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GTA3 did not age very well

There's this thing you can do in GTA3 (or was it Vice City?) Where you get in a tank and start firing the canon over and over until the tank takes off and flies away XD
 
I bought the trilogy laat week on sale too. And in many ways I think Vice City has aged even worse then GTAIII. The problem with Vice City is that some of the missions require you to do shit that the games mechanics simply aren't cut out for.
I'm close to getting my 100% but it's been way more of a chore then GTA III. At least GTA III (intentional or not) disguised it's short comings through simplicity and didn't expose its broken camera and shitty scripting the way Vice City did.

Also, I hate how flat Vice City is. Even without flying GTA III had more verticality and complex geometry then VC had.
 
I have to try the PC version again to see how well it's aged, but honestly I'm not surprised the PS2 version aged horribly. I played the whole trilogy on PC first, and had the joyous experience of playing GTA3 on PS2 a few years after playing on PC. As far as I'm concerned, the PS2 version was always broken. How anyone played the trilogy without mouse and keyboard without wanting to break things, I'll never know.
 
Replayed it a few years ago on the PC, wasn't that bad... but that may be because I can pretty much play it with my eyes closed, played the hell out of it back when it came out.

That said, tried playing the older ones recently, with the top-down perspective, and it just didn't work out.
 
I thought GTA3 was bad after playing Vice City on ps2 first. I understand how it changed gaming but damn did that game suck, Vice City is so much better in every way. GTA 3 felt dated, or at least inferior after Vice City released so it's no surprise that it hasn't aged as well.
 
I'm not saying it controlled well in 2001 either but to say that GTA III was lacking standard 3rd person character controls for the time is a misstatement as well, that didn't really codify itself until the very end of that generation.

This game is afterall almost 15 years old. By comparison a 15 year old game when GTA 3 was out? The Legend of Zelda.
 
I never really liked it. Like I played it A Lot but I could never bring myself to finish it. I always just got the second island open and stopped playing. Much preferred 1/2/VC/SA
 
zswordsman said:
I thought GTA3 was bad after playing Vice City on ps2 first. I understand how it changed gaming but damn did that game suck, Vice City is so much better in every way. GTA 3 felt dated, or at least inferior after Vice City released so it's no surprise that it hasn't aged as well.
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And Vice City felt pretty shitty after San Andreas.

I feel like this entire series was increasingly more complex proof-of-concepts for open world games, rather than great games unto themselves.

There's very little reason to return to a previous GTA after a new one comes out. The polar opposite of timeless.
 
BocoDragon said:
And Vice City felt pretty shitty after San Andreas.

I feel like this entire series was increasingly more complex proof-of-concepts for open world games, rather than great games unto themselves.

There's very little reason to return to a previous GTA after a new one comes out. The polar opposite of timeless.
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All three PS2 era GTAs are better than 4 though. SA even controls better than 4.
 
Sure it did, but PC is what you want to be playing it on.
 
Thinking back, this game was always a janky mess. I thought so in 2001.

This game was released in fall 2001 against a backdrop of really solid games like MGS2, FFX, Devil May Cry, Ico, etc. By comparison, I always thought GTA3 was this really ugly and messy experiment.

It was a tech demo that was fun to play with because you'd never had an open world like that before... but as soon as the next better open world came along it was unplayable and useless.

Actually I was surprised that GTA went on to be narratively interesting and mechanically solid. Its breakout hit didn't emphasize those things at all.

Man God said:
All three PS2 era GTAs are better than 4 though. SA even controls better than 4.
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I wouldn't disagree much. 4 is not a game I'd go to bat over.

Both 3 and 4 are games I wouldn't want to play again, so I dunno if I'd dare rank them against one another... but VC, SA and V are increasingly superior and obsolete one another.
 
I just finished it. Loved it. 15 years on and its still fucking great. It really kicks up a notch once you leave the first island. And yeh, the combat is fucking shit. But driving a car, listening to Rise or MSX and running over people, is as good as ever.
 
I don't think I ever finished 3 (I did all the others). Every single time I restarted and got off the first island I got incredibly bored.
 
I'm replaying it as well and 3 holds up shockingly better than you think it would. Yeah the controls are a pain...for 10 minutes. Then you get use to it and it just doesn't matter anymore. The gloomy atmosphere, script, soundtrack, missions, races, and side missions still make the game worthwhile.

And no, I'm not blinded by nostalgia. I bought the Trilogy on PS2 and never really cared for III back then. Having a blast with it tonight.
 
