4 ms·

Prior to GTA 5 coming out I would've been super-excited about this. GTA 3, Vice City, San Andreas and GTA 4 were amazing releases. Why? Because they had a heavy

by cletus 5y ago

Prior to GTA 5 coming out I would've been super-excited about this. GTA 3, Vice City, San Andreas and GTA 4 were amazing releases. Why? Because they had a heavy undercurrent of satire combined with an historical aesthetic (the 70s, 80s, etc). I mean I still can't hear ELO's "Evil Woman" without thinking about GTA. But GTA 5 for me was a soulless, awful game with horrible writing and two-dimensional main characters. The visuals were great of course but the driving became more "realistic" in a bad way. Prior to this driving was comical, almost cartoon-y. Like you could blow up your car by having a half dozen fender bumps. Once in GTA 5 I took a bus and tried to see how far I could make it doing a loop of the island on the wrong side of the road. I completely made it without my bus blowing up. Easily. Like WTF? This led to some comical situations like in San Andreas I'd sometimes get bored and go to Las Vegas highway interchange where you could create a massive car pileup and then blow up one car to make a giant chain reaction of explosions. The TV and radio tracks of earlier releases were legendary. IIRC GTA 3 had repeated ads for a video game where as Pogo the Monkey you had to break into the Whitehouse and kill the president. Lazslo as a common radio personality was hilarious. I finished the main story line of GTA 5 and have never played it again, something I couldn't say about any previous title. I just don't care about it at all. I have no nostalgia for it. I really hope GTA 6 turns this around somehow.

hnbad 5y ago
I felt the same when I first played GTA 4 which already scaled down a lot of the cartoonishness. In my opinion Saints Row (especially SR3) is a better continuation of the outlandish extravagance that made the original GTA games great. Sadly after SR4 they seem to have pivoted to more constrained games that largely ditch any serious attempt at a narrative arc.
Fricken 5y ago
They hired top tier Hollywood writers and actors for Vice City and San Andreas, and those were the only 2 games I've played where I actually looked forward to watching the cutscenes. GTAV they went with second rate actors and writers, and it shows. The other thing is that the core mechanics haven't meaningfully changed. There's only so many times I can steal a car, drive recklessly and evade the cops before the experience is played out. I don't get excited about doing the same thing again with refreshed set decorations.

by cletus 5y ago

hnbad 5y ago

I felt the same when I first played GTA 4 which already scaled down a lot of the cartoonishness. In my opinion Saints Row (especially SR3) is a better continuation of the outlandish extravagance that made the original GTA games great. Sadly after SR4 they seem to have pivoted to more constrained games that largely ditch any serious attempt at a narrative arc.

Fricken 5y ago

They hired top tier Hollywood writers and actors for Vice City and San Andreas, and those were the only 2 games I've played where I actually looked forward to watching the cutscenes. GTAV they went with second rate actors and writers, and it shows. The other thing is that the core mechanics haven't meaningfully changed. There's only so many times I can steal a car, drive recklessly and evade the cops before the experience is played out. I don't get excited about doing the same thing again with refreshed set decorations.