It was about to be a long night in Huntington, West Virginia.
Mayor Patrick Farrell stood before 10 members of city council in a white dress shirt and dark blazer studded with an American flag pin. Behind him sat his constituents and residents from neighboring towns. Some had their arms crossed, while others held a steady glare in his direction. Less than a week before the July 13th meeting, a 33-year-old named Jackie Harper had been shot and killed in Huntington. It was the kind of crime Farrell had promised to get under control. But a breakthrough in the case just days after the killing suggested something promising to Farrell. Harper's s …
It’s hard to believe, but GTA 3 is officially 25 years old today. Originally released on October 22, 2001, the Rockstar classic changed the way many of us looked at open-world games. To celebrate its 25th anniversary, here are 10 facts you might not know about Grand Theft Auto 3.
GTA 3 Celebrates It’s 25th Anniversary
Screenshot: Rockstar Games
1. GTA 3’s Early Roots Had a Connection to Sega Dreamcast
Screenshot: Rockstar Games
While many of us associate GTA 3 with the PlayStation 2, its early history actually involves a different console. According to Rockstar North art director Aaron Garbut, the team experimented with a city prototype using Sega Dreamcast development kits.
This early project already featured cars driving around and pedestrians walking through its streets. The developers eventually decided to turn their work toward a fully 3D Grand Theft Auto, even though some members of the original GTA programming team thought it would be too complicated. Thankfully, they pushed ahead.
2. Claude’s Silence Had a Surprisingly Practical Explanation
Screenshot: Rockstar Games
If you’ve ever wondered why GTA 3 protagonist Claude never speaks, Rockstar has actually explained the decision. Part of it was to help players put themselves in his shoes. However, the bigger reason was that the developers already had plenty of other problems to solve.
With the team figuring out how to make the game’s conversations and cutscenes work, giving Claude dialogue wasn’t a major priority. His silence ended up becoming one of his most memorable traits.
3. The Dodo Was Never Supposed to Be a Proper Plane
Screenshot: Rockstar Games
Anyone who spent hours trying to keep the Dodo airborne might find this reassuring: Rockstar never intended it to fly particularly well.
The developers were focused on driving and shooting. Players stretched its flying capabilities through unintended techniques, rather than mastering a fully developed flight system.
4. The Mysterious Ghost Town Was Built for the Opening Cutscene
Screenshot: Rockstar Games, GTA Myths Wiki
Liberty City’s mysterious Ghost Town wasn’t a scrapped fourth island. Those distant streets were built for the opening bank robbery sequence.
Rockstar placed the scenery away from the main map and didn’t expect players to discover it. So much for keeping that secret! Then again, this is the same community that has spent thousands of hours obsessed with Bigfoot’s cameo in the series.
5. Rockstar Chose Vice City Over Developing GTA 3 Multiplayer
Screenshot: Rockstar Games
Rockstar reportedly experimented with multiplayer for GTA 3, but didn’t take it very far. Rather than commit a large team to finishing it, the studio chose to make Vice City. It didn’t believe multiplayer could deliver the experience it wanted yet.
6. Darkel Was Cut Before the September 11 Attacks
Screenshot: Rockstar Games
Darkel is one of GTA 3’s most discussed missing characters. However, Rockstar confirmed that his removal happened well before September 11. “Darkel was just a crazy bum who gave you some crazy missions. They were removed a few months before the game was done and long before 9/11 because they just weren’t as good as the rest of the game, and tonally they were a little odd.”
He originally offered five missions, which were gradually dropped because they weren’t as strong as the rest of the game. Once most of his missions were gone, the developers removed the character entirely.
7. The Pedestrian Sound Effects Had Some Unusual Ingredients
Screenshot: Rockstar Games
This next detail is a little gross. Rockstar’s pedestrian impact sound combined recorded squelches with additional effects. According to music producer Craig Conner’s recollection, the recording process included crushing fruit and raw chicken in a vocal booth.
