Best Grand Theft Auto ever?

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Golfman

Golfman

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Some people are calling the next gen (GTAIV) one the best ever, and a masterpiece etc, and some still have a soft spot for GTA: Vice City. But for me GTA: San Andreas is still the best one ever. It was the biggest, had more to do, had RPG elements (you could increase your health bar and other things depending on what you did), had better missions, was funnier, and better vehicles - especially in the air. The only game to match it (and possibly surpass it) is the recent Just Cause 2.
 
So Just Cause 2 is the greatest GTA ever... Great.
Why is this not in the GTA part of the forum?
 
GTA 1. Top down view and the amount of fun I had playing that game in high school for so long did it for me.
 
San Andreas of course. The best cast members, best soundtrack, and best in creativity.
 
GTA SA Hands Down. Even when you've done the game, there was always something to do and the reasons cited above by Croooooooow.

GTA Vice City is close second too I remember playing it when I was 10 at my friend's because my mother didn't want me to play that game. :lol:

PS. I didn't become a serial killer or anything because I've played GTA when I was a kid. :sly:
 
IV, I've played SA recently and its good yes but I prefer the more realistic approach of IV and find it to have a longer lasting appeal than SA.
 
LIL_KACHING
PS. I didn't become a serial killer or anything because I've played GTA when I was a kid. :sly:
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Me to. I used to play my brother's GTA III when he went to work. Plus, my mom aloud me to, and when I told her, she would tell my older sister that I was, and she had better not mention about this to Teddy my bro.
 
GTA SA. The soundtrack? Huge and varied. The world? Immense. You could swim in the ocean, lakes, find hidden oysters underwater, wear scuba masks. The vehicles? Cropdusters, huge crop-retrieving machines, helicopters, planes, jets, boats, you name it! Great story, funny characters and great missions. Hands down, GTA SA is the best GTA ever. I won't lie though, IV was awesome too, but it didn't feel as big and complete as SA. It lacked a lot of the aforementioned details.
 
San Andreas.

I haven't played 4 yet, but here's how every other GTA game progresses for me:

First few hours there is an amazing story and great character development and the missions make sense in relation to the plot of the game. Exploring the city is incredibly fun.

THEN a few hours later, the story has basically either become completely silly insane or just basically dropped altogether. The missions are random fetch or kill quests, character development and plot have taken a backseat to the insanity of (for example) a kid from the ghetto trying to get by somehow ending up gallivanting around the city with a pocketful of rocket launchers and sniper rifles and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Exploring is still fun, the game is still fun, but it's a shadow of what it was in those first few hours.

I chose San Andreas because I think it has the best first few hours of the series.

Does GTA 4 break the trend I've described? It's really only a matter of time till I play it, but if it does break the cycle this time would be sooner rather than later.

edit: and nobody asked for it, but here's my ranking of the GTA's I've played:
1) San Andreas
2) Vice City
3) III
4) I
5) Chinatown Wars (this one basically ties with the first IMO, but the first wins for starting the series)
6) London 1969
7) II (I could never really get into this one. I'm the only one I know who prefers the graphical style of the first game. I found this one far too dark in the palette, among other things.
 
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GTA IV had the best story so far IMHO,but the best ever was definitely San Andreas.
There is just so much to do, you can go explore the hinterlands,fly planes, drive boats, go basejumping, work out, get fat, ride BMX and what not. Radio program was also outstanding, loved driving through the desert listening to "white wedding".
 
San Andreas. It's the only game where I will try so hard to get it on any of my computers that can run it. The mods are excellent, the game is incredible, I've been playing the game since it came out and I still haven't found everything.

But what I think would top all of these is a San Andreas with the GTA IV engine.
 
I think GTA3 is the best ever. That was when I first felt totally free in a video game. There was even a small chance of flying for a short while. Even though things have changed and now you're free in almost every game you play. That is where it all started. Thats why that has to be the best! On top of all it had a great story, lots of side missions and cities which was actually populated. That was revolution!
 
GTA SA all the way, all I want is a re made San Andreas like they did for GTA 3 in GTA IV. Updated graphics, cars, all that good stuff just to make it this current generation. Oh my, I do not care about the size of Just Cause 2 in comparison, SA was just an epic game I played Just Cause 2 for a week and I am already bored of it, I was never bored with SA, not even after I bought it for the 5th time on whatever console, PS2 I think it was. I owned it twice on xbox and 3 times on PS2, ahhh, the days of SA were brilliant!
 
SA isn't even in the top three, it's not got the right atmosphere compared to the others.

1. GTA IV/ TBoGT/ TLaD
2. Vice City
3. GTA III
 
I see a lot of people putting SA as their top choice, I can see why but here is why I don't like it as much as IV:

main character with few background ties and emotion (seems to change actions/personality on the fly)
bad storyline (an initial plot that goes astray pretty near the start)
unrealistic abilities (flying military jets)
fairly badly implemented personal attributes system (driving skill and the like)
bizarre setting (gangland, mobland, etc)
weird vehicle handling (admittedly this comes from age)
lacking in major vehicle damage (once again mainly because of age)
that infernal rule of rolling a car onto its roof sets it on fire after 2-3 seconds
 
GTA SA had rubbish graphics and weird colourisations to give a fake atmosphere that just wasn't there. On top of that, the gun noises were abysmal. And the cars weren't that hot either. An NSX for an Infernus? Jog on. They looked pretty bad and disproportionate. The fact that it was sauch a huge and diverse space to play around in puts this in no.3.

Vice city was were it was at for me. The graphics were good at the time, and nothing compared to the jump in and playability. Plus the radio stations had a great mix of tunes that are sometimes fun to go back, in a sarcastic way.

