Act 1 Missions

Undercover Work

Welcome to the first act of the mod. In the last episode, we've made a very poor choice and impulsively killed a guy, which brought some unwanted attention to us. Time to find a new safe haven – and what better way to hide yourself from the wrath of your enemies than among different enemies?

#07 — Yakuza from the USA

When it rains, it pours, huh? Turns out that the investigator we killed was also Toni's pal instead of a hired professional and now he's getting really suspicious of his associates randomly disappearing like that. Joey decides not to make things any worse and just go into hiding. Luckily, Mickey is quite the go-getter and he announces that he's already got a plan for us. An American associate of the Liberty City Yakuza is flying in from Chicago today; we can use that to our advantage by killing and then impersonating him in order to infiltrate the Yakuza. (You may have noticed this is an objective, not a plan to solve the Toni issue.)

The mission timer starts ticking down as soon as the cutscene ends. The American Yakuza's plane touches down... in 3 minutes. Time to book it to the Francis International Airport. Once we arrive at the terminal, we apparently murder the guy in broad daylight in the middle of a place where you'd expect a lot of security theatre to be going down. Maybe Liberty City's airlines just have different security procedures or something.
Once that's over, the final objective of the mission is to pay the Yakuza a visit since we apparently also know where their leadership resides.

We arrive at the condo where Asuka Kasen offered us missions in the original GTA III, casually striking up a poolside conversation with the Yakuza leader, Wu Long. Try not to question the Chinese-named leader of a Japanese criminal organization too much for the next couple of missions and you should be able to get along with the new waka-gashira just fine.

Reward: A realization that "an American associate of the Yakuza" sounds less impressive or exotic when you're already in America

#08 — One Bullet

We begin our work for the Yakuza, and our very first mission is a casual low-risk gig: assassinating the director of the FBI. The first objective is to pick up a sniper rifle on top of an accessible skyscraper in Torrington. (There's also a bodycast placed against the staircase which we enter the roof through.) From there it's a matter of landing an accurate shot on the indicated NPC and leaving the area.

Believe it or not, this mission's AMO is actually easier to get than to fail. Sure, any wanted star will instantly get escalated to 5 instead of yielding 1 or 2, but evading FBI capture is a matter of walking back down the stairs and driving out of Torrington to the south.

Reward: $1,000 and the Sniper Rifle is now in stock at Ammu-Nation
AMO: "Do not attract any police attention." = an additional $2,000

#09 — Bad Day

Wu Long, being very community-minded, tells us that there are too many drug dealers in Liberty City and it'd be a good idea to get rid of them. Simple as. You are given 4 targets around Staunton and your task is to kill them all, preferably within a time limit.

Reward: $1,500
AMO: "Make it in time for a bigger reward." = 2 minute time limit for an additional $1,500

#10 — Impound Money

Another ordinary goon gig, not that it seemed like we are one with the first mission being an assassination of the FBI director. One of Wu's goons left a stash of money in a car that has been impounded by the police. We need to get into the impound lot and retrieve the money hidden in the car. Note that you don't actually need to keep the car safe, just enter it to grab the money and then get out. Once you grab the cash, you are given a 3 star wanted level because illegally accessing vehicles impounded by the police probably isn't a thing you should be doing in the eyes of the law. Losing the cops is not required, but it will slightly increase your reward.

Reward: $2,500
AMO: "Lose the cops and the reward will be bigger." = an additional $1,500

#11 — The Getaway

Typical bank heists require thorough planning (not that I would know from experience, I've never robbed a bank). The Yakuza, however, doesn't care about this beginner shit and dives in head first, I guess. When Wu Long says "my boys will need a getaway driver", he means "there is a bank heist currently in progress and the plan did not include a getaway driver, so go be one". You'll need to show up in Torrington with a four-seater car to pick up the three bank robbers. Once you do, you are given a 4 star wanted level and you need to get the robbers to their hideout... in their boss man's apartment. Much like in the previous mission, you don't have to lose the cops (but you'll get a higher reward if you do), which implies the usual GTA hijinks of the justice system ignoring you once you go to bed.

