Grand Theft Auto: A story of Incline and then Decline?

[PorkyThePaladin]

Never played the original top-down games.

GTA3 was mind-blowing at the time. You modern zoomer retards might not get this, but when your prison van gets taken out, and you get out and jump into a car and can drive ANYWHERE in a giant city, walk anywhere, it was such a cool feeling.

Vice City took that open world feeling of GTA3 and injected it with a much better story, characters, music, and atmosphere.

San Andreas blew everything up to a much grander scale. Multiple cities, wilderness, stealth and gang systems, and its own atmosphere, quite different from Vice City.

GTA IV dialed things back in terms of scope, but it was the best GTA game in terms of the gameplay mechanics and story. They introduced the Euphoria physics engine, used it to create the best melee combat in the series, as well as the best car handling by far. People whining about the driving in GTAIV are filthy casuals, because it's the only game in the series where driving actually takes real skill. Shooting was also improved from San Andreas quite a bit. And Nico's story would pass for a decent mob flick.

GTAV shat the bed in every way. I guess because of all the complaints from filthy casuals, they dialed back the skill-based driving from IV and cars handle as if on rails. Cool melee combat from IV where Nico had to time his blocks/dodges and then responded with dynamic martial arts moves was replaced with some shitty one punch knockout system, and most pedestrians run away in panic anyway, instead of fighting. Firearms feel like paintguns, no weight or loud noises, just pop pop pop. And splitting it between 3 characters failed because all 3 were unlikeable: Franklin was like a much more annoying version of CJ from SA, because he only cared about money, Michael was some washed up middle aged dude with family issues, and Trevor was batshit insane.

The sad thing about GTA franchise and Rockstar games in general, is that they absolutely refuse to innovate on anything important. Compare their latest offerings (GTA V or RDR2) to say GTAIII (their first 3D game). The entire game formula is there and exactly the same, 20+ years later. Highly linear cinematic missions with the open world just a backdrop.

 

[Ezekiel]

Was getting more into RDR2. Then was consumed by Zelda again, and now haven't made progress in RDR2 for about six weeks. So fucking boring and pretentious.

 

[adddeed]

The best games of the GTA franchise are GTA2 and GTA4. Rest is mediocre.
However Mafia 1 and 2 are better than all of the GTA games anyway so i rather play those.

 

[Hobknobling]

GTA4 is easily the best GTA from a gameplay perspective since GTA4. It’s got the best shooting, the best melee combat, the best driving, the best enemy AI, and the best “stage” layouts of any of the 3D GTA games. It’s only probably is the fucking annoy friends system where it feels like you’re getting called every two second to play minigames that are embarrassingly bad give the money Rockstar has to throw around. Like, Rockstar has the money to where they should’ve been able to have one of the best Pool video games within GTA4. Lost and Damn had similar problems with it “ride in formation” bullshit. But Gay Tony was like fun GTA being injected into GTA4’s great systems.

GTA IV dialed things back in terms of scope, but it was the best GTA game in terms of the gameplay mechanics and story. They introduced the Euphoria physics engine, used it to create the best melee combat in the series, as well as the best car handling by far. People whining about the driving in GTAIV are filthy casuals, because it's the only game in the series where driving actually takes real skill. Shooting was also improved from San Andreas quite a bit. And Nico's story would pass for a decent mob flick.

This GTA IV revisionism needs to stop. The map was ultra boring, missions were very monotone except for the missions in the DLCs, the game has a general lack of content and the main story is laughably bad. For the shooting, they tacked on a half-broken popamole system that you can basically ignore. Driving simulation is tied to framerate and the motorbikes are the clearest example of this. I do like the boat physics for basic cars, but it sucks that even the high-end sports cars work the same way. It just isn't a good game.

 

[NecroLord]

GTA4 is easily the best GTA from a gameplay perspective since GTA4. It’s got the best shooting, the best melee combat, the best driving, the best enemy AI, and the best “stage” layouts of any of the 3D GTA games. It’s only probably is the fucking annoy friends system where it feels like you’re getting called every two second to play minigames that are embarrassingly bad give the money Rockstar has to throw around. Like, Rockstar has the money to where they should’ve been able to have one of the best Pool video games within GTA4. Lost and Damn had similar problems with it “ride in formation” bullshit. But Gay Tony was like fun GTA being injected into GTA4’s great systems.

