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[kiphalfton]

Extremely late to the party, but I tried to get into this game 3-4 times over the years and generally the furthest I ever got was anywhere between the boat jacking mission or the Facebook cell phone mission.

I'm about 11 missions from finishing the game, and I'm now just grinding it out so I can be done with the game.

The novelty wore off around 20 hours in, and I'm now kind of just going through the motions. I've already seen and done pretty much everything, the shooting is extremely basic, the driving is fun at first but has gotten old, mission structure sucks (even for the heists), and the story and characters are all awful.

Regarding the last point above, Trevor was somewhat interesting at first, but he has definitely gotten extremely annoying as time goes on. Michael is the flawed father figure that I really couldn't care less about, and his family is obnoxious as hell. Fortunately Franklin is fine, but he's not particularly interesting and it's not even really clear what motivates him.

I'm not real sure how this game became so popular, as it's not even the best GTA game I've played. It obviously has good things going for it, mainly just world design, but even in that regard it also feels pretty empty at the same time too.

Out of all the GTA games, I don't see myself ever replaying this one again.

 

[acm2000]

very over rated game with only 1 of the 3 characters remotely interesting.

 

[Warablo]

I enjoyed the characters, but Franklin is little boring. Def the weakest in the series for open world single player sandbox, but I liked the character arcs.

 

[Guilty_AI]

It was a game of its time, peak ps360. But nowadays you can see all the flaws very clearly, probably the GTA that aged the worst out of all.

 

[Chuck Berry]

Love the fuck out of it.

Arguably best OST of all time, but only because Im a massive Tangerine Dream fan.

 

[R6Rider]

Not sure where I would rank it for the series, but here are some of my thoughts on it.

Bought it on PS3, PS4, and then very recently on PS5 as it was on sale. Story is okay, but I do like Franklin and Michael. Trevor has some fun missions, but his character sucks.

The map is hit or miss for me. Most of the area north of the city is boring and a slog to drive through. Flying planes is good, while helicopters suck. I find Watch Dogs 2's San Francisco much more enjoyable to mess around in.

Overall I think it's a very good game, with some big flaws. Still enjoyable to play all these years later.

 

[TexMex]

I found it very boring but I've only ever bothered to finish one GTA game (Vice City).

I think the third person control/shooting in all of these are terrible, I hate controlling most Rockstar games. But there's so much boring content, that I know I could just bypass by sticking to the main story beats but some you can't even do that. Moving ship cargo crates and that yoga mission that feels like it lasts for two hours come to mind (it's been years).

 

[Sleepwalker]

The game is shit, imo.

 

[kiphalfton]

It was a game of its time, peak ps360. But nowadays you can see all the flaws very clearly, probably the GTA that aged the worst out of all.

I guess.

I just don't understand how it has had the legs to go as far as it has to this very day.

Even if it's people mostly playing GTA Online, the shooting and driving are so damn basic.

But I don't play online games ever, so maybe that's not that unusual.

 

[AltogetherAndrews]

Funny, I’ve never been a big fan of GTA, but I also gave this another shot and I’m loving it. Once Trevor appeared, it changed the game for me.

 

[Kenneth Haight]

RDR2 is better and crying out for a 60fps patch

 

[Woggleman]

Rockstar games just have a certain quality to them that makes them appealing. If you are not into it then fine but they obviously appeal to a lot of people. I just hope GTA VI doesn't stray too far from this quality.

 

[BigLee74]

Great game, but bloody hell, I think my good ol’ grandad played this and he died 21 years ago!

 

[bender]

Arguably best OST of all time, but only because Im a massive Tangerine Dream fan.

At least you qualified it. Had you not, I was going to write a note to my congressman to have him change your GAF username and icon.

 

[Werewolf Jones]

The best GTA.

