Grand Theft Auto III/Vehicle Missions

There are various vehicle missions in this game. They are triggered by getting into the vehicle and pressing. The vehicle missions are separated between islands, which means that all targets will always be on the island you started the mission on.

Completing the vehicle missions grants you some bonuses, and is needed for 100% completion.

Paramedic
Vehicles: Ambulance

The paramedic missions involve using an Ambulance to get patients to the hospital. While this sounds easy at first, it is made incredibly difficult by the strict timing and the instability of the Ambulance vehicle. It flips over very easily which causes you to fail the mission. Therefore, you need to learn how to control the Ambulance properly. It is recommended to use the handbrake when turning, as it seems to decrease the probability of the Ambulance flipping around.

You start off at level 1 with one patient, every level raises the amount of patients you have to take to the hospital, up to level 12. Your patients are indicated on the minimap (as squares) which gives you an opportunity to plan a good route to pick them all up. The Ambulance can only fit three passengers though, so from level 4 on you will need to take multiple rounds to bring all patients to the hospital.

Reward: After 35 successfully transported patients, you get a health icon at your hideout, after 70 patients you also get an adrenaline icon. Completing level 12 of the Ambulance mission allows you to sprint indefinitely without ever tiring.

Vigilante
Vehicles: Police Car, Enforcer, FBI Car, Rhino

In the vigilante missions, you need to hunt down a criminal who is driving through the streets and dispose of him any way you want. The criminal is marked on your minimap as a square, at the beginning you will also get a message indicating in which area the criminal was last, making it easier to find him. Note that you do get stars for doing this, so it is recommended to memorize the locations of the police bribes or you yourself may end up being hunted. You can do this mission with a Police Car, an Enforcer, the FBI Car and even the Rhino Tank.

Especially the tank makes this mission very easy since you can just ram the criminal or use the tank gun to eliminate him. For the other vehicles you may periodically need to ditch your damaged vehicle and find another one (you have a 60 second window to do so before the mission ends). Note that there is a pretty weird bug in the game: Drive up to the criminal, pause the game, wait a few seconds and unpause. The criminal will then get out of his vehicle where you simply run him over to kill him.

Reward: For ten killed criminals you get a Police Bribe at your hideout, for another ten killed criminals you get a second Police Bribe. Kill 20 criminals on each three islands to get a total of six Police Bribes.

Firefighter
Vehicles: Firetruck In the firefighter missions, you need to extinguish a vehicle which is on fire. This is achieved by properly aiming the water nozzle of your fire truck using the right analog stick. (You can also simply maneuver your fire truck if it's easier for you) This mission should be pretty straightforward and easy since the firetruck is very durable, the time is the only real problem.

On the PC version of the game there is an odd bug. Press F1 twice and the fire will be immediately extinguished without you having to do anything. Do this repeatedly on all three islands and you can get the Flamethrower without even moving your firetruck.

Reward: After extinguishing 20 fires on each of the three islands, you get the Flamethrower at your hideout.

Taxi
Vehicles: Taxi, Cabbie, Borgnine, most other vehicles via a glitch

The taxi missions should be pretty obvious: get a passenger and take him to his desired destination.

By using a glitch you can actually do the Taxi mission in any vehicle. Get into the taxi, press and hold, get out of the vehicle, get into your desired vehicle and then release and the taxi mission will start in the vehicle you're now in. This works with all non-emergency vehicles including the bus and even the Dodo (though that one is rather impractical). If you do this glitch with a sports car it will make the Taxi mission much easier.

Reward: After transporting 100 passengers, there will be a special red taxi at Borgnine Taxis in Portland.