Grand Theft Auto: A story of Incline and then Decline?

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

The PS2 era of GTA is probably the first major example of a game being considered not just good, but one of the best games around regardless of the gameplay.

Chrono Trigger and Mother/Earthbound

No, those actual have good gameplay. It might not be as deep as some CRPG from around the same time, but they’re good. Chrono Trigger actually has a pretty interesting gameplay system regardless of being simple. Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City on the other hand play like fucking shit, the shooting is fucking terrible. Even San Andreas, which has better combat than the previous two, still has bad combat. San Andreas at least has a bunch of interesting system stuff with regards to the stats, and a bunch of shit to do, but it’s still pretty bad on a gameplay level.

 

[Zoo]

The shooting sucked at the time too. It was a major step down from how well they pulled off shooting in GTA2, (at least the PC version, console GTA2 felt like shit too) and they wouldn’t pull off good shooting in the 3D games until GTA4. As nice of a novelty as it was at the time to finally have an open world sandbox game where you could get out of the car and do things, the shooting was so fucking bad in those PS2 era games that I always found the love the series got odd.

The PS2 era of GTA is probably the first major example of a game being considered not just good, but one of the best games around regardless of the gameplay. Before you could maybe say there were other games that did this or that better than some major title that was considered as great, but that great hugely popular game at least wasn’t bad at doing what it was doing like those PS2 GTA games were.

I can’t remember what they did anymore to fuck it up, but I remember when I first played GTA5 thinking that the shooting felt worse than 4. So even all these years later, 4 has the best shooting. I think they basically made aiming pointless in 5.

I love 3, VC and SA, but gunplay was always ass. If I wanted a shooter, I went to play RtCW or later Max Payne 2 besides the old classics (Doom, Build Engine games). GTAs were fun, because you could rampage (it was fun despite the bad gunplay) and cruise in the city, they have regular and non-PC jokes, some clunky, but fun missions and overall an immersive crime "sim" with decent and funny characters and story for an action game. And they didn't went too far with this cinematic direction.

 

[orcinator]

It might not be as deep as some CRPG from around the same time, but they’re good. Chrono Trigger actually has a pretty interesting gameplay system regardless of being simple.

It really isn't, and as jank as GTA can be the gameplay can still be more interesting (at least in the less moviegamey ones) than the "spam attack, heal sometimes" gameplay of the Frictionless JRPG (because they are the proto-moviegame).

 

[NecroLord]

The shooting sucked at the time too. It was a major step down from how well they pulled off shooting in GTA2, (at least the PC version, console GTA2 felt like shit too) and they wouldn’t pull off good shooting in the 3D games until GTA4. As nice of a novelty as it was at the time to finally have an open world sandbox game where you could get out of the car and do things, the shooting was so fucking bad in those PS2 era games that I always found the love the series got odd.

The PS2 era of GTA is probably the first major example of a game being considered not just good, but one of the best games around regardless of the gameplay. Before you could maybe say there were other games that did this or that better than some major title that was considered as great, but that great hugely popular game at least wasn’t bad at doing what it was doing like those PS2 GTA games were.

I can’t remember what they did anymore to fuck it up, but I remember when I first played GTA5 thinking that the shooting felt worse than 4. So even all these years later, 4 has the best shooting. I think they basically made aiming pointless in 5.

I love 3, VC and SA, but gunplay was always ass. If I wanted a shooter, I went to play RtCW or later Max Payne 2 besides the old classics (Doom, Build Engine games). GTAs were fun, because you could rampage (it was fun despite the bad gunplay) and cruise in the city, they have regular and non-PC jokes, some clunky, but fun missions and overall an immersive crime "sim" with decent and funny characters and story for an action game. And they didn't went too far with this cinematic direction.

Gunplay was always a weak or lacking quality in those games.
It was just there to serve its function, but nothing more than that.