Technically speaking, GTA IV, is the most "grand theft auto" game in its essence of the name

[lol232]

I mean, you literally have to steal 10 vehicles for Brucie and 30 for Steve. That's actually more than any total amount required in any GTA.

 

And in TLAD, 10 bikes for Angus. And that's not even counting the vehicles in the story missions of all 3 episodes, and especially the fact that you steal a lot of vehicular sh*t in TBoGT as well.

[billiejoearmstrong8]

I agree, and what really makes it the most GTA is after completing the Stevie side mission you have the ability to sell vehicles at his garage infinitely. And this is not only by far the best/fastest/most profitable way to make money after completing the story or 100%ing, it's pretty much the only way since other side missions are either a one off or pay little or nothing and you don't own any businesses. Only thing that comes close to it is blowing up Securicar trucks and picking up the money strewn over the street - which is also a total GTA thing (whether just blowing up the vehicles or stealing them first).

 

Niko's main income is literally grand theft auto, could GTA IV be any more GTA?

Edited July 25, 2021 by billiejoearmstrong8

[lol232]

On 7/25/2021 at 7:21 AM, billiejoearmstrong8 said:

I agree, and what really makes it the most GTA is after completing the Stevie side mission you have the ability to sell vehicles at his garage infinitely. And this is not only by far the best/fastest/most profitable way to make money after completing the story or 100%ing, it's pretty much the only way since other side missions are either a one off or pay little or nothing and you don't own any businesses. Only thing that comes close to it is blowing up Securicar trucks and picking up the money strewn over the street - which is also a total GTA thing (whether just blowing up the vehicles or stealing them first).

 

Niko's main income is literally grand theft auto, could GTA IV be any more GTA?

I mean when you've completed GTA IV 100% you have so much money with nothing to spend it on except for ammo.

 

The thing I disliked the most in GTA IV is that the reward for 100% is ass as is for the pigeons. To be fair, there really isn't any GTA game where you can spend money on sh*t after you've done everything anyway.

Edited July 25, 2021 by lol232

[billiejoearmstrong8]

On 7/25/2021 at 1:53 PM, lol232 said:

I mean when you've completed GTA IV 100% you have so much money with nothing to spend it on except for ammo.

 

The thing I disliked the most in GTA IV is that the reward for 100% is ass as is for the pigeons. To be fair, there really isn't any GTA game where you can spend money on sh*t after you've done everything anyway.

 

Even though there aren't a lot of different things to spend money on I think they balanced it fairly well. You don't earn a huge amount from missions/side missions (playing through to get 100% you won't even get close to a million) and you have zero income, and there's no things you can exploit to make ridiculous amounts like in some other GTAs. But at the same time hospital bills (10% of your money each time capped at a huge $10,000 once you have over $100,000) and weapons (including the rocket launcher at $15,000 and rockets that cost $5000 each) are the most expensive in any GTA game. So if you use a lot of weapons/ammo and die a lot, plus spend more taking friends out and using taxis etc, you can get through your limited money pretty fast.

 

In most other GTA games you earn more money from missions, end up with a generous amount of infinite income from businesses to top it up, and can do things to literally make billions. So yeah it would be cool to be able to buy more things in IV but I think the money is better balanced than in most GTA games where you end up a multi millionaire/billionaire even after you've bought everything.

 

The pigeons and "reward" for them is the worst thing in the game lol. It's a shame they decided to stop doing good rewards for side missions/collectibles from IV onwards. It wouldn't even have to be money (if they were trying to keep it more realistic/prevent Niko from becoming a billionaire), could've rewarded you with plenty of other stuff like cool exclusive vehicles/weapons/abilities/outfits etc. Pretty much the same in V as well. Bring back 3D era side mission rewards!

Edited July 25, 2021 by billiejoearmstrong8

[String]

On 7/25/2021 at 10:51 AM, billiejoearmstrong8 said:

after completing the Stevie side mission you have the ability to sell vehicles at his garage infinitely

I didn't know this, woah. How does it work, is it like you just take any eligible vehicle to his garage and you get money? 

 

I thought only the Vigilante missions were infinite lol, the more you know. now there's no real reason to worry about money in this game

[B Dawg]

On 7/25/2021 at 3:57 PM, Wayne Kerr said:

I thought only the Vigilante missions were infinite lol

Brucie's races are also infinite (just have to go to another island every once in a while for the next set).

