Fifteen Years On, 'Grand Theft Auto IV' Is Still the Series’ Best

There’s never a bad time to relive its magic, and with rumours of a potential Grand Theft Auto IV remaster making the rounds, why wouldn’t you?

[Machina]

The series' most overhyped and overrated (especially by critics) more like.

[Number1TailzFan]

Not sure tbh.. I'd say 3 was the most overrated. It's pretty rough to go back to, it was quite rough even trying it just after Vice City. Lack of humour and vehicles that had the weight of polystyrene with top speeds to match.

VC & the stories games (even LCS) were all fun. I remember there being a lot of praise for GTA 3 on TV and in game mags, saying it was a Dreamcast killer of a game or words to that effect, and honestly after playing it on PC I didn't think it was that special and kind of dull, had the odd moment of fun but hardly anything. I heard they cut online multiplayer at the last moment for PC, shame because it could've made all the difference.

Would've loved to have seen what kind of cartoony GTA style game they could've done on Dreamcast as a competitor, I bet something along the lines of Simpsons Hit & Run would've worked well.

[BlackTar187]

@numberz How can the game that defined a generation and was copied by everyone be overrated? Was a asinine comment

[seanpitt23]

For me 4 was better than 5 was more realistic and the physics was on another level! 5 was a major let down in that department!

[Number1TailzFan]

@blacktar you have your opinion i have mine. I found the game dull, and it is for the most part. It set the foundation for the much superior SA and VC however.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

You say GTA III is overrated because it's rough to go back to and rough to play after Vice City. Your entire opinion is in hindsight. Of course it's rough going back to it today. It came out over 20 years ago. That doesn't take away from the fact that it pioneered a lot and was a paradigm shift for a lot of trends in game development today. Vice City in a lot of ways is just a more refined version of III. It was San Andreas that took the big leap forward from a design perspective. If III doesn't release, who knows if the open world genre would be what it is now. How can that be overrated?

[1nsomniac]

Not at all. My most played game of all time. Truly stunning accomplishment in gaming and with PC graphics mods it just took it to levels beyond anything that came before and possibly even after.

People who moan about it generally tend to be people who played it on under powered consoles and couldn’t handle the more realistic car physics. It was the slightly more realistic approach that made it stand out more. Absolutely love it. In fact I always said Vice city was my favourite of all time. But after going back to the remaster I realised 4 was actually the best.

[Profchaos]

I'm no critic and I consider it the best games in the franchise after recently replaying every entry it's story when paired in conjunction with it's DLC was and still is amazing.

[shinoff2183]

Lol. Fun fact. That dlc cost a certain green colored console 50 million for exclusiveness. Un heard of back then. Just to point out the hypocrisy of the 3rd party exclusive agenda going on.

Anyway how the dlc better then the base game by a mile. Lol imo

[DigitallyAfflicted]

I've enjoyed gta4 the most from all the others too.

[DarXyde]

San Andreas holds a special place in my heart. Honestly, I couldn't get into IV at all. Didn't even finish it. I had some pride in playing it at first because I'm originally a New Yorker, but it just didn't do it for me.

To each their own.

[shinoff2183]

Gta sa for sure. To this day my favorite. My least fav is gta 4 easily. Gta 4 made me feel like the dude in next friday trying to take the cd back talking about i cant get jiggy wit this.

Maybe looking back it would be 3 but 3 did so damn much for gaming in general. . My first gta was of course the top downs so the series has came a long way.

[notachance]

Yeah I remembered falling asleep playing the last mission in GTA4.. the most boring protagonist (out of all the voiced protag), and the town is too small.

[-Foxtrot]

Not really

Overrated

Boring

Liberty City despite being a reimagined version for the HD era lacked any variety

Lacked the GTA fun charm overall

Niko was bland compared to past protagonists like Tommy, CJ or Victor

[blackblades]

GTA 2 was the best, lol my only owned GTA game. Vice city was alright when I rented it back then. I cant really say which is the best cause those the only 2 games i played but GTA 2 was fun on PC back in the day. Closes game to it that I enjoyed was SR3 and I dont care what people say. That none serious tone was fun enjoyable.

