The Top 5: Grand Theft Auto Games

Top 5 lists of Grand Theft Auto games from members of the Gamer Horizon staff--GTAV excluded.

[luoshuigui]

Easy,
1, GTA5
2, San Andreas
3, Vice city
4, GTA4
5, GTA3

[raresteak]

Pretty rare this, but I agree on the order here exactly.

[PoSTedUP]

gta3
gtaSA
gtaVC
gtaVCS
gtaLCS

[ThatEnglishDude]

Personally, I think IV is by far the worst in the main series. It lacks character, style, or even a sense of humour. It's just dull, drab, boring and depressing. It's just not fun...at all. The controls and overall sluggishness of the controls kill it. The story isn't memorable. It's just fuck. It was a complete step back from what the previous game built upon, offering nothing but better visuals (albeit without an interesting art style) Rockstar took a different direction and attempted something that felt far more serious grounded in reality than anything they had done before. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but in GTA IV's case, I felt it was executed really poorly and just gave the game incredibly erratic pacing issues. It just failed, and why people continue to defend it BEGS an explanation.

GTA San Andreas was the perfect evolution of the two other games before it, building upon the foundation set by GTA III. GTA V feels like the natural evolution of San Andreas. For that reason, my list is as follows:

5.GTA4
4.GTA3
3.GTA:VC
2.GTA:San Andreas
1.GTA V

[N2NOther]

Thanks for reading and commenting!

I disagree (obviously since GTA IV is number 2 on my list). I found the game to be pretty much the opposite of everything you said. I found it to be incredibly memorable and fun. It was depressing though but I appreciated it for doing something I found to be quite bold.

Not sure if that's enough explanation for you but I'm always open to discussion.

[ThatEnglishDude]

It's perfectly fine that you disagree of course. I admire Rockstar for attempting a different direction for the series, but GTA IV just did not excite me unfortunately. I have absolutely no incentive or desire to replay it. The missions were not really varied and rarely involved something beyond 'drive to x and kill x'

The choices the game presented us with had no moral standing with me, as the characters (while voiced well enough) just didn't interest me and were usually introduced not too long before I'm made a choice whether or not to kill them. I just found GTA IV to be not very fun to play. It felt like a chore, and the story seemed to drone on and continue to introduce new characters that I didn't care about. I just found there wasn't really anything fun to do, outside of the main missions - which usually ended up in large arena based shootouts with sluggish combat and a choppy framerate. It just lacked the whacky fun that GTA is known for in favor of something more realistic. Characters would continuously phone and distract you, the dating/minigames were under-developed and boring and didn't really amount to anything. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

GTA V FEELS fresh, polished, it has style and the missions are interesting, varied and is always introducing new and exciting elements to the gameplay. I could give examples, but I won't spoil you. But more than anything, it's FUN.

[N2NOther]

They definitely did away with the whacky. Like is fair I appreciated to different approach. I totally think your complaints are valid, I just didn't feel that way.

I'm only 10% into V but I can already tell its a return to form. Excited to dig deeper on the weekend when I'll have more time.

[N2NOther]

Thanks for reading guys! Unfortunately GTA V is too fresh and we're barely through it so that's why it's not on any of our lists.

That's said, great lists everyone!

[H0RSE]

1. GTA2
2. GTA

after that, I haven't played any of them long enough to care. I should be getting GTA V from Gamefly tomorrow, but I don't know if I'll even play it. I've been busy with Diablo 3.