Which Grand Theft Auto title is your favorite?

[Tokyo_Funk]

Vice City, mainly because I'm a sucker for 80s stuff. Even though it was not as technically impressive as SA, it felt more focused.

San Andreas follows very closely because of variety and while the story is all over the place, it had some great characters and quotes I'll never forget.

 

[HylianMaster2020]

Loyal to GTA3, the rest of the games just fall in line.

 

[TheMadTitan]

Other: Saints Row 2.

San Andreas of course because the entirety of GTA4 is trash and GTA5 is bogged down by Trevor and laborious responsiveness.

If by magic, someone could remake the game with Los Santos being a direct copy of its GTA5 counterparts with San Fierro and Las Venturas being similar in sizes, it would be perfect.

But I still stand by SR2 being the best follow up San Andreas would ever get.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

As an 80s teen, Vice City was made for me.
I appreciated nthe ambition of SA but it got bigger down in the eating and exercise. I should go back and finish it though.

 

[Pyccko]

4 has my fondest memories attached to it, but I probably played more VC and SA.

 

[unholyFarmer]

Objectively, San Andreas is the best.

When it comes to nostalgia, GTA III is king, and the most revolutionary. GTA IV is the best when it comes to the writing.

 

[Acidote]

Vice City.

 

[chromatic9]

Vice City
San Andreas
GTA IV

GTA IV gets a lot of knocks, it was a reset in interactivity over the sheer amount they put into SA but the story in GTA IV with the Niko Roman dynamic was fantastic and funny.

Really tough to pick one as they mean a lot. Vice City just edges it.

If all of them could be made today, GTA V would be the least interesting.

 

[Amauri14]

Without a doubt Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

 

[Mazzo]

GTA 2

 

[GlitchyDegree]

Chinatown Wars. Drug dealing alone puts it above the rest.

Other: Saints Row 2.

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This would easily be my pick if it was a GTA game.

 

[Zushin]

Vice City. Best soundtrack, tighter focus and the best theme (the 80s). Really hope they remake it or make a new game set in VC.

 

[Kawngi]

Haven't played VC, and haven't actually completed any of them. But of what I have played, either SA or V

 

[Dennis8K]

Seems like Era pretty much agrees on which the three best games are.

 

[TheMadTitan]

Chinatown Wars. Drug dealing alone puts it above the rest.

This would easily be my pick if it was a GTA game.

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It's still my pick either way lol.

Seems like Era pretty much agrees on which the three best games are.

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That's because they are, even if I have major gripes with GTA5.

 

[take_marsh]

San Andreas. Had the biggest, most interesting islands, had same-screen multiplayer, pretty humorous writing for the time, and I felt it improved on GTA VC in a lot of ways.

It also had the MTA beta, which created a temporary 100+ player multiplayer racing game across sections or even the entirety of San Andreas, or a dozen other crazy vehicle-based game modes, and it was the best time in GTA I ever had. Couldn't get that experience in GTA IV or V.

 

[Wolf]

4 or San Andreas.

 

[Ploid 6.0]

San Andreas was too good.

 

[mclem]

Possibly San Andreas, but it does have its faults.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

Possibly San Andreas, but it does have its faults.

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A thread-killing dad joke.

 

[dreamfall]

Always Vice City! I love that game, the 80s vibe, the soundtrack - everything. I play it annually! Followed by GTA IV for me!

 

[King Alamat]

San Andreas. Had the biggest, most interesting islands, had same-screen multiplayer, pretty humorous writing for the time, and I felt it improved on GTA VC in a lot of ways.

It also had the MTA beta, which created a temporary 100+ player multiplayer racing game across sections or even the entirety of San Andreas, or a dozen other crazy vehicle-based game modes, and it was the best time in GTA I ever had. Couldn't get that experience in GTA IV or V.

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Breh, MTA had transform races long before GTA V was ever released.

 

[Rangerx]

Why didn't you Include the first two? I genuinely prefer those over what came after. I loved driving around the city in isometric view.

