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Grand Theft Auto III

Grand Theft Auto III is a 2001 action-adventure game developed by DMA Design and published by Rockstar Games. It is the third main entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, following 1999's Grand Theft Auto 2, and the fifth instalment overall. Set within the fictional Liberty City (loosely based on New York City), the story follows Claude, a silent protagonist who, after being betrayed and left for dead by his girlfriend during a robbery, embarks on a quest for revenge that leads him to become entangled in a world of crime, drugs, gang warfare, and corruption. The game is played from a third-person perspective and its world is navigated on foot or by vehicle. Its open world design lets players freely roam Liberty City, consisting of three main areas.

Development was shared between DMA Design, based in Edinburgh, and Rockstar, based in New York City. Much of the development involved transforming popular elements from the Grand Theft Auto series into a fully 3D world for the first time. The game was delayed following the September 11 attacks to allow the team to change references and gameplay deemed inappropriate. Grand Theft Auto III was released in October 2001 for the PlayStation 2, in May 2002 for Windows, and in November 2003 for the Xbox.

Grand Theft Auto III received critical acclaim, with particular praise directed at its concept and gameplay. However, it also generated controversy, with criticism directed at its depictions of violence and sex. It became the best-selling video game of 2001, and sold over 14.5 million copies by March 2008. Considered by many critics as one of the most significant titles of the sixth generation of video games and a landmark game in the open world concept, it is often listed among the greatest video games. It won several year-end accolades, including Game of the Year awards from several gaming publications.

Since its release, it has received ports to many different gaming platforms. An enhanced version of the game was released on mobile platforms in 2011 for the game's tenth anniversary, and a further enhanced version for the twentieth anniversary was released in 2021. The game was followed by 2002's Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, while two prequels, Grand Theft Auto Advance and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, were released in 2004 and 2005, respectively.

Gameplay

Grand Theft Auto III is an action-adventure game played from a third-person perspective. Players complete missions—linear scenarios with set objectives—to progress through the story. It is possible to have several missions available at a time, as some missions require players to wait for further instructions or events. Outside of missions, players can freely roam the game's open world, and have the ability to complete optional side missions. Liberty City is composed of three boroughs: Portland, Staunton Island, and Shoreside Vale; the latter two areas become unlocked as the player progresses through the storyline.

Players may run, jump or use vehicles to navigate the game's world. In combat, auto-aim can be used as assistance against enemies. Should players take damage, their health meter can be fully regenerated through the use of health pick-ups. Body armour can be used to absorb gunshots and explosive damage, but is used up in the process. When health is entirely depleted, gameplay stops and players respawn at the nearest hospital, at the expense of losing armour, weapons, and an amount of money.

If players commit crimes while playing, the game's law enforcement agencies may respond as indicated by a "wanted" meter in the head-up display (HUD). On the meter, the displayed stars indicate the current wanted level (for example, at the maximum six-star level, efforts by law enforcement to incapacitate players become very aggressive). Law enforcement officers will search for players who leave the wanted vicinity. The wanted meter enters a cooldown mode and eventually recedes when players are hidden from the officers' line of sight.

The game lets players control the mute criminal Claude. During the story, Claude meets various new characters from gangs. As players complete missions for different gangs and criminal organisations, fellow gang members will often defend players, while rival gang members will recognise players and subsequently shoot on sight. While free roaming the game world, players may engage in activities such as a vigilante minigame, a firefighting activity, a paramedic service and a taxi cab service. Completion of these activities grants players with context-specific rewards; for example, completing the vigilante mission allows players to bribe police after committing a crime.

Players use melee attacks, firearms and explosives to fight enemies. The firearms include weapons such as the Micro Uzi, an M16 rifle and a flamethrower. The game's three-dimensional environment allows a first-person view while aiming with the sniper rifle, rocket launcher and the M16 rifle. In addition, the game's combat was reworked to allow players to commit drive-by shootings by facing sideways in a vehicle. The game gives players a wide variety of weapon options—they can be purchased from local firearms dealers, found on the ground, retrieved from dead enemies, or found around the city.

Plot
Small-time criminal Claude is betrayed and shot by his girlfriend Catalina (voiced by Cynthia Farrell) during a bank heist outside Liberty City. Claude is arrested but escapes during his transfer to prison when members of the Colombian Cartel ambush his transport to abduct another prisoner. During his escape, Claude befriends explosives expert and fellow convict 8-Ball (Guru), who shelters Claude and introduces him to the Leone Mafia family for work. Claude assists the Mafia with various operations, including winning a gang war against a local group of Triads, earning him the respect of Don Salvatore Leone (Frank Vincent). After learning that the Cartel are creating and selling a new street drug called SPANK to fund their expansion into Liberty City, Salvatore orders Claude to destroy their floating drug lab. Claude accomplishes this with 8-Ball's help.

Salvatore later instructs Claude to deal with a minor problem, but his trophy wife Maria (Debi Mazar), who took a liking to Claude, reveals it to be a set-up. Maria claims that she lied to Salvatore about having an affair with Claude to make him jealous, and now Salvatore wants to murder him. Claude escapes to Staunton Island with Maria and her friend Asuka Kasen (Lianna Pai). After assassinating Salvatore to cut ties with the Mafia, Claude begins working for the yakuza, led by Asuka and her brother Kenji (Les J.N. Mau). During this time, he also provides assistance to corrupt police inspector Ray Machowski (Robert Loggia), whom he eventually helps flee the city, and influential businessman Donald Love (Kyle MacLachlan). Donald hires Claude to assassinate Kenji under the guise of a Cartel attack to start a gang war that will allow Donald to obtain construction sites for his businesses. After the job's success, Claude carries out another task for Donald that leads him to encounter Catalina, now the leader of the Cartel, at a construction site. However, Catalina escapes after betraying and shooting her partner, Miguel (Al Espinosa).

Asuka blames the Cartel for Kenji's death and seizes the construction site. The yakuza capture the wounded Miguel and torture him for information on Cartel operations in the city, allowing Claude to strike against them and hinder the Cartel. Enraged, Catalina murders both Asuka and Miguel and kidnaps Maria, demanding $500,000 for her release. Claude meets with her to pay the ransom, but Catalina deceives him again and traps him. Claude escapes, rescues Maria, and destroys the helicopter Catalina attempts to flee in, killing her. As Claude and Maria leave the scene, the latter begins to complain about the kidnapping, but is silenced by a gunshot.

Development
The core development team of Grand Theft Auto III consisted of about 23 people at DMA Design in Edinburgh, who worked closely with publisher Rockstar Games in New York City. The original tech demo was created on Sega's Dreamcast around the end of development on Grand Theft Auto 2 (1999). Rockstar had been pressuring its teams to create a 3D open world, and the DMA group who developed Space Station Silicon Valley (1998) began working on a project separate from the Grand Theft Auto 2 team. Alan Jack, a DMA support engineer, described it as combining Body Harvest (1998) exploration with Space Station Silicon Valley city level.

The team chose against using the Grand Theft Auto branding to avoid conflict with the Grand Theft Auto 2 team and began developing their game as a Godzilla project. After Take-Two Interactive acquired DMA from Infogrames in September 1999, the Space Station Silicon Valley and Grand Theft Auto 2 teams were combined. The combined team began developing Grand Theft Auto III for the Dreamcast, but shifted to the PlayStation 2 after four months. Technical director Obbe Vermeij said the shift was not due to hardware constraints, but because it became clear that the Dreamcast was not commercially viable. He described the decision as disappointing, noting the DMA Design staff were big fans of Phantasy Star Online (2000).

During the Dreamcast phase, DMA Design developed city blocks with brownstones, docks, and retail areas, alongside vehicles and pedestrians. By early 2001, the team had designed the city, cars and some weapons. Producer Leslie Benzies described Grand Theft Auto III as a "crime simulation game". Rockstar offered Grand Theft Auto III to Microsoft Game Studios as an Xbox exclusive, but Microsoft declined due to its adult nature and poorly-performing predecessors. The game was released for the PlayStation 2 on 23 October 2001 in North America. When porting the game to Windows, the team delayed it from the PlayStation 2 release in order to ensure quality, citing issues with the simultaneous platform release of previous Grand Theft Auto games. Capcom published the game in Japan in September 2003.

Design
Grand Theft Auto III is the first 3D game in the series, using Criterion Games's RenderWare game engine. Executive producer Sam Houser had always wanted the series to move to 3D, and DMA Design had experimented with 3D worlds in games like Body Harvest and Space Station Silicon Valley. With the release of the PlayStation 2, the team felt that a large 3D world was possible. Art director Aaron Garbut felt that other video games at the time "were a thing you played", wanting Grand Theft Auto III to be "a place you lived in". An online multiplayer mode was planned, but dropped due to time and resource limitations.