[billiejoearmstrong8]

On 7/25/2021 at 2:57 PM, Wayne Kerr said:

I didn't know this, woah. How does it work, is it like you just take any eligible vehicle to his garage and you get money? 

 

I thought only the Vigilante missions were infinite lol, the more you know. now there's no real reason to worry about money in this game

 

Yep you can just drive any random vehicle in there (besides government/service/large ones) and get money! Amount varies depending on how valuable/undamaged it is.

 

A cool thing is when you park a vehicle at your Bohan safehouse/just go to Bohan in a particular vehicle it tends to make a lot more of them spawn parked nearby. So if you keep an expensive sports car parked at that safehouse you can keep finding more of them parked around that block and taking them to the garage (and sometimes they'll even just be spawning in traffic right outside the garage). You end up with a wanted level after every few thefts but when that happens you can just pop in the safehouse and save to lose it and carry on. I think I messed around doing this for a total of a couple of hours or so to get Niko a nice extra million in the bank.

Edited July 25, 2021 by billiejoearmstrong8

[BabaFamilias]

Given the fact that your car already starts to break down, when one of its pixels nudges a light pole, "the most GTA game" has to be GTA III, because of your constant search for a new "fresh" car to hijack every couple of seconds. I can't think of any other GTA, where I had to swap my car so often. It is literally "Grand Theft Auto" from the start to the end, not only story wise, but especially gameplay wise.

[CynicalMexican]

There's also that GTA IV Online mission where you have to steal cars off a freight ship

[DOUGL4S1]

I see your point, but by that definition, I'd argue GTA Online is the most GTA game of them all. I haven't counted how many vehicles are actually stolen on that game, but between Import/Export, Special Vehicles, vehicles to be stolen for Simeon, Heist preps and other misc missions, I'd say it's way more than that.

[.Ryan.]

On 7/25/2021 at 11:23 PM, billiejoearmstrong8 said:

 

Even though there aren't a lot of different things to spend money on I think they balanced it fairly well. You don't earn a huge amount from missions/side missions (playing through to get 100% you won't even get close to a million) and you have zero income, and there's no things you can exploit to make ridiculous amounts like in some other GTAs. But at the same time hospital bills (10% of your money each time capped at a huge $10,000 once you have over $100,000) and weapons (including the rocket launcher at $15,000 and rockets that cost $5000 each) are the most expensive in any GTA game. So if you use a lot of weapons/ammo and die a lot, plus spend more taking friends out and using taxis etc, you can get through your limited money pretty fast.

 

In most other GTA games you earn more money from missions, end up with a generous amount of infinite income from businesses to top it up, and can do things to literally make billions. So yeah it would be cool to be able to buy more things in IV but I think the money is better balanced than in most GTA games where you end up a multi millionaire/billionaire even after you've bought everything.

 

The pigeons and "reward" for them is the worst thing in the game lol. It's a shame they decided to stop doing good rewards for side missions/collectibles from IV onwards. It wouldn't even have to be money (if they were trying to keep it more realistic/prevent Niko from becoming a billionaire), could've rewarded you with plenty of other stuff like cool exclusive vehicles/weapons/abilities/outfits etc. Pretty much the same in V as well. Bring back 3D era side mission rewards!

 

At one time I always used to think how stupid it was that Niko would get all of this money without much to spend it on however when I really think about it none of the other GTA games do it particularly well save for Vice City and San Andreas when it's a requirement for the assets/businesses. When it comes to luxury spending however I don't feel any GTA has really nailed it. Sure you can buy, clothing, vehicles etc, but you're always going to end up with more money than you spend. It's not a GTA IV issue, but an issue with pretty much any open world game that has an economy. In both of the Red Dead games for example money becomes so abundant it kind of feels ridiculous in the context of those games.

 

As you say though atleast GTA IV tries to get a balance. It's hard to make more than $1,000,000 in GTA IV which in other games is a piece of cake thanks to generous money giving and other exploits (like the horse betting trick in San Andreas) so on that front GTA IV's economy is a hard shell to crack. You wont end up as a billionaire. 

 

In saying that I think it would've been silly with how Niko always gets on Roman's arse for blowing all of their money when he's spending it on sports cars, penthouses etc so I guess R* came up with the best compromise they could without detracting from the fact that Niko's a struggling immigrant trying to get by while paying off debts. The only thing I'd change abut GTA IV is making the money more tied into the story when Roman keeps getting further and further into debt. It would've been awesome if we had to do this ourselves making earning money more crucial. Don't have enough money to pay off this debt? Dimitri sends his goons after you until it's paid off.