8. The Blocked Tunnel Was Never Hiding Another Area
Screenshot: Rockstar Games
If you wondered what was beyond the closed Shoreside Vale tunnel, the answer is nothing. Rockstar added it to make Liberty City feel connected to a larger world. There was never another destination waiting behind the barriers.
9. One Familiar Artwork Character Wasn’t Someone You Could Meet
Screenshot: Rockstar Games
Remember the man wearing glasses and holding a pistol in GTA 3’s artwork? You didn’t miss a mission involving him. The figure originated in concept art by Ian McQue and was incorporated into the game’s promotional illustrations.
According to Rockstar, capturing the atmosphere mattered more than making every illustrated character someone who appeared in the story.
10. The PC Version Let You Save Your Own Instant Replays
Screenshot: Rockstar Games
Before sharing gameplay clips became an everyday thing, the original PC version of GTA 3 had a pretty neat feature. Players could replay the previous 30 seconds of action and watch it from different camera angles.
Even better, you could save those moments to your computer and email them to friends. If you pulled off a ridiculous stunt or survived a chaotic police chase, you had a way to prove it. Pretty impressive for an early-2000s PC port.
With GTA 6 release date now just weeks away from launch, it’s incredible to see how far Rockstar Games has come. However even for a 2001, Grand Theft Auto 3 was not only ahead of its time, but it still holds up today as one of all time greats.
Welcome to RATED AND SLATED, the column that’s terminally online so you don’t have to be.
Digital literacy is going to hell. Someone out there needs to redeem the growing army of boomer “screenagers,” so I’m going to start preaching at food courts and malls, gathering up the retirees as they sodcast AI slop on their leather-encased iPads at full volume.
I’m going to do that by reading these RATED AND SLATED columns aloud, giving them the “absolute good truth shit that every1 has been waiting to hear in this sea of lying crap nonsense.” My new followers will be wowed by these sermons, completely unaware that I’m just recycling old @dril jokes.
i am eating at the counter at a diner and a pair of baby boomers are just sitting here with an ipad, speakers on full blast, watching reels of AI slop. there are maybe 10,000 sentient human beings on earth pic.twitter.com/prD3317BxK
After I’ve led them out of the darkness of anthropomorphic fruit drama and assorted memecoin freaks, I’ll inevitably be hanged from the cross.
And when I ask, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” a blurred photograph of Jack Nicholson will appear in the sky, and loudly intone that “theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron.”
Preach.
RATED AND SLATED
GAT-GPT
JUST IN: New AI tool called "GatGPT" reportedly allows users with little firearms knowledge to design & manufacture 3D-printed guns.
There’s a vibe-coder somewhere asking AI for a 3D-printed version of “The Culture.” He’s hoping once he has it no one will be able to laugh at him when he uses the term “gat.” Until then, better stick with “firearm” or “projectile-launching device”—that 3D-printed grill ain’t fooling anyone.
Freed of the psychic burden of driving his own car, this modern-day Zen master has nothing to distract him from his important work of meditating on the nature of existence. Watch him contemplate the mysteries of the universe while sipping milky coffee from a plastic cup. See him become one with the infinite, while fondling his smart phone. This is a spiritual teacher we should all follow; if we’re lucky, he’ll launch an OnlyFans with more premium foot content.
From the way he’s shaking, I can only guess this guy is making those little triangular cheese and cucumber sandwiches for the actual Queen of England, and if he doesn’t do a good job, he’ll be sent to work for her idiot son rearranging his pathetic teddy bear collection. And if he doesn’t do a good job, he’ll be sent to work for his perverted financier friend making videos on his private island. And if he doesn’t do a good job, he’ll become an anonymous FBI tip which is never fully investigated. Admit it, you’d be nervous too.
The doorman had clearly never heard of ball hog as he threw me out of the club for not respecting the “dress code.” He must not have clocked the Hedi Slimane-era Saint Laurent sweatshirt and Nicolas Ghesquière-era Balenciaga sneakers, as I was forcibly returned to the nearest tent city. And now the fent zombies are circling, I’m thinking that maybe I should have kept schtum about this fit being worth ten bands.