[banger88]

Like hell it is. San Andreas was far better, much more fun and a better game overall.

[isarai]

Nah, it's a masterpiece in attention to detail and the amount of immersive systems at play. But it really isn't very fun, ESPECIALLY when compared to the previous games in the series. Like tons of things are just wonky and actively kneecap lots of experimentation, or is just lame. Like why do I take huge damage when falling into water, why can I only stand in very specific large trucks when they are moving but not smaller trucks and vehicles, why is the melee combat such a massive down grade from GTA SA and GTA IV, why is the euphoria nowhere near as reactive, why is being drunk using a rasterized animation of staggering rather than the far more entertaining euphoria GTAIV and RDR used when you were drunk, why do npc vehicles barely react to you popping there tires even at high speed, etc etc.

I've always loved playing around in GTA games world. Like the campaigns are great but the majority of my time was always spent just playing in the open world. Yet GTAV is the only game in the series I never really returned to after beating it, it just lacks that fun factor the others have, I spent more time in GTA SA remastered than GTAV

[chicken_in_the_corn]

It's one of my least favourite GTA games. It's clunky, the ai is exploitable, it's far too long and the writing is absolutely awful.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

GTA SA > GTA4 imo

[Dudeson]

Played all the pc versions, loved them all. Vice City will always take the top spot in my nostalgia filled eyes though. But gotta say IV gave me and my friend not a lot to work with open world sandbox like, but the main story and dlcs really stuck by me, very well done. Plus the attention to detail feels te best in IV.

[Shane Kim]

Vice City easily the best.

[ModsDoBetter]

I see this view come up often & it’s the only mainline GTA game I’ve never been able to see through to the end.

I just couldn’t do it…between Roman being irritating to the lack of aircraft to the brown world.

The most enjoyment I had came from GTA Online driving into the glitched swing set to launch you and others across the map. I may revisit it at some point in the future but from memory, it was far from the best.

To me, and it’s just my opinion and possibly nostalgia, the best was San Andreas.

[Terry_B]

no

[TheEnigma313]

Nah, San Andreas is the best.

[raWfodog]

I second that opinion. SA was my favorite. My 2nd favorite was 5.

[moomoo319]

Factuals

[jznrpg]

Never played it . Haven’t ever played one for more than 10 minutes. Maybe someday, I own several of them for several generations.

[BlackTar187]

Why are you here commenting then?

[WelkinCole]

You and me. Very rare gamers in that regard.I honestly tried my hardest to like it. Can't play it for more than 5minutes and I am a person that love SP story dirven games

[Psychotica]

GTA 4 was the first GTA I ever played and I loved it. It was my go to game for years when I got bored. One of things I liked the most was the talk radio shows and the humor of it. That's one of the things I was disappointed with in GTA V, the radio wasn't as good.

[Hofstaderman]

Not for me. The vehicle controls were very sensitive.

[Pyrofire95]

For me the story starts and ends with that I don't like the driving. In a Grand Theft Auto game, as the name suggests, driving is an important part but it's just frustrating for me. It was also Rstars first time using their in-house engine and it looks gross. (keep mods out of it, we're talking about the game, not the things randoms put on Nexus.)

[Profchaos]

15 years I can't believe it's been that long gta iv was my first and ironically my last midnight launch as games started shifting to digital.

I'll always remember at around 10pm seeing all the reviews drop online and trying to watch them on a 256kbps connection seeing the hype driving to the store getting pumped at the midnight launch then putting the disc in my console at around 1am being blown away for about 15 minutes before passing out then waking up for uni the next day.

Midnight launches were not for me I cant game all night next time I just set an alarm for 5am take a day off work and go to the gym before the store open then go home and play all day with no worries in the world.

[porkChop]

Great story and characters. Great open world. But they took the realism too far which made the game less fun overall. Not nearly enough mission/objective variety as well. It's still a great game but I wouldn't say it's the best in the series.

