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Clonehunter

Your True Opinon On... (#4): Grand Theft Auto

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You thought these were done? Ha! Not on your life.

For no paticular reason at all over the course of the next few months or so, or perhaps moreso whenever I feel like it, I will be conducting a series of five or so threads asking for your true gamer opinons on several popular or unpopular game franchises.

Yep. For no reason whatsoever. Just to do it. Because I'm curious. I believe most of us/you here are well rounded gamers correct? Correct me if wrong if you all you have ever played is Doom or whatever.

Anyways, today's *shifts eyes* topic is: Grand Theft Auto

* * * *

Originally a top down shooter/driver (Kinda like Postal I think), your main objectives were pretty much steal cras and take them places while avoiding cops and gangs. As the series progressed, the stories usually shifted to Samuel L. Jackson or some other cop to wrongly accuse you of something, giving you the right to go rampant on the city's populace in a quest to have a gang take over the streets. Thus, you would now be doing a lot more than just Driving cars. Now you had to kill poeple, mug them, shoot old grandma's in the back, and rape one of hundreds of hookers walking the streets at any time of the day. Heh, no wonder the public wasn't too fond of the Playstation 2 release... BUt, according to Gamepro magazine, the game did indeed help the Playstation become the leading number one game system for a while, beating out competitors like Dreamcast (Well, that seemed to be Sega's fault if anything.) and Nintendo. Later it would fight with xBox.

The GTA Franchise saw a number of titles mostly for the PLaystation 2 over the enxt few years like Vice City and GTA3. More recently though we've had GTA4 with that bull-shit-vic guy for our lovely Next-Gen systems and Chinatown Wars for portables. Full of violence, language, and other stuff, Grand Theft Auto I'm pretty sure has found some place in the video game history books (That I hope will someday be written and injected like morphine into the School System).

* * * *

I myself have played very few of the GTA games, in fact, I've only played two. Vice City and whatever that one that Liberty City in it. WHile I found it fun to mess with cheats and go ballistic on people and laugh whenever cops and ambulances killed even more people, I could never help recieving a wave of boredom playing the games. Their fun wears thin after a while. I personally blame th shooting convetions, which are horrible in both games. I couldn't find a way to aim manually, and locking on was a bitch because then the target would run and you'd have to lock on again. ANd even when they stood still, I went through a whole pistol clip without hitting the target who was standing straight up to a wall. FUCKING STANDING STILL AGAINST A GOD DAMN WALL! Usually I resorted to knifing, clubbing, and chainsawing and flamethrowing. Or I just said The Hell WIth it and spawned a Helicopter and flew off into the sky with it...

Grand Theft Auto Vice City - 6/10
Grand Theft Auto 3 (?) - 6/10

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I give anything GTA3 and after 12/10 just for the cars. I love driving the cars into stupid things, flying off buildings, and glitching the AI, causing paramedics to jump into the ocean and die.

And what's this about raping hookers? I don't remember raping them. I remember buying their services.

Truthfully, I never cared much about the rest of the game, but the day my bro figured out how to fly the tank in Vice City we laughed for hours.

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I fell in love with GTA 3 when I first played it and I enjoyed the heck out of VC and SA (dancing quests and 'eat food to regen health' not withstanding). I was highly unimpressed with GTA4 and have enjoyed saints row 2 in it's place. Mainly because unlike the GTA series it doesn't have bullshit missions. Quests are simple, mindless, 'shoot everything' diversions between throwing people off of bridges and getting in fights with 20 pimps for the hell of it.

Clonehunter said:

and rape one of hundreds of hookers walking the streets at any time of the day.

What?

I personally blame th shooting convetions, which are horrible in both games. I couldn't find a way to aim manually, and locking on was a bitch because then the target would run and you'd have to lock on again.

LOL playstation. Buy a computer man. Seriously, these game are fucking HORRIBLE on consoles.

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Aliotroph? said:

And what's this about raping hookers? I don't remember raping them. I remember buying their services.


Apparently, in the PLaystation 2 GTA3 or whatever, you could grab some hooker, or any girl I guess, drag them in an alleyway, the screen would dark, implying rape.

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Clonehunter said:

Apparently, in the PLaystation 2 GTA3 or whatever, you could grab some hooker, or any girl I guess, drag them in an alleyway, the screen would dark, implying rape.

You've never actually played gta 3 have you?

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GTA and London were great games. I haven't played GTA2.

Correct me if I'm wrong but, aren't the first two games freeware, now?

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Clonehunter said:

I will be conducting a series of five or so threads asking for your true gamer opinons on several popular or unpopular game franchises.

I'm hoping in due course you'll get around to a franchise I've played - apart from Doom.