GTA IV dialed things back in terms of scope, but it was the best GTA game in terms of the gameplay mechanics and story. They introduced the Euphoria physics engine, used it to create the best melee combat in the series, as well as the best car handling by far. People whining about the driving in GTAIV are filthy casuals, because it's the only game in the series where driving actually takes real skill. Shooting was also improved from San Andreas quite a bit. And Nico's story would pass for a decent mob flick.

This GTA IV revisionism needs to stop. The map was ultra boring, missions were very monotone except for the missions in the DLCs, the game has a general lack of content and the main story is laughably bad. For the shooting, they tacked on a half-broken popamole system that you can basically ignore. Driving simulation is tied to framerate and the motorbikes are the clearest example of this. I do like the boat physics for basic cars, but it sucks that even the high-end sports cars work the same way. It just isn't a good game.

I agree.
Niko had a pretty interesting and tragic backstory, more serious than that of, say, Claude or even Tommy (Butcher of Harwood, got sentenced to 15 years instead of a life sentence thanks to Sonny who originally planned to kill him there).
The rest of the game is rather bland.

 

[Üstad]

GTA4 is easily the best GTA from a gameplay perspective since GTA4. It’s got the best shooting, the best melee combat, the best driving, the best enemy AI, and the best “stage” layouts of any of the 3D GTA games. It’s only probably is the fucking annoy friends system where it feels like you’re getting called every two second to play minigames that are embarrassingly bad give the money Rockstar has to throw around. Like, Rockstar has the money to where they should’ve been able to have one of the best Pool video games within GTA4. Lost and Damn had similar problems with it “ride in formation” bullshit. But Gay Tony was like fun GTA being injected into GTA4’s great systems.

GTA IV dialed things back in terms of scope, but it was the best GTA game in terms of the gameplay mechanics and story. They introduced the Euphoria physics engine, used it to create the best melee combat in the series, as well as the best car handling by far. People whining about the driving in GTAIV are filthy casuals, because it's the only game in the series where driving actually takes real skill. Shooting was also improved from San Andreas quite a bit. And Nico's story would pass for a decent mob flick.

This GTA IV revisionism needs to stop. The map was ultra boring, missions were very monotone except for the missions in the DLCs, the game has a general lack of content and the main story is laughably bad. For the shooting, they tacked on a half-broken popamole system that you can basically ignore. Driving simulation is tied to framerate and the motorbikes are the clearest example of this. I do like the boat physics for basic cars, but it sucks that even the high-end sports cars work the same way. It just isn't a good game.

I agree, muh driving physics argument hardly even makes sense because rather than a skillgap issue it was just heavy and unresponsive for a filthy casual game. It was also a huge step back from San Andreas, the only game I would bother to install my PC and play if the PC version such a buggy mess. And I don't feel like installing shit loads of mods to fix it.

 

[Lucumo]

GTA3 was mind-blowing at the time. You modern zoomer retards might not get this, but when your prison van gets taken out, and you get out and jump into a car and can drive ANYWHERE in a giant city, walk anywhere, it was such a cool feeling.

So like Shenmue + Driver, both which came out two years earlier. And Shenmue even let you play arcade games.

 

[adddeed]

Or Urban Chaos (1999).
GTA 3 was cool for fans of the franchise as it was going 3D but it was nothing groundbreaking.

 

[911 Jumper]

Shenmue doesn't get enough appreciation. I bought a Dreamcast instead of a PS2 (though I eventually bought a PS2) for that game.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

GTA3 was mind-blowing at the time. You modern zoomer retards might not get this, but when your prison van gets taken out, and you get out and jump into a car and can drive ANYWHERE in a giant city, walk anywhere, it was such a cool feeling.

So like Shenmue + Driver, both which came out two years earlier. And Shenmue even let you play arcade games.

If you mean it’s like someone melded together two different games? I guess. Driver did have a large open city that you could drive around in, which GTA3 also has, but you only drive around. Driving in Driver is the whole game. Even when they let you get out of the car in Driver 2 they don’t let you do anything while you’re in that mode.

Shenmue was closer to so degree, but you’re also always on foot in Shenmue, and you don’t have the same degree of freedom. The cool thing about GTA3 when it came out wasn’t just the 3D open world, and being able to move about it from a third person perspective, it was the sandbox aspect of being able to do whatever and the presentational aspect it was all wrapped up in.

If Driver let you jump out of your car and get into shootouts when you got cornered. If it let you freely move about the city while you waited for jobs to be left on you answering machine. And if it had funny little video game things like fucking hookers acted as health picks, then people would be talking about Driver instead of GTA. But it didn’t.

