GTA III is probably the hardest game in the entire series

[Guest Billy Russo]

I agree actually. I've always had the hardest time with III. The missions people thought were hard on Vice City and San Andreas, I generally had no issues with. Still don't know why everybody thinks the train mission from SA is hard, luck based and BS sometimes sure but not hard. I always get my ass kicked pretty frequently when I'm playing GTA III, I underestimate the difficulty of it.

 

I also think what makes this game harder is how aggressive the AI is later on in the game. It's insane. 

[Boaby Kenobi]

The vehicles in GTA III take damage far quicker and easier than other games, plus if you're playing it without mods you can't move the camera when driving like in later games so it's more difficult for that definitely. Also the fact that ending up in the water means an instant death.

 

I think GTA III feels more arcade-like than any of its successors because the protagonist is silent and even though there's a story it doesn't really feel like it at times since no one addresses you by name.

 

III definitely feels more like the original games but I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I love GTA III. I'm currently playing through it again actually now.

[Max.pain]

one of the hardests

[Ballas King]

You definitely didnt play GTA 1 and 2, not only was the top down view extremely difficult to do any maneuvers , specially drive , nothing was clear the objectives and stuffs, killing was extremely difficult your victims would often run or fight back after multiple shots and gangs in GTA 2 were dead end fighting never went well and cops could usually kill in one shot and so much more. I never played GTA 1 but heard it is harder than GTA 2 my first GTA which I found way harder than GTA 3 !

[Sunglasses]

20 hours ago, Boaby Kenobi said:

The vehicles in GTA III take damage far quicker and easier than other games, plus if you're playing it without mods you can't move the camera when driving like in later games so it's more difficult for that definitely. Also the fact that ending up in the water means an instant death.

 

I think GTA III feels more arcade-like than any of its successors because the protagonist is silent and even though there's a story it doesn't really feel like it at times since no one addresses you by name.

 

III definitely feels more like the original games but I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I love GTA III. I'm currently playing through it again actually now.

I think the drowning is a much bigger problem in Vice City because it's much more prevalent in that game than in III, I'm pretty sure. I could be driving pretty wildly on the eastern island but I could plummet to an early death if I accidentally took a wrong turn, or had a really crazy crash that causes my car to flip and end up in the water. Agree with everything else though.

III definitely retains an arcade-like nature compared to its successors, such as gaining money from crashing into other vehicles or causing other vehicles to explode, a returning feature from GTA 2. I just think that's really neat. Glad you enjoy the game! 

[Boaby Kenobi]

19 hours ago, Ballas King said:

You definitely didnt play GTA 1 and 2, not only was the top down view extremely difficult to do any maneuvers , specially drive , nothing was clear the objectives and stuffs, killing was extremely difficult your victims would often run or fight back after multiple shots and gangs in GTA 2 were dead end fighting never went well and cops could usually kill in one shot and so much more. I never played GTA 1 but heard it is harder than GTA 2 my first GTA which I found way harder than GTA 3 !

Grand Theft Auto was good at the time but when GTA 2 came out it was a lot smoother and more immersive and I find the original GTA hard to play now even on PC.

 

GTA 2 wasn't that hard. There's a tutorial at the beginning explaining the respect feature so it was up to you who you wanted to do missions for.

Being able to save your progress more often was also nice.

 

If you're not playing GTA III on PC with mods then the controls can be difficult especially later in the game.

I'm think there are mods for it & Vice City that allow for on-foot controls more like San Andreas.

[KingAJ032304]

On 9/22/2019 at 3:59 PM, Ballas King said:

You definitely didnt play GTA 1 and 2, not only was the top down view extremely difficult to do any maneuvers , specially drive , nothing was clear the objectives and stuffs, killing was extremely difficult your victims would often run or fight back after multiple shots and gangs in GTA 2 were dead end fighting never went well and cops could usually kill in one shot and so much more. I never played GTA 1 but heard it is harder than GTA 2 my first GTA which I found way harder than GTA 3 !