Doesn't this mission sound a bit familiar to you?

Reward: $3,500
AMO: "Lose the cops and the reward will be bigger." = an additional $1,500

#12 — Twins

This mission introduces us to Wu Long's equally (read: also likely not at all) Japanese twin brother, Xian Long. He's back in Liberty City after some kind of a long trip and we are to take him home. However, before we do so, he asks us to drive him somewhere else first. That place is the Staunton Island safehouse from the standard GTA III experience, now apparently inhabited by some small gang of thugs. Xian will argue with their leader before treating the thug's belly to a round of buckshot, followed by the rest of the gang coming out of the garage to get back at us. They are lightly armed (mostly crowbars, but one of them has a pistol), but we still need to get Xian out of there, optionally killing all the gang members threatening him. Once we do that, our destination is the Torrington skyscraper where we take missions from Toshiko Kasen in LCS. Before leaving for his apartment, Xian invites us to visit him for more missions.

We never find out what was the deal with that gang.

Reward: $3,000 and Ammu-Nation starts selling Grenades

#13 — Pay Day

I Can't Believe It's Not "Shima"!

(And it isn't because there isn't even a shootout at the end, just collecting four briefcases from all three islands. There isn't even any difficulty element that would justify the AMO here.)

AMO: "Don't attract any cops and the reward will be bigger."
AMO Reward: $4,000

#14 — Family Comes First

Prepare an ambulance before this mission. This entire mission is on a timer and the less time you spend searching for the required vehicle, the better.

We've had a fair bunch of boring and uninspired missions, so time for an actually interesting concept for once! Wu wants to blackmail an FBI agent into dropping his investigation of the Yakuza and their activities, and part of his plan is springing an ambush on him in the Staunton subway. That's not where we come in, though.

Our task is to obtain an ambulance and drive it to the subway entrance to pick up the agent who's been wounded in the shootout. Once we arrive there, the agent will get into our ambulance. What he doesn't know is that instead of going to the hospital we'll be driving him to a meeting spot on the edge of Staunton Island. There, a pair of goons will present the agent's brother to him, letting him know that if he decides to continue his investigation, the Yakuza will go after his family. Once that threat is made... we still need to deliver him to the hospital. Losing this much blood cannot be healthy no matter who you are, and it'll work as a nice "favour for a favour" if the Yakuza actually does end up saving his life.

Reward: $5,000

#15 — Steam Blow

In which we fight back domestic terrorism!

Wu informs us that the oil rail plant in the north of the map (which does not exist in standard III) has been infiltrated by the Colombian Cartel who have planted bombs there! Why? Stop asking questions! It threatens the safety of the whole city, so we must put a stop to this, and we only have five minutes to save the city!

There are two ways to get to the plant. You can go to Phil's army base and walk to the plant on the pipe leading to it, or go down to the pier neighboring Wu's condo and take a speedboat from there. The actual plant only has 6 enemies on it and they're all pretty much immediately visible or audible due to the entire place being a flat square. You only really have to pick up the 3 bombs and... that's it!

Reward: $3,000, Ammu-Nation starts selling the AK47, and we keep living with the knowledge that no one will ever learn of our heroism

#16 — Colombian Bastards

Prepare a Cartel Cruiser before this mission. This entire mission is on a timer and the less time you spend searching for the required vehicle, the better.

Wu had promised something to a friend, but the Cartel stole it and is now guarding it in their compound — and to make things worse, the cops caught wind of the situation too. It's a revisit of III's "Liberator" down to using the exact same area of the map, albeit with a 4m30s time limit and your objective is a car, not an NPC.