Driver is actually kind of interesting in that it was bigger than GTA back in ‘99 when GTA2 was out. GTA2 was better. But Driver was bigger. Driver had the novelty of a fully 3D world. If they were smart, Driver 2 would’ve add combat to the out of car section, and maybe given you side activities like doing a destruction derby (they made a could Destruction Derby games before Driver) and racing. They could’ve beat GTA3 to the punch. But they didn’t, and now nobody really remembers Driver and I’m not even sure what the studio does anymore.

There where a few games before GTA3 that you can look at and think: They’re very close to hitting on what will make GTA3 a success, (included the previous GTA games) but they aren’t quite there. Omikron: The Nomad Soul is kind of like that too. As is Rockstar North’s DMA Design’s Body Harvest for the N64, which comes out a year before games like Driver, Shenmue, and Urban Chaos.

It’s actually too bad Rockstar has never returned to Body Harvest. Because a kind of GTA crossed with Earth Defense Force wrapped up in a pulpy sci-fi and ‘50s B movie aesthetic could be pretty fucking cool.

 

[Be Kind Rewind]

Speaking of money: I never got the argument by "gaming journalists" that you are rewarded for killing random people.

 

[Be Kind Rewind]

It is definitely weird nobody else really tries to, not even really compete, but just get in on all the money GTA makes. Especially now. Not even the Online money, but the massive amounts of money the single player makes. Now would even make more sense given GTA makes even more money than before, and there hasn’t been a new GTA in ten years. When people were trying to complete before there was a new GTA almost every year; with the longest period between games being the almost four years between the last GTA4 DLC and GTA5...and Red Dead Redemption and Undead Nightmare came out like half a year after the final GTA4 stuff.

Back in the day when GTA had serious competitors like True Crime: Streets of L.A., Saint's Row, or the far superior Mafia, the investment to make one of these games weren't as large as it has become. What Phil Spencer said in those leaked emails is true, the only thing that these studios have to rely on to keep their releases as big as thy are is with their massive budgets and scope. Not even Rockstar would invest in a new IP since it'd cost so much it'd risk tanking the company if it didn't sell as well as something recognizable like a GTA game does. Other companies without the technology and legwork done to create the content pipelines, expertise and whatever else you need to put one of these together has not have to overcome a higher initial cost but also get past the GTA brand to establish a presence of their own.

It's also the reason why Rockstar are barely making new games at this point, GTA VII will be a vehicle for an online mode where gamers can be squeezed out of their money long term with skins or whatever the crap they sell is. Basically even blockbusters are transitioning into live-service games and the only reason they'd make a new one is to upgrade their aging engine and assets to make use of current gen consoles and get a new influx of players and attention to their services. The old way of publishing, making and selling games on this scale is over.

 

[Lucumo]

Shenmue doesn't get enough appreciation. I bought a Dreamcast instead of a PS2 (though I eventually bought a PS2) for that game.

It always had a niche which appreciated it to a very large degree but never got the mainstream following it deserved.

GTA3 was mind-blowing at the time. You modern zoomer retards might not get this, but when your prison van gets taken out, and you get out and jump into a car and can drive ANYWHERE in a giant city, walk anywhere, it was such a cool feeling.

So like Shenmue + Driver, both which came out two years earlier. And Shenmue even let you play arcade games.

If you mean it’s like someone melded together two different games? I guess.

Shenmue was closer to so degree, but you’re also always on foot in Shenmue, and you don’t have the same degree of freedom. The cool thing about GTA3 when it came out wasn’t just the 3D open world, and being able to move about it from a third person perspective, it was the sandbox aspect of being able to do whatever and the presentational aspect it was all wrapped up in.

Yep.

They took different approaches. Shenmue is very much homely and "melancholic", I would say. It pays a lot more attention to detail, with characters having a schedule etc. It's more tightly packed. That's part of the reason why I picked Driver on the other side, as it's pretty bare but large. If you put both games together, add some shooting, you basically get GTA III which is in the middle.

Speaking of money: I never got the argument by "gaming journalists" that you are rewarded for killing random people.

That's not GTA: Vice City though. This is:

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

It is definitely weird nobody else really tries to, not even really compete, but just get in on all the money GTA makes. Especially now. Not even the Online money, but the massive amounts of money the single player makes. Now would even make more sense given GTA makes even more money than before, and there hasn’t been a new GTA in ten years. When people were trying to complete before there was a new GTA almost every year; with the longest period between games being the almost four years between the last GTA4 DLC and GTA5...and Red Dead Redemption and Undead Nightmare came out like half a year after the final GTA4 stuff.