 

 

Edited July 27, 2021 by MiamiViceCity1986

[B Dawg]

On 7/26/2021 at 5:41 PM, CynicalMexican said:

There's also that GTA IV Online mission where you have to steal cars off a freight ship

No? You just plant bombs on the Platypus to blow it up.

What you're thinking of is the Car Jack City gamemode maybe, where they don't spawn on any ships.

[Jinx.]

I disagree. The most "Grand Theft Auto" game in the series is GTA 3 by a long shot. Most of the story characters hired Claude to steal several vehicles: the starting sedan, a drug dealer's car, an armored van, a 2 door car with a corpse, an optional taxi, 3 sport vehicles, a Yardie gang car, a truck with evidence, a Cartel gang car, a fast car capable to race (the Banshee), an ice cream truck, optionally another race car, 3 gang cars, 32 vehicles for Import/Export (16 per island) and 7 emergency vehicles. Eventually you could add in a car needed to be stolen to arrive to the Staunton Safehouse since Asuka's condo is at a distance, not to mention the Yakuza Stingers there are pretty fast and can be used for Bling Bling Scramble and Payday For Ray. That's 54-56 vehicles to be stolen, not to mention the offroad, the RC Car and the emergency sidemissions, which are like 12 more cars in addition to the current number.

Edited July 27, 2021 by Jinx.

[The-Ghost]

It's funny, GTAIV is the game where I decided to not do "Grand Theft Auto", and just use a cab, because of the driving.

GTAOnline is probably the most GTA game if you follow the logic you're stating here, the amount of vehicles you steal in that game is mad.

[billiejoearmstrong8]

6 hours ago, The_Ghost said:

It's funny, GTAIV is the game where I decided to not do "Grand Theft Auto", and just use a cab, because of the driving.

GTAOnline is probably the most GTA game if you follow the logic you're stating here, the amount of vehicles you steal in that game is mad.

 

I always think the fact that actually stealing cars (especially any car you'd actually want) in random gameplay is made very difficult and heavily frowned upon and punished, with buying cars as the focus and car insurance being a thing, pretty strongly negates the GTA aspect of Online.

[lol232]

On 7/27/2021 at 11:58 AM, Jinx. said:

I disagree. The most "Grand Theft Auto" game in the series is GTA 3 by a long shot. Most of the story characters hired Claude to steal several vehicles: the starting sedan, a drug dealer's car, an armored van, a 2 door car with a corpse, an optional taxi, 3 sport vehicles, a Yardie gang car, a truck with evidence, a Cartel gang car, a fast car capable to race (the Banshee), an ice cream truck, optionally another race car, 3 gang cars, 32 vehicles for Import/Export (16 per island) and 7 emergency vehicles. Eventually you could add in a car needed to be stolen to arrive to the Staunton Safehouse since Asuka's condo is at a distance, not to mention the Yakuza Stingers there are pretty fast and can be used for Bling Bling Scramble and Payday For Ray. That's 54-56 vehicles to be stolen, not to mention the offroad, the RC Car and the emergency sidemissions, which are like 12 more cars in addition to the current number.

Didn't you think this out, did you? 68 vehicles, right?

 

Niko steals 40 vehicles for import/export alone. You steal a car to chase the laundry store owner, steal a police car in 4 instances in missions, steal Lyle's car, steal a bike to chase Jason, steal car to help trace a dude with Manny, steal a vehicle to help escape with the Coke you stole for Liz/Jacob, steal a car to drive Packie & co. to Charge Island, steal a truck with Packie, steal another 4-door car for Three Leaf Clover heist to get there, and another one to escape, stealing a car to follow Anthony with the rigged bomb on his car for Gerry, retrieve a stolen PCJ-600 to disguise yourself as an Albanian for Gerry, steal a bike to chase Jayvon for Dwayne, steal a car to chase Oleg Minkov, steal a Helicopter for ULP, steal a car to chase Luca, steal a Freeway to chase Jim, steal a Police Stockade and another car to use as escape, steal Gracie's Feltzer, steal a Faggio to chase the homophobe who attacked Bernie, steal a Heroin truck for Phil Bell, steal a car to chase Pavano's goons, steal 2 boats with Phil Bell from Russians - here alone we're already matching your number of 68. 