WEST END GIRL-INSPIRED BUTT PLUG
Lily Allen launches self-tested sex toys, including West End Girl-inspired butt plug https://t.co/TYCfcwLQmG
While performing her recent break-up record, Lily Allen was criticized for refusing to talk to the audience, but that’s because she believes in letting her art speak for itself. Case in point: this new West End Girl-inspired butt plug. The message here is clear, revenge is a dish best served with a viral marketing campaign including an official sex-toy partner.
There’s no armed standoff so intense it couldn’t be brought to a peaceful end with a copy of Real Fishing VR and a roast chicken, and a few cans of lager. I’ve got my dressing gown on and I’m headed to the police cordon as soon as I’ve finished this 14th line of cocaine.
I’ve been training myself in sleep deprivation and shower refusal in preparation for the release of Grand Theft Auto VI, so I’m already struggling to tell where my life ends and the video game begins, and these billboards really aren’t helping. I’ve had 15 minutes’ sleep in the past week but somehow I’ve managed to get a promotion; that’s right, you’re looking at the new anchor of Weazel News.
ROBERT PATTINSON’S ZYN ADDICTION
Lance Oppenheim says he bribed Robert Pattinson into starring in ‘PRIMETIME’ by sending him 200 canisters of Zyn with a letter saying “Dear Chris Han-Zyn”.
“Rob, at the time, was grappling with a Zyn addiction.”
With enough nicotine, anyone can become an actor. The first time I tried snus, I immediately performed a lengthy monologue for my unsuspecting audience (a Norwegian techno DJ who’d just sold me magic mushrooms), which came to an abrupt end when I had to rush to the bathroom to perform another (equally intense) delivery. On my return, I was told that I’d taken the lowest dose on public sale, which was still so powerful that I spent the whole night wandering the streets of Oslo silently rehearsing my Oscar acceptance speech.
THE CHICKEN MAN
Dwayne Johnson is taking his roles very seriously from now on, it seems.
He was already impressive in The Smashing Machine, but his next project with Benny Safdie, Lizard Music, will have him starring as the "Chicken Man."
The Rock’s attempts to shift away from blockbuster action hero by becoming “the Chicken Man” left him completely unprepared for what happened in Philly last night. I can’t believe they blew him up and, if that wasn’t bad enough, they blew up his house too. I’m sorry Bruce Springsteen, we should have listened when you tried to warn us.
Welcome to LOST WEEKEND, VICE’s hungover news briefing.
It’s hard to say what exactly it is about our current cultural moment that possessed multi-millionaire comedianSacha Baron Cohen to resurrect Ali G’s lifeless body rather than letting him rest in power.
Unfortunately, the Anti-Defamation League’s favorite satirist has now decided this is the perfect point to bring back the durag and bling; I guess he felt enough time had passed since Woke 1.0, when this sort of behavior might have resulted in a congressional hearing.
On his emergence in 1998, this satirical creation—an aspiring rapper from suburban England—had important things to say about the nature of identity in an increasingly globalized world, like FUBU is ugly, and what if cannabis. Now, 28 years on, it appears that he, like everyone else, has got nothing better to talk about than Sydney Sweeney’s breasts.
Sacha Baron Cohen’s Ali G on the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger: “The only merger that’s happening tonight is me and Sydney Sweeney’s babylons.” pic.twitter.com/r23NO3zh7r
Watching the trailers for Ali G: Who Iz I?, you’d be forgiven for thinking the original purpose of this comedy character was to ridicule MAGA America, when in fact the target of mockery was poor people in general—but don’t worry, it’s done with enough irony to keep the Democrats happy, though I’m not sure anyone else will find it all that funny. Regardless, I feel confident that, unlike in the last movie, you won’t hear him drop the N-word within the first ten minutes.
