PlayStation Nation |OT| Playing Astro Bot on the Horizon Until Dawn

[Runa216]

Kyuu said:

Loved GTA3, Vice City, and of course the amazing San Andreas. Hated the downgrade that was GTA4... dropped it after a couple of hours and never played a GTA since (even though GTA5 looked like a massive improvement). But I'm super excited for GTA6! About time I revisit the series.

Similar stories. i picked up III on a whim and loved it but mostly just did the cheats and rampages. Only did the story to unlock the other areas/islands. 

GTA Vice City and San Andreas remain on my favourite game list for good reason since they had actual soul and characters and vast gameplay improvements. VERY impressive for their time. 

But GTA IV just pissed me off. IT lacked the colour or personality of Vice City or San Andreas. It lacked the world building or fun characters of any of the prior games. I genuinely HATED like 95% of the cast, like, beyond just 'oh, these guys are silly' and straight into 'if I have to hear Brucie say one more fucking word I'm going to punch a hole in the wall'. It was like...what if EVERY character in Legend of Zelda was as annoying as Navi or Fi with an added layer of wannabe edgy M-rated humour. I hated the driving mechanics that felt like you were driving on ice throughout. I hated the removal of all the fun RPG mechanics that were introduced in San Andreas. I know I'm in the minority here but I personally hated that they ditched the pop culture references and did something original. yeah, I respect them for it but without the anchor of the existing IP they were lampooning the story felt bland, empty, and mean-spirited. They didn't get good at storytelling, in my opinion, until 2010 with Red Dead Redemption (That and RDR2 are two of the best video game stories ever). GTA IV just sorta settled into this middle ground where they weren't parodying movies but hadn't found their feet for original storytelling yet. 

I almost skipped GTAV because of how much I loathed GTA IV and I'm glad I didn't. The world was more interesting, the characters were more interesting, the gameplay mechanics were more interesting. The game was more fun, had a better sense of scale and scope than ever before, was serious while still retaining the goofy elements I came to love in the PS2 era. I personally didn't care for the heists (too complicated, personally, always felt like if i made one wrong move I'd end up fucking everything up and that anxiety kept me from enjoying them).

and once again I'm eager to play GTA VI. I loved Vice City the best in terms of locale. I like the male/female dynamic so I can actually play as a woman for once. Their storytelling has gotten exponentially better. I'm still mildly resentful over how much I hated IV (it holds a special place on my list of games I hate from franchises I love alongside Final Fantasy XIII and Dark Souls II), but everything they've done since 2010...all three games...have been stone cold classics.