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What's the best GTA game in your opinion?

Fjordson said:
Grand Theft Auto IV. Easily.

Loved the city, the attention to detail, the way the cars handle, the great characters, and amazing DLC. Closely followed by Vice City.

My least favourite is San Andreas. Still a fantastic game don't get me wrong, but there was definitely some fluff in there that I couldn't care less about.
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Co-signed.
 
I'd say the setting, characters and story for Vice City is the best, but IV's gameplay takes the cake. I've always wanted a more realistic take on GTA, which is what happened.
 
Can I troll and say Saint's Row 3? :P Anyways, I think it'll always be the original GTAIII. Because, even though it was extremely rough around the edges, it was something very unique for its time. Could never get into the others the way I did the original III - mainly due to them never improving the busted controls or the settings not being as interesting.

As far as soundtrack is concerned, Liberty City Stories is GOD TIER. 90's house and a whole station devoted to Giorgio Moroder? YES PLEASE!!!
 
Vice City is my favorite. I know its because I grew up in the 80s and I have a strong attachment to that era. San Andreas is the best GTA game. Didn't really care for GTA IV nor its expansions. BOGT was ok
 
MikeE21286 said:
This smells like a "GAF votes" in the near future...

here's my top 3:


1. Vice City
2. GTA III
3. San Andreas
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I was thinking that the GTA series would be a good one for the next GAF Votes after the Final Fantasy one is finished, but this thread's existence makes it kind of pointless. :\
 
Almost a tie for me between Vice City and San Andreas.

Vice city gets the edge for me because I'm a child of the 80s and loved the atmosphere and soundtrack.

I do think San Andreas was a far superior game though in terms of actual game play. I thought it started off slow, but once you get to the countryside and once you can start flying planes, the game goes to a whole other level.
 
ScOULaris said:
I was thinking that the GTA series would be a good one for the next GAF Votes after the Final Fantasy one is finished, but this thread's existence makes it kind of pointless. :\
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It's worth revisiting. Give it a couple months. There's plenty of good series to choose from.
 
I have to give that honor to San Andreas. It's the only GTA game that kept me hooked all the way through the storyline.
Such great dialogue, an amazing cast of characters and a stunning soundtrack. It also had more variety in the areas, going to a new city felt like a new awesome chapter in the story.

Also, i'm a huge sucker for early 90's gangsta rap, and I simply loved everything about the setting and theme.
 
Atmosphere, Setting and Music - Vice City
Story/Characters - GTA3
Fun - San Andreas and Ballad of Gay Tony
Visuals/Physics/Technical mumbo jumbo - GTA4/BoGT
 
ScOULaris said:
I was thinking that the GTA series would be a good one for the next GAF Votes after the Final Fantasy one is finished, but this thread's existence makes it kind of pointless. :\
Click to expand...

I'm sure it will come back some time after GTA5 is released.

For me it is Vice City, the world design was fantastic for its time (but GTA4's Liberty City blew me away) and added a little more features without going overboard (which, incidentally, is my biggest gripe about San Andreas), but besides GTA3 it has the only story that makes sense for what the GTA games are (my biggest gripe with GTA4).

It also sported an amazing boxed set soundtrack that I have... somewhere.

Ironically, I hated Vice City Stories and couldn't finish it.
 
SA>VC>EFLC>CW>4>3

Thats pretty much the way it goes in my mind. Never put much time into 1/2 or played VCS/LCS so can't judge those really. SA just has so much to do, even if it lost the "focus" that VC had, the rest more than makes up for it. EFLC had two great stories. A better serious one than GTA4 in TLaD, perhaps the best GTA story even, and a great light hearted one in TBoGT. It also had the incredibly detailed LC. Chinatown Wars is pretty much the perfect handheld adaptation of GTA. Everything just works together brilliantly. 4 is solid, but its too dark and lost a lot of the lighter elements of the others IMO. 3, while great at the time, really pales in comparison the the rest nowadays.
 
GTA IV. It has the best police chase mechanic of the series. The cars handle well and are fun to drive, shooting from the car is a lot easier and due to the slowed pace and cover mechanic you can exit the car, kill some police and jack another vehicle. That whole system is just more fun than the clusterfuck of the previous games.
 
GTA San Andreas is my favorite for it's unbridled insanity and terrain diversity. GTAIV is right behind it just for its unmatched detail and interconnectivity.
 
I enjoyed Vice City's gameplay the most, but I think I enjoyed GTAIV's world, characters and their stories much more than the others.

GTA3 still has a place in my heart though. I couldn't believe how big an awesome that game was when I first started playing it.

BTW... You should've made this thread a voting contest ala MGS.
 
Vice City had the best atmosphere and setting.

San Andreas was just epic in scope and a lot of fun.

GTA4 had the best pollished game mechanics.


And GTA3 gets my vote for absolutely blowing my mind when it came out.
 