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GTA3 a 6/10? Hell no. My next door neighbor and I wasted an entire fucking summer plundering that game for all it was worth. I never really played any of the other PS2 GTAs (though I did play GTA4), but GTA3 was the shit back then.

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GTA3 really is more of a prototype to the genre. It does most of what a sandbox game would normally do, but not very well. As time's gone on, I think there are three major champions to the sandbox genre since GTA3. Assassin's Creed 2 gives you tons of stuff to do, like collect feathers, locate the pieces of your ancestor's treasure, take assassination contracts, climb really tall buildings and jump off of them. Crackdown basically just gives you a GTA-like city with tons of shit to kill and a level-up system that culminates in being able to literally climb buildings in one jump. Just Cause 2 gives you a grappling hook that lets you do all kinds of crazy stunts, like flying past an enemy base on top of an ultra-light aircraft and launching rockets at it.

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I liked GTA1, GTA3 and 4. I also enjoyed Saints Row 2. Looking forward to number 3.

Im still waiting for a GTA style game that can do traffic correctly (number of cars, rush hour traffic, etc). I remember it being publicized for GTA3 but it never came to be.

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IMO San Andreas was the best. I mean think about it, GTA4 is cool and all but it lacks soo much when you compare the two.

I don't care graphic wise either. GTA SA had sooo much you could do. I remember being able to link 8 tow trucks together and driving them off the tallest mountain. It also had a fucking jetpack! They need to make a SA reboot without removing anything the original contained.

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I wasted hours upon hours playing Vice City, but it was San Andreas that really blew my mind. HOLY SHIT! Definitely in my top 10 games ever made list.

There's just so much you can do! The story is interesting, it has memorable characters (for a game) and the missions are really really good. The only thing I would fault would be San Fierro, but Los Santos and Las Venturas are just so good it doesn't matter.

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FOR FUCK'S SAKE, YOU DON'T NEED TO LABEL THREADS SPECIFICALLY FOR DISCUSSION.
Just be like, "GTA thread". People will come in and talk about it if they give a fuck.

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Years ago, I tried out the original GTA and never really got into it, but I had a blast with the GTA London mission packs. I also loved GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas, with San Andreas being my favorite overall.

I first played those three when they were released in a compilation pack for the original Xbox. They held my attention long enough that I maxed out the completion percentage for each of them, so I guess that says something. The console controls for GTA 3 and Vice City were a bit on the irritating side, but San Andreas let you use free aim instead of the crappy lock-on system, so I was happy about that.

Hoping for better controls, I picked up the PC ports of GTA3/VC, too, only to find that it's not much of an improvement. You can aim with the mouse, but your shots aren't properly centred on the reticule, so if you aim at a cop's head from across the street, your 9mm rounds are going to be hitting him somewhere between the sternum and the groin. Aside from that, driving with the keyboard and mouse is jerky as hell, but I've gotten used to it.

Though I tried, I couldn't get into GTA 4, though. Rockstar just stripped away too much of what I appreciated from the previous games, and forcing me into the role of one of the least interesting protagonists imaginable didn't help either.

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Very fun games, I think I played the playstation 2 versions (do pc players typically use a 'rumble pack'?)
I love the effect when you drive a car off a cliff because of how real and scary it feels, and just generally causing mayhem.

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I remember when GTA3 first came out and a coworker was describing it. The more he said, the cooler it sounded, as I imagined it as the best game ever. I knew it couldn't be that good, but I had to get a copy and find out. So, I loaded it up one night and...OMG, they took the game straight out of my freaking head! It was almost EXACTLY like I imagined it! I ran/drove through the game for several hours feeling absolutely giddy. I'll admit I'd been out of the gaming loop for at least five years then, but...WOW! What a welcome back!

When VC came out I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. Everything I loved about 3, only bigger and better. To top it all off, the music ROCKED! I've yet to play SA or 4, but if they're anything like the last two, I'll enjoy them.

Too much work in the day distracting me from worthwhile pursuits, like video games...:-(

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Vice City was one of my favorites back in the day. Great music (though I doubt I'd enjoy the hair metal nowadays), pissing around in cars, getting into massive shootouts, pseudo-kamikaze attacks on cars with the motorcycles (jumping off of them just before impact), Vice City Public Radio with Maurice Chavez (I don't think Rockstar ever managed to make another good talk-show station like this)... shit graphics even by PS2 standards and horrible shooting/aiming mechanics aside, it was a hell of a lot of fun. Shame I never finished it. I probably could if I could coax my brother to let me borrow it and get my sister to let me borrow the PS2 that she's borrowing from the brother that owns the game... yeah.