And depending on the ending you'll at least steal one more vehicle on the way, 2-3 more if deal ending is picked.  On top of that you'll end up stealing at least a couple more on random encounters and assassinations, and I more than likely even missed some. 

 

That's not counting the emergency missions in that number which I did for GTA III, so GTA IV gets a bit more since it also has Vigilante and Most Wanted missions. And cars for street races.

 

And that's only counting the times you can't use a taxi for obvious reasons.

Edited August 31, 2021 by lol232

[Americana]

Grand Theft Auto IV is just as awesome as Grand Theft Auto III. These are the pure Grand Theft Auto games.

 

In these games you can feel like a real street criminal, not a drug boss - or whatever.

Edited August 31, 2021 by Americana

[The Tracker]

On 7/27/2021 at 4:14 AM, MiamiViceCity1986 said:

 

At one time I always used to think how stupid it was that Niko would get all of this money without much to spend it on however when I really think about it none of the other GTA games do it particularly well save for Vice City and San Andreas when it's a requirement for the assets/businesses. When it comes to luxury spending however I don't feel any GTA has really nailed it. Sure you can buy, clothing, vehicles etc, but you're always going to end up with more money than you spend. It's not a GTA IV issue, but an issue with pretty much any open world game that has an economy. In both of the Red Dead games for example money becomes so abundant it kind of feels ridiculous in the context of those games.

 

As you say though atleast GTA IV tries to get a balance. It's hard to make more than $1,000,000 in GTA IV which in other games is a piece of cake thanks to generous money giving and other exploits (like the horse betting trick in San Andreas) so on that front GTA IV's economy is a hard shell to crack. You wont end up as a billionaire. 

 

In saying that I think it would've been silly with how Niko always gets on Roman's arse for blowing all of their money when he's spending it on sports cars, penthouses etc so I guess R* came up with the best compromise they could without detracting from the fact that Niko's a struggling immigrant trying to get by while paying off debts. The only thing I'd change abut GTA IV is making the money more tied into the story when Roman keeps getting further and further into debt. It would've been awesome if we had to do this ourselves making earning money more crucial. Don't have enough money to pay off this debt? Dimitri sends his goons after you until it's paid off.

 

 

 

Car customization is everything IV needed to have a perfect economy system. Car modifications in videogames always cost a lot of in-game money, and that tied to the fact that Niko rarely has a lot of cash in the game, could've made a good balance for it. Some people may say that it wouldn't have suited with Niko, but the fact that Brucie introduces him to races says otherwise, using his workshop could have been a good reward for finishing all Brucie's story missions. 

Edited August 31, 2021 by The Tracker

[Liberty City Executioner]

GTA III and IV/EFLC are equally the most GTA titles IMO. Very diverse atmospheres with all kinds of ethnic criminals and all kinds of car thefts is really the way to go for this kind of game.

Edited August 31, 2021 by ThatBenGuy

[sefus]

GTA 4 had a massive GTA 3 feel to it, it wasn't over the top like GTA VC and SA, had selected amount of weapons similar to GTA 3, it was going back to a gritty realism, which i loved.

[The Tracker]

2 hours ago, sefus said:

GTA 4 had a massive GTA 3 feel to it, it wasn't over the top like GTA VC and SA, had selected amount of weapons similar to GTA 3, it was going back to a gritty realism, which i loved.

 

I wouldn't say VC was over the top, in fact it was pretty grounded in the high-income 1980's crime setting it wanted to depict, it just wasn't dark or gritty, it was a rag to riches story. 

Edited August 31, 2021 by The Tracker

[The-Ghost]

14 hours ago, billiejoearmstrong8 said:

 

I always think the fact that actually stealing cars (especially any car you'd actually want) in random gameplay is made very difficult and heavily frowned upon and punished, with buying cars as the focus and car insurance being a thing, pretty strongly negates the GTA aspect of Online.

Hmm? 

I am not sure I am following this, what's very difficult about stealing cars in GTAOnline?

Edited August 31, 2021 by The_Ghost

[billiejoearmstrong8]

8 hours ago, The_Ghost said:

Hmm? 

I am not sure I am following this, what's very difficult about stealing cars in GTAOnline?

 

I mean, there's loads of cool cars but you can't get them by stealing them randomly. Stealing cars from other players is like, a bad thing and really not allowed. Buying/earning cars and insuring them is the model for the game. I get why that is (since it would suck to buy a nice car and have it stolen/destroyed and lose it) and not saying it shouldn't be that way but by its nature it's not very "grand theft auto" by the definition we're talking about in this thread. And buying car insurance in GTA is just such a lame concept, I'd prefer another way of keeping a car replaceable.