The time limit makes this mission one of the harder ones, especially if you hadn't prepared a car that would let you enter the compound beforehand. Once you get past the gate, you will have to pick off Cartel members one by one and enter the Securicar stored on the lot. Immediately after you enter the car, you will be given a 2 star wanted level since the cops have been watching, apparently. Hopefully you still have some time left over because the final objective is to deliver the car to the Bullion Run garage in Shoreside Vale. Depending on the amount of time remaining at this point, this might be fairly easy or not even possible.

One more thing: this mission is one of two which, when both are completed, will set the Cartel to be hostile on sight towards the player, with the other mission being #24.

Reward: $10,000

#17 — The Bomb

Good news: We're the right person for Wu's new job. Bad news: The life of a friend of his is in danger. Worse news: He's tied up in a car that's rigged to blow, and his phone died so we can't reach him for more information. Even worse news: The only clue we have is "somewhere in Portland". The worst part: We have 10 minutes to scout all of Portland to find the guy before he's turned into chunky salsa.

Yep. 10 minutes to find one specific unmarked car on the other island. A truly baffling design choice if you ask me. To save you the trouble: it's a Kuruma parked in the back alley opposite Sex Club 7, making this mission a reverse "Last Requests" from III.

Once we find the guy, our mere presence unties him and defuses the bomb, after which he asks us to drive him home. Somehow we infer the right address from these words alone and the destination turns out to be the cathedral on Staunton Island. Before the mission truly ends, we get a cutscene where Joey asks the man if he's a priest and the man simply says "Yes".

This never comes up again.

Reward: $8,000

#18 — Kidnapped

For Wu's final mission, tragedy befalls his personal life: his girlfriend has been [mission title]. Our job is to save her from the clutches of her kidnappers. Somehow we know she's being held hostage in the subway station in Shoreside Vale.

The station is swarming with Cartel goons, starting from the stairway at the entrance. Watch out for the end of the long stairs: one goon has line-of-sight for you before he appears on your view due to the roof of the stairway, so tread carefully and try to get the jump on him before he gets the jump on you. All the enemies in the subway are carrying AKs, so they're all capable of shredding your HP within seconds. The girlfriend (who uses Asuka's model) is standing in front of the tracks and will not move until you get close enough to her that she starts following you. Once you clear the place out, it's pretty much smooth sailing back to Wu's condo.

With us saving Wu's girlfriend (who is also Chinese, or at least using a Chinese name) we earn his eternal gratitude and also exhaust his mission thread. Time for us to visit his brother and see what hijinks he wants us to get involved with.

Reward: $10,000 and the ability to recruit two Yakuza bodyguards from opposite Asuka's condo

#19 — It's All About the Message

Prepare some anti-vehicle weaponry before this mission.

Xian may have been away for a while, but apparently he's still familiar with what goes on in Liberty City. The biggest issue currently at hand are gun smugglers from Russia who are selling their guns at insanely low prices to the Cartel. Certainly explains their rampant use of the AK47, I suppose. Anyway, the Russians have a warehouse in Shoreside Vale — it's the death trap site from III's "Bait" — and Xian wants us to destroy all their trucks. Hope you brought something capable of destroying vehicles, otherwise this might get very annoying very fast.

Reward: $5,000 and Ammu-Nation starts selling Molotovs

#20 — Contact

Not sure why this mission even exists. Xian asks us to speak to an informant to get some intel. He's waiting at the el-train station in Portland, where we help Maria meet up with Chico during "Chaperone" in III. We go there and get a short dialogue and that's it.

Reward: $1,000

#21 — Stealing the Guns

The intel we got during that previous mission is that the Colombians have plenty of explosives at their disposal and that they plan to move their guns to a new hideout in Staunton. The second thing is what's actually happening right now, and our job is to intercept that transport.

The Colombian convoy consists of one white Barracks OL, two Flatbeds and two Patriots, in a P-F-B-F-P formation. For whatever reason my game crashes consistently when I destroy the Flatbed in front of the Barracks before anything else, so be on the lookout for that. The Barracks will not stop when its path is blocked, so your best bet is to kill the scouts driving the Patriots, then putting a few AK bullets into the Flatbeds and the Barracks to force their crews out. Once the coast is clear, steal the Barracks OL and drive it to the garage from III's "Bullion Run" in Shoreside Vale again. The dev sure seems to like that one, huh?