When designing the game, the development team expanded upon concepts introduced in the previous Grand Theft Auto games. Benzies stated that the intention was to recreate the "freedom and diversity" of the previous games in a "living, breathing 3D world", using the power of the PlayStation 2 to do so. The console's ability to use DVDs, an improvement over the PlayStation's limit to CDs, allowed the team to store more data, such as animations, music and environments. Despite this, the team found it difficult to fit the game into the PlayStation 2's 32 megabytes of RAM, due to the scale. The game's size also created difficulties for the testers, due to the variety of options. Benzies felt that creating a living city was the "underlying principle" of the game's concept during development. Sam Houser felt that the game's 3D element allowed the "chemistry of the team [to come] together perfectly for the first time".

A major difficulty the team encountered was converting all game elements into a fully 3D world, including the sound and radio stations, as well as designing and voicing the non-player characters, due to the amount that existed within the open world. Producer Dan Houser said there were about 8,000 lines of recorded dialogue in the game, while audio programmer Raymond Usher estimated about 18,000. The basic technical elements of the game began to work together in mid-2000, with a carjacking mechanic prototype and stable streaming model. Streaming was initially intended to be reserved for music and map geometry, but other elements were eventually included when it became apparent to the team as more data was entered.

When designing the game world, the team initially created a "hybrid city", which Dan Houser described as "a post industrial Midwest slash east coast generic" city. Upon developing within this game world, the team realised that basing the design on a real location meant "you have a lot of things you can say about it". As a result, they redesigned Liberty City, which had been previously featured in the first Grand Theft Auto (1997), basing it loosely on New York City. DMA Design worked with a team at Rockstar in New York for cultural references; the Rockstar team would regularly work long hours for full weeks, ensuring that the references, such as in-game car manufacturers, were appropriate to the city.

The city is broken into three islands: an industrial section representing Brooklyn and Queens, a commercial centre resembling Manhattan, and suburbs similar to New Jersey. The islands unlock as the story progresses; the team wanted players to "start out feeling poor and work to being richer". Dan Houser described Liberty City as a "hybrid of a generic American city", including Chicago, Pittsburgh, Detroit, New York, and Philadelphia; he felt that the parallel realism of the world allowed the team to make more social commentary than previously. Sam Houser cited films and shows like Heat (1995) and The Sopranos (1999–2007) as inspiration for the setting and wanted to emulate them in the game. He also cited the influence of The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario 64 and the 1990 film Goodfellas, describing Grand Theft Auto III as "a cross between a gangster movie and an RPG".

Story and characters
The team developed the story and design simultaneously. Dan Houser said, "we use the story to expose the mechanics, and we use the mechanics to tell the story"; however, he found it difficult to create the narrative, as the game is so strongly focused on player freedom. He wanted the story to be more nuanced and interesting than the generic "rise and fall and rise again of a superhero bad guy". The game's script was also focused on mission objectives, attempting to implement high amounts of interactivity. Dan Houser felt that each mission is "its own short story", and part of an "overarching story". Dan Houser and co-writer James Worrall drew influence from mob films and the mafiosi featured in films by Martin Scorsese; the team also "paid a lot of attention" to shows like Miami Vice and The Sopranos. When writing the story, Dan Houser and Worrall regularly met with the designers, and filled a room with post-it notes to reconstruct the story components to shape the game.

Many of the game characters were animated using motion capture, filmed at a rented studio at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, though this was limited by technical constraints. The character movement was also treated as being cinematic, though limited polygons heavily inhibited this. Animating non-player characters entering and driving cars proved to be difficult for the team, due to the variety of vehicle designs. "It involved chaining together dozens of different animations and altering key frames in code", recalled software engineer Alan Campbell. The team used varying camera angles when animating the game's cutscenes in order to evoke different emotions. For the voice acting, the team wanted "natural, subtle performances", which proved difficult as many of the actors "had in their head the idea that because video games are animated, their performances needed to be animated", explained motion capture director Navid Khonsari.

Claude is unnamed in the game, and his name is not officially revealed until his appearance in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004). He is a silent protagonist, never speaking throughout his appearances; the team decided upon this primarily because it "did not seem like a major issue", due to the other challenges faced during development, and also partly to allow players to identify with the character, as he would be who the players want him to be. The developers did not have "any one single inspiration" for Claude; they liked the idea of a "strong, silent killer, who would be juxtaposed with all of these neurotic and verbose mobsters".

Sound and radio design
Grand Theft Auto III features about three and a half hours of in-game radio material. For the music, the team sought a broad diversity to recreate the real sensation of skipping through radio stations, reflecting the gangster movie culture invoked by the game. The team used the talk radio stations to add character to the city and provide a "unique take on American life"; Sam Houser described it as "a very iconoclastic look at America". The team used real DJs to portray those on the radio. In doing so, they wrote unusual dialogue for the DJs, seeking the effect of "high production values and absurd content". Music director Craig Conner assembled the assets of the radio station—music, advertisements, DJ dialogue, and station imaging.

Chatterbox FM, one of the game's radio stations, is entirely talk radio hosted by Lazlow Jones, who met Rockstar's managing director Terry Donovan in 2001 as they were both preparing to travel to Los Angeles for E3. Donovan invited Jones to Rockstar's offices in Manhattan, where he met the development team, including Dan and Sam Houser and producer Jamie King, and they invited him to work on the game. The writing sessions took place at Dan Houser's apartment, and the entire process, including editing and recording, took around four to five months. With the station's guests and callers, the writers wanted to satirise American lifestyles, focusing on fictional stories as opposed to quickly outdated stories based on recent news. Jones found the conversations to be natural, having worked in radio for several years. The roles of the guests and callers were performed by Jones's friends and neighbours, including his father, and were recorded in New York.

Cuts and changes
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Prior to Grand Theft Auto III's initial release, several modifications were made to the game. While changes are frequent during game development, these changes were noted to be around the time of the 11 September attacks, which led to speculation that the changes were motivated by the attacks. On 19 September 2001, Rockstar delayed the game's release by three weeks, citing the attacks as an influencing factor in the delay. "Everyone had someone who had an uncle or brother [who was impacted by the attack]", said Paul Eibeler, then president of distributor Take-Two Interactive.

One of the changes made shortly after the 9/11 attacks was the colour scheme of the police cars. Originally blue with white stripes, resembling that of the New York City Police Department, it was changed to a black-and-white design common among several police departments in the United States, such as Los Angeles and San Francisco. Other changes included altering the flight path of a plane to avoid appearing to fly into or behind a skyscraper and removing a mission referencing terrorists, as well as some changes to pedestrian dialogue and talk radio. Another cut to the game was the character of Darkel, a revolutionary urchin who vowed to bring down the city's economy. When references to Darkel were found in the game's code, speculation arose that he was related to 9/11, but Dan Houser explained that the character had been cut "months before [release]". There are also reports and previews stating that the game featured schoolchildren as pedestrians prior to release, although Rockstar has dismissed such rumours as "nonsense".

Rockstar stated that the game was "about 1% different" after 9/11, and that the biggest change was the cover art. They felt that the game's original cover, which was still used for its release in Europe, was "too raw" after 9/11, and it was changed to what became the "signature style" of the series. Sam Houser stated that the cover was designed in an evening and was instantly preferred over the original cover. The cover was inspired by the movie posters for 1960s films, such as The Thomas Crown Affair (1968).

Critical response
Grand Theft Auto III was released to critical acclaim. Metacritic calculated an average score of 97 out of 100, indicating "universal acclaim", based on 56 reviews. It is tied with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 as the highest-rated PlayStation 2 game on the site and tied with a number of others as the sixth-highest-rated game overall. Reviewers liked the game's sound,  gameplay,   and open world design,   though some criticism was directed at the controls. Tom Bramwell of Eurogamer called Grand Theft Auto III "a luscious, sprawling epic", and Official PlayStation Magazine named it "the most innovative, outlandish, brilliant video game". GameSpots Jeff Gerstmann described the game as "an incredible experience that shouldn't be missed by anyone"; IGNs Doug Perry named it "one of the best titles of the year, on PlayStation 2, or on any system".

Many reviewers found the 3D graphics a welcome change from the 2D of the previous games. GameSpot's Gerstmann particularly praised the character and vehicle models, and the overall texture quality of the city. GameSpy's Andrei Alupului found the graphics "really rather impressive", describing the car models as "greatly improved" over those in Midnight Club. Eurogamer's Bramwell considered the graphics "generally pleasant to look at", but considered it inferior to games like Gran Turismo 3 and Ico. Justin Leeper of Game Informer described game world as "stunning in scope and detail", and Perry of IGN found it to be "on a scale that's truly epic". Game Revolution's Ben Silverman called the city a "technological marvel ... that captures the essence of gritty city life in amazing detail".

IGN's Perry considered the game's sound "unbelievably and meticulously delivered", particularly praising the soundtrack, voice acting and sound design, stating that it was "really approached as if it were done for a movie". Eurogamer's Bramwell echoed similar remarks, describing the city sounds as "perfect" and the soundtrack as "monstrous". The sound was described as "terrific" by GameSpots Gerstmann and Game Revolutions Silverman, and 1UP.com appreciated the subtlety of the in-game radio stations. AllGame's Scott Alan Marriott named the music "the true star" of the game.

