Best Grand Theft Auto ever?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Golfman
  • 110 comments
  • 18,116 views
Its like anything else, once you play something better you raise your expectations. Without co-op the next GTA simply will not be better than Saints Row 2. :sly:

And by the way , San Andreas DID have co-op but it was very limited. Which is another reason GTA4 should have had co-op.
 
Its like anything else, once you play something better you raise your expectations. Without co-op the next GTA simply will not be better than Saints Row 2. :sly:

And by the way , San Andreas DID have co-op but it was very limited. Which is another reason GTA4 should have had co-op.

If you want to start going down that road, you could argue GTA IV did have co-op too since there were online missions (hangman's NOOSE, etc) that had to be done with 2-4 players, they were effectively co-op missions just as the '2 player' function in SA was 'co-op'. Either way I don't think it has an impact upon the game in fact it would appear more single player orientated games are appearing (fallout 3, Assassin's Creed, Metro 2033, Batman AA, etc) so it would appear you are somewhat alone when it comes to needing co-op in a game. I agree its a nice addition but it's never affected the decision to buy a game for me and some of the best games around are solely single player.
 
If you want to start going down that road, you could argue GTA IV did have co-op too since there were online missions (hangman's NOOSE, etc) that had to be done with 2-4 players, they were effectively co-op missions just as the '2 player' function in SA was 'co-op'. Either way I don't think it has an impact upon the game in fact it would appear more single player orientated games are appearing (fallout 3, Assassin's Creed, Metro 2033, Batman AA, etc) so it would appear you are somewhat alone when it comes to needing co-op in a game. I agree its a nice addition but it's never affected the decision to buy a game.
Oh yes thats right very good point about GTA4 having the co-op side missions. Very true. But those were very short and also a very poor excuse for co-op. I want the next GTA to have a FULL co-op campaign. It doesnt necessarily have to be drop in drop out but that would be awesome if it was. But it needs a co-op campaign for sure. I will not buy another GTA game until it has a full co-op campaign. I stick to my word too.
I also agree that there are certain games that dont need co-op like Fallout 3, AC2....... But the next GTA needs a co-op campaign.
 
Oh yes thats right very good point about GTA4 having the co-op side missions. Very true. But those were very short and also a very poor excuse for co-op. I want the next GTA to have a FULL co-op campaign. It doesnt necessarily have to be drop in drop out but that would be awesome if it was. But it needs a co-op campaign for sure. I will not buy another GTA game until it has a full co-op campaign. I will stick to my word too.
I also agree that there are certain games that dont need co-op like Fallout 3, AC2....... But the next GTA needs co-op.

I agree that co-op would be a very good thing but I'm not sure how it would work, it didn't seem to really fit in on SR2 as both GTA and SR tend to have a main character which the plot revolves around rather than two like in other games, e.g kane & lynch. For me, I agree it would make a very nice addition although I wouldn't want it to compromise the story in any way and as such I don't believe it to be necessary to the game.
 
If ever rockstar were to 'remake' any of their last gen GTA's, it would have to be SA. Three huge cities with miles of land in between. Yes, San Andreas with the GTAIV engine would be the best one ever. Vice City had a good soundtrack, but that's all it had going for it.
 
While I can see why some would say GTA4 is the best(started playing again and loving it), there is no way anyone in their right mind could not put San Andreas as the very best of the last gen GTAs. It had everything, and also had many things that were missing from GTA4. Rockstar created a standard in scale with SA, and that's the way they should have gone, instead of making it smaller and more detailed(with GTA4). I only hope the next one will match the size of San Andreas at least. Or here's an idea - why only stick to the USA? Try setting it in Europe for a change. Or here's a really wild idea - go interstellar!!! Set it on Earth in the future, and allow offworld travel with spaceships to Mars etc. This would only be possible with Blu-ray and the PS3. Call it an exclusive. The 360 wouldn't stand a chance. Okay, maybe that's going too far, but it's only an idea!
 
I like that idea of traveling to other places. As long as it is not in New York again I will be happy. I am so tired of games taking place in New York.
 
While I can see why some would say GTA4 is the best(started playing again and loving it), there is no way anyone in their right mind could not put San Andreas as the very best of the last gen GTAs. It had everything, and also had many things that were missing from GTA4. Rockstar created a standard in scale with SA, and that's the way they should have gone, instead of making it smaller and more detailed(with GTA4). I only hope the next one will match the size of San Andreas at least. Or here's an idea - why only stick to the USA? Try setting it in Europe for a change. Or here's a really wild idea - go interstellar!!! Set it on Earth in the future, and allow offworld travel with spaceships to Mars etc. This would only be possible with Blu-ray and the PS3. Call it an exclusive. The 360 wouldn't stand a chance. Okay, maybe that's going too far, but it's only an idea!

