Grand Theft Auto

[SorgFamily]

With GTA V looming in the distance (as soon as this summer as late as the winter of 2012) I thought this would be a good time to share your favorite Grand Theft Auto game or story or what have you.

I remember going over to a friends house probably ten years ago, maybe more, and watching him play GTA 3. I was completely hooked. I wasn't a big gamer but I was used to watching him play because I did find it entertaining just not something that I wanted to do personally. With my next pay check (from my very first job) I had my mom take me to Wal-Mart and bought a Playstation 2 and GTA 3. My friends and I played the crap out of that game like everyone else just causing destruction or trying to do really stupid crap just to see if we could. I owned Vice City but sold it, recently bought San Andreas (I just bought a PS2 for nostalgic reasons) and have IV for my 360 but none of these will contain the memories for me that GTA 3 does. So many good times.

Anyways, what is your favorite GTA game? Any stories? And if this has been done before I apologize. I did a thread title search and got nothing so here's to hoping.

 

[Peoples_Champ]

The original GTA for PC was the first game I illegally downloaded. It was awesome and I played the shit out of that game. It was way advanced for its time, with in-depth modes and different missions. Not to mention the unnecessary blood lol. I always liked getting 4 or 5 star heat and then escaping via train. 9 times out of 10 it would get you out of the situation but sometimes you have cops waiting for you at the next station. If that happened, you could kill the conductor and then drive the train yourself to a station that didn't have cops.

For the developers to have that kind of a thought process was remarkable.

 

[JM Punk]

The mission in GTA IV where you rob the bank is amazing

 

[Harthan]

When I was a kid and my parents worked during the summer, I had a dude who I guess I can comfortably call a babysitter now though we never used the term then, me being prickly about my manhood and such. Anyhow, he would bring his PS2 over (I had a Gamecube) and we were under strict orders not to play GTA. We ignored that rule completely, and my summers basically consisted of me playing the shit of GTA. For that reason, GTA has always and will always be one of my favorite game series. I remember desperately waiting for summer so he would start coming over and I could get into GTA again. When we first started it was III. For some reason we justified that it was okay that we were playing GTA despite being told not to because we weren't playing the latest one (Vice City was out by the this point) but eventually we said fuck it, started playing Vice City and then San Andreas when it came out. My memories of III are fuzzy. I didn't play it that long and seem to remember sucking at it pretty big time, since I would get stuck on a ton of missions. Vice City sticks out as where I really have the memories. It was the prime time of me playing it all the time as a kid (the arrangement with the sitter kind of died off as years went on, obviously) and I beat it, bought all the shit you could buy, did collectibles...oh yeah. One of my favorite memories is going into the Cuban section of the city and getting into this huge fight with a bunch of Cubans and just causing epic mayhem. Not really different than most Mayhem sessions but it was just tons of fun and I still remember it after all these years, so it must have been pretty sweet. That, and selling drugs out of the ice cream truck. I got a huge kick out of being a dealer.

 

[blue_dragon]

When I was a kid and my parents worked during the summer, I had a dude who I guess I can comfortably call a babysitter now though we never used the term then, me being prickly about my manhood and such. Anyhow, he would bring his PS2 over (I had a Gamecube) and we were under strict orders not to play GTA. We ignored that rule completely, and my summers basically consisted of me playing the shit of GTA. For that reason, GTA has always and will always be one of my favorite game series. I remember desperately waiting for summer so he would start coming over and I could get into GTA again. When we first started it was III. For some reason we justified that it was okay that we were playing GTA despite being told not to because we weren't playing the latest one (Vice City was out by the this point) but eventually we said fuck it, started playing Vice City and then San Andreas when it came out. My memories of III are fuzzy. I didn't play it that long and seem to remember sucking at it pretty big time, since I would get stuck on a ton of missions. Vice City sticks out as where I really have the memories. It was the prime time of me playing it all the time as a kid (the arrangement with the sitter kind of died off as years went on, obviously) and I beat it, bought all the shit you could buy, did collectibles...oh yeah. One of my favorite memories is going into the Cuban section of the city and getting into this huge fight with a bunch of Cubans and just causing epic mayhem. Not really different than most Mayhem sessions but it was just tons of fun and I still remember it after all these years, so it must have been pretty sweet. That, and selling drugs out of the ice cream truck. I got a huge kick out of being a dealer.

Guilty pleasure at it's best isn't it mate? .

I have a fun story for everyone here. We will get to GTA bit in a moment. Let see where to start. Oh Yes the years where 2002-2005 and Me and my mom where living with my second step father in his house. Calling this dude weird (among other things) is huge understatement.

The old geezer (he was in his 50 with grey hair) was actually far more concerned with me watching wrestling (I dunno if he just didn't know or his half brain has flown out to other orbit) which he called probably the most vile thing he ever saw on TV (the guy was watching heel Kane do his work on some night in 04) than playing violent videos games (either that or he was just unawhere of games I played and the content it had).

That old man one night for what I depicted as pure "knowledge gathering" was flipping over to the porn channel (my mother was probably sleeping heavier than a log for sure) and said he will watch this porn parody of planet of the apes and see how many flaws he will find in that movie that where part of the original. LOL and the guy just started ripping that movie apart and how fake everything was. Not that I would disagree of course.

