Current Events > Grand Theft Auto V is so much worse than I remember

(+) Yeah! (+)

Played the updated Series X version for a good few hours, up until Trevor's first mission. And these missions are... boring as fuck? You barely do anything or make any choices. It's all just so scripted. Chase a boat trailer on the highway (predetermined path, you basically just have to accelerate), cycle along the beach then escape on a jet ski (down a predetermined path, so you basically just accelerate down a path, then turn and go straight). The most involved is probably the one with Franklin where you get a shotgun with a flashlight attachment and have to escape a warehouse, but it's still a scripted path with predetermined "this enemy comes out this door when you're this close to it" type events. Remember in GTAIV when enemies and missions and stuff were dynamic?

FurryPhilosifer posted...

Remember in GTAIV when enemies and missions and stuff were dynamic?

No

FurryPhilosifer posted...

Remember in GTAIV when enemies and missions and stuff were dynamic?

As somebody literally playing through GTA IV now... No? Every single mission has basically been "Go here and kill X."

Sounds like all other GTAs to be honest.

I really bounced off it after really enjoying Vice City and IV. In V the car handling is a joke compared to IV. Nothing felt fun in V and the missions just felt like busy work. Bouncing around between a bunch of unlikeable dickhead characters didn't appeal to me compared to bonding with likeable mass murderer Nico.

Even the PS2 games had heavily scripted chase scenes

t?

I feel like Trevor's missions are more about the shock value of the the character

FurryPhilosifer posted...

then escape on a jet ski (down a predetermined path, so you basically just accelerate down a path, then turn and go straight).

Actually you can kill your pursuers and just drive straight to the beach

GTA never has choices during missions, the fuck are you talking about?

I fell off when they made the leap from cartoony to sim in gta4

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


VC and IV are the ones I'm most familiar with but I haven't played either in years. What I remember is that missions were pretty linear and you were expected to do them one way, but sometimes you'd have just enough freedom so you could do one or two steps differently.

Mercenaries on ps2 is one game i know of where the missions were usually "go blow this thing up" and the game let you choose how to accomplish that. The sequel was pretty bad because they took away that freedom in most missions. I think sometimes these games get so complicated that devs refuse to accept randomness and make everything scripted.

Rockstar are definitely pretty high on themselves and often expect you to do everything the "right" way in their games and punish you for doing anything else.

This has always been a major point of contention in Rockstar games, the missions in their open world games do not use the open world at all. I think they're often fine as linear third-person shooters go but it's been a thing for a long time.

FrozenBananas posted...

GTA never has choices during missions, the fuck are you talking about?

yeah it has, to a point

As longa s you killed a target, you could usually go about it any way you wanted. That mission in 3 where you're supposed to tail the guy in the taxi? You can pick up a taxi before he leaves and pick him up instead and just drive him to the spot

The mission where you kill Salvatore? Sit up on the roof and snipe him, blow up his security, or you can do a big chase and blow up his limo

The mission with the guy in the fish market? Chase him into a shoot out or just rig his car with a bomb and have him blow himself up when he runs away

It wasn't advertised but there were different choices and both GTA5 and RDR2 fail you if ou try to do missions in any way that they don't specifically spell out

Kain_Highwind posted...

yeah it has, to a point

As longa s you killed a target, you could usually go about it any way you wanted. That mission in 3 where you're supposed to tail the guy in the taxi? You can pick up a taxi before he leaves and pick him up instead and just drive him to the spot

The mission where you kill Salvatore? Sit up on the roof and snipe him, blow up his security, or you can do a big chase and blow up his limo

The mission with the guy in the fish market? Chase him into a shoot out or just rig his car with a bomb and have him blow himself up when he runs away

It wasn't advertised but there were different choices and both GTA5 and RDR2 fail you if ou try to do missions in any way that they don't specifically spell out

That's not completely true, as those options can occur in 5, as well, such as the one somebody already stated. It's just few and far in between, but that was true in the early games, too. I played Vice City and San Andreas just before this, and there were several missions where you would fail if you happened to kill somebody you were chasing before they reached a scripted stopping point. All of the games have missions you can alter how you kill, atleast somewhat, and likewise, they all have missions you explicitly cannot or you fail.

sfcalimari posted...