GTAIV bowls me over everytime I play it. I regard it as one of the very best video games ever created. The graphics, the physics - all of it I love. I have always wanted a GTA so I can cruise around, and now with the implementation of analog throttle and brakes, I can do that. The cars look awesome too - some great designs in the Infernus, as well as the more common cars. Epic.

GTAIV - 1
GTAVC - 2
GTASA - 3
 
Duffers917K
SA isn't even in the top three, it's not got the right atmosphere compared to the others.

1. GTA IV/ TBoGT/ TLaD
2. Vice City
3. GTA III
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I haven't played the expansions for GTA IV yet. I have ordered them though and the release is set this friday so I hope to play it this weekend :)
 
San Andreas and Vice City.

GTA4 campaign was a HUGE disappointment. 👎
TBOGT is pretty good though. Had fun with that because they added the parachute, which should have already been in the game.
 
GTA IV is undoubtedly an extremely polished product (infact i've just started playing it again from the start as of last night) But for me GTA SA was just immense in every way. It had a huge and varied playing area, great storyline and the best soundtrack of the series. It had it's faults for sure, but it also gave you so much to do off piste that you could just come back to it over and over again, even after completing the main story line. I especially enjoyed the turf-wars aspect of it. I hope that element will crop up again in subsequent GTA games.
 
The best fix I have had for the disappointment that was GTA4 is to play Saints Row 2. It seriously has everything from San Andreas and to top that off you get to play the entire game as a co-op. Saints Row 2 destroys GTA4 IMO.
 
CAMAROBOY69
The best fix I have had for the disappointment that was GTA4 is to play Saints Row 2. It seriously has everything from San Andreas and to top that off you get to play the entire game as a co-op. Saints Row 2 destroys GTA4 IMO.
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Sounds like you just don't like GTA then? Theres a reason why Saints Row has things like insurance fraud challenges, its purposely ridiculous which is what SA was like, as I said earlier (I think) the approach in GTA IV is much more realistic and I think better.
 
TGM Tiddy
Sounds like you just don't like GTA then? Theres a reason why Saints Row has things like insurance fraud challenges, its purposely ridiculous which is what SA was like, as I said earlier (I think) the approach in GTA IV is much more realistic and I think better.
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I am a huge GTA fan and own all the games but Saints Row 2 is easily the best of the sandbox series. Saints Row 2 is full drop in drop out co-op campaign with everything that was missing from the GTA4 campaign. You can see your co-op partners character, buy clothes, jewelry, completely customize your character top to bottom including walk and personality, buy cars from car dealerships, buy bikes from bike dealerships, buy houses just like in Vice City and San Andreas then make money off of them, buy every single store you see in the game, buy boats and boat docks, customize your house, parachute from anywhere in the game, fly planes, join fight clubs, drive monster trucks, quads, dirt bikes, car surf, fly a helicopter, customize your homies and the way their cars look, customize EVERY vehicle in the game (if you can drive it you can customize it), and much much more all with a co-op partner. Every mission every level everything is all co-op. You can hold people as human shields just like in GOW2. Pick up any object in the game and throw it or use it as a weapon. If they were going for realism in GTA4, they fail because realisme would allow me to at least buy a car or a house.

Seriously Saints Row 2 campaign crushes GTA4 campaign by a lonshot. But one thing I will say for sure, the multiplayer in GTA4 is much better than the multiplayer in GTA4.
 
CAMAROBOY69
I am a huge GTA fan and own all the games but Saints Row 2 is easily the best of the sandbox series. Saints Row 2 is full drop in drop out co-op campaign with everything that was missing from the GTA4 campaign. You can see your co-op partners character, buy clothes, jewelry, completely customize your character top to bottom including walk and personality, buy cars from car dealerships, buy bikes from bike dealerships, buy houses just like in Vice City and San Andreas then make money off of them, buy every single store you see in the game, buy boats and boat docks, customize your house, parachute from anywhere in the game, fly planes, join fight clubs, drive monster trucks, quads, dirt bikes, car surf, fly a helicopter, customize your homies and the way their cars look, customize EVERY vehicle in the game (if you can drive it you can customize it), and much much more all with a co-op partner. Every mission every level everything is all co-op. You can hold people as human shields just like in GOW2. Pick up any object in the game and throw it or use it as a weapon. If they were going for realism in GTA4, they fail because realisme would allow me to at least buy a car or a house.

Seriously Saints Row 2 campaign crushes GTA4 campaign by a lonshot. But one thing I will say for sure, the multiplayer in GTA4 is much better than the multiplayer in GTA4.
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I agree about the ability to buy houses and cars, I was disappointed it wasn't in IV but after a while I found it didn't really detract from the overall appeal. I can't on the other hand say the same for Saints Row 2, I've found that once you stripped away the ability to customise your character, vehicles and houses that it soon exposed the awful physics and story line behind the game thus ruining the experience after a week or so.
 
Funny, I actually thought the Saints Row 2 story was much better. The Saints Row 1 story was junk but the SR2 story is actually very very good. Especially if you do the missions for each gang. The tombstone punch cinema was one of my most memorable moments in gaming. That cinema was so awesome. Saints Row 2 is basically San Andreas but the entire game is drop in drop out co-op.

The next GTA sure as heck better have a co-op campaign otherwise I will not even bother buying it.
 
CAMAROBOY69
The next GTA sure as heck better have a co-op campaign otherwise I will not even bother buying it.
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Funny, coming from someone who claims to have played all the GTA games of which none had co-op mission play I would have thought you would still buy the game regardless?
 

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