General Grand Theft Auto Thread

So quaint nowadays but GTAIII was a true watershed moment for video games. I think everyone around my age (31) remembers playing this game for countless hours and how it just blew our minds right out of our skulls.

So of course I went on to play Vice City. Watching the GTA series mature is quite fascinating. 3 was just kinda nothing with Claude having almost no personality and you're just doing gang missions and blowing up random crap between that. Vice City gives us Tommy who is an unrepentant psycho killer but there are hints spread throughout the game of greater depth. Tommy has more backstory and personality than you generally see in most cutscenes. But it's still largely just another fun romp and an excuse to be a crazy killer.

I have never played San Andreas personally. Everyone said it was the best PS 2 GTA - or maybe the best GTA ever period -but I just never got around to playing it. But I do know the plot and events in it. This was GTA finally growing up and telling a more substantive, thematic story. But my next GTA's were the Stories games. Liberty City Stories is pretty much a return to GTA 3/VC levels of wackiness. I don't hold it in particularly high esteem. It's not really funny or fun or interesting. Great theme, though. Now Vice City Stories - that is an underrated gem. Possibly the best GTA game I've ever played. It has Vice City silliness mixed with a more complex protagonist and storyline. I've always felt bad for Lance and VCS rammed that home.The The Vance brothers are both doomed to death and nobody but us will ever care. I've been thinking about replaying VCS lately.

That waS the end of my GTA journey. It was born and ended on the PS 2. The thing is, I always played with Gameshark, Code Breaker, etc.. I dunno exactly why but come the last console generation, these stopped being a thing. However I did watch somebody LP a decent chunk of Grand Theft Auto IV ten years ago. It was really popular to hate o nGTAIV back then. But to me, the game looked absolutely brilliant. It was the pinnacle of everything GTA was slowly growing into. Amazing story, fantastic protagonist , fucking amazing graphics and gameplay...it had it all. The LP'er I watched never did finish it. No spoilers please. I really wanna experience the game for myself. I know vaguely some people can die but no idea how or when.

Well, I finally have a decent PC for the first time in my life. With trainers, I can finally get back into GTA. I'm gonna buy GTAIV off Steam and also replay VCS on emulator. I wanna get back into a series that is so near and dear to my heart and which I've been away from for far too long.

But that is my opening piece. What is your history with this franchise? Legend says that there were games before 3.

You probably won't even need a trainer for GTAIV, it doesn't have as many of the bull-shit unbalanced moments that GTAIII and Vice City had, save for maybe the gunfights against high-level police. Same goes for the gunfights: once you realize that the "slow-but-careful" approach with a ranged automatic weapon and auto-aim wins everything, the story missions become easy-peasy... well, save for that rare occasion you have to round a corner with an enemy wielding a shotgun. That's why grenades and molotovs exist.

Definitely do look into getting some graphical or gameplay overhaul mods though, there's quite a few out there and many of them are absolutely worth the effort to install.

I'd love a remaster of Vice City.

It's my favorite setting-wise, but it feels really dated now.

Is the GTAIV DLC worth it? I'm kind sparse on cash and would only like to spend $20 but maybe it adds to the story in some meaningful way.

Haven't played either so I don't speak from experience.

But from what I did hear, The Lost and the Damned is more story-driven with most missions having a cops-and-robbers feel, whereas the Ballad of Gay Tony harkens back to the whackiness of GTA San Andreas.

They don't add much to Niko story but I had fun play them.

So I finally got GTAIV Complete Edition. Jesus what a trainwreck getting everything fixed because Rockstar has had all these versions which add or mainly remove stuff. But I got the original music and also a mod set up to give me infinite health because I'm really bad at these games. In the old GTA's I had cheats on for fun, here I have cheats on for story. I'm already sensing I will fail many times just from car chases or failing things not related to health.

Liberty City here is on a whole other level compared to 3 or VC. I'm sure that goes without saying but Ill say it anyway because I will be so lost for a long, long time. Even GA 3 and VC probably had me lost for a bit given GTA 3 was a revolutionary title at the time. I just have the benefit of hindsight and playing approximately a bjillion hours of he game so I forget how lost I originally was. But this makes GTA 3 look like an Atari 2600 game. Hopefully with time and practice I'll get some of GTAIV memorized, too.

I am having fun, though. It's nice having such a strongly characterized PC. Niko has more to him than even Vic in VCS. It's why I try not to mow people down or evens teal that many cars - I don't "feel" like Niko would do that.

Michelle has to be the worst spy ever. Thank God Niko is a bit clueless or that lady would have been six feet under immediately if assigned to some gang or mob infiltration.

Thank God Auto Aim exists, I just met Little Jacob and got my first taste of gun combat and Auto Aim was off for some reason. Well it's there for all the many, many future gunfights I'll bein. I might be invincible but that doesn't make everything easier.

I forget if I mentioned in the OP that I'm not sure how this game ends. I think you can choose what people die....? Roman or Kate maybe....? Don't tell me, just musing on what plot details I do know.