I don't know about a GTA in Europe, I love Europe, but a GTA in Europe ? Maybe it's just me but it wouldn't be GTA.

There are still a lot of towns that GTA could take place like Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, Seattle....

Anyway San Andreas was more of a state than a city and I want to see it in it's HD glory.
👍
 
San Andreas sucked. Too many F-words, and too much management. I want to play GTA, not the Sims. Screw eating and working out-- that's time that could be spent killing hookers.
 
GTA 3. It really did feel like you were driving around a shady city doing shady things. Sure it didn't have loads of different features but it was brilliant fun. GTA IV lost most of the fun element and tried to be too realistic. Roman calling you up every 5 mins to play pool, for example. How is that fun?

San Andreas is a great game purely for the variety, too, but it's let down by things like having to eat and the huge countryside areas where, if your car blew up, you were stuck for ages running and running and running.
 
I don't know about a GTA in Europe, I love Europe, but a GTA in Europe ? Maybe it's just me but it wouldn't be GTA.

There are still a lot of towns that GTA could take place like Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, Seattle....

Anyway San Andreas was more of a state than a city and I want to see it in it's HD glory.
👍

That would be the dullest GTA ever.

Character: "HEY EXCUSE ME IT'D BE VERY NICE IF YOU GOT OUT OF YOUR CAR AND GAVE ME YOUR COFFEE TOO PLEASE"

Pedestrian: "Okay. Remember, she takes premium, and insurance will pay for dents and dings.

C: "OKAY THANKS YOU'RE A PRETTY COOL GUY HERE'S MY PHONE NUMBER"

Ect.
 
San Andreas sucked. Too many F-words, and too much management. I want to play GTA, not the Sims. Screw eating and working out-- that's time that could be spent killing hookers.

One of the reasons SA stood out was because of the working out etc. By doing these things you were able to increase the size of your health bar, which REALLY helped later on in the game. I think these RPG elements should be brought back. Vice City was the only GTA i never finished because some of it's later missions were just stupid and too difficult - the standard size health bar just wasn't good enough.
 
That would be the dullest GTA ever.

Character: "HEY EXCUSE ME IT'D BE VERY NICE IF YOU GOT OUT OF YOUR CAR AND GAVE ME YOUR COFFEE TOO PLEASE"

Pedestrian: "Okay. Remember, she takes premium, and insurance will pay for dents and dings.

C: "OKAY THANKS YOU'RE A PRETTY COOL GUY HERE'S MY PHONE NUMBER"

Ect.

Hmm. Being an American, i would expect that from you. Just because every GTA up intil now has been set in the USA doesnt mean that there isnt potential for it to be set any where else. Australia, for example? I think that would be hilarious. Imagine a GTA with the main protagonist being a Crocodile Dundee-a-like, setting it in a city like Sydney, with wilderness around it, so you could charge around the bush mowing down Kangaroos and calling everyone a BAHSTAHD. Brilliant!
 
Hmm. Being an American, i would expect that from you. Just because every GTA up intil now has been set in the USA doesnt mean that there isnt potential for it to be set any where else. Australia, for example? I think that would be hilarious. Imagine a GTA with the main protagonist being a Crocodile Dundee-a-like, setting it in a city like Sydney, with wilderness around it, so you could charge around the bush mowing down Kangaroos and calling everyone a BAHSTAHD. Brilliant!

Being the Australian I am, that did make me laugh, good work!
 
Hmm. Being an American, i would expect that from you. Just because every GTA up intil now has been set in the USA doesnt mean that there isnt potential for it to be set any where else. Australia, for example? I think that would be hilarious. Imagine a GTA with the main protagonist being a Crocodile Dundee-a-like, setting it in a city like Sydney, with wilderness around it, so you could charge around the bush mowing down Kangaroos and calling everyone a BAHSTAHD. Brilliant!

Hahahaha - typical American image of Australia.

Australia would be an awesome place for a GTA though. Ever watch Underbelly? There's quite a lot of gang activity in the land downunder.
 
Hahahaha - typical American image of Australia.

Australia would be an awesome place for a GTA though. Ever watch Underbelly? There's quite a lot of gang activity in the land downunder.