Back in the day when GTA had serious competitors like True Crime: Streets of L.A., Saint's Row, or the far superior Mafia, the investment to make one of these games weren't as large as it has become. What Phil Spencer said in those leaked emails is true, the only thing that these studios have to rely on to keep their releases as big as thy are is with their massive budgets and scope. Not even Rockstar would invest in a new IP since it'd cost so much it'd risk tanking the company if it didn't sell as well as something recognizable like a GTA game does. Other companies without the technology and legwork done to create the content pipelines, expertise and whatever else you need to put one of these together has not have to overcome a higher initial cost but also get past the GTA brand to establish a presence of their own.

It's also the reason why Rockstar are barely making new games at this point, GTA VII will be a vehicle for an online mode where gamers can be squeezed out of their money long term with skins or whatever the crap they sell is. Basically even blockbusters are transitioning into live-service games and the only reason they'd make a new one is to upgrade their aging engine and assets to make use of current gen consoles and get a new influx of players and attention to their services. The old way of publishing, making and selling games on this scale is over.

The only reason Rockstar barely makes games anymore is because they don’t need to. They lucked into a money pot with GTA Online. If Rockstar so wished, they could still be putting out single player GTA games at the rate they were during the 360 era. And they could make a killing doing that. But it would be stupid of them to do that give how much GTA Online makes. They’d just be killing their golden egg goose if they replaced GTA Online every 4 years. That’s also why GTA5 didn’t get single player DLC like GTA4 and Red Dead Redemption... they don’t want to pull players from the larger money sink. They make around a billion a year with GTA Online, and I doubt the money they’ve put into GTA Online over the last decade has been some staggering amount.

The increasing cost of Rockstar’s games also seems to be tied more into the development of the Online modes.

Although I do wonder if that’ll change somewhat. RDR2 made a killing just on the back of its single player, and the online mode ended up being a bust for them. So I do wonder if in the future, post GTA6, if we start seeing them release more single player games without wasting a bunch of time and money on the Online part; like it seems they can’t sustain something like a GTA Online and a Red Dead Online running concurrently with each other. So the next time they’re making something that’ll bring them over a billion dollars in a month, maybe they save a lot of money and time not created some giant online mode given the audience only really seems to want GTA Online.

---

True Crime was never serious competition. The first True Crime game is almost unplayable. It sold well on the back of the hype machine Activision created behind it, but it being fucking dog shit most likely killed True Crime as a brand right out of the gate. The second True Crime is better, but still sucked and didn’t sell anywhere near as well; and that was the end of the True Crime series.

Mafia was never competition either. For one thing it was a PC game in the early 2000s, so it probably sold like shit; at least comparatively speaking anyways. Mafia got hyped up for its realism, but it was never a large title. The series has also always been published by a Take-Two subsidiary; Take-Two are the owners of Rockstar.

 

[Ezekiel]

I can't get into racing games much. Find being trapped inside the race track without real traffic kind of boring. I would like to own a racing wheel, but I know I'd quickly let it go to waste. Yeah, it's a shame that GTA is really the only city driving game left, because the driving physics and traffic are so simplistic and the police AI is crappy and they keep recreating boring American cities for unfunny satire. The industry feels so small.

 

[Be Kind Rewind]

Mafia was never competition either.

I disagree, it is the only good use of the format of the post-3D GTAs.

True Crime was never serious competition.

It was an attempt, it doesn't matter if it failed or not, the point is that there were attempts at the genre back in the day. Now not so much.

They’d just be killing their golden egg goose if they replaced GTA Online every 4 years. That’s also why GTA5 didn’t get single player DLC like GTA4 and Red Dead Redemption... they don’t want to pull players from the larger money sink. They make around a billion a year with GTA Online, and I doubt the money they’ve put into GTA Online over the last decade has been some staggering amount.

Yeah, that's why the traditional model is dead. All the money is in games as a service, since you make a game and then milk it forever, instead of putting together expensive releases that might fail every other year.

 

[Hobknobling]

I can't get into racing games much. Find being trapped inside the race track without real traffic kind of boring. I would like to own a racing wheel, but I know I'd quickly let it go to waste. Yeah, it's a shame that GTA is really the only city driving game left, because the driving physics and traffic are so simplistic and the police AI is crappy and they keep recreating boring American cities for unfunny satire. The industry feels so small.