So I kinda could ask him the question how the hell was watching porn ok (when mom was asleep) and how wrestling (which is scripted) was not ok to watch and how was it really ok to play all those M rated titles was easy breezing with him but I never really did ask. I was just astounded how this man was thinking (no he wasn't really thinking much) .

Violent Video Games (GTA's included)+Porn= All Good
Wrestling(which is staged)= to violent kid

Ok let me start on my GTA3 story now. I just wanted to share that. It's been a long time.

So it all started with me and one of my classmates talking about GTA(can't remember how) and somehow..... (yeah I will tell the whole story in part2).

 

[Arcade]

GTA IV is fun in many ways. The physics in GTA IV are funny as hell, and it's funny to see people fly into a wall after hitting them with a car in GTA IV, and that bank robbing mission was pretty awesome. One of the best missions in any GTA game, however my favorite GTA game is San Andreas. So much stuff you can do in that game, and the cheats are fun too.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

I still think Vice City is one of the best games I have ever played.

The fact Ray Liotta, Danny Dyer and Jenna Jameson were were doing the voices, the awesome cars (I remember one looking exactly like a Porshe), you could get a helicopter gunship and that game had the best soundtrack of all time!

The house on the island that you ended up owning was a blatant copy of Tony Montana's house in Scarface, which was awesome. You could sell drugs out of the ice cream van, collect money from the businesses you owned...it was just perfection.

My favourite GTA story was in Vice City. I remember just having this massive shootout with the police and finding an entrance to a house I had never been into. So, I went inside to avoid the police and in the bathroom was a chainsaw and the walls and bathtub were all covered in blood- it was the scene from Scarface and they had put it in the game as an easter egg! Brilliant!

So I got the chainsaw, massacred the cops with it and escaped.

Awwww yeahhhhh!

 

[Lowdown]

First one I played was GTA3 and I was hooked immediately. I couldn't wait to get off work and rush home just to do some more missions. My boy that introduced me to it would just drive around causing mayhem. I surpassed him in the game in at least a week. He ended up copying my finished progress from my memory card just to drive around the other two boards. On Vice City, I loved the improvements in the music and that the protagonist was able to talk. Flying and boating was an option on it as well, but you still couldn't swim. Which leads me to San Andreas, which is my favorite (haven't played GTA4, no PS3 or 360). It surpassed its predecessors in storyline, areas to venture into, and gameplay overall. Incorporating L.A., San Fran, and Vegas was fantastic. Plus you actually could interact; you had to eat, exercise, get haircuts and tattoos, etc. And the vehicles seemed so limitless. The radio stations were better as well, using George Clinton, Chuck D, and Julio G., just to name a few.

 

[jerry20xx]

I've been a fan since GTA 1 with the birds eye view. My favorite mission by far throughout the entire series was the bank robbery in Grand Theft Auto 4. When I first played it, I died so many freaking times it was unreal. I never gotten so frustrated at a game in my life. But it was a very very fun mission to do.

 

[Dilligaf]

San Andreas for me, Ive still got GTA3/Vice City box set & SA on original Xbox and they still work on my 360.

Is it true the V is set in SA?

 

[Poop Master Flex]

San Andreas is easily my favorite of the series although I like every GTA game made, even the old 2D birds eye view ones (London 1969!).

San Andreas just felt the most complete and the sheer size of San Andreas was mind blowing for a sandbox game. I particularly love the setting of the game using the early 90's, brings me back to the time of movies like Boyz n' tha Hood and Menace II Society. For a GTA game you couldn't make a more perfect setting. I thought the story was really good following CJ after he gets out of prison not to mention the strong supporting cast like Tenpenny, Big Smoke and that hippy played by Tommy Chong.

The game play was rock solid and all the extra stuff you could do like buy new clothes, go to the gym to get your stats up, get your driving and shooting skills up and all the modes of transportation available (personal favorite being the jet pack) just made the game that much more addicting and fun to play. Some of the missions were just a blast to play and although it was a difficult game to beat it pissed you off just enough to where you wanted to keep playing and finish it off although I know very few people who actually finished the game. I'm proud to say I finished it without using one cheat which was extremely difficult to do and completing it was one of my finest moments when it came to any video game I've finished off. I thought the final mission was a great conclusion to the game and right before that taking over Los Santo's with your gang was also a great way to close it out.

Lastly the soundtrack of the game was PHENOMENAL and perfectly complimented the overall setting of the game. Although all GTA games have a solid soundtrack San Andreas takes the cake for my taste.

GTA 4 did a better job of making the environment and city seem more realistic as everything about the Liberty City in that game felt organic which I really liked not to mention how realistic everything was and how fun the game was. It was a really solid game with little to no flaws but I still gotta give the edge to San Andreas. Just everything about that game I was a fan of and what really sets San Andreas apart for me is how it felt you could do literally everything in that game, the setting, the atmosphere and the storyline itself just stole the show and made it my favorite. It also makes me extremely excited for GTAV and after 8 years finally go back to Los Santos to cause more chaos and carnage.

San Andreas all the way!