 

[Imtjnotu]

my most played game ever.....

atleast once a day i hope online and grief the shit out of people

 

[bender]

It's a step in the right direction from IV in that open world design as the map is varied and interesting to explore and dick around in. Much like IV, I didn't care for any of the cast. Michael was boring and had a shitty family. Trevor was too much of a caricature and just came off as annoying. Franklin was boring but was probably the best by default which isn't saying much. Rockstar's writing hasn't progressed with their advancements in graphics and engine tech and it just feels tonally mismatched. The radio stations are better than IV but that's a low bar to clear and the talk radio stations still suck. The mission design in GTA is really starting to show its' age. Give me the PS2 trilogy any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

 

[amigastar]

Love the fuck out of it.

Arguably best OST of all time, but only because Im a massive Tangerine Dream fan.

Yeah, the background music is so special, imo.
Anyways i love the game and have multiple playthroughs.

 

[Drew1440]

Started playing it again since its was on Gamepass, in some ways it’s almost my favourite GTA game but I'll always have a soft spot for San Andreas or Liberty City Stories (Shame that hasn't been ported to PC/Mac). As mentioned earlier in the thread, the characters are the weak point of the game, Trevor is just too much and I lost interest in completing his side activities.

 

[calistan]

San Andreas was peak GTA for me. As soon as I finished it I started another playthrough, it was the best thing I'd ever played.

This one I finished too, but it's too vast and soulless for me to fully play again, and I can't express how much I hated the ending.

That said, I've somehow got three copies of it. The 360 one that I actually played, the Xbox One version that I bought on deep sale, and the PC one that was a freebie from the Epic store. The last two I've played maybe five hours between them. I also tried the Series X version on Game Pass.

When they roll out the sales figures for this, take it with a pinch of salt. It seems easier to end up with multiple copies of this than any other game.

 

[PrefectAboro]

The cutscenes were well done and dialogue was entertaining. But for some reason I kept getting motion sickness while driving. Maybe it's because the speed, the fact that I have to be actively dodging all cars/pedestrians in traffic I don't know. I didn't have this problem with RDR2 where I can just gallop through and enjoy the scenery. Had to uninstall after a couple of hours due to headaches.

 

[PonyStation4]

Rockstar has never been great with gameplay. I lot of people have hope for GTA 6 but I don't think it will be anywhere near as good as Cyberpunk 2.0 + Phantom Liberty

 

[SJRB]

Best part of GTAV is the amazing attention to detail. The city and countryside are dense and are always great to drive or walk through. Absolute banger radiostations, FlyLo FM is still an incredible collection of beats.

The story however is shit. Michael is an okay character but his story is bogged down by exaggerated dumb family bullshit 95% of players can't identify with. Franklin is okay but remarkably boring and stereotypical. Trevor is just way over the top, not a single likeable fiber in his being. The heists are shit because the rewards are shit. The "ambient" stuff like yoga, walking your dog, all that dumb mundane shit drags the game down. The characters getting punked by fucking morons like Devin felt super unrewarding.

Planning a heist, spending several missions getting the required materials, pulling off the heist and then getting nothing because for some arbitrary reason someone fucked up felt extremely bad and unrewarding. And this happens like three times. It's just bullshit.

So overall 10/10 worldbuilding, 3/10 mission design.

 

[Krappadizzle]

It's a great game, but the story starts to wear it's welcome out on the back half for sure. Really cool though and really, all things considered, a pretty piece of incredible tech considering the hardware it was designed around.

 

[Guilty_AI]

I guess.

I just don't understand how it has had the legs to go as far as it has to this very day.

Even if it's people mostly playing GTA Online, the shooting and driving are so damn basic.

But I don't play online games ever, so maybe that's not that unusual.

Same reason why people still play and buy pokemon despite many of the modern entries being allegedly 'meh'. Trademark, people grew up with it and don't know/don't want to know anything else. Comfort zones are quite the powerful thing.

Add to it herd effect egging even more people onboard, sky-high production values, and all of this process being perfectly laid out over the course of 20 years, and you have a game trailer with 150 million views.

 

[Diddy X]

I also tried several times to get into it without success, I'm yet to finish it I don't know how far from the end I am.

 

[Woggleman]

The heists are not great but the jewelry store mission is an all time GTA great. If only there were more like that.