GTA IV wasn't that bad either, and I do regret getting rid of it. Music sucked, but the graphics were half-decent and the gameplay was fun(and aiming was MUCH improved, while still being crap), and the whole... what is it called? That physics sort of thing that GTA IV and LA Noire used? Anyways, that thing was fun to mess with.

GTA III... I honestly didn't like that one that much. It was alright, but I couldn't get into it like I could VC.

GTA II... the only one I've owned and finished, and... BORING. Radio sucked and the songs just sounded... off, the lack of audio outside of cars, awful shooting and driving controls, very disappointingly empty ending.

Never played the others.

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GTA 2 was by far the best. Tons of missions, gang wars, granted the shooting wasn't that great but driving was fast, easy and fun, the two extra wanted levels were the best addition to the series, especially with how horribly reckless the police is, and also features some of the most intense multiplayer I've ever seen.

GTA 3 is a close second. Awesome game when that came out. The following games were kinda knockoffs of the same thing with few additional features. I don't think vice city or san andreas were bad but I felt more at home with GTA 3

GTA 4 was garbage. The only reason I played that game was for the multiplayer, and that was only because all my high school friends had the same game. The game is slow and brown and I can't seem to get the police to have any interest in stopping me.

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40oz said:

GTA 4 was garbage. The only reason I played that game was for the multiplayer, and that was only because all my high school friends had the same game. The game is slow and brown and I can't seem to get the police to have any interest in stopping me.


I hated GTA 4 from the very minute I tried it. Movement feels clunky, slow, and unnatural, customization pales in comparison to San Andreas, the cops are too easy to evade (Oh hey that guy who just shot a lady in the face 5 times has been 15 feet away for us for about 30 seconds, guess we just better give up on chasing him!) and compared to the previous games, the missions just start off way too slow. Oh and let's not forget, "NIIIIIIIIIIIKO MY COOUUUUSIN DO YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING NOW? NIIIIIIIIIIIKO MY COOUUUUSIN DO YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING NOW? NIIIIIIIIIIIKO MY COOUUUUSIN DO YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING NOW? NIIIIIIIIIIIKO MY COOUUUUSIN DO YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING NOW? NIIIIIIIIIIIKO MY COOUUUUSIN DO YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING NOW? NIIIIIIIIIIIKO MY COOUUUUSIN DO YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING NOW? NIIIIIIIIIIIKO MY COOUUUUSIN DO YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING NOW? NIIIIIIIIIIIKO MY COOUUUUSIN DO YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING NOW?"

If anything, Saints Row 2 seemed like more of a spiritual successor to the GTA games, and on top of that, the missions all seem about having fun, and they actually remind you of that in a few cutscenes.

There was one mission that starts off with a cutscene where your character and his friend Johnny are meeting with this one douchebag in the game (forget his name, but he was the black guy who loves classical music), who has laid out an elaborate model along with a complex plan. What does your character do? He says fuck it, and lays down a new plan: Walk in through the front door and mow down every mother fucker in the building, and that's exactly what he does. It's also how I and I'm pretty sure just about everyone else would have prefered to do it too.

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I've played GTA1 countless times back in the day, a friend would come over and we'd play the missions in turn. I could probably still tell you which phone gave you which mission, something you really needed to know to save those multipliers since some missions were really fucking hard. Even played some multiplayer, deathmatch was a blast.

Haven't touched GTA2 and London.

GTA3 basically invented the sandbox genre, and for that I give it respect, but once VC came out I never touched 3 again. The bikes, the helicopters, the Scarface-like setting, it just beats the shit out of playing a nameless, mute thug. Then SA took it to a new level just by upping the content size to ridiculous levels. SA is my fav when it comes to gameplay (jetpacks, fighter jets, all the random stuff you could do), VC has the music and the setting. I love them both, but I probably won't touch SA again now that I've done a 100% run. It's just so huge.

GTA4 was meh. Didn't like the 'gritty realism' that was new to the series, the car physics are weird and suddenly the races became really easy, all the 'activities' and 'friends' feel completely out of place and act as nothing more than distractions (fortunately you can skip those without angering your friends by calling back and telling them you can't make it). Not worth playing.

Because of how hard GTA4 sucked, I started looking for something else, and found Saints Row 2. Not much to say here, my interest in the GTA series is gone, waiting for SR3.

GTA1 - 8/10
GTA3 - 7/10
VC, SA - 9/10
GTA4 - 5/10

SR2 - 10/10 :P

(btw make sure you play SR2 as a chick, makes all the cutscenes 10 times more hilarious)

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Belial said:

(btw make sure you play SR2 as a chick, makes all the cutscenes 10 times more hilarious)


I played SR2 as a black clown trap with an Australian accent who was completely naked save for an open trench coat. To this day I can't think of any other game where I was actually able to say that.