Worse thing about gta 1is the shooting and driving. In gta 2 its ACTUALLY possible to drive spotless. In gta 1 you WILL crash. Nothing you can do about it. With the shooting you have no auto aim so the shots wont automatically curve to the person next to you. Its was insulting how horrid shooting was honestly 

[Strider_Core]

I love that someone elses has pointed this out .I'm finding this a lot with new titles these days. Especially from Bethesda. I still have no clue if I am "Good" at Morrowind. However Skyrim even on its hardest difficulty couldnt live up to the terror that Morrowind throws out when you are encountering monsters. I remember after a while in GTA 3 It genuinely felt like the advert "Liberty City Survivor" as you'd walk down the wrong area and suddenly your in a shoot out with the cartel and you are having to use an AK or the M16 just to cover your escape and then  suddenly you've got the army on your ass because your wanted level has been slowly ticking up

[KingAJ032304]

On 9/23/2019 at 12:09 PM, Boaby Kenobi said:

Grand Theft Auto was good at the time but when GTA 2 came out it was a lot smoother and more immersive and I find the original GTA hard to play now even on PC.

 

GTA 2 wasn't that hard. There's a tutorial at the beginning explaining the respect feature so it was up to you who you wanted to do missions for.

Being able to save your progress more often was also nice.

 

If you're not playing GTA III on PC with mods then the controls can be difficult especially later in the game.

I'm think there are mods for it & Vice City that allow for on-foot controls more like San Andreas.

Called "classic axis" by the way

[jm-9]

The hardest I've played is GTA 1. I beat the Liberty City and San Andreas portions. You die in one hit, unless you have armour, which gives you four extra hits. Unlike later games, you can't buy armour, nor is it next to every phone box like in GTA 2. It doesn't respawn either. You have to find it yourself around the city. The same goes for weapons and ammo. Furthermore, you can't save after you complete a mission (or what would be regarded as a mission in later games). You have to get enough money to leave a level (there are two levels in every city) and then you'll be allowed to leave and move onto the next level (and unlock the next city if the next level is there).

 

You have to do this without running out of lives. You can get extra lives, but again, you have to find them around the city. There are two concessions to this: you don't fail a mission when you die, but can continue to try and beat the rest of it. You do lose all your weapons though. Also, in some timed missions, dying might as well be an instant fail, because you'll never have enough time to beat it. The second thing you can do is get mission multipliers. These double the amount of money you receive for each mission, and are crucial in the later, harder levels. You get one for each mission you complete successfully. Otherwise, these have to be found, and again don't respawn. If you lose all your lives, you get Game Over, and have to beat the entire level again. Your score is saved if it's in the top three.

 

Then there are things like the car physics not being as refined as GTA 2, and getting a wanted level for hitting too many cars.

 

All this means that you have to drive around the city looking for item pickups, particularly armour, extra lives and mission multipliers. You then have to practice enough missions that would get you enough money to leave until you're very good at them. Then, you have to restart the level, pick up all of the mission multipliers you've found, and turn in a near-perfect performance in the missions you've practiced.

 

From what I understand, London 1961 is even harder. It's an expansion to GTA 1 so it plays by the same rules, but apparently the time limits for missions are really tight. Vice City in GTA 1 was already hard enough. There are missions where you have to kill as many guys as the later games but with GTA 1's health system. Unfortunately I didn't get much chance to play it. Work took over soon after I got there, and I seem to have lost the save file since. I do intend to beat it some day though.

 

For anyone who wants to get into top-down GTA, I'd first recommend Chinatown Wars and Advance. I'd also recommend GTA III if you can avoid the temptation to go into 3D mode. Then GTA 2. It's much harder then GTA III, but  far, far easier than GTA 1 + London expansions. Also, get the physical maps. They're necessary to beat the game.

Edited November 29, 2019 by jm-9

[GreenPeas]

The game was created in those times, when the game itself don't forgave mistakes of players for their mistakes and simultaneously doesn't point them where to go and what should to do.