[gold_drake]

mh, i rly enjoyed 5

but the music or radio stations .. are always spot on haha.

[Rebel_Scum]

Had the best radio stations

[BrainSyphoned]

Anything before 4 was great. 4 made me lose interest in the series.

[Chard]

IV was my least favourite, I had the least amount of fun while playing it compared to all others

[Youngindy21]

4 was not that good. It was somewhat boring because the missions were incredibly repetitive. GTA V was a better game in every way.

[BehindTheRows]

No.

[aaronlif10]

I respectfully disagree

[DaniMacYo]

Car physics were something else. GTV is my personal favourite.

[Bathyj]

Yuck. It's my least favourite.
And I'm including GTA1, 2 and London.

[P_Bomb]

GTAIV was a disappointment coming off of San Andreas. GTAV buried what was left. Bit of a black sheep, that one.

[Demetrius]

True

[shinoff2183]

Does that say gta4

Lol gtfo. San Andreas is still the best to date. They set the bar high. Who wrote this. Gta 4 when it first came out I played for a bit then shelved it. It was such a step back and lacking so much of what made san Andreas so good. I eventually picked it back up 4 5 years later. While I did like it in the end it's still a huge letdown compared to gta sa. Must of been this person's first gta experience

[Demetrius]

Finally a article about this gem I thoroughly enjoyed it and the expansion packs but honestly gta sa is still a lil better, more customization options, jet pack, exercising, swimming under water, they cut out so much to me but the dark serious tone of gta 4 made up for it to me in some ways, but I was disappointed on how you couldn’t really change nikos appearance/physique, I looked at it as a direct modern sequel for gta 3 honestly

[chobit_A5HL3Y]

the single player is good but the online is overrated af. bunch of sad, sad people, paying ridiculous amounts of real money just to grief each other lol

[vTuro24]

Is this dude for real? GTA4 had the most boring and repetitive missions. The city atmosphere was great tho.

[kingnick]

When the series became more grounded in realism and thus less fun, Vice City would be my pick as I liked the location and era the best, I had more fun with Saints Row 1&2 (especially 2 in co-op) then GTAIV.

[MIDGETonSTILTS17]

It’s been improved upon.

[randomvoice]

Man I found GTA4 very overrated. GTA5 was great however, GTA:SA and GTA:Vice City are still my favorites because they actually wowed you back in the day. The characters were also amazing.

[sadraiden]

GTAIV is without a doubt the most underrated game in the series. I appreciate that even that is a controversial statement. In 2009, you couldn't go anywhere without hearing people quote Roman. Lots of people hated the feel of the driving (although, arguably, IV's driving was the most realistic in the entire series). People called the cover system played out and boring, not knowing that it was here to stay as a staple of modern game design. Fast forward to present day, and almost no one mentions IV. I contend that it's a misunderstood gem. V gave you ultimate freedom, but IV gave you a contextualized view into the lives of actual small time criminals and gangsters, not multi-billionaire kingpins. The DJ's on the radio were better in IV too.

[Nebaku]

Your argument is the issue.

It's a video game. Realism/accuracy isn't inherently better.

Also, people quoting the game were being ironic. They were laughing at the games terrible characters, not laughing with them.

[hiawa23]

3 is my favorite

[Kosic]

I tried this recently on the steam deck and found the camera and driving so floaty that I had to refund my copy as it was not fun.

I remember trying it years ago and the whole dating aspect became a chore that I hadn't gotten far into it.

So for me. I've not experienced the true length of gta4. But I have no drive to do so.

[Zanarkand]

To look for the best in the series you start from 3 to San Andreas. The author here missed the mark entirely.

[CrimsonWing69]

5 I think is the best and greatest of the entire series, but that's just me.

[Kombatologist]

One of the greatest moments I've ever witnessed in my 37-years of playing video games happened while playing GTA IV, when an NPC tripped and accidentally shot themselves as they were tumbling down a flight of stairs. I haven't seen anything like that before or since.

The Euphoria engine is the extent of what I liked about GTAIV.