This weekend, for the purposes of research, I subjected myself to 2002’s Ali G Indahouse, truly an eerie relic of a bygone era of job security and being able to go to Russia on holiday. This got me thinking, as Baron Cohen tries (and fails) to move with the times, if someone invented the Ali G character now, where would he exist and what would he be doing?
KICKSTREAMER In 2026, bad boy streamer Ali G is suggesting you grow a goatee for looksmaxxing, something even more disfiguring than smashing your own face with a hammer. He’s giving out advice on sexual market value and finding a True Julie. He’s selling his trademark glasses with colored lenses as a wellness product that cuts out blue light. He’s running an unaccredited online university where you can pay $49.99 a month to learn how having a modified Renault 5 GT Turbo (rented) is an essential expression of masculinity. He’s being deported from the United States, and the fanboys have gathered outside Miami jail to beatbox their support. He’s dropping the N-bomb at a No Kings rally and getting shot dead by Chud the Builder.
PODCAST SKIT In audio form, he started life during the pandemic as a woke-baiting, Brit-teasing 30-second Nick Mullen bit that causes Stavros Halkias to laugh hysterically, while Adam Friedland rolls his eyes in despair. (Mullen extends the character onto TikTok, with one, maybe two, videos of him blazing giant zoots, which achieve a fleeting virality.) In 2026, Mullen is invited to bring the Ali G character onto SNL UK, making it obvious the joke has run its course.
UK POO ARTIST On Reels, you can watch no-budget videos of 2026 Ali G singing “Me Julie” as a team of supermarket security guards attempts to detain its 35th shoplifter of the day in the background. He’s one of the less charming artists to be mentioned in “scene reports” about UK Poo—Britain’s Newest (and Worst?) Music Genre. Nevertheless, he’s invited to guest on a Drake track (you might say that Ali G is redundant in a world where many consider Aubrey to be one of the greatest rappers of all time, but I won’t, as I’ve still got his glazers sliding into my DMs to hate on theICEMAN write-up).
AN X POST This version of 2026 Ali G pays for a premium account on X, where he keeps writing 500-word posts (with the help of AI) about phenotypes and haplotypes. The algorithm relentlessly serves you his pseud-y micro-essays about skull shapes and how the archers of Agincourt are having their proud bloodline polluted with Jamaican super-strength skunk. No one is reading all of that, but all the worst people online are retweeting it anyway.
MEMECOIN FREAK A cartoonish, larger-than-life character that people aren’t sure is real or not? That’s right, Ali is a memecoin freak. He’s selling $PUNANI and, though it’s unclear if he’s making anywhere near as much money as some people are claiming, the creator fees aren’t far off the global box-office takings for the opening weekend of Ali G: Who Iz I?
OTHER NEWS
It’s been a while since I’ve seen any of my friends get married, so I’m glad I found this site where you can buy your way into a stranger’s wedding. The naive Tennessee couple selling tickets for $25 are about to find out why my invites keep getting lost in the post.
And to the Brazilian bricklayer who reportedly sold all his belongings and traveled 1,200 miles to meet his dream girl, only to discover she was AI, I say “don’t give up now,” drop another couple of grand (maybe sell a kidney); if it’s really love you can find a way to make it work. I want to be at your wedding, even if I have to buy my own ticket.
A new poll has revealed that 43 percent of Brits are happy calling snacks “picky bits,” despite this term being described as “the most revolting phrase in the English language” by the grimfaced dictionary fondlers at the Daily Telegraph—or should I say, the Telly D?
PREDICTION FOR THE WEEK AHEAD
After describing the French riots as a “wake-up call to the entire world,” rapper Soulja Boy announces plans for a one-world government, with UBI paid in new cryptocurrency —SouljaCoin. That’s right, you tell ‘em Draco.
An AI version of the You Can See Everything trailer is shared on Donald Trump’s Twitter with the president sitting across the table from Ali G who asks, “Why would iz deceive you?” before the camera pans out to show him rocking a tiny baby Kamala Harris.
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