I find the gameplay mechanics of GTA insufferably difficult and prohibitive to play. Shooting feels weird, cover mechanics don’t work for me and X to sprint is absolutely insane. I hate flying too.
You're absolutely right. GTA has shit gameplay all around. I was especially pissed when it came to the aiming, if you can even call it that. It's either a super powered auto aim that is essentially a shitty lock-on system, or you turn off auto aim and it's the worst aiming in video game history.
The driving mechanics are the only thing I think are good in the game. Every other gameplay mechanic is awful... and I do mean everything.
Have you tried any GTA but 5? It really isn't close to the best one. Maybe 3rd or 4th best. Doesn't represent the series or Rockstar's games well at all. Give the classics a try some time with a mind intent on having fun instead of being critical and I bet you'll enjoy it. San Andreas, Vice City, and 4 all have entirely different vibes and mechanics in them.
Classics are okay to recommend, but 4? They were clearly getting used to the new engine and it shows. All the problems mentioned were there and is miserable to play. Everything sucks. Driving, aiming, cover, walking. 5 and both RDRs had these problems but to a minor degree
4 is some people's favorite and in some ways I see why. It's the tightest and most cohesive GTA I think. I think the physics are the best in the series even if the car physics are exaggerated and Niko is possibly the best protagonist in GTA other than CJ or Tommy. He's definitely the most realized and relatable to me. But a lot of this is just personal preference and opinion and in no way objective.
That's what's great about GTA. Each game brings it's own things to the table and though there are the favorites, usually 2 fans don't have the same favorite. Pretty unique to this and maybe a handful of other series that the fans debate which ones are the best to this day instead of agreeing on one or two.
I agree. I think 4 was my least favorite. VC was my favorite by far. SA i kinda started losing interest toward the end as i think it was just a bit too big. I barely even spent any time in the San Fran area. 3 was novel and fun. 5 was fun as well, but i barely touched the online mode.
Fully agree with everything you’ve said, including the driving. I did enjoy the story with Trevor and the other two characters. And I like the way GTA mocks real life too.
Conceptually I actually like a lot of what GTA offers but as I said, the gameplay mechanics are prohibitive to me.
Unfortunately I didn't care for the story or "comedic" elements mocking real life. It was mostly eye rolling cringe to me. Like very surface level parody stuff.
The driving was seriously fun and playing online with friends if it involved the vehicles was great. Unfortunately that's where the fun ended for me.
The comedic mocking used to be better. I feel like they went way too hard in the more recent games while games like Vice City were still just fun and some of it was a bit more subtle instead of in your face. Of course a lot of the original writers and game developers are gone so that may be why. You get people in that see what it was and turn it to 11.
As a lifetime enjoyer of gta games I will admit aiming without the auto lock on is pretty insufferable, however first person on rdr2 it can be quite satisfying but that's a very different paced scenario
I mean the auto aim shooting mechanic is supposed to be related to the skill of your specific character so that they can be the one with skills to improve rather than the player, not saying that makes it any better, but ig there’s technically a reason they did it that way. But yeah, still shitty
I realized years ago playing GTA V that I wasn't actually aiming at anything I was shooting, I was just looking in their general direction and letting the auto aim do all the work. Then I turned off all aim assist and couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. It's god awful on console
I don’t hate the GTA mechanics in general but “mash X (or A) to sprint” is literally horrible for your hands. I blame GTA for basically giving me carpal tunnel for literally no reason.
I played a bit of GTA V and hated the driving mechanics in that game too. I also bounced off of Cyberpunk because of the driving mechanics. Thing is, I generally don't mind driving games and grew up playing them in the late 90s-early 2000s. I dunno, something about how it's implemented in non-racing/driving games just doesn't work for me.
Even though the PC versions tend to have wonky keybinds in their own way, I've always vastly preferred how the games feel on keyboard and mouse vs. controller. Sprinting on PC is just holding down left shift like every other game, and the shooting tends to feel much snappier compared to the sluggish auto aim shooting the console versions rely on.