Reviewers considered the style of the game's missions to be a welcoming departure from those in previous games. 1UP.com described the missions as "wonderfully creative", while GamesMaster appreciated the diversity. IGN's Perry similarly appreciated the variety and scale of the missions, and praised the amount of available side missions. GameSpy's Alupului described the game's story as "well-paced" and "coherent", featuring plot elements akin to a mob film. GameSpot's Gerstmann found the missions entertaining and challenging, but noted that exploring the game world also offers "a great deal of fun" to players.

Reactions to the game's controls were mixed. Alupului of GameSpy found the game "controls beautifully", both while driving and on-foot. Game Revolution's Silverman identified the control issues as the game's only flaw, although praised the responsiveness of the driving mechanics. Matt Helgeson of Game Informer similarly described the driving as "great", but noted "clunky" combat. GamePro's Four-Eyed Dragon found the cars simple to manoeuvre. Edge described the game's combat as "an awkward system that stymies play". 1UP.com noted particular flaws in the targeting system, explaining that it "often focuses on the wrong guy".

Windows version
When Grand Theft Auto III was released for Windows in May 2002, it received similar acclaim. Metacritic calculated an average score of 93 out of 100, indicating "universal acclaim", based on 20 reviews; the game was Metacritic's highest-rated title for Windows in 2002. Reviewers liked the visual enhancements  and control improvements,   but criticised the port for its demanding system requirements.

The in-game features and controls in the port were generally well received. IGN's Tal Blevins praised the higher precision of the mouse controls, finding the aiming mechanic more precise. GameSpot's Erik Wolpaw also commended the mouse controls, but disapproved the replay system, particularly due to the lack of options with timing and camera controls. Extended Play's Andrew Bub appreciated the addition of a custom radio station, as well as the availability of custom skins. Daniel Morris of PC Gamer praised the gameplay tweaks provided by the port but criticised the lack of major additional features, such as an overhead map of the in-game city.

The port's visuals received a positive response from reviewers. GameSpot's Wolpaw praised the port's reworked textures but criticised the frequent popup and the advanced system requirements. IGN's Blevins similarly criticised the necessity of an advanced system for stable play, but ultimately felt that the port looks "a bit nicer" than the original game. GameSpy's Sal Accardo felt that the port "looks much sharper" than the PlayStation 2 version, though noted some "choppy" animations. Extended Play's Bub mentioned that the advanced settings resulted in slowdown and crashes. Game Informer's Matt Helgeson noticed little difference between the visuals of the original and the port.

Mobile version
When Grand Theft Auto III was released to mobile devices in December 2011, it received generally positive reviews. Metacritic calculated an average score of 80 out of 100, based on 26 reviews. Reviewers liked the enhanced visuals, but criticism was directed at the touchscreen controls.

IGNs Peter Eykemans commended the port's smoother textures, especially condensed on a mobile screen, while Destructoids Jim Sterling noted improvements in the character and vehicle models. Mark Walton of GameSpot wrote that the game runs well on high-end devices like the Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy S II, but noticed significant frame rate and texture issues on the Xperia Play. Pocket Gamer's Mark Brown identified the game's short draw distance leading to sudden popup, although still found that the models and textures "have been given a tune-up" in the port.

The touchscreen controls received a mixed response. Eurogamer's Dan Whitehead appreciated the driving mechanics, but felt that moving on-foot is "a flaky way of navigating" the world, and criticised the "clumsy" shooting mechanics as most of the guns cannot be manually targeted. IGNs Eykemans felt that the controls "make half the experience frustrating", and Destructoids Sterling described them as "by far the biggest barrier toward enjoying" the port. Brown of Pocket Gamer found that the touchscreen "hasn't hindered [the game] too drastically", commending simple movement and "effortless" driving mechanics. Some critics identified better controls upon the use of external gamepads, but felt that they hinder the game's portability.

Accolades
Grand Theft Auto III received multiple nominations and awards from gaming publications. It was awarded Game of the Year at the 2nd Game Developers Choice Awards, and from GameSpot and GameSpy. It was named the Best PlayStation 2 Game by Game Revolution, GameSpot, GameSpy, and IGN. It also won Best Action Game from Game Revolution, GameSpot, and IGN; Most Innovative from GameSpot; and Excellence in Game Design at the Game Developers Choice Awards. GameSpy also awarded the game Most Offensive, Best Use of Radio, and tied for Best Artificial Intelligence. It won the Global Award at the 7th CESA Game Awards in 2003 and an Award for Excellence at the 8th CESA Game Awards in 2004. At the 5th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, Grand Theft Auto III won Outstanding Achievement in Game Design and Outstanding Achievement in Game Play Engineering, and was nominated for Console Action/Adventure Game of the Year. The following year at the 6th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the Windows version won Computer Action/Adventure Game of the Year and was nominated for Outstanding Innovation in Computer Gaming.

Sales
In the United States, Grand Theft Auto III was the highest-selling game of 2001, selling over two million units by February 2002. The game was also the second-best-selling game of 2002, only behind its sequel, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Take-Two stock significantly increased following the game's launch, and the game was included in PlayStation's Greatest Hits selection. Within a year of release, the game had sold six million copies and generated over US$250 million in revenue; by January 2003, it had sold seven million and generated over US$350 million. In the United States, the game had sold 5.35 million units by June 2004, and 6.55 million units by December 2007. The Windows version accounted for 420,000 sales and $16.9 million in earnings by August 2006 in the United States, where it was the 34th-best-selling computer game between January 2000 and August 2006.

In Japan, Grand Theft Auto III sold about 120,000 copies in its first week, and roughly 300,000 by December 2003. The number rose above 350,000 copies by January 2008. In Europe, over a million copies of the game were reportedly sold by December 2001. The game earned a "Diamond" award in the United Kingdom, indicating over one million sales; it was the first game to receive this award in the region. By March 2008, the game had sold 14.5 million units worldwide.

Controversies
Prior to and since the release of Grand Theft Auto III, the game generated several controversies. GameSpy awarded it the title "Most Offensive Game of the Year", calling it "absolutely reprehensible". They wrote that the game rewards players for "causing mayhem" and "killing innocent people by the dozen", ultimately questioning its appropriateness within the industry. The notoriety of Grand Theft Auto III resulted in American retailer Wal-Mart's decision to check the identification of purchasers who appeared to be under the age of 17 when purchasing mature titles. In an essay, assistant professor Shira Chess identified the lack of conclusion to player violence, due to the ability to respawn upon death or incarceration, and found that it denies the "reality of mortality and simultaneously [forces] it on players". When speaking about the game's depiction of violence, producer Leslie Benzies claimed that it is intended to be comedic, and that the game is "not meant to be taken seriously". Producer Dan Houser stated that the team was conscious of the offence that the game would attract, but "never marketed it in a way that exploited that".

The game allows players to participate in sexual activities with prostitutes and murder them to reclaim the payment, which was met with widespread controversy. The game also received some backlash for its depiction of crime and allowing violence against police officers. Psychologist David Walsh of the National Institute on Media and the Family stated that the game "glamorizes antisocial and criminal activity", and that "the purpose of the game is to perpetrate crime". In response, Kotaku writer Owen Good wrote that the game does not reward players for "proficiency at crime, no matter how much it is accused of doing so". Joanna Weiss of The Boston Globe noted the "adrenaline" that players feel when committing crimes in the game, excusing its violence due to its mature classification. In January 2002, the National Organization for Women called for Rockstar and Take-Two to withdraw the game from sale as it "encourages violence and the degradation of women". Matt Richtel of The New York Times wrote that the activities within the game "crossed the line into bad taste".

Grand Theft Auto III was initially released in Australia with an MA15+ classification. After re-reviewing the game, however, the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) banned it due to its depiction of sexual content and violence against prostitutes. This prompted Take-Two to appeal to the OFLC, who reaffirmed the banned status on 11 December 2001, after reanalysing the game and seeking the professional opinion of a forensic psychologist. As a result, Take-Two recalled the game in Australia, and Rockstar made appropriate changes to the game; a modified version was re-released with an MA15+ classification in January 2002, removing all instances of sexual acts with prostitutes. The game was re-rated with an R18+ classification in September 2019, citing "sexual activities related to incentives and rewards".

On 25 June 2003, teenage stepbrothers William and Josh Buckner shot at motorists, killing Aaron Hamel and wounding Kimberly Bede. In statements to investigators, the perpetrators claimed their actions were inspired by Grand Theft Auto III. In response, on 20 October 2003, the families of Hamel and Bede filed a US$246 million lawsuit against Rockstar, Take-Two, Sony Computer Entertainment and Wal-Mart. Rockstar and Take-Two filed for dismissal of the lawsuit, stating in United States district court on 29 October 2003 that the "ideas and concepts", and the "purported psychological effects" of the perpetrators, are protected by the First Amendment's free-speech clause. Jack Thompson, the lawyer representing the victims, denied Rockstar's claims and attempted to move the lawsuit into a state court for consideration under Tennessee's consumer protection act.