BocoDragon said:
And Vice City felt pretty shitty after San Andreas.

I feel like this entire series was increasingly more complex proof-of-concepts for open world games, rather than great games unto themselves.

There's very little reason to return to a previous GTA after a new one comes out. The polar opposite of timeless.
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True that, San Andreas is really good. However vice city has a fun storyline that at least helps it out, unlike 3.
 
San Andreas plays okay on ps4 but the framerate is shitty if your sensitive to that stuff. Gave me a real bad headache unfortunately and I doubt I'll be able to play it much
 
Really disagree about the older games is unplayable now, I can play VC and San Andreas anytime.. its still damn good
 
I beat III and VC to 100% completion last year (via PS2 classics on PS3) and while I can see how someone picking them up fresh in 2016 would find them pretty janky I still had a great time revisiting them. There's almost something quite novel to their simplicity looking back when compared to what the series has become, despite both being pretty impressive achievements at the time in some ways.

Bought the trilogy on PS4 last week while it was on sale and I'm probably going to go for the Platinums, but reckon I'll start with SA this time. Been wanting to replay that game for close to 10 years, and it's definitely the game in the series I've played least despite enjoying it at the time.
 
None of the early 3d games do particularly well. Not unplayable, but you still notice the age of the software.
 
Smash88 said:
Does any game age well after 15 years? I mean come on.
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Many 2d games play just as good.

To be honest I thought GTA3 controlled like shit day one. Never been a fan.
ANDS said:
None of the early 3d games do particularly well. Not unplayable, but you still notice the age of the software.
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Many still control fine. Early PC fps still control beautifully.. Doom, quake and so on.

Early Nintendo stuff still seems fine to..
 
I take it most people who are complaining about the controls being so terrible are playing with a controller? The aiming was fine with a mouse, since you don't have to rely on autoaim or clunkily move the camera.
Other aspects of the game though...
 
Barely finished it in the PS2, learnt my lesson and played Vice City in PC, and every other GTA since. Too scared to go back to consoles.
 
Zaru said:
I take it most people who are complaining about the controls being so terrible are playing with a controller? The aiming was fine with a mouse, since you don't have to rely on autoaim or clunkily move the camera.
Other aspects of the game though...
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I've only played the PS2 era games on PC and thought they all controlled poorly. Sure, aiming is SLIGHTLY better with a mouse but other controls were unresponsive on a KB+M.
 
If I remember right GTA3 on the Xbox features the driving physics and other visual enhancements from GTA Vice City, making it feel more modern than the PS2/PC versions. Haven't had a chance to play that version yet so I can't confirm.
 
SparkTR said:
If I remember right GTA3 on the Xbox features the driving physics and other visual enhancements from GTA Vice City, making it feel more modern than the PS2/PC versions. Haven't had a chance to play that version yet so I can't confirm.
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I played it on Xbox and I think you could be right about that, it was definitely enhanced compared to the PS2 and PC versions as well.
 
I was able to see the ending of the Grand Theft Auto III, so the controls were definitely manageable at the time. This thread actually makes me curious to revisit it.

I also finished Vice City, and I do remember it being a big improvement over III.

I can't comment on San Andreas, because I stopped playing shortly after unlocking San Fierro. One of these days, I'll pick it up and actually play through the thing. I liked it, but I just didn't make it far.

Extremely influential games like GTA III do not always hold up mechanically, but their impact on gaming never goes away.
 
ANDS said:
None of the early 3d games do particularly well. Not unplayable, but you still notice the age of the software.
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That's something that affected PS1 and N64 games, the PS2 era got Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden, God of War, Max Paine, and FFX-2, all of those games aged extremely well from a gameplay perspective, and they play better than most games released today.
 
Timu said:
I played it on Xbox and I think you could be right about that, it was definitely enhanced compared to the PS2 and PC versions as well.
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Nice, I think I'll buy a copy on online to check it out. I feel the Xbox version this game is likely the least played version by a country mile, given how it was overshadowed by the PS2 back then and it was never rereleased digitally like the PC/PS2 versions. Kind of a shame the arguably definitive version has been left forgotten.
 
Speaking purely in terms of graphics, I still like the way it looks (at least imagining it on PC with higher resolution to reduce jagginess). The simplicity/polygonal look of it still has some charm, imo.

I haven't played it recently though so I have no idea how the controls would feel to me now.
 
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