Gaming

I played GTA from GTA 1 to GTA 4. I have always been more interested by the story and the atmosphere rather than the free roaming.

What I can say about them:

• 1 and 2 : a shock. Being so mean and bad was cathartic for me, it was really mind blowing as I am a "too nice" guy
• GTA 3 : a revolution. Discovering the game on the PS2 of a friend, I was drooling over the beautiful 3D models, the music, everything. I had to wait a bunch of time to get it on PC though.
• Vice City : wonderful atmosphere, the colours, the music. The story over the top. My favourite.
• San Andreas: not bad. The missions were interesting, but I felt no connection with the "boys in the hood" atmosphere. At the time, I listened very few hip hop so the whole gangsta rap hype was not interesting to me.
• GTA 4: I liked the settings, "russian immigrants". The campaign was cool. However all the rest felt a chore... The mandatory mini games with the gangster calling you every 10 minutes and being angry if I don't go bowling with him was ridiculous.

Then I gave up GTA all together. To be frank, I was a bit fed up with the American settings. Always the same street, atmosphere, culture.... On the other hand, other games like Sleeping Dogs were a breath of fresh air. You really feel in another environment, and something as simple as driving left on the road is a great change.

I came very late to this series. I only played GTA V last year and I have yet to start another one. While I felt it was an impressive experience and had some great moments, I was also quite baffled at some of the design choices: the game often felt quite clunky and seemed to ignore logical steps in game design that other developers have made (constantly tapping a button to sprint, some of the ways the menus behave).

This is going to sound a bit silly, but I also genuinely had issues constantly doing these reprehensible things in missions. The game is very cynical and constantly makes you do selfish acts for the protagonists. While it is at times extremely funny and is on par with some of the best crime comedies out there, doing this stuff for hours on end was really exhausting for me. I play games to relax and started to feel that this game wasn't giving me that. Compare this to Red Dead Redemption, a game I absolutely adored, where the protagonist is also morally questionable but at least tries to do the right thing within their frame of reference. I have no problem with morally gray protagonists, but something about the dial being turned up to 11 in GTA V really hit me the wrong way.

Right now I am playing Sleeping Dogs on my Steam Deck. It is clearly a GTA clone, but has an interesting twist in setting: Hong Kong is a really cool environment and the combat focusing more on melee and martial arts is also a fun change of pace. The story is quite simple and again you have to look past some ethical implications, but at least the game has some genuine characters and the events and relationships within the organized crime world are exciting to watch. In almost all respects it is clearly a lesser GTA, but I am having fun with it for the time being.

I don't know how, I don't know why... But no other game, even those inspired by and basically copying GTA, feels as good to move around in. Whether you're on foot or in a vehicle, the GTA series just has this nice feel to it that I have only seen come close to being replicated with the very first Saint's Row. And even it wasn't as tight.

You can copy everything else, it seems, from the giant detailed cities, to the format of missions and the gunplay; but the driving always feels garbo compared to GTA.

I didn’t think that gimmicky game where you run over lines of people (monks? cadets?) would become that popular. Never figured what they were exactly but it was fun. Quest system was a dealbreaker for me. I didn’t know English that well and timed missions suck.

• I skipped 2 based on experience with the first. I think I missed more colourful lighting but not much more than that.
• Couldn’t ignore 3 which was technically impressive but was kind of boring otherwise. Played it to kill time but Tony Hawk was still better at that.
• 4 ran like shit but the story kept me playing. This thing needs a proper remaster to evaluate.
• 5 was an all around achievement and a landmark in a video game history. It’s probably the closest thing to a modern Blizzard game - not exactly innovative but really polished and treated reasonably well for years.

Never touched a game with predatory monetisation so I never touched multiplayer. Heard it sucks but somehow it’s making a bank.

Having played Grand theft san Andreas, and Grand theft Auto V, the best part for me is driving around and exploring. I've tried doing the missions and such and I dunno, just not my thing.

So, a way I would enjoy the series more is like a free roam mode or something, maybe a crime spree mode too now that I'm thinking about it, where basically you could get away with whatever and not have your star level increase.

I guess just the regular game is a free roam mode, at least in GTA V. San Andreas locked parts of the map behind a "Hurricane preparation" excuse till you did more missions.

1 and 2 are great, even GTA London 61 and 69

12 years since GTA5. If they take as long between 6 and 7 it will be 2037 before it comes out.

I only ever played GTA2 during the 2D era. I remember loving it then though. Maybe I ought to emulate the classics on my Steam Deck.

Of course I was obsessed with 3 when it came out. And Vice City and San Andreas were master pieces. I never played the PSP/DS games (those might also be good Steam Deck games for the future.)

I did beat 4 and its stand alone expansions. They were all pretty great, I even kind of liked the driving when everyone else was hating on it.

I have had GTA5 sitting in my Steam Library for a very long time with effectively 0 hours played. I'll get around to eventually. It looks like I'll enjoy it, though I hear its single player isn't as good as 4's.

Adding swimming into san andreas was a big deal to me.

I've played them all on release since GTA3 and of course I loved 3/vice city, but the addition of stats and being able to get jacked meant I was able to basically live in the game.

I've only played the first installment of the series and I admit it always felt too fast and hectic for me. Somehow, I always viewed it as a heist game and not as car jacking game.

I miss the kill frenzies. GTA4 was an absolute nadir of the series feeling like a job rather than fun - I get that they wanted you to to get drunk with Roman to experience the drunk controls and have to stop at the toll-booth like a commuter, but both things quickly become tedious.

most of my hours are in 2. there was something very compelling about having a toy city with clearly demarcated areas to move around in. complete with shittons of easter eggs for pulling off weird stunts like ramping off of a subway station stairway and onto a roof.

the physics of the top-down GTAs just can't be replicated in 3D, like how the tank just rolls over every vehicle in its path.

also the radion stations are insane.

As a kid I liked GTA2, modded the game to make the taxi super fast and strong lol

I messed around a lot in GTA3 with cheats, causing chaos in the tank

Vice City I actually played for real and beat it, my favorite in the series, but I stopped after that. I probably would've enjoyed San Andreas because it's similar. GTA4 and 5 just seemed like a different tone and style that I was never very interested in. Also they took too long to bring to PC lol.

gta london is so underrated and it deserves an hd remake i said what i said

I never got into a GTA game. But I liked Mafia (1&2) and loved Sleeping Dogs.