Reward: $8,000
AMO: "Kill all the Colombians for a bigger reward" = an additional $2,000

#22 — Sea Rat

Having their trucks destroyed three missions ago did not, in fact, end up sending a message to the Russians, and they're still selling to the Colombians. Honestly can't blame them, our message was less "instructions" and more of a "fuck you". Anyway, Xian wants the dealer to burn... and if we oblige that wish literally, he'll even pay us more, that sick fuck.

Mechanically speaking, this mission is laughably easy. Theoretically the dealer is covered by four Cartel members with AKs, but you can just snipe him from a distance using any rifle and entirely skip any combat this way. If you're desperate for that AMO for some reason, you'll find that you'll die before you get close enough to use a flamethrower, and the only feasible way to get it is to find a spot that's close enough for a molotov to catch the dealer. The moment any fighting starts, he will run to his yacht and start running away, with the mission not giving you a boat to give chase in. And for a funny bit of trivia, if you somehow manage to destroy his yacht before he reaches it, he will instead start running north, straight into the water, yielding the regular reward.

Reward: $2,000 and Ammu-Nation starts selling the Flamethrower
AMO: "Torch the dealer for a bigger reward" = an additional $3,000

#23 — In the Destruction

Apparently this mod's world also had a Twin Towers incident happen. Suuure. This mission takes us to the destroyed skyscrapers next to the Portland-Staunton Bridge, which are being used by the Colombian Cartel as a hideout and dealing grounds. Or something.

Our task is to retrieve a briefcase held by Cartel members on the higher levels of the aforementioned skyscraper. You'll have to manually climb about 30 flights of stairs to get to the part with the enemies. As usual, cornerpop everyone... or use an RPG to kill them from the floor directly beneath them with splash damage.

If you decide to jump to the ground to skip the stairs, you'll have severely misjudged the amount of damage you'd take from the fall. Just saying.

Reward: $10,000

#24 — History Tends to Repeat

Hope you're a fan of III's "Blow Fish" ...and of the concept of recycling. The briefcase we've retrieved held information about a Cartel hideout — and it's the Triad fish factory that got rebuilt after the events of GTA III.

I'll be honest, I don't know what I can say about this mission that isn't just a retread of describing "Blow Fish". Instead of a garbage truck it's a bomb package hidden in the subway tunnel, and instead of one big payload it's 3 small markers that add up to one big explosion anyway. And the lot with the factory on it is filled with Colombians with AKs despite the gate still opening up for Triad fish vans.

One thing worth mentioning: this mission is one of two which, when both are completed, will set the Cartel to be hostile on sight towards the player, with the other mission being #16.

Reward: $10,000

#25 — Row to Death

We're not going to believe this (according to Xian): the Colombian Cartel has taken over the Callahan Bridge. The last thing we want these guys to do is obstruct movement, so Xian instructs us to go there and kill all of these chumps squatting on public property. If you've brought a sniper rifle, this mission becomes trivial, though even without one it's a fairly easy gig. Even though the Cartel's using scary guns, all 8 of them are stationary and exposed, with only their Cruisers to serve as (temporary) cover.

Once you've killed all of the Cartel goons, the game will display your usual MISSION PASSED pop-up... along with a subtitle of Joey's internal monologue going "Something's not right...". Indeed, once you move away far enough in either direction, the Portland-Staunton bridge will be destroyed by a bomb, forcing any and all future travel between the two islands to use the underwater tunnel in the north. For your patience's sake I really hope you've either already taken care of everything that had to be done or you don't mind this change somehow. The bridge gets fixed after you complete the final story mission, so there's that at least.

