Which GTA to play?

[ThunderPeel2001]

The only GTA I've ever properly played is GTAIV. I enjoyed it a great deal and I picked up the Rockstar Pack last time it was on sale on Steam. Now I've got a choice: Which one to play?

GTA

GTA2

GTA III

GTA: San Andreas

GTA: Vice City

I'm not planning on playing through all of them, to be honest, probably just the "best" one. So... which is it? I have a feeling that either VC or SA are the ones that people go back to/have fondest memories of/are the most enjoyable/have the least annoying main character, but I can't remember which one it was.

Thanks!

[pabosher]

Id actually suggest either 3 or VC. Don't really care for SA, especially not it's mouse/keyboard driving/cycling system, and 3/VC are pretty much the routing of why that series become great IMO. Id suggest 3 first, and if you get bored, play VC from the beginning. The setting is wonderful.

[Raff]

Vice City has the most appealing setting to me, San Andreas has the largest scope (mucking about outside a city can make a nice change). Probably whichever of those two looks best to you. I wouldn't bother with the old top-down ones, they were awsome at the time but the newer ones kept most of what was good and improved on it a lot. I've not played GTA3 since it was the hot shit but it was so cutting edge back then that I assume it has some flaws that won't do it any favours compared with VC onwards.

[Sno]

I always really liked GTA2 and San Andreas the most out of all those ones.

I think GTA4 is my favorite overall though.

[mikemariano]

Playing Bully made me realize I never want to play a pre-GTA IV Grand Theft Auto. I knew from YouTube videos that Vice City and San Andreas were big and comparatively empty, with unnaturally jittery movement from the characters. Bully probably improved on the engine's physics and it still was too twitchy for me.

Give me Niko Bellic slowly turning around while getting shot any day!

[miffy495]

Depends on what you liked more about GTAIV, really. In terms of story, Vice City is about a total jerkbag who kills a lot of people and makes a bunch of money, San Andreas is about a gangster with a heart of gold killing some corrupt cops, and GTA3 is about ???? (with a bunch of mob movie references thrown in). San Andreas is probably told the least shit-ily, but honestly none of them really have stories that are worth paying attention to. The settings are why you play them. I personally love the world of San Andreas the most, but playing the story long enough to unlock the whole thing can take a while. Comparatively, Vice City has style and is definitely cool to check out, and as it's two regions rather than 3 is unlocked in its entirety way sooner, so there's that. Still, the flyable airplanes, skydiving, jetpack stuff, and tonnes of other stuff that they added to SA makes it my favorite. No matter which one you're playing though, expect a wonderful world to dick around in with a passable-at-best (though having some cool voice actors) story hanging it all together.

[Patters]

3, VC and SA are an unlinked trilogy as IV, and the subsequent expansions are. SA was my favourite, ver mad cap and crazy but in a good way.

[miffy495]

Totally. I was actually pretty bummed with how much they toned down the crazy for 4. One of the reasons I like Saint's Row so much, honestly. GTAIV took the story parts of the GTAIII trilogy and ran with them, Saint's Row did that with the crazy.

[Thompson]

I'd certainly recommend SA, that was my first GTA experience and man, I loved that game. I went straight on to IV after that and have never looked back.

[ThunderPeel2001]

SA is getting the most love, I think!

[stewmull]

Yeah I found in SA that i actually cared about some characters rather than in GTA4, also the territory warfare was surprisingly entertaining

[Thrik]

Yeah I too would say San Andreas is my favourite. Don't get me wrong GTA3 and Vice City are great and obviously brought forth the formula we all know and love, but really GTA3 and GTA4 are so alike — set in Liberty City — that it's hardly worth playing the former after the latter, particularly seeing as it's the least aesthetically pleasing of the lot and the story is basically shit.

VC has a wonderful Miami-esque setting but the city is rather small and once again the gameplay is very similar to what you've seen before. If you like the idea of playing a massive Scarface tribute then it might be worthwhile.

SA is the one that a current-generation GTA hasn't yet matched, in that it takes place over a whole state that contains multiple cities and also smaller settlements such as farming towns, hippy communes in the forest, etc, which takes the atmosphere and feel of the game to places you've probably not yet experienced in the series. My fondest SA memories are of going around the deserts, forests, etc.

Kind of disappointed Rockstar haven't yet gone for a SA-style GTA this generation now.

[thl]

My clear favorite is SA. I think that has the best story and characters (including GTA4 gasp). GTA3 was great and probably has the funnest most honed map but the technical limitations show (like no melee weapons, not being able to punch cars, etc.). VC has the best atmosphere but I found that to also have the most empty/rushed map. SA is so big that any empty parts are more than equalled out by the three massive cities, it's the top form of that engine, and again, I think it's the most mature storytelling of any GTA game (although they're all derivitave of movies so whatever). I also enjoyed the music the most (go K-JAH West!!!) although that's one of the strongest things about all GTA games. The accomplishment of SA made me feel like they took a step back with GTA4.