Legacy
Grand Theft Auto III has been frequently included among the greatest video games of all time. In 2007, GamePro called Grand Theft Auto III the most important video game of all time, explaining that the "game's open-ended gameplay elements have revolutionized the way all video games are made". Similarly, IGN ranked the game among the "Top 10 Most Influential Games", and GameSpot listed it among the greatest games of all time. In 2009, Game Informer wrote that Grand Theft Auto III "changed the gaming landscape forever with its immersive open world sandbox", and in 2016, GamesRadar+ named it the "most important game" of the 2000s. Time named it one of the greatest video games of all time in November 2012 and August 2016. The game was selected as part of the Game On touring exhibition, demonstrating some of the game's development plans and artwork. In 2016, The Strong National Museum of Play inducted Grand Theft Auto III to its World Video Game Hall of Fame.

Grand Theft Auto III is considered to have a leading role in the popularisation of sandbox games, inspiring those such as Crackdown, Mafia, Saints Row, True Crime, and Watch Dogs. The term "Grand Theft Auto clone" is frequently used to describe subsequent video games released with similar open-ended gameplay as Grand Theft Auto III. While previous video games used open world design, including earlier Grand Theft Auto games, Grand Theft Auto III took this gameplay foundation and expanded it into a 3D world, offering an unprecedented variety of minigames and side-missions. Journalist and consultant Tom Bramwell felt that the game did not invent a lot of its gameplay features, but "brought them all together". Due to its greater success over its predecessors, it is credited with popularising the open-world genre; Dan Houser felt that the game made it "one of the most vibrant genres today", and Garbut felt that it led to the complexities of Rockstar's future open world games, including the later Grand Theft Auto titles and Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018). IGN's Jack Harwood wrote that the game's talk radio station inspired similar inclusions in other open world games, such as Mafia III (2016) and Watch Dogs: Legion (2020).

The game also led the trend of mature video games; Dan Houser felt that it allowed other developers to create violent shooters. Hal Halpin, president of the Entertainment Consumers Association, described Grand Theft Auto III as the "lightning rod for the violence-in-games debate". Metro's Roger Hargreaves wrote that it "emboldened a whole new wave of games that were ... fixated with violence [and] gang culture". Greg Ford of Electronic Gaming Monthly felt that the game allowed the medium to handle mature subject matter in a more serious manner than previously perceived, and noted the improvement of video game classification as a result of its controversy. King said that video games at the time were often associated with children or nerds, and that the development team "wanted the rest of the entertainment industry to pay attention" and understand that the medium could also contain mature, adult content.

Following the game's success, Rockstar developed further titles in the series. Vice City and San Andreas are set in their titular locations in 1986 and 1992, respectively. Grand Theft Auto Advance (2004) is set in Liberty City roughly a year before the events of Grand Theft Auto III. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (2005) takes place three years before the events of Grand Theft Auto III in the same rendition of Liberty City. A completely redesigned version of the city was later used in Grand Theft Auto IV (2008), The Lost and Damned (2009), The Ballad of Gay Tony (2009), and Chinatown Wars (2009).

Ports
Grand Theft Auto III was released on 21 May 2002 for Windows, supporting higher screen resolutions and draw distance, and featuring more detailed textures. Analysts believed that the game would eventually release on GameCube, though it never materialised. Grand Theft Auto III was bundled with Vice City in a compilation titled Grand Theft Auto: Double Pack, released on the Xbox on 4 November 2003 in North America and 2 January 2004 in Europe. The Xbox version featured a custom soundtrack support as well as improved audio, polygon models, and reflections over the previous ports. Double Pack was later bundled with San Andreas as part of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy, released in October 2005. The Trilogy was also released for OS X on 12 November 2010. On 15 December 2011, for the game's tenth anniversary, War Drum Studios ported the game to iOS and Android; this port is almost identical to the Windows version, with the addition of enhanced models and textures and touchscreen controls. This port was also released on Fire OS on 15 May 2014. A PlayStation 3 version was released on 25 September 2012 via the PlayStation Network. The original PlayStation 2 version was released for the PlayStation 4 as a PS2 Classics title, on 5 December 2015. In 2012, a modding community under the name RAGE Classic Team ported the map over to Grand Theft Auto IV, named Grand Theft Auto III: RAGE Classic.

An enhanced version of The Trilogy subtitled The Definitive Edition, including Grand Theft Auto III, was released for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on 11 November 2021, to celebrate the game's twentieth anniversary, and for Android and iOS on 14 December 2023. Existing versions of the game were removed from digital retailers in preparation for The Definitive Edition, but later restored as a bundle on the Rockstar Store.

A core team of six fans reverse-engineered the game and released it as an executable in April 2020, having worked on it since 2016; titled re3, the project allows the game to be unofficially ported to platforms such as Nintendo Switch, PlayStation Vita, and Wii U. Take-Two issued a DMCA takedown for the project in February 2021, though it was restored in June after the team filed a counter-notice. In September 2021, Take-Two filed a lawsuit in California against the programmers, asserting that the projects constitute copyright infringement.

title: Grand Theft Auto III


text:
Dorothy Stratten

Dorothy Ruth Hoogstraten (February 28, 1960 – August 14, 1980), known professionally as Dorothy Stratten, was a Canadian model and actress, primarily known for her appearances as a Playboy Playmate. Stratten was the Playboy Playmate of the Month for August 1979 and Playmate of the Year in 1980, and appeared in three comedy films and in at several episodes of TV shows broadcast on American networks. Dorothy was murdered shortly after co-starring in the movie They All Laughed, at the age of 20, by her estranged husband and manager Paul Snider, whom she was in the process of divorcing and breaking business ties. Snider committed suicide after he killed Stratten.

Stratten's death inspired two movies, a book, and several songs: the 1981 TV movie Death of a Centerfold: The Dorothy Stratten Story, the 1983 theatrical motion picture Star 80, the book The Killing of the Unicorn, and songs such as "The Best Was Yet to Come" by Bryan Adams, and "Cover Girl" by Prism.

Life and career
Dorothy Stratten was born in Grace Maternity Hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on February 28, 1960, to Simon and Nelly Hoogstraten, who had emigrated from the Netherlands. In 1961, her brother John Arthur was born; her sister Louise followed in May 1968.

In 1977, Stratten was attending Centennial High School in Coquitlam. Concurrently, she was working part-time at a local Dairy Queen, where she met 26-year-old Vancouver-area club promoter and pimp Paul Snider, who began dating her. Snider later had a photographer take professional nude photos of Stratten which were sent to Playboy magazine in the summer of 1978. She was under the age of 19 (the legal age of majority in British Columbia), so she had to persuade her mother to sign the model release form.

In August 1978, Stratten moved to Los Angeles, California, United States, where she was chosen as a finalist for the 25th Anniversary Great Playmate Hunt. Snider joined her in October, and they married in June the following year. With her surname shortened to Stratten, she became Playboy's Miss August 1979 and began working as a bunny at the Playboy Club in Century City, Los Angeles. Hugh Hefner had high hopes that Stratten could have meaningful crossover success as an actress. She featured in episodes of the television series Buck Rogers and Fantasy Island in 1979. Also that year, she had small roles in the films Americathon, the roller disco comedy Skatetown, U.S.A., and a lead role in the exploitation film Autumn Born, all released in 1979.

Hefner was told by Playboy employees that Stratten should sever ties with Snider. In a documentary about Dorothy, Hef is on screen saying that he tried to warn Dorothy about Paul but that he was in a tough position. Rosanne Katon and other friends also warned Stratten about Snider's behavior.

March 1980 – July 1980
On March 22, 1980, Stratten flew to New York City to begin work on what became her last film project, They All Laughed (1981), a romantic comedy being directed by Peter Bogdanovich. This would be Stratten's fifth movie in a career that had only begun the year before and represented her first substantial role in a big-budget picture, playing the unhappily-married love interest of John Ritter, one of the film's stars. Bogdanovich, who also wrote the screenplay, said in an interview that he had based the backstory of Stratten's character on what he had learned about her marriage to Snider. Stratten and Bogdanovich began an affair during the production.

Stratten had spent the first two and a half months of 1980 completing her Playmate of the Year shoot and making her previous movie, Galaxina, in southern California. With all her work close to home, Snider assumed the role of his wife's chauffeur, as well as her ersatz manager and acting coach. However, Snider's near-constant presence, as well as his criticism of and almost daily arguments with his wife, caused Stratten so much stress that her co-workers at Playboy and the Galaxina set took notice of the tension in the relationship. As the spring of 1980 approached, Snider insisted on accompanying his wife to New York for the shoot for They All Laughed, but Stratten recognized the problems he could cause on set and wanted the freedom to pursue her relationship with Bogdanovich. Stratten convinced Snider to remain in Los Angeles after explaining that the director had decided to close the set of his new film to all but the cast and immediate crew. Stratten and Bogdanovich consummated their affair on the day after her arrival in New York.