[Bartleby]

In addition to points already made about the map, the arrow indicating something being above or below you was not introduced until Vice City. This is another feature (or lack thereof) that made things difficult back in the day. I remember being brand new to Staunton Island and driving around near-aimlessly during "Payday For Ray" trying to find the next payphone in time; ended up being on the road underneath the lift bridge and wondering where the hell the phone was. That particular stretch of road and the Shoreside one leading down to the dam's power station were also challenges for side missions like Firefighter or Vigilante, where on approach you often just had to guess where the target was and hope you were right.

[Anywhere USA]

GTA 3 has the biggesr artificial difficulty problem in the series history.

 

GTA 5 is too easy, GTA 3 is too hard and for all the cheapest of reasons(Bomb Da Base II is hard purely due to poor AI and control mechanics, it should not be, and would not be in later games)

 

GTA 3 is one of the clunkiest most broken games I've ever played. Not THE worst, not even close, but for a AAA game.....yeah. Constantly falling through stuff, buggy as hell, and the diffikculty curve, simply atrocious.

[KingAJ032304]

On 11/29/2019 at 5:02 AM, jm-9 said:

The hardest I've played is GTA 1. I beat the Liberty City and San Andreas portions. You die in one hit, unless you have armour, which gives you four extra hits. Unlike later games, you can't buy armour, nor is it next to every phone box like in GTA 2. It doesn't respawn either. You have to find it yourself around the city. The same goes for weapons and ammo. Furthermore, you can't save after you complete a mission (or what would be regarded as a mission in later games). You have to get enough money to leave a level (there are two levels in every city) and then you'll be allowed to leave and move onto the next level (and unlock the next city if the next level is there).

 

You have to do this without running out of lives. You can get extra lives, but again, you have to find them around the city. There are two concessions to this: you don't fail a mission when you die, but can continue to try and beat the rest of it. You do lose all your weapons though. Also, in some timed missions, dying might as well be an instant fail, because you'll never have enough time to beat it. The second thing you can do is get mission multipliers. These double the amount of money you receive for each mission, and are crucial in the later, harder levels. You get one for each mission you complete successfully. Otherwise, these have to be found, and again don't respawn. If you lose all your lives, you get Game Over, and have to beat the entire level again. Your score is saved if it's in the top three.

 

Then there are things like the car physics not being as refined as GTA 2, and getting a wanted level for hitting too many cars.

 

All this means that you have to drive around the city looking for item pickups, particularly armour, extra lives and mission multipliers. You then have to practice enough missions that would get you enough money to leave until you're very good at them. Then, you have to restart the level, pick up all of the mission multipliers you've found, and turn in a near-perfect performance in the missions you've practiced.

 

From what I understand, London 1961 is even harder. It's an expansion to GTA 1 so it plays by the same rules, but apparently the time limits for missions are really tight. Vice City in GTA 1 was already hard enough. There are missions where you have to kill as many guys as the later games but with GTA 1's health system. Unfortunately I didn't get much chance to play it. Work took over soon after I got there, and I seem to have lost the save file since. I do intend to beat it some day though.

 

For anyone who wants to get into top-down GTA, I'd first recommend Chinatown Wars and Advance. I'd also recommend GTA III if you can avoid the temptation to go into 3D mode. Then GTA 2. It's much harder then GTA III, but  far, far easier than GTA 1 + London expansions. Also, get the physical maps. They're necessary to beat the game.

I honestly don't recommend gta 1 and it's dlcs as I feel their legitimately just bad games. Gta 2 is where the series started taking off to the series we all know and love (the health and armor system, car damage, the crazy missions, the gangs, saving, 6 stars, multiple guns, jumping, etc.)

Edited December 3, 2019 by KingAJ032304

[Anywhere USA]

38 minutes ago, KingAJ032304 said:

I honestly don't recommend gta 1 and it's dlcs as I feel their legitimately just bad games. Gta 2 is where the series started taking off to the series we all know and love (the health and armor system, car damage, the crazy missions, the gangs, saving, 6 stars, multiple guns, jumping, etc.)

