Which GTA has the best controls?

[StrafeFTW]

For me GTA V has the best controls and the best missions in the series Imo..

[Max.pain]

Should be from the biggest improvement perspective, San andreas and san andreas again

[TheSantader25]

San Andreas. 

San Andreas again. GTA V is pretty good too. 

[Algonquin Assassin]

GTA IV for both.

[LittleJesus]

Best controls; V

Best missions; SA

[iiCriminnaaL]

GTA IV for both areas.

[Beato_dim]

3D games for controls, HD games (especially IV) are a bit sluggish in that department, even walking is noticeably heavier.

[DOUGL4S1]

As much as I love GTA IV, I'll have to go with San Andreas for controls (on-foot I'm assuming, not vehicles) and Vice City for missions.

 

San Andreas' on-foot controls are responsive, and for once they allow you to easily see CJ, without him spinning with the camera. And even tho it lacks a cover system from future games, I think the crouching/shooting is enough. If vehicles were included, I'd choose GTA IV, San Andreas' vehicles handle like butter bricks on ice.

 

Vice City for best missions, I mean c'mon, which other game has a mission where you parkour your way up a building with a bike so you can display huge boob pics into a skyscraper?

[Bratva Assassin]

GTA IV in both fields.

[JPFL]

GTA IV for both.

[Sunglasses]

IV's animations and such look more natural, but I find the 3D era controls to be the most responsive and less heavy. For this, I'm gonna pick VC for controls since I like my protagonists to move quickly.

I think GTA III has the best missions.

[Algonquin Assassin]

17 hours ago, Beato_dim said:

3D games for controls, HD games (especially IV) are a bit sluggish in that department, even walking is noticeably heavier.

I see this as a design choice. When R* moved onto the HD era they wanted to break away from the cartoony and over the top nature of the previous games so clearly having Niko move like he's floating on a cloud like the 3D era protagonists wouldn't have fitted with the direction R* wanted to go.

 

I've never had any problems with it feeling "heavy" as it feels like I'm controlling a normal human. Going back to the 3D era GTAs now feels stupid in this area IMO and I can't imagine playing a HD era GTA with similar architecture. 

[Jeansowaty]

I frankly feel that every GTA had good controls. The only one I found kind of weird though was V. I can't explain how, but the movement felt sticky and kinda lazy compared to the 3D Universe games and IV. Ohhhh and I nearly forgot about GTA Advance - that one is horrendous when you think of the shooting mechanics. The only guns that are somehow useful are the Shotgun and the Flamethrower.

[Eugene H. Krabs]

12 hours ago, Jeansowaty said:

Ohhhh and I nearly forgot about GTA Advance - that one is horrendous when you think of the shooting mechanics. The only guns that are somehow useful are the Shotgun and the Flamethrower.

The shotgun especially. It's the only way to kill the Yardies in the godforsaken mission, Smackdown

[killdrivetheftvehicle]

c=IV

m=V

[Lioshenka]

Interesting to see IV lead (though with 13 votes it's very early to call it a solid win) in the best mission sections. I guess some people just can't get tired of the constant "drive there, stand there, shoot him" routine.

 

Voted for GTA 3 for controls and GTA SA for missions. The controls have been getting worse and worse ever since, with a tiiiiny improvement after GTA 4's patch that allowed you to use Enter to enter vehicles.

Edited July 2, 2019 by Lioshenka

[Algonquin Assassin]

13 hours ago, Lioshenka said:

Interesting to see IV lead (though with 13 votes it's very early to call it a solid win) in the best mission sections. I guess some people just can't get tired of the constant "drive there, stand there, shoot him" routine.

I have an alternative hypothesis to this. Maybe just maybe some people like GTA IV's missions for other reasons like its mission freedom, story choices and consistency with the rest of the story. It's hard for GTA IV haters to process I know, but please try. 

[Lioshenka]

10 hours ago, SonOfLiberty said:

I have an alternative hypothesis to this. Maybe just maybe some people like GTA IV's missions for other reasons like its mission freedom, story choices and consistency with the rest of the story. It's hard for GTA IV haters to process I know, but please try. 

Interesting that you mentioned the mission freedom, because I frequently saw IV and V being critisised on these forums precisely for taking said freedom away compared to the older GTAs. It was never a decisive factor to me to be honest, which is why I made a notice of it when people kept bringing it up.

 

And I don't think any GTA is terribly inconsistent, even GTA 4. It has plenty of reasons for me to hate it, but inconsistency definitely isn't one of them.

[Max.pain]

People can call it freedom, but it's not, we'll never get to know if roman is alive or not, we'll never get to know if francis is alive or not...this type of thing shouldn't be in gaming

[god speed]

9 minutes ago, Max.pain said:

People can call it freedom, but it's not, we'll never get to know if roman is alive or not, we'll never get to know if francis is alive or not...this type of thing shouldn't be in gaming

Moral choices aren't necessarily what people mean by freedom, but things like how you can approach same missions from multiple angles without resulting in a "Mission failed" screen.

[billiejoearmstrong8]

3 hours ago, Lioshenka said:

Interesting that you mentioned the mission freedom, because I frequently saw IV and V being critisised on these forums precisely for taking said freedom away compared to the older GTAs. It was never a decisive factor to me to be honest, which is why I made a notice of it when people kept bringing it up.

 

 

IV doesn't take away mission freedom though. It offers multiple ways to complete missions and multiple variations of things that happen in them (even down to an incredible amount of different cutscenes and phone calls for failing different ways), with some choices laid out but also many just down to your own initiative, and missions generally only fail for logical reasons like someone dying or the vehicle you need being destroyed etc so there's lots of room for trying different approaches and messing around without failing. V is a HUGE change from that, other than the assigned different heist choices that you make before beginning the mission almost every element of every mission is strictly scripted and almost anything you do slightly differently to the obvious laid out way results in a fail screen (eg literally driving a few feet away from a GPS route). It's like you're an actor in a movie and the director yells cut unless you stick exactly to the stage directions. Even the "freedom" of switching between characters is mostly an illusion since 99% of the time in missions you either can't switch or are forced to do so at a specific time.

 

I haven't seen anyone complain about lack of mission freedom in IV, it has at least as much freedom as 3D era and is completely different to V in that regard.

Edited July 3, 2019 by billiejoearmstrong8

[Evil empire]

I neither played the stories nor the HD episodes but GTA Vice City has the best handling and the best dosed difficulty in its missions set.

[iiCriminnaaL]

13 hours ago, SonOfLiberty said:

I have an alternative hypothesis to this. Maybe just maybe some people like GTA IV's missions for other reasons like its mission freedom, story choices and consistency with the rest of the story. It's hard for GTA IV haters to process I know, but please try. 

Not only that, but also because they're the types of missions we expect to experience from a GTA game: car chases, assassinations, drug deals and shootouts with regular weapons that fit a crime themed game.

[Rajaraja]

Never liked any GTA's control scheme. Always remapped them to my liking.

 

IV for missions.