In April, Stratten briefly returned to California to prepare for her upcoming introduction as the new Playmate of the Year and follow-on publicity tour. With several months of filming left to be completed in New York, this was the last time that she would live with Snider in their Los Angeles-area home.

On Wednesday, April 30, at a luncheon held on the grounds of the Playboy Mansion, Stratten was presented to the assembled entertainment press as the 1980 Playmate of the Year. In his introductory remarks, Hefner noted that Stratten was from Canada and had received $200,000 in cash and gifts in addition to the title. In a fleeting comment, he also acknowledged the effect that Stratten's charming combination of beauty, intelligence, and sensitivity had on many who knew her when he said, "...and she is something rather special. They always are, but Dorothy is really quite unique." After taking the lectern, Stratten thanked Mario Casilli, the photographer who shot both her Playmate of the Month and Year pictorials, several Playboy executives, and finally Hefner, whom she declared "has made me probably the happiest girl in the world today." Later that evening, Stratten appeared as a guest on NBC's The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

The next day, Stratten began a two-week promotional tour in Canada. Having no events scheduled over the first weekend, she flew to New York on a whim to surprise Bogdanovich. Increasingly conflicted about her marriage, Stratten wrote to Snider from Canada asking for more freedom in their relationship. With his wife beyond his immediate control and fearing the worst, Snider telephoned from Los Angeles in response and flew into a rage when Stratten answered. Stratten's tour was arranged to end in her hometown of Vancouver so Stratten might relax for a few days with family before returning to New York. However, Snider appeared in Vancouver at the last minute and coerced her into spending some of her brief vacation making personal appearances at several local nightclubs. Since Snider knew many of the club owners, he personally negotiated and collected Stratten's appearance fees and then pocketed the entire sum when she returned to New York. During this time, it was reported that Stratten and Snider had a particularly heated argument. At some point during the fight, Stratten offered to give up her acting career and suggested the couple permanently return to Canada; however, Snider rebuffed his wife's attempt to save their marriage.

In the days and weeks after Snider returned to Los Angeles, he found it increasingly difficult to get in touch with Stratten. In late June, just a few weeks after their first wedding anniversary, Snider received another letter from Stratten, this one announcing that they were now physically and financially separated. Snider had several responses to the second letter; he emptied the couple's joint bank account, he had a brief affair with an old girlfriend, and, now convinced that Stratten was having an affair of her own with Bogdanovich, hired a private detective to gather evidence of his wife's infidelity.

As a foreign national living in the U.S. without a green card that would allow him to hold a job and having no other source of regular income, Snider relied on Stratten, now through her business manager, to pay the monthly household bills. Little was left over for extravagances, such as the expenses incurred by a private detective working a case 3,000 miles from home. Therefore, over the summer of 1980, Snider began selling Stratten's Playmate of the Year prizes at a loss for quick cash, the most notable example being a Jaguar sportscar that Playboy had valued at $26,000.

By mid-July, principal photography on They All Laughed was completed and the New York production wrapped. On Wednesday, July 30, Stratten and Bogdanovich returned to Los Angeles after having spent a ten-day holiday together in England. Stratten's official Los Angeles residence was now at the address of a newly rented Beverly Hills apartment, but in actuality she had quietly moved into Bogdanovich's mansion in Bel Air.

August 1980
On the night of July 31, 1980, Snider, by now aware that his estranged wife was back in Los Angeles and living with Bogdanovich, hid among the shadows just outside the director's estate carrying a borrowed handgun, intending to shoot anyone who appeared at the entrance to the property. After several hours of inactivity, Snider grew impatient and left, drove up into the hills overlooking the city and, he admitted later to a friend, had thoughts of suicide.

At approximately noon on Friday, August 8, Stratten and Snider saw each other for the first time in nearly three months at Snider's (and Stratten's former) house in West Los Angeles. After having already persuaded Stratten to pose for Playboy and then marry him, Snider was supremely confident before the meeting that he would convince his wife to take him back. But his hopes of a reconciliation were quickly dashed when Stratten admitted that she had fallen in love with Bogdanovich and wanted to finalize their separation. A dejected Snider agreed to meet Stratten one more time the following week to discuss a monetary settlement. Later that afternoon, less than a week before Stratten's murder, Snider had to return the borrowed gun to its owner. Over the next five days, he would become obsessed with getting another.

On August 9, the day after his meeting with Stratten, Snider and the private detective he had hired went to a local gun store. After being told that the store could not sell him a firearm because of his Canadian citizenship, Snider asked the private detective to buy the gun Snider wanted for him; the detective refused. When Snider saw the private detective again the following day, he tried to convince the man to buy him a machine gun for "home protection", but the detective talked him out of the idea. The next day, August 11, Snider drove out into the San Fernando Valley to look at a gun he had found for sale in a newspaper. He got lost, however, and eventually gave up and went home before finding the owner's address.

Murder
On August 13, 1980 – the second anniversary of Stratten's first arrival in Los Angeles – Snider bought a used 12-gauge, pump-action shotgun from a private seller he found in a local classified ad. Later that evening in a conversation with friends, Snider described how he had purchased a gun that day and finished his story by declaring that he was "going to take up hunting." Snider casually brought up the subject of Playmates who had unexpectedly died; in particular, he spoke of Claudia Jennings, an actress and former Playmate of the Year who had been killed in a car accident the year before. Snider made several morbid remarks to his companions related to the problems at Playboy magazine caused by Jennings' death, including a comment about how the editors would pull nude photos of a dead Playmate from the next issue if there was time.

Stratten arrived for her meeting with Snider at his rented West Los Angeles house at approximately noon on Thursday, August 14. She had spent the morning conferring with her business manager, and one of the topics the pair discussed was the amount of the property settlement Stratten would offer her estranged husband that afternoon. The police later found $1,100 in cash among Stratten's belongings in the house, which she had apparently brought for Snider as a down payment. Towards the end of her morning meeting, Stratten's business manager made an observation: that his young client could avoid spending any more time with Snider by handing off the remaining separation and divorce negotiations to her lawyer. Stratten replied that the process would go easier if she dealt with Snider personally, explaining that he was being nice about everything and finally adding, "I'd like to remain his friend." Snider's two roommates had left in the morning, so the couple was alone when Stratten stepped into the house that she had shared with her husband until just a few months earlier. By all appearances, Stratten had spent some time in the living room, where her purse was found lying open, before she and Snider went into his bedroom.

By 8:00 that evening, both of the roommates had returned to the house. They saw Stratten's car parked out front and noted that Snider's bedroom door was closed. Assuming that the couple had reconciled and wanted their privacy, the roommates spent the next several hours watching television in the living room.

Alerted by Snider's private detective who phoned expressing concern after not hearing from Snider all day, the roommates entered the bedroom shortly after 11:00 P.M. and discovered the bodies of Stratten and Snider. Each had been killed by a single blast from Snider's shotgun. Both bodies were nude. According to the police timeline and from the forensic evidence collected at the crime scene, Snider had shot Stratten that afternoon within an hour of her arrival at the house, then committed suicide approximately one hour after the murder.

Some time after midnight in the early morning of August 15, the private detective telephoned the Playboy Mansion and told Hefner that Stratten had been murdered. Hefner then called Bogdanovich. After collapsing at the news, Bogdanovich was sedated. Stratten's mother was told of her daughter's death at her Vancouver-area home later that morning by an officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Stratten's body was cremated and the remains interred at the Westwood Village Memorial Park cemetery in Los Angeles. The epitaph on Stratten's grave marker includes a passage, chosen by Bogdanovich, from Chapter 34 of the Ernest Hemingway novel A Farewell to Arms. Three years after the murder, the author's granddaughter, Mariel Hemingway, played Stratten in Star 80, the Bob Fosse biopic about the doomed Playmate and her husband. Bogdanovich was interred next to her remains following his death in 2022.

Bogdanovich and They All Laughed
In August 1981, a year after Stratten's death, her final film, the romantic comedy They All Laughed, which was written and directed by Bogdanovich, had its U.S. release. After a disappointing limited run in a handful of theaters in the southwest, the upper midwest, and the northeast, the picture was quietly withdrawn.

Upset that what would be his only project with Stratten did not have a nationwide release, and determined that her last screen performance have a chance to be seen by a broader audience, Bogdanovich bought the theatrical rights to the picture. Out of his own pocket, he paid for a re-release of They All Laughed in nearly a dozen large markets across North America beginning in late 1981 and rolling into the following year. Despite generally favorable reviews and strong attendance in some theaters, Bogdanovich ultimately sank more than five million dollars, his entire net worth at the time, into the project to properly promote and distribute the movie and rescue Stratten's film legacy.