Still waiting for a proper Carmageddon clone.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

but it was the best GTA game in terms of the gameplay mechanics and story

It wasn't the most interesting story though.

It was a lot more grounded, but far less fun.

Plus, Niko was so fucking miserable it was off putting. He didn't want to do anything and I felt bad making him progress through the game.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

I can't get into racing games much. Find being trapped inside the race track without real traffic kind of boring. I would like to own a racing wheel, but I know I'd quickly let it go to waste. Yeah, it's a shame that GTA is really the only city driving game left, because the driving physics and traffic are so simplistic and the police AI is crappy and they keep recreating boring American cities for unfunny satire. The industry feels so small.

Still waiting for a proper Carmageddon clone.

Don't hold your breath
Racing games are the most stagnant gaming genre in the industry, even cRPG's are doing great by comparasion

 

[Lucumo]

I can't get into racing games much. Find being trapped inside the race track without real traffic kind of boring. I would like to own a racing wheel, but I know I'd quickly let it go to waste. Yeah, it's a shame that GTA is really the only city driving game left, because the driving physics and traffic are so simplistic and the police AI is crappy and they keep recreating boring American cities for unfunny satire. The industry feels so small.

Still waiting for a proper Carmageddon clone.

Don't hold your breath
Racing games are the most stagnant gaming genre in the industry, even cRPG's are doing great by comparasion

Are they stagnant? I would argue they have regressed a lot in the past 25 years.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

but it was the best GTA game in terms of the gameplay mechanics and story

It wasn't the most interesting story though.

It was a lot more grounded, but far less fun.

Plus, Niko was so fucking miserable it was off putting. He didn't want to do anything and I felt bad making him progress through the game.

All great characters in great stories are miserable. Hamlet, Macbeth, Oedipus, that fat kid in the Christmas movie.

 

[NecroLord]

I can't get into racing games much. Find being trapped inside the race track without real traffic kind of boring. I would like to own a racing wheel, but I know I'd quickly let it go to waste. Yeah, it's a shame that GTA is really the only city driving game left, because the driving physics and traffic are so simplistic and the police AI is crappy and they keep recreating boring American cities for unfunny satire. The industry feels so small.

Still waiting for a proper Carmageddon clone.

You and me both.
But Carmageddon was truly unique.
And fun.

 

[Hobknobling]

Learning German so I decided to give Vice City a new playthrough with German subtitles on. Last time was in 2011.

Holy shit that game was released unfinished. Probably half of the missions are really barebones and look like the first pass concept without any finishing touches. Thankfully the basic driving and wanted system inherited from GTA III is so engaging even by today's standards that they could heavily lean on that. Many of the missions have you just drive somewhere to hit a random red marker and then tell you to drive back home with four or five wanted stars. They obviously also made many of the missions basically instant failure for most players on first try to pad the length of the game. The map sucks and it is annoying to get anywhere because you have to always drive over bridges or around long buildings. This feels like padding to me, but might also be technical limitations.

The soundtrack carries the game really hard. There is always some absolute banger playing on the radio for you to listen to which makes many of the duller missions so much more fun. Story beats and characters are actually fairly well realized by themselves, but the rushed development obviously ruined the pacing. Voice overs and the cast is superb. Shooting mechanics suck and really are the part where the worst cracks are starting to show 21 years after the release.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

The shooting sucked at the time too. It was a major step down from how well they pulled off shooting in GTA2, (at least the PC version, console GTA2 felt like shit too) and they wouldn’t pull off good shooting in the 3D games until GTA4. As nice of a novelty as it was at the time to finally have an open world sandbox game where you could get out of the car and do things, the shooting was so fucking bad in those PS2 era games that I always found the love the series got odd.

The PS2 era of GTA is probably the first major example of a game being considered not just good, but one of the best games around regardless of the gameplay. Before you could maybe say there were other games that did this or that better than some major title that was considered as great, but that great hugely popular game at least wasn’t bad at doing what it was doing like those PS2 GTA games were.

I can’t remember what they did anymore to fuck it up, but I remember when I first played GTA5 thinking that the shooting felt worse than 4. So even all these years later, 4 has the best shooting. I think they basically made aiming pointless in 5.

 

[orcinator]

The PS2 era of GTA is probably the first major example of a game being considered not just good, but one of the best games around regardless of the gameplay.

Chrono Trigger and Mother/Earthbound