And weapons? Fear not as just about every conceivable instrument of death and destruction is here for your anarchical pleasure! You start out with just your fists (fun in itself!) and then use a baseball bat to smash over a few pimps. However once you start collecting guns the real fun starts cos they just keep getting bigger and better! Pistols, Uzis, machine guns, shotguns, grenades, rocket launchers and even a flame-thrower are all there plus the all-time favourite, the sniper rifle complete with long-range sight! Some missions will actually have you guessing just which approach to take weapons-wise and the seemingly obvious weapon won't always be the best one to use!

Visually GTA3 may be one of the most stunning games you've ever played BUT not for the reason you might think. GTA3 is not some glistening, photo-realistic example of how pretty you can make a game look although there's eye-candy aplenty. Instead it displays a stylised visual representation of a very large, living world without apparent seams. The graphics are good but it is the attention to detail that'll hook you in - the way in which the graphics make you believe you are in some alternate realistic world where every one of your actions has an effect on the environment and its inhabitants. Progressive damage to vehicles in particular is handled very well with shattered windscreens, dents in the bodywork and doors and hoods that fly off on impact. Too much damage or rolling a vehicle will result in it bursting into flame. You then have to get out quick before the inevitable explosion. Character animations are fairly detailed for the number of characters onscreen and they animate fluidly. In fact the whole game appears to run along smoothly at the purported 60fps.

Weather effects are quite realistic with raindrops splattering on the ground around you, dark clouds rolling across the sky and thunder and lightning all adding to the sense of realism. Fog is also done very well but don't expect to be beating the clock on any missions done while it's foggy – you can't see more than a couple of car lengths in front of you! Day also changes to night and then night to day convincingly as the in-game clock constantly ticks away. This transition opens more opportunities for visual excitement! Lighting is quite impressive at night and you may well notice the coloured light from traffic signals reflecting onto the road at each intersection. Car headlamps are done very well and show you the road ahead as you travel in darker areas and streetlights add to the atmosphere. There are also some other nice little touches like lens flare and fire and smoke effects.

By far the most impressive visual effects are the sheer size and believability of the cityscapes and the massive amount of activity of all kinds going on around you. DMA have achieved all this by the use of streaming techniques where data for all that activity is streamed directly off the DVD and by a technology called RenderWare. Unfortunately there are a few small visual holes in this otherwise massive visual feast and these are mainly issues with draw-in where parts of buildings or cars suddenly pop up in the distance and also some quite noticeable texture clipping in certain areas (try the tunnel or the multi-storey carpark building on Staunton Island). These glitches aren't a major worry at all though and don't really affect gameplay.

Note: One little problem though that did affect gameplay slightly that we struck with the review copy was trying to save a game after placing a certain military vehicle in a garage on Staunton Island. We experienced a screen freeze and had to reboot which resulted in the loss of unsaved game data after the last saved game.

Sound in GTA3 is definitely one of its best features. Top of the list is that you actually get a choice of 9 different in-game radio stations to listen to while playing the game through in nearly any vehicle. Flipping between stations is as simple as pressing the L1 button at any time while driving and you can choose between the following – Head Radio (commercial pop), Double Cleff FM (classical), K-Jah (reggae/dub), Rise FM (trance), Lips Radio DJ (commercial pop), Game FM (hip hop), Msx FM (drum 'n' bass), Flashback FM (80s pop) and Chatterbox FM (talkback). Every vehicle you jump into will be tuned to a station appropriate to its owner – a popular feature carried over from the previous GTA games. Each station has a large volume of content and you can be hearing new material hours into the game as if you're listening to real live radio!

Another very worthy feature here is the voice acting. Rockstar signed up an impressive cast list to provide the voices for many of the main game characters. These include Joe Pantoliano (The Matrix), Michael Madson (Reservoir Dogs), Kyle MacLachlan (Twin Peaks), Robert Loggia (Dodson's Journey) and Michael Rappaport (Men Of Honor).

As much as we'd like to fill pages and pages with all the finer points of GTA3 gameplay, in summary it simply has to be said that this is one of the best PS2 games, if not the best so far, that we've played! Sure, it's not for everyone and graphically there are shinier games. There are also driving games with better driving models and shooting games with more gibs. However, GTA3 ties together so well all of its diverse individual parts into a massive, extremely fun package that it'll keep you entertained for many, many hours and have you going back again and again to do things you never did the first time around.

GTA3 could possibly be the most controversial game to date because of its adult themes and seemingly remorseless violence but it should be noted that it is aimed at an audience receptive to the very well constructed and entertaining nature of it's mature content. This could well be the 'Sopranos on your console' but we think it's simply one of the best games we've ever played, on any platform! If you haven't yet driven the streets of Liberty City then it's time to go get yourself a copy of GTA3 and enter "the worst place in America" for the ride of your life!