I like Roman but man, having restarted the game at least a dozen times while trying to get everything working, I had to hear him talk about titties so much that I think I hate boobs now. But nobody fucks with my cousin, I'll watch out for him.

But yeah, I mainly wanted to get OG Vladivostok FM. As a YT commenter pointed out, you don't see many Slavic video game heroes with Slavic music. The music is not only atmospheric, it's awesome. I need to look into this Ruslana lady.

But yeah, haven't done too much as of yet but maybe I should just zoom around and try to get the map down. I know there are those strangers you can just come across but not sure if they show up on the radar or anything..... Not sure what otehr goodies might be lying in wait as I roam aimlessly.

I just lost the first safehouse and wanted to ramble my thoughts on things.

Firstly, It's kinda ironic that Vice City has the Scarface aesthetic but none of what made Scarface...Scarface. I thought of this when reflecting on Niko being an immigrant just like Tony was. Vice City is all about Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gnagsta while this game and Scarface are anything but joyous or celebratory.

I don't like any of the minigames except bowling but i always accept Roman's invites because he and Niko have an interesting dynamic. This was on full display after the safehouse was torched and when Roman said "I'm an optimist" and Niko said "you're an idiot." But there was a car banter that was much more interesting to me. Niko hates this country with a passion and goes into great, vicious detail about the hypocrisy and lies at its foundation. He specifically scoffs at the Land of Opportunity. Roman then shoots back with "sure, most people will miss out as they're stuck on the highway. But winners like me, we will find the secret road to he top." Either Roman is every bit the blind idealist that Niko is the broken cynic or he's just drowning in the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Either way, it reminds me of that John Oliver episode about American poverty, about how Americans only see themselves as a nation of haves and soon-to-haves as opposed to haves and have-nots. Roman might be an immigrant but he's as American as it gets with his blind faith that he at least will succeed. I think that's pretty intentional - Roman has thoroughly adapted to his new home in stark contrast to Niko who absolutely hates the place. Unless he's fucking Michelle....

I know about a few spoilers like Michelle being a mole (not that it's very subtle...) and Dmitri turning on you due to the LP I watched a decade ago getting passed that. But they did never finish the game so I'm still pretty in the dark on how a lot of stuff ends. So if anybody actually readsand replies to this, please don't spoil anything about the rest of the game.

I think I started to sincerely like GTAIV during the mission where you execute Mikhail. The LP'ers ripped on the game big time but when I watched that scene and listened to his speech, I thought "this game is something special, no matter what they say." Having now played through his missions myself, I like Mikhail even more and think he's one of the strongest characters in this game. He's what Niko could turn out to be if he keeps this chip on his shoulder. Also the LP'ers were funny even if they hated the game . I'll always remember, when Mikhail says Dmitri would be a prison queen for a "gym monkey" they just said questioningly "Brucie...?" That was funny.

Brucie and Little Jacob seem to be the characters everyone loves, even the haters. Jacob did help me out with Dmitri so he's awesome in my book. Brucie is...he is charismatic I suppose. Buthe's not really my type.

I had completely forgotten about the "Traitor Plot." That is ostensibly why Niko is really here, right? I remember...was it Bernie? it's hard to forget Bernie. But I remember nothing about the rest of this storyline or if it plays into everything else going on. You would assume it does.

I have found one of those strangers, it was the racist guy who gave me $100. What a nice chap. Gotta keep an eye out for more of those. I think it's a very cool touch.

Which sums up GTAIV quite well, I think. There's so much love and care into every aspect of this game. I'm having a great time. I've done my best to get really close to Michelle so the betrayal will be meaningful. I do like her, though and she does seem to genuinely start to have feelings for Niko if you date her enough. I'm not sure if any of these romances have any real plot impact o are meaningful to the ending, though.

I just finished GTAIV. I'll post my collected thoughts later but I just wanna say.

What a steaming pile of shit those endings were. This is what happens when you listen to those people who whine about Fallout: New Vegas having no gameplay after the ending. If you don't know, everything in FNV builds up to one big battle and then the game rightly chooses to be over with because the goal of the game was achieved.

These endings here are so half-assed and it's abundantly clear why. Because they knew this wasn't a real ending, the game just continues. Niko's life is fucking over in one way or another but it continues because they gave in to this bullshit that an open world just has to carry on forever. An open world game can have an ending. Some games have endings and then just start you over before the final mission or boss or whatever. They should have just done that here.

This...this was pathetic. A tragic - and not in the intended way - finale to a great video game. Darko was the real ending. This crap where they weren't even vaguely trying is so painfully unsatisfying that I can't even believe it.

"Oh my closest family member or the love of my life is dead. Shucks. Let's go see what Brucie is up to. Oh he's so silly, look at him spazzing out. Hahahahahaha."

What a fucking dumpster fire.

