halfgeek.codes

I have a new GTA III habit.

"Messing with the FBI" is about one thing and one thing only: acquiring FBI cars and weapons.

My usual caveat applies: I'm talking about the group of non-player characters whose role in the game is that they're FBI agents. Not real people — just characters in the game Grand Theft Auto III.

The agents arrive on the scene in black, unmarked cars with sirens of a higher pitch than the Liberty City emergency vehicles have. Each car has four agents, in ball caps and navy blue jackets with yellow "FBI" lettering on the back, and each agent carries a standard pistol (like the LCPD officers do) AND an AK-47 machine gun.

The AK glows fuscia when available for collection. They disappear far more quickly than any other dropped weapon I've encountered in the game.

I haven't collected enough packages to receive the AK on the daily as I do many others, so my only access to it is by collecting them from fallen agents. Ironically, the best way I've found to collect them is by using the other FBI item I desire — their cars.

I guess I would like to think there's some special quality to the FBI car, but I've yet to find it (apart from the novelty of stealing and saving one for my personal use, that is). Actually, I've found them to be rather frail, which serves as my preferred vector for aquiring the AK.

Make no mistake — the agents are deadly accurate with the AK. The weapon seems to have a long range and great accuracy in GTA III. They'll chew through your armor and health in seconds.

So my advice is this: don't engage the agents. Engage the CAR instead.

The little game I'm about to describe takes advantage of the FBI agents' relentnessness, their recklessness, and their habit of congregating behind the FBI car when they exit it.

I take advantage of two or three cheat codes to make this work: one to escalate Claude's wanted level (type "MOREPOLICEPLEASE" (without the quotes)); one to minimize the wanted level ("NOPOLICEPLEASE"), and the ones for health ("GESUNDHEIT") and armor ("TORTOISE").

In this scenario, Claude is living in Belleville Park, in the building with the two-car garage, about a block from the construction site where I tease the Colombians (see previous GTA III post). Two blocks away in the opposite direction is a parking garage. Claude can easily get there on foot by walking east out of the alley where he lives, crossing the street, then turning south. A very short distance away, the buildings give way to a yard with trees and a wide walkway. Visible across the yard to the east, on the opposite side of the street, is the parking garage. Cut through the yard and walk straight into the parking garage via the north entrance (the one across from the dumpster).

On the main floor of the parking garage, against the back wall, there's a minivan parked in the corner space, right next to a ramp. If you're at the gate of the parking garage looking in, look straight at the back wall and to the left.

If you look to the right, you'll see two other cars in that last row — one commercial van (a "Rumpo") and another large passenger car down by the south ramp called an "Esperanto." (Some of us may recall the Cadillac El Dorado, to which this car appears remarkably similar.)

Go down to the van, and drive it back to where the minivan is. Park it perpendicular to the minivan so that it blocks the space. Leave enough room between the front of the van and the wall so Claude can get in and out of that corner — looking at it from above, picture making a capital "L" with the two vehicles.

Next, go back and get that Esperanto. Back it into that third space from the end, so that when you're in the car, you're looking straight out to the street through the entrance you walked in.

You've essentially constructed a box to protect Claude. You want to get Claude into that corner made by the back wall and the ramp. The two vans should protect him well enough from the agents' gunfire.

But the "box" is also a deathtrap — when the trap is sprung, you'll have to closely watch Claude's health and armor.

To spring the trap, stand beside the driver side door of the Esperanto and type the cheat code to escalate Claude's wanted level THREE TIMES — one to bring it from zero to two stars, a second time to elevate it to four stars, and a third to elevate it to five stars. The FBI agents are only present starting at this level. Type these codes in as fast as you can to minimize LCPD presence.

Quickly drive the Esperanto straight forward to bust through the gate. Get the nose of the car out onto the sidewalk — enough so it can be spotted by the LCPD helicopter hovering overhead. You'll know when you're far enough because you'll hear the FBI car sirens and two will come speeding in at you. Now try to back the car straight back, ideally to where you started. You might not make it all the way back, because the FBI cars will likely hit you, which is actually a good thing.

The FBI cars will be crashing into things, bouncing off of things, and generally end up in terrible shape. Your Esperanto will likely take quite a lot of damage. Get out of the car and to your safe area as quickly as you can, out of the paths of the AK rounds fired by the emerging agents.

Top off your armor and your health, and arm your shotgun. Position yourself in such a way that you can fire at either the FBI car — which may have its hood off — or another car close to the FBI car. Two shotgun blasts should be enough ignite the car and trigger an explosion. Once you see a car is burning, get back into your corner, and check your health and armor again.

Depending on how close the FBI car is to Claude's "box", it's possible that the explosion could trigger a chain reaction with all of the other vehicles. Refresh your armor after every explosion. The moment you can see the agents are down, run over and collect the munitions. Remember, they disappear really quickly, so you'll have to put on some speed.

With the AK's collected, use the cheat code to shut that wanted level down, and return to the hideout to save the game. I'd guess I score about 150 rounds each time I do this, for each FBI car I engage.

As you probably saw from when the FBI agents fired at Claude, the rifles spend cartridges very quickly. If you develop a taste for this weapon, you may end up running this scenario often.

I would caution against getting too greedy in one go, though — the safe move would be to engage one car, then reset Claude's wanted level and get back to the hideout to save the game. The more agents you engage, the greater the risk Claude will be busted or killed, and you'll have to start again from your last save.

Also note that the FBI agents are armored well enough that they'll get up from a shotgun blast. After a few seconds, they'll get up again. A second blast should neutralize them.

Again, I'm talking about a strategy inside of a video game — not real violence, not real people, not real weapons, and certainly not real law enforcement. Please don't construe anything I've written in this post out of the gameplay context.