1. Vice City
2. San Andreas
3. GTA3
4. Ballad of Gay Tony
5. GTA4

GTA3 was the most impressive when it came out. I bought a PS2 just for this game. Saw it at a friends house and could not believe that you could just walk the streets stealing any car you wanted and shooting anyone. Also could not believe that the FBI would come and eventually the army. It just seemed so real.
 
Vice City. Something about all the pastel colors, stealing cars, and listening to Michael Jackson while I'm at it, just did it for me. The other games weren't as fun.
 
GTA2 followed very closely by Chinatown Wars.

I'll always prefer the isometric arcadey GTA gameplay over the 3D iterations and I can never see that changing. I spent so many hours on GTA2's multiplayer over LAN I couldn't count them if I tried.

Chinatown Wars was basically the GTA sequel I had been waiting a decade for. I firmly believe it is one of the the best games on the DS, and a near perfect portable GTA experience, as well as a faithful successor to the original isometric games. It also introduced some great new ideas that further cemented my preference for this style of GTA. The stars and chase system in particular, encouraging high speed driving as you try and lure tailing cops into obstacles, is the best the entire series has seen.
 
I really liked Vice City & The Ballad of Gay Tony best. Rockstar is probably my favorite studio, and I've played/loved every GTA they've created. I wish I could experience that sense of wonder I had when playing GTA III for the first time- this seems to be the feeling I keep trying to chase as each new iteration comes out. Red Dead Redemption brought it back!

Edit: Yeah, even that GTA Advance game!
 
San Andreas, with Vice City not too far off at No. 2. Those are probably my two favorite games of all time. Gay Tony isn't far behind them.

Overall rankings:

1. San Andreas
2. Vice City
3. Ballad of Gay Tony
4. Vice City Stories
5. GTA III
6. GTA IV
7. Lost and Damned
8. Liberty City Stories
9. Chinatown Wars

All of them are great. (I've never played the oldies.)
 
I still enjoyed Liberty City Stories the most... gets shitted on the most of the time, but the GTAIII city always felt like the right size and the story was actually damn good...

I say this beating all the third person perspective GTAs
 
While I played a lot of GTA2 in the day it didn't fully start for me until 3, then Vice City took it further again and while I put a lot of time into San Andreas I felt like the game was just too large/had too much to do, I couldn't get as into it.

GTAIV is my current favorite in the series though, made things a little more realistic (most enjoyable driving out of all the games for me) while still keeping the game immensely fun.
 
I found Vice City boring. The world was too flat.

3 my favourite of the 3D ones. Nothing beats driving around listening to Double Clef FM.

2 is my favourite of the original games. Going to war with the Scientists was always fun.
 
The PS2 games (not the PS2 versions of PSP games) are all pretty close. Ultimately I'd give the best to Vice City. It had the best atmosphere and music, plus Ray Liotta.

GTA3 comes in second. I liked our silent protagonist and the whole experience was just so new.

Coming in very close behind is San Andreas. The scope of the game is amazing. The music was great (even the country station, and I don't like country music unless I'm trashed). The characters were great, especially Mike Toreno. CJ seemed a bit too nice to be doing the things I had him do, but otherwise he was great.

GTA4 is fifth.

Anyway Ranking them

1. Vice City
2. GTA3
3. San Andreas
4. GTA2 (me and my roommate got an awful lot of play out of the multiplayer
5. GTA4
6. GTA

(I've played the PSP games on my PS2 and they did little for me.)
 
In terms of mind being blown: GTA 3. It was everything many of us had been dreaming about for years. Being able to do almost anything truly felt like a revolution.

In terms of fun: SA. It literally had everything.

In terms of awe: IV. For the first time we could roam around in a "living breathing city". I wasn't aware how great the environment was until I played Saints Row a couple years later and put it down after less than three minutes. The game felt empty and dead. After IV's total immersion there was no looking back.

Next gen hopes: Be over the top with the fun (but not so much in the way of cockswords ala RSIII.)

Give me a fully destructible city that can rebuild itself. Just imagine for a moment that you're playing and you think to yourself "Sure I could clear out that warehouse of baddies, but you know what, I think I'm gonna plant some C4 on the main structural pillars of that skyscraper beside them and topple that motherfucker onto them."

Also on that note, R* get fucking inventive with our fun. Instead of letting us customize the colour and rims our cars, let us discover new future tech that gives us the ability to create hover cars, mounted mini guns etc.

Additionally I wished I could web sling the fuck out of Liberty City. There is nothing more I'd love to do than to swoop down, pick up someone, swing super high and launch the shit out of that poor fucker!

And finally have all of this ON DISK day 1 (and no I don't mean unlockable dlc). I can't be the only that thought leaving out tanks and planes in IV until DLC was a fucking rip off cumfart of a move by R*.
 
I probably spent the most time screwing around in GTA III as most here.

I enjoyed the plot, size, and scope of San Andreas the most.

Barely played Vice City--think it would hold up for me if I went back?
 
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