 

[AeonGaidenRaiden]

Anyone that plays a popular game a decade after its release and has negative comments about it, you missed the boat. You cant compare what you played so far and now GTA5. You had to be there day one and it was massive. Same as when people say HL2 or Doom 3 are nothing special after playing it for the first time like 12 years later. When these games were revealed everyones jaws dropped. Might not be the best nowadays because ITS BEEN 10 years of game development and evolution.

Im guity of this as well. I only recently played Beyond good and evil, everyone raving about it and that sequel that will never come out. I couldnt survive more than 3 hrs playing it, it was so boring and gameplay so simplistic.

 

[simpatico]

GTAV is one of the best games ever. Easily the most realized GTA game. If anything the campaign is underrated.

 

[thekillergreece]

Overrated and inferior to its predecessor. Lots of gameplay mechanics got toned down for some reason, it was made more Arcade-ish.
Overrated because it has obvious flaws. If the game did not have the brand of 'Grand Theft Auto', it would probably have average reviews with few to no awards.
GTAV also used same old repetitive mission designs so there's that.

 

[Woggleman]

I prefer iv myself but v was toned down because at the time there was a major backlash against iv. Sure people have learned to appreciate it now but that was after the fact.

You can't blame Rockstar for listening to criticism.

 

[T-0800]

It's a step in the right direction from IV in that open world design as the map is varied and interesting to explore and dick around in. Much like IV, I didn't care for any of the cast. Michael was boring and had a shitty family. Trevor was too much of a caricature and just came off as annoying. Franklin was boring but was probably the best by default which isn't saying much. Rockstar's writing hasn't progressed with their advancements in graphics and engine tech and it just feels tonally mismatched. The radio stations are better than IV but that's a low bar to clear and the talk radio stations still suck. The mission design in GTA is really starting to show its' age. Give me the PS2 trilogy any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Chatterbox was peak talk radio in GTA.

 

[Moses85]

Love the fuck out of it.

Arguably best OST of all time, but only because Im a massive Tangerine Dream fan.

Have you ever played GTA VC or SA?

Best OST of all time…

Ok, only of Tangerine Dream, I got it.

 

[nemiroff]

It's like you suddenly discovered the concept of subjective taste. Are you saying it's possible to not enjoy a game as much as everyone else, and even though it's one of the best rated, most liked games in history..?

And it's not like I don't have criticism for GTA V either; the shooting/control mechanics and mission failure mechanics was..problematic. But if they fixed it in VI I'm moving in with it.


Btw, to you weirdos that for some fucked up reason keep playing games you don't like:

 

[kiphalfton]

It's like you suddenly discovered the concept of subjective taste. Are you saying it's possible to not enjoy a game as much as everyone else, and even though it's one of the best rated, most liked games in history..?

And it's not like I don't have criticism for GTA V either; the shooting/control mechanics and mission failure mechanics was..problematic. But if they fixed it in VI I'm moving in with it.


Btw, to you weirdos that for some fucked up reason keep playing games you don't like:

 

[Thaimasker]

Same reason why people still play and buy pokemon despite many of the modern entries being allegedly 'meh'. Trademark, people grew up with it and don't know/don't want to know anything else. Comfort zones are quite the powerful thing.

Add to it herd effect egging even more people onboard, sky-high production values, and all of this process being perfectly laid out over the course of 20 years, and you have a game trailer with 150 million views.

Eh, GTA and Rockstar games in general are all GOTY contenders that push the hardware...the opposite of Pokemon. But of course when hundreds of millions of people play anything some people will think it's meh.

 

[Robb]

I don’t disagree. Poor controls, poor mission designs, meh story. There’s definitely better GTA games out there to play for those interested.

 

[K2D]

Story: 8/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Audio design: 6/10 (tangerine dream )
Music: 9/10
Characters: 9/10 (despite one of the characters headstomping a guy to death in the first hour. Mental gymnastics for selective amnesia)
Replayability: 7/10 (When you let it breathe for a while between sessions i. e. one console generation.
World design: 8/10

 

[Laptop1991]

good SP but short and then becomes a bit boring which got no more support from Rockstar afterwards, the game is all about online, which i'm wondering if GTA 6 will be the same.