Edited September 1, 2021 by billiejoearmstrong8

[Emmi]

GTA 3, Vice City and IV are the best GTA games out there ... that's a fact!

 

They do everything right for what GTA must stand for (in my opinion).

 

All the missions of these three games are highly enjoyable and are grounded, especially the ones in 3 and IV.

 

I do not like this over the top stuff when it comes to GTA games but I'm worried about this franchises future after seeing the direction they took with GTA V.

 

Are they willing to go back to a serious, gritty and grounded GTA experience again or will they stick with the over the top stuff to further cater to children (the GTA Online players) instead of focusing on the long-time GTA veterans with mature, 18+ content?

 

GTA shines whenever it is set in a gritty, grounded setting (Vice City included but in a different way!) with crime based missions and activities and a protagonist who starts at the very bottom and slowly builds a reputition to make a name of himself out there!

[Liberty City Executioner]

On 8/31/2021 at 10:35 AM, ThatBenGuy said:

GTA III and IV/EFLC are equally the most GTA titles IMO. Very diverse atmospheres with all kinds of ethnic criminals and all kinds of car thefts is really the way to go for this kind of game.

In addition to this, VC is a pretty close contender to being the most GTA title IMO. Not quite as much as III and IV/EFLC but almost. A lot of New Yorkers consider Florida a second home so there’s that as well.

[.Ryan.]

On 9/3/2021 at 4:14 AM, Emmi said:

GTA 3, Vice City and IV are the best GTA games out there ... that's a fact!

 

They do everything right for what GTA must stand for (in my opinion).

 

All the missions of these three games are highly enjoyable and are grounded, especially the ones in 3 and IV.

 

I do not like this over the top stuff when it comes to GTA games but I'm worried about this franchises future after seeing the direction they took with GTA V.

 

Are they willing to go back to a serious, gritty and grounded GTA experience again or will they stick with the over the top stuff to further cater to children (the GTA Online players) instead of focusing on the long-time GTA veterans with mature, 18+ content?

 

GTA shines whenever it is set in a gritty, grounded setting (Vice City included but in a different way!) with crime based missions and activities and a protagonist who starts at the very bottom and slowly builds a reputition to make a name of himself out there!

 

It's scary how this pretty much echoes my exact thoughts.

 

Couldn't agree more. I don't mind some "over the top" missions as long as they're kept in moderation, but I prefer the more grounded/sensible type missions. Drug deals gone wrong, assassinations, car chases etc. All of that good stuff never gets old and what drew me to the series way back when I first played GTA 1. 

Edited September 4, 2021 by MiamiViceCity1986

[Ceasey]

On 7/25/2021 at 4:23 AM, lol232 said:

I mean, you literally have to steal 10 vehicles for Brucie and 30 for Steve. That's actually more than any total amount required in any GTA.

 

And in TLAD, 10 bikes for Angus. And that's not even counting the vehicles in the story missions of all 3 episodes, and especially the fact that you steal a lot of vehicular sh*t in TBoGT as well.

Yeah they exagerated with those.

[KingAJ032304]

On 8/31/2021 at 10:08 AM, Americana said:

Grand Theft Auto IV is just as awesome as Grand Theft Auto III. These are the pure Grand Theft Auto games.

 

In these games you can feel like a real street criminal, not a drug boss - or whatever.

Only diehard GTA fans will critique this for not being "Grand Theft Auto".

[Badman_]

I actually feel like GTA III is the most "GTA" of them all, probably because it was the first one in a 3D world so the developers followed more closely the essence of what they wanted in a GTA title. After a few sequels it becomes almost obligatory to inovate the formula to avoid repetitiveness and criticism.

[billiejoearmstrong8]

12 hours ago, Wolfman_ said:

I actually feel like GTA III is the most "GTA" of them all, probably because it was the first one in a 3D world so the developers followed more closely the essence of what they wanted in a GTA title. After a few sequels it becomes almost obligatory to inovate the formula to avoid repetitiveness and criticism.

 

This is true in terms of "GTA" meaning the creator's original vision of the game, but in the literal sense of the title (the crime of grand theft auto) it's IV simply because it has the most canonical vehicle stealing. 

Edited September 14, 2021 by billiejoearmstrong8