Im not American, im Scottish. But come on - how many people out there agree that a GTA set in Australia would be great?
 
I still play San Andreas on a very regular basis 5 years after its release, which says something about the game's replay value. If R* decided to release San Andreas on the PS3 with the updated graphics, physics, and all the stuff that was cut out of the PS2 version, that would be the reason to finally buy one. 👍
 
Last edited:
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.

That exact reason is why I think IV is worse than all the PS2 titles. I don't want to be able to distinguish between the cracking of a tibia and fibia as I hit someone with a car, I want them to bounce off it in a cloud of unfocused comedy gore. Before IV GTA was bright, colourful and daft, and that's what I want from a sandbox crime game - things breaking easily when I drive into them (apart, of course, from the car I'm driving), over the top explosions, the ability to swim underwater for ridiculous periods of time and take multiple bullets to the head and not die. I personally find looking for weapons and such floating in glowing spheres is a lot more fun than trying to work out whether what looks like a brown gun leaning against a brown wall in brown light is a gun, or a stick, or a shadow. Something SA onwards was guilty of, and unfortunately has been continued into IV, is dating and suchlike; I just want to blow things up and kill humanoid shapes, not spend time doing things I could (and should!) be doing in real life.

And, of course, I don't want my cousin calling me up every 10 damn minutes.

Asides, then: my favourite GTA, then, would be Vice City in the size and replay value of San Andreas. Also, the first GTA had an expansion pack set in London, the only GTA I'm aware of set outside America.
 
Roo
That exact reason is why I think IV is worse than all the PS2 titles. I don't want to be able to distinguish between the cracking of a tibia and fibia as I hit someone with a car, I want them to bounce off it in a cloud of unfocused comedy gore. Before IV GTA was bright, colourful and daft, and that's what I want from a sandbox crime game - things breaking easily when I drive into them (apart, of course, from the car I'm driving), over the top explosions, the ability to swim underwater for ridiculous periods of time and take multiple bullets to the head and not die. I personally find looking for weapons and such floating in glowing spheres is a lot more fun than trying to work out whether what looks like a brown gun leaning against a brown wall in brown light is a gun, or a stick, or a shadow. Something SA onwards was guilty of, and unfortunately has been continued into IV, is dating and suchlike; I just want to blow things up and kill humanoid shapes, not spend time doing things I could (and should!) be doing in real life.

And, of course, I don't want my cousin calling me up every 10 damn minutes.

Asides, then: my favourite GTA, then, would be Vice City in the size and replay value of San Andreas. Also, the first GTA had an expansion pack set in London, the only GTA I'm aware of set outside America.

Apart from the bit about having your cousin call you up every 10 minutes, every part of your comments are, frankly, wrong. I still rate San Andreas as the best one ever(for a number of reasons), but the injection of realism is just what the GTA series needed. GTAIII was good because it was a revelation. Vice City had a good soundtrack but ultimately was just too hard and plain annoying. San Andreas - a masterpiece. GTAIV - everything from the physics, the feel of the cars, and the detail, the improved Uncharted-style shootouts - all great. Although i wish R* had gone with the scale of SA(and i hope they do for the next one), i feel this is the right way for the GTA series to go. Bottom line - they need to marry the scale of SA with the detail/realism of GTAIV - cartoony and stupid is out of date. But everyone has a right to their own opinion.
 
I'm going to say BOGT, simply because it reminded me of Vice City, which is number two on my list. GTA:IV or GTA III are probably next. San Andreas was great, but it became annoying after a while, as the gang warfare thing never appealed to me, no did the dating element. Plus contantly being rammed by obscenely fast traffic on the highways was annoying.
 
Apart from the bit about having your cousin call you up every 10 minutes, every part of your comments are, frankly, wrong. I still rate San Andreas as the best one ever(for a number of reasons), but the injection of realism is just what the GTA series needed. GTAIII was good because it was a revelation. Vice City had a good soundtrack but ultimately was just too hard and plain annoying. San Andreas - a masterpiece. GTAIV - everything from the physics, the feel of the cars, and the detail, the improved Uncharted-style shootouts - all great. Although i wish R* had gone with the scale of SA(and i hope they do for the next one), i feel this is the right way for the GTA series to go. Bottom line - they need to marry the scale of SA with the detail/realism of GTAIV - cartoony and stupid is out of date. But everyone has a right to their own opinion.

