12:15 AM
Ran the game, stealing quite libreally from both Robert Heinlein and the RPG Unknown Armies, and it went quite well. I could explain what I did, but it would probably take more text than you care to read, even if you are a fellow paper gamer. Maybe I'll talk more about it later.

Afterward, I came home and wrapped up the single-player storyline of GTA3. In a spoiler-free manner, let me say that the last mission is tougher than hell, and I felt severely handicapped when the game stripped away the massive arsenal I had been accumulating over the course of the game (including more than 10,000 rounds of Uzi ammo.) Sure, it made sense narratively, but it had never been done before in the game and made that mission at least twice as difficult. Perhaps that was their intent--and I did eventually succeed--but it ticked me off enough that I thought I'd complain to you.

Happily, there is still plenty more of the game to mine--I have yet to complete one mini campaign on each of the islands, haven't done either of the Patriot minigames, still have thirty hidden packages to find...the list of things I have left to do seems longer than what I've accomplished. I love that depth, and hope that any game I ever helm has the chance to come even close. DMA really took the core mechanic of 1)Steal and drive any car, 2)Beat up anyone, and 3)Move around in a living city and played out an incredible variety of variations on that theme. Better, it's a strong enough concept that I can see even more things they could have done (a pizza delivery mini-game, the seemingly-inevitable Twisted Metal parody that didn't happen when I commandeered the ice cream truck...) By the time you've put any significant amount of time into the game you do start to see the loose threads around the edges (e.g. the engine filling in the world and traffic just inside the limits of your vision rather than just outside it), but everyone I know is having such a good time that to talk about such things feels like nitpicking rather than flaws that should have been fixed. It's a solid, pioneering game (even if it is the third title in the franchise.)

One more paragraph on GTA3 before I go climb into bed. Despite the amorality that's enabled--indeed, encouraged--by the game, my need to develop internal story has apparently pushed me to build a weird personal code of honor as I worked the mean streets of Liberty City. Early on my M.O. was to work the docks in Portland and beat up hookers because they often carried more money than other people. Now, I've noticed that I've moved up the food chain and am beating up pimps--especially I catch them beating the hookers. Weird.