"But the foundation for GTA III had been established years earlier, as early as 1986 with The Legend of Zelda, and then again in 1998 with Ocarina of Time."
Uhhh, no. I don't see how anyone could say that the "open world" in Ocarina of Time (which was just an empty Hyrule Field to ride Epona around and chase ghosts in), was just as influential as the open world sandbox style do-anything-you-want gameplay that the GTA series popularized, especially since the first GTA game predates Ocarina of Time by a whole year.
The original LOZ's world was "open" in that you could tackle the dungeons in almost any order (provided you had the necessary items to access them or complete objectives), but that's hardly comparable to GTA at all. In LOZ, the overworld is essentially just a hub that connects all the dungeons, which are the meat and potatoes of the games. In GTA, the overworld IS the game.
Anywho, yes, GTAIII was and still is that influential for a number of reasons. First because of the open world "sandbox style" which has already been mentioned a million times, but also because it was one of the first games to bring mature, realistic themes and storylines to videogames that mirrored some of the biggest Hollywood mob or gangster films of all time like Goodfellas and Scarface, coupled with celebrity voice actors to boot. Before GTA, a game's M-rating was basically just a symbol of how much over the top blood and gore the game contained.
On 2/24/13, MB1025 said:
You know I was always wondering why no one ever used the dollar sign for $ony, but then I realized they have no money so it would be pointless.
