Did we really put up with GTA when it sucked like this?

Until San Andreas, in GTA world 'wet' always meant 'dead'. This wasn't necessarily a huge problem with GTA III, since you probably deserved a drowning if you managed to dunk your vehicle in the nearby sea. Though that's not to say it wasn't terribly annoying when it happened.

But you were never more than five seconds away from a humiliating drowning on the streets of Vice City's Miami-esque island cities, resulting in an endless number of infuriating deaths. How on Earth did we not get more angry about this oversight?

Ben Richardson is a former Staff Writer for Official PlayStation 2 magazine and a former Content Editor of GamesRadar+. In the years since Ben left GR, he has worked as a columnist, communications officer, charity coach, and podcast host – but we still look back to his news stories from time to time, they are a window into a different era of video games. 

Latest in Grand Theft Auto
GTA 6 trailer screenshots showing lucia in an interview room
"GTA 6 is basically a huge meteor, and we will just stay clear of the blast zone": Publishers are in a frenzy over when to release their games to avoid Rockstar
GTA 6 trailer screenshots
Weeks after modding GTA 6's map to GTA 5, modder pre-emptively pulls all their work offline after a single YouTube strike from Rockstar's owner
GTA 3
If these flying cars are anything to go by, development on the GTA 3 Dreamcast port is well on its way to becoming GTA Online
A screenshot of protagonist Lucia from GTA 6
GTA 6 is "definitely gonna be a big economic boost for the games industry" that'll help "bring a lot more people back into the ecosystem," says Day of the Devs' lead curator
GTA 6
Sick of waiting for GTA 6, one modder has put its map into GTA 5, and you can try it out right now
How to enter GTA 5 cheats
Despite its history of taking action against GTA mods, a Rockstar-approved GTA 5 modding tool is on the way to "assist the modding community" in the wake of the recent PC upgrade
Latest in Features
Patrick Stewart as Professor X in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
The classic Fox X-Men are returning in Avengers: Doomsday, and I've got a really bad feeling about this
Thor and Loki in Thor: Ragnarok
After 15 years in the making, Thor and Loki's reunion in Avengers: Doomsday could be the perfect MCU conclusion for the characters
Soft Rains logo with frog drawing
"There is an expectation we're gonna make a little Skyrim": Ubisoft and Bethesda veterans form new studio headed by Skyrim and Fallout designer, debuting with first-person sci-fi and "crunchy mechanics"
Witchbrook screenshot of a library in the magical college with witches flying on brooms
Witchbrook: Everything we know so far about Chucklefish's magical new life sim
The village green in Atomfall
My first 3 hours in Atomfall feel playing Fallout 3 for the first time, and if you don't check it out I'm legally obliged to bash you with a cricket bat
The Demon's Hand
League of Legends' take on Balatro is one of its best mini-games yet – and it's also exactly what's wrong with this era of League of Legends