the comparison itself should be a joke... Mario 64 mastered in one try what dozens of other games failed to do even years after its release. GTA 3 is just a natural progression of violent video games. I don't think it takes a genius to come up with violent video game ideas, and I think it takes even less effort to make them sell.
That's why developers love making COD and GTA clones, no thought required just throw in some eye catching violence and you have a million seller.
I played GTA 3 and its successors, but what specifically makes it so groundbreaking? Extreme violence, I can name a dozen games that preceeded it. Open world? Again, as others have pointed out, a dozen games preceeded it. What was groundbreaking is that it took existing elements across a dozen different other games and put them together in a really really attractive package.