 

[Tedmilk]

GTA 3. I'll be the first to admit that a lot of it has to do with nostalgia, but there's just something about it that's totally classic. I actually find the smaller maps a lot more fun to zip around as they are easier to memorise. Having smaller maps also means landmarks are more easily identified as there is less repetition of stuff - Like the car showroom on the first island with the Banshee for example, or the diner at the other end of the island near the base of the bridge.

There's a certain naive charm to the game that's missing from later entries - I even found a bit of it missing from Vice City, which was the next game on. There's a uniqueness to its atmosphere that the later games just can't touch for me.

If only the off-road challenges were remotely fair... I finished them all, ONCE. Never again!

I'd rather a new GTA with a map even smaller than GTA3 that had more detail per square inch than yet another leap in size personally, as you can really get to know the areas better. In GTAV for example a lot of the roads just blur together in my mind since you might only travel them a couple of times over your playthough (and often stick to the roads and routes you've managed to memorise). In GTA3, you learn every road by necessity, and are able to do so because there just aren't that many.

I'm rambling. GTA3 rules.

 

[TrashHeap64]

3, San Andreas, and maybe even IV (Especially Gay Tony)
5's single player just didn't do it for me. I will admit though, playing GTA Online with friends and not taking it seriously is one of the funniest games I've ever played

 

[Future_TraX]

Vice City and San Andreas.
Did go for VC.

 

[Ploppee]

Vice City and then 3.

I still have those maps burned in my brain. I appreciated this more than the later titles where I'm basically just staring at a GPS system for most of the game. I also preferred the arcadey-er feel of them and didn't really care about the story.

 

[alexwise]

Most definitely GTA4 which I still play to this day. I love the city, the dark atmosphere the game has.

I love euphoria physics. The car handling is my favorite of any GTA. The last two points is why I struggle to enjoy GTAV, driving cars is very unenjoyable as they are absurdly grippy and the peds fall from every slight push.

 

[take_marsh]

Breh, MTA had transform races long before GTA V was ever released.

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True story. When I was playing MTA for SA, this was I think mid-2000's? MTA had its first public release and only had vehicle sync, so racing and demolition derby or whatnot was all you could do. People were thirsty as hell for a multiplayer GTA and it was hitting the spot. I said "Beta" because all you could do was race, which meant the community was bottle-necked into relatively very few activities, which meant there was always a race to join and the races were packed, between 50 to 100 vehicles. It'd be great to relive that.

 

[Deleted member 52065]

Chinatown Wars is an amazingly impressive game; what the devs were able to accomplish on the DS hardware is just as impressive as GTA V on 360 and PS3.

 

[Davilmar]

San Andreas, and everything else comes long after that.

 

[Bathory]

San Andreas is my GOTY, follow by IV.

 

[cakely]

It's GTA: Vice City though GTA V continues to be great.

Vice City empowered the player while somehow avoiding anything that felt like tedium. Also, that soundtrack!

 

[ThisIsBlitz21]

San Andreas quite easily.

 

[PumpkinPieAddict]

GTA SA was the peak. I still manage to play 10-20 hours every few years and although many of the QOL improvements in GTA4/5 are nice those games don't have the same fun factor.

For a long time I thought GTA5 was gunning for GTASA but around halfway through the game's story just never came together in a way that I found meaningful. One day I'll revisit the game but I found myself having progressively less fun as the game went on.

GTA SA just is the complete package. Side games, missions that can be over the top and characters I cared about.

Top of my head:

GTA SA > VC > GTAV > GTA3 > GTA4

Bonus points. Saints Row 2 is the closest to a GTA SA I've felt.

 

[Druffmaul]

IV. I get how one could be bummed out that it was so scaled down after everything had been ramped up so high from III to VC to SA. But nothing back then could compete with its living breathing virtual world. IMO the previous GTAs might as well be Lego games in comparison.

V obviously outdid it in many ways, and it's a tough call. IV wins for me by a nose due to nostalgia, not ashamed to admit.