Bogdanovich declared bankruptcy in 1985. In the process, he lost his Los Angeles home where Stratten had lived for the last few weeks of her life.

In the years since its inauspicious debut, They All Laughed has been recognized by filmmakers, critics, and others as being one of Bogdanovich's best pictures. One Day Since Yesterday, a documentary about the making and cultural importance of Bogdanovich's romantic comedy, which includes interviews with the director and his remembrances of Stratten, premiered in 2014.

The Killing of the Unicorn
In August 1984, four years after Stratten's death, the publisher William Morrow released a book by Bogdanovich titled The Killing of the Unicorn: Dorothy Stratten 1960-1980.

The Killing of the Unicorn is, by turns, a biography of Stratten, a memoir of Bogdanovich's affair with the married Playmate who was half his age, and a scathing, feminist attack on Hefner, his Playboy philosophy, and the hedonistic sexual mores he celebrated in his magazine and practiced at his mansion, and the entire Playboy organization. By far the most controversial part of the book is the director's claim that Hefner had sexually assaulted a then eighteen-year-old Stratten in August 1978. According to Bogdanovich's allegation the assault occurred while the two were alone in a secluded area of the Playboy Mansion at the end of Stratten's first day of posing for the magazine's photographer. (Bogdanovich chose to use the word "seduced" to describe Hefner's behavior in the book; however, he originally used the word "raped" in the drafts of his manuscript. Bogdanovich and the publisher made the change after being threatened with a lawsuit by Hefner and his lawyers.)

Among the other allegations that Bogdanovich made in his book, the most significant are: 1) That Stratten had not married Snider out of love, but rather used her marriage as an excuse to block the advances of Hefner who, Bogdanovich claimed, pursued Stratten as a sexual partner after the purported assault, 2) That Stratten loathed nude modeling and dealing with Playboy in general, and only tolerated the humiliating work in order to promote her acting career, and 3) That Hefner was responsible, in part, for enabling Snider's killing rage when he was banned from entering the Playboy Mansion just days before the murder. Bogdanovich's underlying assertion for the last charge is that Snider was banned because Hefner hated the man. In his defense, Hefner explained that the purpose of the ban was to encourage Stratten and Bogdanovich to appear at the mansion as a couple.

Nearly every review of The Killing of the Unicorn in the U.S. press was negative. While few objected to Bogdanovich's attacks on Hefner and Playboy, many were skeptical of his newfound feminism, pointing out, for example, that he "seemed oblivious to his own sexist susceptibility to 'the whore/Madonna complex' in his view of women." The review that appeared in the Chicago Tribune, for instance, had its tone concisely summarized in the blunt headline that led off the piece, "Shabby little shocker." Film critic Roger Ebert, writing for the crosstown Chicago Sun-Times, managed to express empathy for Bogdanovich and the tragedy of Stratten's death, but was no less critical, stating that he could understand why Bogdanovich felt the need to write the book, "but I wish he hadn't published it."

In an article that appeared shortly after the murder, Hefner, who was 33 years older than Stratten, used the word "friendship" to describe his relationship with her and was said to see himself as a "father figure" to the Playmate. The image that Hefner presented to the public as a supportive, benevolent, paternal figure to Stratten was emphasized the following spring when Playboy published her biography in its May 1981 issue. It was reported that Hefner had personally supervised the editing of the article.

In 1985, when asked again about his relationship with Stratten after the release of The Killing of the Unicorn, Hefner did concede to a crucial detail that lay at the heart of Bogdanovich's allegation. Namely, Hefner admitted that several weeks after Stratten first arrived in Los Angeles, the two had taken a nude soak in the Jacuzzi on the Playboy Mansion grounds, the place where Bogdanovich claimed the sexual assault had occurred. In the same interview, while allowing that they had "hugged" in the Jacuzzi, Hefner denied having forced himself on Stratten. Hefner also denied, despite his reputation, that he had ever so much as made a pass at the young Canadian, suggesting that his sexual interest in Stratten had ended in the Jacuzzi after learning that she expected to become engaged to her boyfriend. (This conversation would have occurred approximately two months before Hefner first met Snider.)

Legacy
Stratten's murder was depicted in two films. In the made-for-television Death of a Centerfold: The Dorothy Stratten Story (1981), Jamie Lee Curtis portrayed Stratten and Bruce Weitz played Paul Snider. Bob Fosse's feature film Star 80 (1983) starred Mariel Hemingway as Stratten and Eric Roberts as Snider.

In 1983, film critic Vincent Canby wrote "Miss Stratten possessed a charming screen presence and might possibly have become a first-rate comedienne with time and work".

In December 1988, at age 49, Bogdanovich married Stratten's sister, Louise, who was 20. Bogdanovich had paid for Louise's private schooling and modeling classes following Stratten's death. They divorced in 2001 after being married for 13 years.

Singer-songwriter Bryan Adams, along with co-writer Jim Valance, wrote the song "The Best Was Yet to Come" as the closing track for Adams' 1983 LP Cuts Like a Knife as a dedication to Dorothy Stratten. Adams also co-wrote with Lindsay Mitchell of the Canadian band Prism the track "Cover Girl" for their greatest hits collection All the Best From Prism (1980), which had not appeared on any prior album.

Bush's song "Dead Meat" is written in her memory. "Californication" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers makes reference to her.

Actress Nicola Peltz portrays Stratten in the Hulu miniseries Welcome to Chippendales.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Dorothy Stratten


text:
Theobald II, Count of Champagne

Theobald the Great (1090–1152) was count of Blois and of Chartres as Theobald IV from 1102 and was Count of Champagne and of Brie as Theobald II from 1125. Theobald held Auxerre, Maligny, Ervy, Troyes and Châteauvillain as fiefs from Odo II, Duke of Burgundy.

Career
Theobald was the son of Count Stephen II of Blois and his wife Adela of Normandy (daughter of William the Conqueror), and the elder brother of King Stephen of England.

Although he was the second son, Theobald was appointed above his older brother William. Theobald accompanied his mother throughout their domain on hundreds of occasions and, after her retirement to Marcigney in 1125, he administered the family properties with great skill. Adela died in her beloved convent on 8 March 1137, the year after her son Stephen was crowned king of England.

King Louis VII of France became involved in a war with Theobald by permitting Count Raoul I of Vermandois, seneschal of France, to repudiate his wife Eleanor, sister of Theobald and of King Stephan, in order to marry Petronilla of Aquitaine, sister of Louis VII's own wife, Eleanor. The war, which lasted two years (1142–1144), was marked by the occupation of Champagne by the royal army and the capture of Vitry-le-François, where 1500 people perished in the deliberate burning of the church by Louis.

The scholastic Pierre Abélard, famous for his love affair with and subsequent marriage to his student Héloïse d'Argenteuil, sought asylum in Champagne during Theobald II's reign. Abelard died at Cluny Abbey in Burgundy, a monastery supported by the Thebaudians for many centuries.

Marriage and issue
In 1123 he married Matilda, daughter of Duke Engelbert of Carinthia. Their children were:
 * Henry I of Champagne, count of Champagne
 * Theobald V of Blois, count of Blois and seneschal of France
 * Adela, queen of France as the wife of King Louis VII of France
 * Isabella, married 1. Duke Roger III of Apulia d. 1148, 2. William Gouet IV d. 1170
 * Marie, married Duke Odo II of Burgundy, became abbess of Fontevrault later in life.
 * Stephen I of Sancerre 1133–1191, count of Sancerre and crusader, died at the Siege of Acre
 * William White Hands, 1135–1202, archbishop of Reims 1176–1202, Cardinal 1179
 * Agnes (d. 1207), dame de Ligny, married Renaut II of Bar (d. 1170).
 * Margaret, nun at Fontevrault
 * Matilda, married Rotrou IV of Perche

Theobald had an illegitimate son, Hugh, (d.1171), abbot of Lagny near Paris.

title: Theobald II, Count of Champagne


text:
Stanisław Saks

Stanisław Saks (30 December 1897 – 23 November 1942) was a Polish mathematician and university tutor, a member of the Lwów School of Mathematics, known primarily for his membership in the Scottish Café circle, an extensive monograph on the theory of integrals, his works on measure theory and the Vitali–Hahn–Saks theorem.

Life and work
Stanisław Saks was born on 30 December 1897 in Kalisz, Congress Poland, to an assimilated Polish-Jewish family. In 1915 he graduated from a local gymnasium and joined the newly recreated Warsaw University. In 1922 he received a doctorate of his alma mater with a prestigious distinction maxima cum laude. Soon afterwards he also passed his habilitation and received the Rockefeller fellowship, which allowed him to travel to the United States. Around that time he started publishing articles in various mathematical journals, mostly the Fundamenta Mathematicae, but also in the Transactions of the American Mathematical Society. He participated in the Silesian Uprisings and was awarded the Cross of the Valorous and the Medal of Independence for his bravery. Following the end of the uprising he returned to Warsaw and resumed his academic career.