Indeed

[Max.pain]

i dont remember much about the pc version, but mobile port is definetly a pain to play due to trashy controls

Edited December 3, 2019 by Max.pain

[jm-9]

8 hours ago, KingAJ032304 said:

I honestly don't recommend gta 1 and it's dlcs as I feel their legitimately just bad games. Gta 2 is where the series started taking off to the series we all know and love (the health and armor system, car damage, the crazy missions, the gangs, saving, 6 stars, multiple guns, jumping, etc.)

I wouldn't go so far as to call them bad games, but yeah, San Andreas was a tough city to beat. It did get monotonous redoing the same missions. Liberty City isn't that bad though. I'd actually recommend both of its levels. Vice City just seemed unfair, and I was already drained after San Andreas. Due to the low health in GTA 1, the best way to take care of large groups of enemies is usually in a vehicle. But in Vice City there is one mission I remember that has bollards in front of an entrance to a yard with loads of guys to kill, forcing you to get out of the car. With the amount of guys they just tend to mow you down with their guns. Four hits and your armour's gone, then one more and you're dead. You can go back after you get healed to continue the mission, but it's still really hard, and you lose all your weapons when you die.

 

Your'e right about GTA 2. I had loads of fun with that game. I loved the gang structure and there were some very creative missions, with particularly memorable ones like Penal Ties and the infamous Hot Dog Homicide (imagine how much controversy that mission would have generated if Rockstar had remade it in the 3D era). I also like the way you can get powerful weapons right from the start. It added much-needed improvements like a health bar, saving and health and armour at every phone. GTA 2 also had a lot more radio chatter than GTA 1 (I don't know about the London games). GTA 1 did have satire on the radio, but GTA 2 had so much more of it, a hallmark of GTA that has lasted to this day. In many respects GTA 2 feels like one of the purest expressions of core GTA gameplay.

 

The only annoying thing was that I finished all the missions and still got the 'Nice Try!' ending. It could be because I was playing the unofficial 11.44 update. It still felt like such an achievement though. It's a shame that it doesn't have an in-game map. It makes the game very inaccessible because you really need the paper map to play missions. It means that a lot of people miss out on a great GTA game, because they start it and then don't know where to go.

Edited December 3, 2019 by jm-9

[NewGuybj]

GTA III is harsh in some cases. Especially rampages are pretty hard. Especially when gangs become hostile to you. Also they change places when you fail it. Annoying.

Besides rampgaes game isn't that hard. There are few tricky missions. S.A.M. was hard mission to me, until I found an easy way to complete it. So yeah, still a great game. Enjoying playing it, to this day.

Edited December 6, 2019 by NewGuybj

[Max.pain]

as an open world game, gta 3 should really be the hardest one

[KarimNTerr]

On 12/2/2019 at 4:44 PM, Anywhere USA said:

GTA 5 is too easy

Am I the only one who finds GTAV to actually be the most difficult and challenging GTA game? I 100%ed every other GTA with no problem dying very little, while only in GTAV "Prologue" I died twice, I keep on failing missions, even the simpler task can be failed... et cetera

 

Not counting the 2D games, 'cause yeah, GTA2 is the most difficult one to me

[Anywhere USA]

1 minute ago, KarimNTerr said:

Am I the only one who finds GTAV to actually be the most difficult and challenging GTA game? I 100%ed every other GTA with no problem dying very little, while only in GTAV "Prologue" I died twice, I keep on failing missions, even the simpler task can be failed... et cetera

 

Not counting the 2D games, 'cause yeah, GTA2 is the most difficult one to me

Nah it found it pretty easy, other then a couple of the missions near the end most of my fails were due to me getting inpatient and attempting to drive over the mountains to save time

[PAPAPA]

Why these incels are being so ignorant? GTA III is a hard game... So you incels never got angry about anything in the game? That it is very easy for you? BULLsh*t!!!!!!!!