Edited by Nikkolas on Jul 12th 2020 at 6:32:54 AM

I first started with IV and then tried to get into VC and SA, but getting into the earlier GTA games is hard after playing IV and V.

IV's endings leave you with no happy ending to pick. Wait until you get to V.

Alright, I think this is the best place to put the news about the remasters:

Really like the cartoony look they're going for.

I think the Definitive Edition remasters look decent, but some of the character models are...a bit off, to be honest. Claude and CJ look okay, I guess, but Tommy Vercetti? Good lord.

I'm going to bet that some of the songs that were in the original versions of the games are gonna be cut here. Unless they somehow manage to renew the licenses for the music tracks (which I doubt), substitute them with new tracks that are era-appropriate (a la Mafia: Definitive Edition), or the extremely unlikely option of having both old and new soundtracks, the radio stations are more than likely going to be butchered, especially in Vice City and San Andreas.

Can't believe we lost the mods and the ability to purchase the original versions of these games for this. This better not be as bad as Warcraft III: Reforged.

Edited by IvanovTroping97 on Oct 23rd 2021 at 9:24:03 PM

The remaster looks alright, and the remastered environments look amazing, but I can kinda see what people mean when they say the character models look weird. That being said, I'll probably get this for Christmas.

The models are hit and miss, but given my stronger interest is in the improved controls and Qo L features I'm still pretty excited by it.

Yeah, that's what I'm worried about. I'll wait until the game releases and we all know what happens in those aspects, before making a decision.

Rumor: Nintendo themselves are seemingly distributing the retail Switch port of the GTA Trilogy remasters.

So, uh, I managed to beat the “Wrong Side of the Tracks” mission on my first try and pretty quickly.

The trick is to keep a train’s width between you and the train otherwise Big Smoke won’t hit the targets.

So, The Definitive Edition was released yesterday, and the reception isn't too good, all things considered. That doesn't just include character models, there's also lots of technical issues (probably due to the Definitive Edition versions being based on the mobile ports, and being made by the same developers as the aforementioned mobile ports: War Drum Studios, AKA Grove Street Games). Here are a few examples:

And, just as I expected, songs that were in the original games and cut in the 10th Anniversary editions are still missing in the Definitive Edition. That means no more Billie Jean on the radio when you start Vice City. And, disappointingly, there are no new songs to replace the cut songs, either.

I'm just glad that I own the original versions of those games.

Edited by IvanovTroping97 on Nov 12th 2021 at 1:55:35 PM

The worst thing is, as you mentioned before, that we've lost the mods. The creator of the Silent Patch mod has already announced that s/he won't be releasing it for the new editions. So, those bugs will stay unless Rockstar releases a patch to fix them (which I doubt).

Something else that annoys me, is that I follow several GTA-dedicated channels on Youtube, but none of them talked about these issues (the butchered radio, the absence of mods), despite being known beforehand. All GTA-tubers I've seen seemed obsessed with making hundreds of graphic comparison videos, without mentioning the other issues. I've only seen one Youtuber making a video about this before the release, and strangely he's mainly a World of Warcraft content creator who only occasionally makes videos about other games.

So yeah... I did well in waiting before making a decision. I guess the best way to play these games is the original versions with the Silent Patch mod (I heard the Play versions were better than the PC ports, so I guess they don't need that mod).

Edited by morenohijazo on Nov 12th 2021 at 1:56:38 PM

Speaking of Warcraft, I've read that some people compared this remaster to the similarly infamous Warcraft III: Reforged, and we all know how that turned out.

Back on topic: Rockstar Games pulled the PC version of the Definitive Edition from sale on their launcher after many users encountered technical issues.

That's just embarrassing. When you have a PC port of a remaster of III, Vice City and San Andreas that's so buggy and unoptimized that it could give the PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV a run for its money, you know you screwed up.

Edited by IvanovTroping97 on Nov 12th 2021 at 8:02:05 PM

Looking at the User Scores on Metacritic for the Trilogy and wow...

This is worse than Balan's Wonderwold... But that's probably because it's an original IP so there's not much of a passionate fan-base.

Hopefully there are patches for this one.

Nice to know my expectations were met with the remaster. Rockstar definitely could have at least put the cut songs back in because they definitely have the cash to do so.

Of all the issues the remaster has, that's the one problem I can understand. The music industry has become an expensive, legally frustrating b***h to deal with these days, enough to the point that many developers/creators honestly consider simply paying for the creation of their own original soundtrack(s) to be a more cheaper, practical option. No legal loopholes to jump through if you're the sole owner of the soundtrack, right?

Still doesn't explain why Rockstar didn't decide upon that route for Vice City and San Andreas after all this time; I mean, that's exactly what they did for GTAIII's soundtrack after all.

I just find it weird that with this being called the "Definitive Edition", I expect it to be more than just the three games with a fresh coat of paint.

I just finished watching LastKnownMeal's review:

You can tell the guy is very disappointed by this "Definitive Edition"...