For most of it he studied the theories of functions and functionals in particular. In 1930 he published his most notable book, the Zarys teorii całki (Sketch on the Theory of the Integral), which later got expanded and translated into several languages, including English (Theory of the Integral), French (Théorie de l'Intégrale) and Russian (Teoriya Integrala). Despite his successes, Saks was never awarded the title of professor and remained an ordinary tutor, initially at his alma mater and the Warsaw University of Technology, and later at the Lwów University and Wilno University. He was also an active socialist and a journalist at the Robotnik weekly (1919–1926) and later a collaborator of the Association of Socialist Youth.

Saks wrote a mathematics book with Antoni Zygmund, Analytic Functions, in 1933. It was translated into English in 1952 by E. J. Scott. In the preface to the English edition, Zygmund writes: Stanislaw Saks was a man of moral as well as physical courage, of rare intelligence and wit. To his colleagues and pupils he was an inspiration not only as a mathematician but as a human being. In the period between the two world wars he exerted great influence upon a whole generation of Polish mathematicians in Warsaw and Lwów. In November 1942, at the age of 45, Saks died in a Warsaw prison, victim of a policy of extermination.

After the outbreak of World War II and the occupation of Poland by Germany, Saks joined the Polish underground. Arrested in November 1942, he was executed on 23 November 1942 by the German Gestapo in Warsaw.

Publications

 * . English translation by Laurence Chisholm Young, with two additional notes by Stefan Banach.

title: Stanisław Saks


text:
Talk:Grand Theft Auto III

Claude
I edited the page to say that Claude, the protagonist, is mute, because of a line in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas saying that he is. 98.149.152.187 (talk) 23:34, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
 * This is already mentioned in "Gameplay", there's no need to repeat it. – Rhain  ☔ 23:35, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Should we change the English to American English?
I know it's made in the UK but this game takes place in the US so should we change the English to American English? I think American English makes for sense for all GTA articles on this wiki (expect for GTA London games). 38.25.144.26 (talk) 20:17, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

 * I see no point in such a change. The variant is consistent across the GTA articles and GTA is considered a British property. The setting doesn't really have any weight here.  IceWelder  [ ✉ ] 08:04, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

 * An British property owned by an American company? Kinda like Thomas & Friends is owned by Mattel. 38.25.255.45 (talk) 12:22, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Someone sould this make this page American English because instalment is a misspelled typo in the U.S.A that's why this needs be a discussion on if there sould be a British Wikipedia (because there isn't any) and you well can change this page to American English. Thank you 174.27.21.219 (talk) 01:20, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * The spelling is correct. There isn't an American Wikipedia either. – Rhain  ☔ (he/him) 01:22, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I know but there needs to be a British Wikipedia. But that might be in the future 174.27.21.219 (talk) 01:25, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * This is the English Wikipedia (not American Wikipedia). It incorporates both British and American spelling where appropriate. There would be no point in having a mirror with identical content safe for some spelling variations. IceWelder  [ ✉ ] 10:29, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * User:Jimbo Wales better start off a discussion about a British Wikipedia being released...... 174.27.21.219 (talk) 02:58, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Grand Theft Auto III


text:
Scottish Café

The Scottish Café (Kawiarnia Szkocka) was a café in Lwów, Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine) where, in the 1930s and 1940s, mathematicians from the Lwów School of Mathematics collaboratively discussed research problems, particularly in functional analysis and topology.

Stanisław Ulam recounts that the tables of the café had marble tops, so they could write in pencil, directly on the table, during their discussions. To keep the results from being lost, and after becoming annoyed with their writing directly on the table tops, Stefan Banach's wife provided the mathematicians with a large notebook, which was used for writing the problems and answers and eventually became known as the Scottish Book. The book—a collection of solved, unsolved, and even probably unsolvable problems—could be borrowed by any of the guests of the café. Solving any of the problems was rewarded with prizes, with the most difficult and challenging problems having expensive prizes (during the Great Depression and on the eve of World War II), such as a bottle of fine brandy.

For problem 153, which was later recognized as being closely related to Stefan Banach's "basis problem", Stanisław Mazur offered the prize of a live goose. This problem was solved only in 1972 by Per Enflo, who was presented with the live goose in a ceremony that was broadcast throughout Poland.

The café building now houses the Szkocka Restaurant & Bar (named for the original Scottish Café) and the Atlas Deluxe hotel at the street address of 27 Taras Shevchenko Prospekt.

Participants
The following mathematicians were associated with the Lwów School of Mathematics or contributed to The Scottish Book:
 * Stefan Banach
 * Karol Borsuk
 * Mark Kac
 * Stefan Kaczmarz
 * Bronisław Knaster
 * Kazimierz Kuratowski
 * Stanisław Saks
 * Juliusz Schauder
 * Hugo Steinhaus
 * Stanisław Ulam
 * Gus Ward

title: Scottish Café


text:
Carjacking

Carjacking is a robbery in which a motor vehicle is taken over. In contrast to car theft, carjacking is usually in the presence and knowledge of the victim. A common crime in many places in the world, carjacking has been the subject of legislative responses, criminology studies, prevention efforts as well as being heavily dramatized in major film releases. Commercial vehicles such as trucks and armored cars containing valuable cargo are common targets of carjacking attempts. Carjacking usually involves physical violence to the victim, or using the victim as a hostage. In rare cases, carjacking may also involve sexual assault.

Etymology
The word is a portmanteau of car and hijacking. The term was coined by reporter Scott Bowles and editor EJ Mitchell with The Detroit News in 1991. The News first used the term in a report on the murder of Ruth Wahl, a 22-year-old Detroit drugstore cashier who was killed when she would not surrender her Suzuki Sidekick, and in an investigative report examining the rash of what Detroit Police call "robbery armed unlawful driving away an automobile" (in dispatch slang shortened to R.A.-YOU-Da) plaguing Detroit. TV series CHiPs season 2 episode 20 airing 2/24/79 has the character Ponch, played by Erik Estrada, using the term carjacking.

Studies
A study published in the British Journal of Criminology in 2003 found that "for all of the media attention it has received in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, carjacking remains an under-researched and poorly understood crime." The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with 28 active carjackers in St. Louis, Missouri, and based on these interviews concluded that "the decision to commit a carjacking stems most directly from a situated interaction between particular sorts of perceived opportunities and particular sorts of perceived needs and desires, this decision is activated, mediated, and shaped by participation in urban street culture."

A study published in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography in 2013 noted that "carjacking requires offenders to neutralize victims who are inherently mobile and who can use their vehicles as both weapons and shields." The study noted that carjackers use fear to compel compliance from victims.

A 2008 paper by the Australian Institute of Criminology conceptualized carjackings as falling into four types based on method and motive: organized and instrumental, organized and acquisitive, opportunistic and instrumental, and opportunistic and acquisitive. An example of an organized and instrumental carjacking is a planned carjacking with a weapon to use the vehicle for ramming an ATM to steal cash. An example of an organized and acquisitive carjacking is a planned carjacking to sell the vehicle in a known market. An example of an opportunistic and instrumental carjacking is a carjacking without a weapon to sell "vehicle/parts with no market in mind." An example of an opportunistic and acquisitive carjacking is a carjacking without a weapon to joyride.

A 2017 qualitative study published in Justice Quarterly examined auto theft and carjacking in the context of "sanction threats" that promoted fear and influenced "crime preferences" among criminals, thereby redirecting ("channeling") criminal activity. The study showed that "auto thieves are reluctant to embrace the violence of carjacking due to concerns over sanction threat severity they attributed to carjacking—both formal (higher sentences) and informal (victim resistance and retaliation). Meanwhile, the carjackers are reticent to enact auto theft because of the more uncertain and putatively greater risk of being surprised by victims, a fear that appears to overcome the enhanced long-term formal penalty of taking a vehicle by force."

Prevention and response
Common carjacking ruses include: (1) bumping the victim's vehicle from behind, and taking the car when the victim gets out of the vehicle to assess damage and exchange information; (2) staging a fake car accident, sometimes with injuries, and stealing the vehicle of a passerby who stops to assist; (3) flashing lights or waving to get the victim's attention, indicating that there is a problem with the victim's car, and then taking the car once the victim pulls over; and (4) following a victim home, blocking the victim's car in a driveway or in front of a gate.

Police departments, security agencies, and auto insurers have published lists of strategies for preventing and responding to carjackings. Common recommendations include:
 * Staying alert and being aware of one's surroundings
 * Parking in well-lighted areas
 * Keeping vehicle doors locked and windows up
 * Avoiding unfamiliar or high-crime areas
 * Alerting police as soon as is safely possible following a carjacking
 * Avoid isolated and less-well-trafficked parking lots, ATMs, pay phones, etc.
 * When stopped in traffic, keeping some distance between the vehicle in front, so one can pull away easily if necessary.
 * If confronted, it is often safer to give up the vehicle and avoid resisting
 * Use of the vehicle as a weapon against the car jacker, or a firearm or pepper spray.