At risk of voyaging wildly off-topic, I guess the lack of realism in certain areas of games (read: damage) is why I've been devoted to the Gran Turismo and Burnout series for so long - I'm not exactly the world's best gamer, and having to restart races and missions because I've run a gnat's wisker wide on a corner and obliterated my car on some armco again is a pain in the backside. In GTA land, that roughly translates as doing something incredibly minor in the scheme of the game - driving through a toll without paying, for example - and then having to drive at speed across half the city to get away from the cops, crashing into a wall I couldn't see because it was brown, like everything else, and having Niko exit the car via the windshield again, when all I want to do is reverse out the wall and reunite pedal with metal. Add into all that the fact that I only have time to play games once or twice a month and it all adds up to a game I just can't be bothered with, in part through no fault of its own. All I want to do is run around breaking things with impunity - any more realism than that is just frustrating for me, and I play games to be entertained, not frustrated. Being frustrated is what work is for :)
 
Roo
At risk of voyaging wildly off-topic, I guess the lack of realism in certain areas of games (read: damage) is why I've been devoted to the Gran Turismo and Burnout series for so long - I'm not exactly the world's best gamer, and having to restart races and missions because I've run a gnat's wisker wide on a corner and obliterated my car on some armco again is a pain in the backside. In GTA land, that roughly translates as doing something incredibly minor in the scheme of the game - driving through a toll without paying, for example - and then having to drive at speed across half the city to get away from the cops, crashing into a wall I couldn't see because it was brown, like everything else, and having Niko exit the car via the windshield again, when all I want to do is reverse out the wall and reunite pedal with metal. Add into all that the fact that I only have time to play games once or twice a month and it all adds up to a game I just can't be bothered with, in part through no fault of its own. All I want to do is run around breaking things with impunity - any more realism than that is just frustrating for me, and I play games to be entertained, not frustrated. Being frustrated is what work is for :)

Fair enough, but in my opinion, games have moved on, become more detailed/realistic etc, and gamers need to adapt. I refuse to play a game if it's just plain simple or cartoony. I also only have the time to play games occasionally, but when i do i want it to be something i can really get my teeth into. SA is the only GTA i would go back and play simply because of its size and number of things to do. GTAIV is an enrossing experience, and i hope that R* continue this detail and realism into every subsequent GTA, and i hope the next one is at least the size of SA or JC2 at least.
 
GTA Vice City

I just loved the story line and radio stations, the atmosphere.. Loved how you went from nothing to everything, owning mansions, businesses and was a man who people feared.

GTA SA
Loved this game for sheer replayability.. ive put in close to 400 hours of gameplay with only 70hours of that being 100%, so to find another 330hours of just muck around fun says a lot. The fact i could die and not loose weapons, had some awesome bonuses for 100%, easy access to jets, weapon spawns and armour etc etc. I just loved having those things spawn near your save houses and that airfield base was just awesome.

GTA IV is good but i just dont like a few of the realism things that it has. I think more perks needed to be awarded for completing things, gaining weapon spawns at houses, extra health, extra armour, vigilante missions, taxi missions, ambo missions, ability to cut down the expensive health care costs of you do complete x, keep your weapons if your busted or die by doing y etc etc. Gaining a big cash reward for doing stunt jumps or shooting pidgeons... the list goes on, include this in GTA V and i think they have a great balance of more realism while keeping the funner aspects that made GTA 3 , VC and SA so awesome.
 
Best GTA game? Grand Theft Auto: London 1969

In terms of what makes GTA, "GTA", it was the most epic one with hours, and hours of great missions, humor, fun, and randomness. In my opinion of course.
 
Hmm. Being an American, i would expect that from you. Just because every GTA up intil now has been set in the USA doesnt mean that there isnt potential for it to be set any where else.

I think he was making fun of Seattle...
 
I could go on for hours about GTA, I won't.. all I will say is that the series has been truly truly epic...

IV (and TBoGT and TL&TD) for their stunning visuals and detail
San Andreas for it's epic scale
Vice City for it's soundtrack and atmosphere
III for its groundbreaking play, originality and humour (IMO at least.. I dont play many other games!)

I have found that Chinatown Wars (PSP) is under-rated, it comes alot closer to the feel of GTAIII than you would think.

Edit:

Also, I think Rockstar did a good job taking everything that was good about the formula of GTA, and replicating it in a totally different environment.. as they did in BULLY / a.k.a. Canis Canem Edit (as its know in these parts).. that was a great game... and I think it shows the Rockstar could set a GTA anywhere (virtually) and pull it off.
 
Last edited:
Back