Reward: $5,000 and a massive inconvenience for the rest of the playthrough

#26 — Everything Changes

Big day for the Yakuza! A meeting dedicated to discussing a potential alliance has been scheduled with the leadership of the Leone Crime Family!

Oh fuck.

This is pretty much the one thing we did not want to happen, as meeting Toni while rolling around with the Yakuza is guaranteed to end badly. Xian, not being aware of us being Joey Leone, asks us to pick up Wu and accompany the twins to the meeting. Indeed, once we get to the parking lot underneath the Callahan Bridge, we are immediately noticed by Toni, who arrives in a Mafia Sentinel with a generic goon and his new right hand man whom we'll get to meet again in the future. As he gets out, he reveals to the twins that we're not actually a Yakuza member and frames us as the traitor of the Mafia despite him having set us up in the beginning. Toni ditches the alliance offer and calls off the meeting, leaving us to drive the displeased brothers back to Wu's condo.

Immediately after this cutscene the Mafia will become hostile towards Joey, opening fire on sight. This is not a permanent change, but it may last for a fair chunk of your playthrough, depending on your order of doing missions.

Once we arrive at Wu's condo, the twins inform us that our entire co-operation is a disgrace to them, as they've let themselves get fooled by an outsider. However, in recognition of the fact that we did end up genuinely helping their efforts in the fight against the Cartel and the cops, they choose to simply let us go instead of killing us. So yeah, our silver lining in this entire situation is that we haven't been killed. And after the mission we receive a pager message that the garage we've established needs us to intervene too. Great.

Mechanically speaking, this mission was just a drive back and forth, but in terms of the plot it's a major moment, if you could call it that. Apologies if you think I've oversold it in my description.

Outcome:
— Cash reward of $5,000;
— Mafia changes from neutral to openly hostile;
— Option to call in Yakuza backup is taken away;

#27 — In the Shadow of the Don

As it turns out, the problem our replacement has messaged us about is... Mickey having been kidnapped by Toni and being tortured in the bistro in Saint Mark's. That's certainly less than optimal, and it means that this entire mission is on a timer that's constantly ticking down with each spilled drop of Mickey's blood. Do not dawdle — the time limit in this mission is surprisingly tight, and it doesn't help that it's presented as a bar and not a timer.

Though you may be tempted to try the front entrance, you'll quickly learn (or be reminded) just how dangerous Saint Mark's is when the Mafia is hostile towards you. You're bound to catch stray bullets just from driving past Mafia members, and the front is guarded by goons with shotguns, which are likely to instakill your car if it was already damaged on entry. However, this mod's map integrates the rendition of Saint Mark's Bistro from San Andreas, including an entrance through the back alley. You can access it from an inside road where you can normally find an Uzi in standard III. As you fight your way through the bistro to its bathroom, remember that you're disadvantaged when cornerpeeking with your left shoulder. Make sure you have enough of a health+armor cushion to absorb blasts from the shotgun-wielding goons.

Once you get Mickey, get him to follow you out of the bistro through the corridors (preferably making sure he doesn't get stuck on corners and walls too much) and grab a car out of there. Joey will suggest a hospital, but Mickey will dismiss it as too dangerous and will offer a different place instead... a place in Shoreside Vale. Head to the northern tunnel and make your way to the building that's normally the Shoreside Vale safehouse in regular III.

The cutscene at the end of the mission gives us the name of that guy we'd seen during the meeting, Toni's right hand man: Leo Muscaletti. Allegedly he's a force to be reckoned with, though we won't actually see too much of him. Completely out of allies and out of options, Mickey suggests that we build a criminal empire of our own to rival the one that Toni stole from us. This is the only clue that the mod gives you regarding its city takeover mechanic and how it's actually necessary to continue the story.

Reward: $2,000

Regardless of the circumstances of how exactly you got here — or rather, how much you've done by this point — the Mafia civil war plot will be put on hold until you actually establish an empire of your own. Doing that is the goal of Act 2 of the mod. To be clear, it's not an official classification, but I think the plot makes more sense when organized in this way.

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