For more old school, I definitely enjoyed GTA2 more than the first. The first is pretty random and very difficult where the second at least has save spots and a mission structure and systems in play rather than a constant barrage of pages and random cars and explosiony deaths. The end of GTA2 is balls-out hard though, can't imagine beating it without cheats.

Also, two more cents getting thrown in, I really loved Bully. I thought it was great to have all the side activities like video games and stuff actually make sense to the character (since he was a kid and not a psychopath murderer).

They're all pretty ugly by today's standards (and I guess when they were released too) but the world maps are top-notch in their ability to distill real places into mini sense-maps. Practically every street in Los Santos is a direct reference to somewhere in Los Angeles, yet it also works as a game map. It's great.

[ThunderPeel2001]

  thl said:

the technical limitations show (like no melee weapons, not being able to punch cars, etc.)

Punch cars? Have I been playing GTA wrong all this time?

[DanJW]

I loved Vice City. Like everyone says, the atmosphere and soundtrack is great. Although the main story is forgettable, individual missions make for great set pieces, often inspired by 80s action movies.

It's possible it's aged now - I never thought the map was all that bad at the time, but maybe it doesn't hold up as well in retrospect.

[mikemariano]

  ThunderPeel2001 said:

Punch cars? Have I been playing GTA wrong all this time?

[thl]

  DanJW said:

I loved Vice City. Like everyone says, the atmosphere and soundtrack is great. Although the main story is forgettable, individual missions make for great set pieces, often inspired by 80s action movies.

It's possible it's aged now - I never thought the map was all that bad at the time, but maybe it doesn't hold up as well in retrospect.

I don't mean to make it sound like i disliked VC. Parts of the map are great, and all GTA games have areas of the map that are empty and have nothing interesting going on, but I just remember VC having a larger amount of that emptiness, especially when compared to GTA3's map. Half the one island was beach, and almost half the other is either barren industrial buildings or airporrt. It did have the apartment from Scarface though, which is cool (I so badly wanted Sasquatch to be in SA)

and yeah, punching cars is the best! For some reason, I got a strangely unique thrill out of making Tommy Vercetti go up to every car that dared honk at me and kick the shit out of their door or break their windshield and watch them run. hahahahahahaha*evil

[MrHoatzin]

Vice City on the PC has really stupid shaders. They didn't port it to look as nice as it does on the PS2. Plus the landscapes are way less fun to drive in and explore than in either of the two other ones in its generation, hands down.

Since everyone is talking about how rad San Andreas is, I will not (though it is!). I'll put my vote in for GTAIII.

Even though some of the key mechanics are not in it (no motorcycles and you can't jump out of a moving car, for example), it has the most explorable world. You will get to know it like the back of your hand. There is so much shit in SA that you are likely to miss a bunch of it. Plus collecting packages in III is a lot more rewarding than all the scavenger hunt stuff in SA because it rewards you for every ten packages collected, whereas SA rewards you only when you collect EVERYTHING, encouraging use of online guides.

GTAIII is the most arcadey—in good ways that I often wish the later incarnations were. It is also the most humble of them all, it is not as rife with big-name actors and expensive music. It has fewer guns and weapons—meaning fewer duplicates and clones. Fewer cars, which means you get to learn how all of them control. It has a kind of economy to its design that is really refreshing, almost like an indie game. And the character models, being slightly more stylized, are somehow nicer than either of the other games in the generation. :tup:

[Sno]

No love for the original games, guys?

I find the first GTA is really hard to go back to, but GTA 2 is a lot of fun to screw around with, for a little bit at least.

[thl]

Hey Sno, do you remember that weird 15-minute video they released for GTA2 with the protagonist stirring up shit? what a weird promo method. I loved the music though. Actually I very much enjoyed GTA2 for tweaking the respect systems. Nothing like mowing down 50 rednecks in order to get the next zaibatsu mission.

I also being really overjoyed at hearing that elvises were returning in SA. Unfortunately there was no secret bonus for getting 5 or 6 of them in a row.

[elmuerte]

I vote for Vice City. It has the best story and setting.

[Wrestlevania]

Another vote for Vice City. It's just about perfect, in my opinion.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Well voting seems to have ended up like this:

VC:

  Reveal hidden contents

1111

SA:

  Reveal hidden contents

11111111

G3:

  Reveal hidden contents

1

Edit: Sno made a vote.

Edited July 4, 2011 by ThunderPeel2001

[subbes]

Oooh, clever.

[elmuerte]

  ThunderPeel2001 said:

Well voting seems to have ended up like this:

VC:

  Reveal hidden contents

1111

SA:

  Reveal hidden contents

1111111

G3:

  Reveal hidden contents

1

But a vote for VC counts for two, so it should be at least:

VC:

  Reveal hidden contents

2222