Truck carjacking
Commercial vehicles such as trucks and armored cars may be targets of carjacking attempts. Such carjackings may be aimed at stealing cargo, such as liquor, cigarettes, valuable goods, consumer electronics or even drugs. In other cases, a carjacked truck may be used to commit another crime, such as robbery or a terrorist attack.

Knowledge of the location of a truck carrying valuable cargo often requires inside information, and sometimes truck drivers collude with truck carjackers to facilitate the truck carjacking. This crime is often perpetuated by organized crime operations or by career criminals, or by a collaboration between the two. In particular, La Cosa Nostra has been known to orchestrate the carjacking of trucks (at locations such as Kennedy Airport in which a truck driver under Mafia influence allows carjackers to steal the truck).

South Africa
Carjacking is a significant problem in South Africa, where it is called hijacking. South Africa is thought to have the highest carjacking rate in the world. There were 16,000 reported carjackings in 1998. The figures dropped to 12,434 reported carjackings in 2005, and continued to drop until 2011 to 2012, when the number of carjackings was 9,475, a record low. Subsequently, however, carjackings increased as part of an overall increase in violent organized crime, which the Institute for Security Studies attributed to poor police leadership. There were 11,221 reported carjackings in 2014. More than half of all carjackings in South Africa occurred in Gauteng province, which includes Johannesburg and Pretoria.

The carjacking issue in South Africa was depicted in the 2005 film Tsotsi, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, several new, unconventional anti-carjacking systems designed to harm the attacker were developed and marketed in South Africa, where carjacking had become endemic. Among these was the now defunct Blaster, a small flame-thrower that could be mounted to the underside of a vehicle.

Federal Anti-Car Theft Act of 1992
In 1992, Congress, in the aftermath of a spate of violent carjackings (including some in which the victims were murdered), passed the Federal Anti-Car Theft Act of 1992 (FACTA), the first federal carjacking law, making it a federal crime (punishable by 15 years to life imprisonment) to use a firearm to steal "through force or violence or intimidation" a motor vehicle that had been shipped through interstate commerce. The 1992 Act, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 2119, took effect on October 25, 1992. However, only a small number of federal prosecutions were imposed for carjacking the year after the act was enacted, in part because many federal carjacking cases were turned over to state prosecutions because they do not meet U.S. Department of Justice criteria. The Federal Death Penalty Act, part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, an omnibus crime bill, made sixty new federal crimes punishable by the federal death penalty; among these were the killing of a victim in the commission of carjacking.

Throughout 1993, articles about carjackings appeared at the rate of more than one a week in newspapers throughout the country. The November 29, 1992, killing of two Osceola County, Florida, men by carjackers using a stolen 9 mm pistol resulted in the first federal prosecution of a fatal carjacking.

Prevalence and statistical analysis
According to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics, from 1993 to 2002, some 38,000 carjackings occurred annually. According to the survey, over this time period men were more often victims than women, blacks more than whites, and Hispanics more than non-Hispanics. 56% of carjackers were identified by victims as black, 21% white, 16% Asian or Native American, and 7% mixed race or unknown. Some 93% of carjackings occurred in urban areas.

There were multiple carjackers in 56% of incidents, and the carjacker or carjackers were identified as male in 93% of incidents. A weapon was used in 74% of carjacking victimization: firearms in 45%, knives in 11%, and other weapons in 18%. Victims were injured in about 32% of completed carjackings and about 17% of attempted carjackings. Serious injuries, such as gunshot or knife wounds, broken bones, or internal injuries occurred in about 9% of incidents. About 14 murders a year involved car theft, but not all of these were carjackings. Some 68% of carjackings occurred at nighttime hours (6 p.m. to 6 a.m.). Some 98% of completed carjackings and 77% of attempted carjackings were reported to police. About 44% of carjacking incidents occurred in an open area (e.g., on the street or near public transportation) while 24% occurred in parking lots or garages or near commercial places (e.g., stores, gas stations, office buildings, restaurants/bars).

According to the NCVS, from 1992 and 1996, about 49,000 completed or attempted nonfatal carjackings took place each year in the United States. The carjacking was successful in about half of the incidents. Data on fatal carjackings are not available; "about 27 homicides by strangers each year involved automobile theft," but not all of these were carjackings.

In particular cities
Carjackings were common in Newark, New Jersey, in the 1990s, and a wave of carjackings took place again in 2010. There were 288 carjackings in the city in 2010 (a 70% increase from the previous year), and Essex County (which includes Newark) had 69 in December 2010 alone. The Associated Press reported that "unlike previous carjackings, in which thieves would strip vehicles for parts or sell them in other states, the recent wave perplexed law enforcement officials because almost all appeared to be done by thrill-seeking young men who would steal the cars for a few hours, drive them around and then abandon them." After federal, state, and law enforcement agencies formed a task force, 42 suspects were charged, and carjackings dropped dramatically. However, national media attention on carjackings in Essex County returned in December 2013, when a Hoboken lawyer was murdered at The Mall at Short Hills in Millburn, New Jersey, while defending his wife from four assailants,  who were all later convicted of the crime.

For several years (but no longer), the major U.S. city with the highest rates of carjacking was Detroit. In 2008, Detroit had 1,231 carjackings, more than three a day. By 2013, that number had fallen to 701, but this was still the highest known number of carjackings for any major city in the country. The significant decrease in carjackings was credited to a coordinated effort by the Detroit Police Department, the FBI, and the local federal prosecutor's office. Serial carjackers were targeted for federal prosecutions and longer sentences, and in 2009 the Detroit Police Department centralized all carjacking investigations and developed a suspect profiling system. Through mid-November 2014, Detroit had 486 carjackings, down 31% from the year before, but this was still three times more than the carjackings experienced by New York City (which has ten times Detroit's population) in all of 2013. Even James Craig, chief of police of the Detroit Police Department, was the victim of an attempted carjacking while he was in his police cruiser.

A 2017 study used "Risk Terrain Modeling" analysis to identify spatial indicators of carjacking risk in Detroit. The analysis identified six factors that "were influential in the best fitting model: proximity to service stations; convenience/grocery/liquor stores; bus stops; residential and commercial demolitions; and areas with high concentrations of drug arrests and restaurants." The study found that certain locations in Detroit "had an expected rate of carjacking that was 278 times higher than other locations."

As of 2021, the American city with the highest number of carjackings is Chicago. Chicago began experiencing a surge in carjackings after 2019, and at least 1,415 such crimes took place in the city in 2020. According to the Chicago Police Department, carjackers are using face masks that are widely worn due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to effectively blend in with the public and conceal their identity. 2021 saw a further increase to a 20-year high of over 1,800 carjackings. On January 27, 2021, Mayor Lori Lightfoot described the worsening wave of carjackings as being 'top of mind,' and added 40 police officers to the CPD carjacking unit.

Many other cities have seen a similar increase in carjackings since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over 500 carjackings were recorded in New York City in 2021, compared to 328 in 2020 and 132 in 2019. Likewise, the police department of Philadelphia reported over 800 in 2021, compared to 170 in 2015. 281 carjackings occurred in New Orleans in 2021 while 105 occurred there in 2018, while Oakland reported 301 carjackings in 2020 and 521 carjackings in 2021.

State law
Some states have a specific carjacking statute. Other states do not have a specific carjacking law, and prosecute carjackers under the general robbery statute.

The law of some states, such as Louisiana, explicitly lists a killing in the course of defending oneself against forcible entry of an occupied motor vehicle as a justifiable homicide.

United Kingdom
Carjacking is an uncommon crime in Britain, making up about 1% of all vehicle thefts.

Australia
Australia does not specifically record the number of carjackings; such crimes are variously recorded as assault, robbery, motor vehicle theft, and some combination. However, a 2008 paper by the Australian Institute of Criminology, analyzing police and insurance records, suggested that fewer than 300 carjackings occur annually in Australia (about 0.5% of all theft incidents in the country). The paper noted that the low incidence of carjacking compared to the United States is attributable to the low rate of firearm-related crime in Australia and the fact that the "broader socioeconomic picture of Australian society is one of relative good health in terms of wealth distribution and social cohesion" providing little motivation for victimization that is "both personal and violent." The paper notes that although carjacking was rare, isolated hot spots do arise occasionally, and that since the late 1990s, "Sydney has experienced a number of carjacking clusters ... each lasting around three to six months and occurring in different locations including the eastern suburbs, the inner city and the south-west."

Philippines
The Philippine National Police keeps a record on the number of incidents of index crimes in the Philippines including carjacking. The act of carnapping, as it is known in the country, is penalized under the Anti-Carnapping Act of 2016.

title: Carjacking


text:
Car jack

Car jack may refer to:

 * Jack (device), a device for lifting (jacking up) cars and other heavy objects
 * Carjacking, the crime of forcedly repossessing an occupied car

title: Car jack