I really bounced off it after really enjoying Vice City and IV. In V the car handling is a joke compared to IV. Nothing felt fun in V and the missions just felt like busy work. Bouncing around between a bunch of unlikeable dickhead characters didn't appeal to me compared to bonding with likeable mass murderer Nico.

In GTA IV all the cars drove like boats on land.

after reading bout the main part of the series (escaping the police) idunno

thats the joy of the franchise I suppose.
additionally the art is addictive

GTA has always been on rails, mostly at least, unless you were just running around blowing up cars.

Like, I've always found it painfully boring unless using cheats. I never got the appeal considering other games do what people claim GTA does but really doesn't considerably better.

Considering I sincerely doubt GTA6 will have any of those fun cheats(flying cars, general chaos, etc) due to the realism I'm passing on it because it'll just be more of the same.

ViewtifulGrave posted...

In GTA IV all the cars drove like boats on land.

I remember them sliding around a lot. But I also remember the physics engine having a lot of momentum and inertia built into it because it wasnt like most gta clones where vehicles handle like golf carts. Getting into a big car crash on a busy road could look really impressive. Then in V you could literally drive up a nearly vertical cliff face.

The cars in IV assumed people knew how analog controls worked

I hated how V didn't have any perks and exceptionally few missions that actually paid you. It's just not satisfying to jump through a bunch of hoops and get nothing more than a "Thanks, bye."

I wish Lamar was the protagonist tbh.

sfcalimari posted...

Mercenaries on ps2 is one game i know of where the missions were usually "go blow this thing up" and the game let you choose how to accomplish that. The sequel was pretty bad because they took away that freedom in most missions. I think sometimes these games get so complicated that devs refuse to accept randomness and make everything scripted.

I haven't played much of that series, but I thought 2 was well-known for its freedom.

Am I just mixing up the "extremely destructible environments" thing?

GTAV is the only one I have never done multiple playthroughs of. After I beat it once I had my fill and never felt a need to go back, same with RDR2.

There was a tiny bit more freedom in the old games, but not that much as many think. Rockstar have always been about being more cinematic. They want to put you in an action scene.

Still, they could cut a little bit more slack sometimes. I think it would make replays a bit less tedious as well.

sfcalimari posted...

But I also remember the physics engine having a lot of momentum and inertia built into it because it wasnt like most gta clones where vehicles handle like golf carts. Getting into a big car crash on a busy road could look really impressive. Then in V you could literally drive up a nearly vertical cliff face.

Yeah, IV's driving did have some good thigns about it. The vehicle damage was way better in IV. Cars would actually bend and be smashed in after insane crashes. V's was a step down.

V was the only main story I never bothered to finish, although in fairness I played quite a lot of the online mode so I wouldn't say it's a terrible game or anything.

MegamanXfan21xx posted...

I hated how V didn't have any perks and exceptionally few missions that actually paid you. It's just not satisfying to jump through a bunch of hoops and get nothing more than a "Thanks, bye."

I've bounced off V a few times now. The last time I played, I got to the first big heist mission and thought I'd use the money to buy a little business. VC and SA had that mechanic and it was a decent way to make money so long as you went by and collected it. Plus it usually opened up some new missions.

So I bought the dispensary on the beach with Franklin.

It would take over 123 hours to break even on your investment.

The wiki says it's the quickest business to break even on by "a significant margin."

Yeahh it's an almost 1 and done game story wise compared to the others in the series.

I still love the game though. They all have their unique charms

You can make like $100m by exploiting the BAWSAQ and Franklin's assassination missions... thing is, there's very little interesting to spend your money on. You can't even buy the online content in single player mode

But yeah as people have said... I shit on a lot of aspects of GTAV but I've played the hell out of it across all three generations. Been working on a first-person only run

Yall all crazy, Ive replayed GTA V like 4 or 5 times