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The only one I've ever really gotten into was GTA3, and I've played every title thereafter. For the most part, I played 3 around the time of its release and never managed to enjoy as much as the first go round. At least I finished legitimately, though.

It's a series that I see the fun in, but really doesn't interest me. At least the music's always solid, making it tolerable to be around others playing it.

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Unlike most of the responses so far, I actually found GTA4 to be my favorite. The first one and its expansion were confusing when I first bought them, but fun. But because I didn't know what to do (I didn't have any manuals) I don't think I was ever able to really enjoy them as much as I could have. I remember playing GTA3 and Vice City, and while they were enjoyable, I just didn't get sucked into them. GTA4 is really the only one that has done that for me so far, and the only GTA game I keep replaying.

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I've only played the first two. They were mildly amusing at first, but got old pretty quick. That's all.

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Belial said:

GTA1 - 8/10
GTA3 - 7/10
VC, SA - 9/10
GTA4 - 5/10


I agree with these ratings.
Never finished GTA4. I guess it wasn't a horrible game, but it sure was a bland snoozefest.

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I used to play GTA1 with a mate years ago on the Playstation, i haven't played it for some time now, but i definitely remember the controls being a little, well, odd? I had to hold down the square or circle button to walk forward and what have you. Also, wasn't there a button that made the player burp and fart? I mean they could've utilized an action or something to it, other than expelling gas. I mean sure it was funny, but really?

GTA3 has, and will always be my favourite GTA game. The setting and grime like urban/city theme and atmosphere really set the perfect tone for me. I liked the simplicity of it as well, none of those bullshit missions like the later titles have, i liked the fact i didn't have to eat, date, exercise, change clothes, and fucking dance (yeah, i'm looking at you San Andreas). In my opinion the formula was right with GTA3, then they just played with gimmicky shit with the following titles.

Although i own the later titles, i never think to return to them. Heck, i can't even run GTA4 properly on my PC due to the fact it's so poorly optimised. My specs are well over it's recommended settings as well, so well done Rockstar.

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Awesome games, totally enjoyed all of them, although never finished GTA2. They have almsot everything men like - cars, guns, exploration, showing people and institutions who's the boss. Good music, ironic undertones.

Each of them has its own flaws and merits. My favorite game of the series is Vice City, not least because of the rewarding bonuses from the hidden items (that, unlike later games, did not require you to find 100%). I could imagine these games work even better on consoles, especially with all the stunts and races, though visually PC rules.

Funny anecdote: In GTA1 the game would only be saved after completing a level (city) and the further you proceeded, the more money you needed to finish it. The last level took me eight hours or so - at least a very long time - and when I got to the guy I was supposed to meet to end the game, I wondered if it was possible to kill him since he was a key character basically. Well, unfortunately it was and the game told me to fuck off and wouldn't let me exit the level. So I never got to see to end cutscene...

I gave GTA1 another try recently after getting the Rockstar Collection and played through the first level. But damn, the age really showed.

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I've been on board since day one.

GTA1 - 10/10. Nailed a game show vibe.
GTA London - 9/10. I loved it back in the day because it was more GTA
GTA2 - 4/10. Took the gameplay mechanics of the first and removed every ounce of soul from it.
GTA3 - 6/10. More of a glitchy tech demo than a proper game.
GTA Vice City - 7/10. Fixed much of what was wrong with GTA3, but still too limited.
GTA Advance - 7/10. Back to top down, decent but not really filled with cool things to do.
GTA San Andreas - 10/10. First game where I made up my own rules inside the ones that were already there.
GTA Liberty City Stories - 6/10. I remember playing it a lot, but other than that I remember absolutely nothing of the game.
GTA Vice City Stories - 5/10. Got bored of it very quickly.
GTA4 - 8/10. Lots of stupid shit to do and cool moments in the game, but quite lacking compared to GTA San Andreas. This includes the DLC.
GTA Chinatown Wars - 10/10. Probably the closest any of the sequels has had the same sense of fun to the first one.

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I have to say I've never been much of a GTA fan. Never found the games particularly compelling for reasons I can't quite put my finger on. While I played the crap out of most of the entries in the series, I spent most of that time pissing around with the cars and bikes instead of progressing through the missions and playing it properly. The only time where I felt compelled to work through the story was to unlock more of the map.

When Vice City was released me and a buddy of mine would get stoned and drunk at night and take turns causing random mayhem in the streets. Good, massively unproductive times.

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