostile after Salvatore's assassination, they only have Uzi 9mm pistols instead of shotguns for this mission.]] It can also be made considerably easier if you know where the trail of magazines ends, because you can push the van over to your destination; the timer doesn't start until you enter the van.
** The Paramedic mini-game is easily at its hardest in this game due to the wonky physics and the inability to repair or even change the ambulance vehicle (so if you are pulled out by an enemy gang member, your run is over). There is no map, and the island layouts can thus be very confusing. The game also doesn't take the city layout into account, instead only calculating the timer according to their distance from the hospital, meaning that if you're given 30 seconds to reach an NPC who is nearby but can't be reached without a detour, you're pretty much fucked. Because of this system, Portland is probably the easiest island to complete the minigame in, followed closely by Staunton Island which gives you a generous amount of time; but the aforementioned [[spoiler:Mafia]] and the Triads make that impossible if not done right at the start of the game or immediately after Salvatore Leone's final mission.

* JerksAreWorseThanVillains: It's difficult to truly dislike Catalina, even after all the crap she puts the player through. Kenji Kasen, on the other hand, is a very unlikable {{Jerkass}} who uses Claude as a scapegoat for his own gang's mistakes.

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Asuka for her dominating personality and being one of the very few bosses who shows respect to Claude. Most fans wished she was involved in the other 3D era games.

* CompleteMonster: [[AxCrazy Catalina]] is a {{sadist}}ic, [[AmbitionIsEvil ambitious]], [[HateSink hateful]] thief and SpreeKiller turned [[TheQueenpin mob boss]], who started her career in [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas San Andreas]], purposefully escalating the violence in her robberies, killing numerous bystanders and cops with glee. Having a history of using and discarding her boyfriends and partners, Catalina shoots protagonist Claude, leaving him to die during a robbery, before rising through the ranks of the Colombian Cartel and abandoning her next partner, Miguel, later killing him. Catalina starts an empire, flooding Liberty City with the especially potent and mentally deteriorating drug, SPANK, [[EvenEvilHasStandards turning even]] the [[Characters/GrandTheftAutoLeoneCrimeFamily Leone Crime Family]] and {{Yakuza}} against her. Among her distribution methods, Catalina spikes SPANK through coffee shops and street vendors across the city. Encountering a vengeful Claude, Catalina drugs multiple addicts into crazed suicide bombers to try to kill him. Out of spite, Catalina then abducts Claude's alleged girlfriend Maria, attempting to lure him into getting executed.

* GrowingTheBeard: No kidding. [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoClassic The first]] [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto2 two]] games were, while very innovative, significant games and fairly charming in their own way, were still extremely rough, [[NintendoHard nigh-on impossible]], clunky, dated, and simplistic games that [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity largely only sold well due to the massive amounts of controversy]] they had caused. Meanwhile, ''III'' brought [[VideoGame3DLeap the series into 3D]] in glorious form, massively increased the length, scope, and depth, brought in incredible production values with legitimately well directed, well-acted cutscenes, added in much of the humor and satire the series is known for, and restructured the game into a format that, while still challenging at times, was much less unforgiving and sadistic than the first two games were. While SeinfeldIsUnfunny is in effect these days, there's a good reason why ''Grand Theft Auto III'' is considered one of the greatest and most influential games of all time and turned the series into one of the industry's biggest juggernauts.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny:
** Inevitable, considering the game's age and how both the ''Grand Theft Auto'' series and WideOpenSandbox have evolved over the years. Liberty City is comparatively small, the shooting mechanics are very simplistic, the story is disconnected and is more of an ExcusePlot than anything, and the missions feel very basic in comparison to the [[VideoGameSetPiece set pieces]] employed in future titles. But back when it was released, this was considered to be a very awesome game that allowed for an unprecedented level of freedom with how it combined driving, exploring, and shooting in one seamless package, with nigh unlimited VideoGameCrueltyPotential to boot.
** While ''Grand Theft Auto III'' has a good share of laughs, most of them are relegated to the radio. Story cutscenes focus mostly on the boss in question briefing Claude on his next objective, and they seldom feature the interactions between characters that are necessary for humor. Even the jokes on the radio are notably dry and down to earth. Considering how DenserAndWackier things would become in the future, ''Grand Theft Auto III'' feels notably somber and oppressive in comparison.
** Speaking of the radio, the amount of licensed songs the game features was impressive at the time, but it would immediately be one-upped by ''Vice City'', whose radio features over three times the amount of songs from a wider variety of artists, albums[[note]]Flashback, K-JAH, and MSX FM all consist of songs from one album each[[/note]], and record labels on top of the songs licensed for ''Vice City'' being far less obscure.