When I was 14 or 15 (I was born in December 1986 so you can work it out if you really want) I pretended to be sick on the day GTA 3 came out, it somehow arrived in the post the morning of release at like 7:30am, that never used to happen back then.
I got the parcel from the postman and hid it in my room and then that's when the terrible sickness developed, I had to pretend to go to the toilet every hour but it was worth it
I think I got up to the eightball tanker mission where you are sniping, probably not that far into the game because I spent like literal hours combing every inch of that first island, trying for too long to get past the bridge barrier not knowing it was a progression blocker and I just had to do missions to remove it. I think I maxed out the taxi missions near the start and got that cool special taxi, did it have blood on it maybe?!
Finding the cobra for the first time by breaking the giant glass window of the showroom was awesome
I loved finding the cars on the car list in later games, was that in 3 as well?