 

[Era of not Yakuza]

San Andreas
Vice City
The Ballad of Gay Tony

 

[HustleBun]

I wish it didn't bother me that GTA V had such a crappy story. The game plays so well and some of the missions were really fun. I just hated the characters and didn't give a single fuck about the story. I wanted to.

V obviously outdid it in many ways, and it's a tough call. IV wins for me by a nose due to nostalgia, not ashamed to admit.

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Yeah. V's gamefeel was way better than IV. That being said, I actually felt invested in IV's narrative. Regardless of how you feel about Niko's hypocrisy, I cared that he wanted to protect his annoying cousin and his new friends. I wanted to learn more about his history and his motivations. I longed for V to give me even a tiny scrap of this.

 

[Nobody_joe]

The old ones are nostalgic, but the gameplay is just bad.

The newest one will allways be the best one

 

[SolidSnakex]

They all have their strengths to some degree. Like Vice has the best soundtrack and atmosphere, but a weakness is its actual city design. The city in San Andreas, and in particular San Fierro, was built in response to the criticisms from Vice. Most notably how flat the city was. San Andreas is perhaps the most batshit GTA experience, and I mean that in the best possible way. But overall I think GTAV is the best all-round GTA game. A solid soundtrack, good atmosphere and the world design is among the best, if not the best, in the whole series.

 

[Empyrean Cocytus]

Going to catch hell for this, but IV. It has the best overall story, great variety of missions, minimal gimmicks, and kept things constrained without the bloat GTA games usually suffer from. Plus it has aged extremely well given its commentary on immigrants. The DLC stories just made things even better.

 

[Rats]

The scope of San Andreas was just incredible, especially for the time. The journey CJ takes is nothing short of epic, and I use that term in the classical sense. I'll treasure the memories I have of that game for my entire life.

I've replayed it in recent years and it doesn't hit the same way it used to, but nothing will ever take away the impact it had on me.

 

[Pulp]

GTA Vice City is my favourite. The soundtrack alone makes it top tier but the whole package is just perfect. San Andreas is second.

 

[Classicrock78]

I really love Gta 2 yup I said it.

 

[SolidSnakex]

Going to catch hell for this, but IV. It has the best overall story, great variety of missions, minimal gimmicks, and kept things constrained without the bloat GTA games usually suffer from. Plus it has aged extremely well given its commentary on immigrants. The two added DLC stories just made things even better.

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GTA4 is definitely a game that I appreciated a lot more after playing it a couple years after release. I went into it wanting San Andreas Part II, and that obviously wasn't what Rockstar was going for. I do agree that it's in contention for the best story in the series. Although I still feel that the series is at its best when it's a bit more crazy, like we saw with GTAV. GTA4 just felt too restrained. I even remember when someone from Rockstar (either Dan or Sam) said something about how there weren't any bicycles to ride in the game because they just didn't think it's something Niko would've rode.

 

[Shark]

Most love for Vice City but I know if I actually had to sit down and play one I'd pick IV or V. The old ones feel awful now.

 

[_Rob_]

Liberty City Stories doesn't even get a look in, ouch. Vice City is my favourite, but LCS doesn't get the credit it deserves, was a revolutionary title in terms of handhelds too.

 

[El Toporo]

I really love Gta 2 yup I said it.

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You and me, buddy.

 

[Deleted member 81119]

Going to catch hell for this, but IV. It has the best overall story, great variety of missions, minimal gimmicks, and kept things constrained without the bloat GTA games usually suffer from. Plus it has aged extremely well given its commentary on immigrants. The DLC stories just made things even better.

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IV has definitely got the best story, but the variety of missions is really poor to be frank. It's one of my main issues with the game. There are very few missions that aren't just drive and shoot. GTA V has felt like such a breath of fresh air in comparison.

 

[antitrop]

Most love for Vice City but I know if I actually had to sit down and play one I'd pick IV or V. The old ones feel awful now.

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I voted for 3 in this thread, but I also tried to play it on PS4 when it was rereleased and turned it off after like 15 minutes. Anything before V feels like soiled trousers to play these days, but for the purpose of choosing my favorite, I went with what I enjoyed most at the time of its release.