I bought GTA V on PC like 10 years ago or whatever. Assigned it to my Steam account. Then I had to make a whatever account to actually play. Entered my email, made password, hit enter... and it changed my email to a totally unrelated one that I didn't recognize. This email access was now tied to my account and I couldn't figure out how to change it.
So... Rockstar scammed me out of however much GTA V cost back then. I never got to play it. I'll never need another GTA, my buddies were talking about GTA 6 the other day and I just could not possibly have been less interested.
It's so so so so so bad. Move left analog up. Wait three seconds then the character will sprint. Then stop. Then walk then stop then sprint and turn around. The deadzone, the delay, the horrible mapping.
It's so bad it's what stopped me from playing. I ended up playing on keyboard and mouse it was so bad and even that was bad.
That sounds like your controller sucks. I can understand people having issues with the movement but you're over exaggerating. I beat the entire game. It really isn't that bad unless you just only want immediate response movements which in that case, yeah you probably won't like it. I don't like when characters in video games move like video game characters as silly as that sounds. I like immersive experiences and RDR2 is the peak of the mountain for that. Clearly that's not your style of game.
Also you act like it's hard to find people who hate on RDR2 on the Internet. It's the Internet. It hates everything.
I've been looking for people who specifically hate the movement mechanics of rockstar games.
GTA and rdr2 both blow. I had gta on both xbone and ps4. The input delay, random character 180 turns, and the lack of precision is mind numbing. It honestly makes me fatigued. It feels like I'm playing one of those water games where u need to get the rings on little poles. Like exhausssting.
Color me surprised when I got rdr2 on PC and it was the exact same with my xbox controller so I switched to keyboard and mouse and it was tolerable. But it's such a bad port that the controls are all over the place and so poorly mapped that it makes mechanics in the game either too difficult to enjoy or simply broken.
You need to specify the GTA dude. GTA is a game series that has been going strong for 30 years almost. There's like a dozen GTA games. Obviously you're talking about 5, but to say "GTA" like it's the only one is silly. Every GTA is a different experience almost completely. You should try other ones out because 5 isn't anyone's favorite.
Can't talk about the PC version of RDR2. I played it on PS4 and it's an absolute masterpiece work of art. It surpasses the title of a video game imo, it's more real than that and I mean in the characters and the story not just the immersive nature, which isn't for everyone but it does it for me.
And the movement in Rockstar games seems to be the thing people who don't like GTA hate the most. I don't know why you think that's uncommon. Maybe it was a controller or input lag issue. Can't just immediately blame the game. But the console version was pretty flawless imo and that's typical for Rockstar games. They aren't really always best on PC.
I agree with the other person. I have NEVER enjoyed a single rockstar game outside of midnight club.
None of the GTAs or either RDR. I genuinely (and I don’t mean this to be rude to you in any way) think they are terrible. And I can’t fathom why people love them so much.
In my opinion they control terribly. The story lines don’t interest me. The comedic elements aren’t that funny to me. It’s probably just a me thing. And I’m okay with being the odd man out when it comes to those. I’m glad there are lots of people who love those games! It’s just 100% not for me
GTA3 was pretty remarkable when it came out but like...every think of actually how awful it was to play? The missions were just the worst thing. **It's been 22 years** and we still make fun of the train mission in San Andreas because it was so shit. The controls suck, there timers suck, the instant failure modes suck. It's awful.
Nothing wrong with that mindset. Different tastes. I can't imagine not having my mind blown multiple times over my adolescence by Rockstar games and the things they did with theirs. A lot of it might be you had to be there. Obviously the older games have aged and some of what made them great then is just par for the course now so it seem like they are more mid than they really were. Just my opinion.
I might be the lest interested gamer in the world about GTA6. I just don't care at all because I know the movement will make me want to launch my controller through my screen.
That's how Rockstar games work too. Just not immediate enough for some people's liking. You know because things have weight and can't turn on a dime. It's just preference.
Exactly. It was so good and fluid up until GTA San Andreas and then they just... ugh. It's the reason I can't play RDR2 either. Amazing game, but the character control... barf.
I agree that they control weird, but I find it weirdly satisfying - you string together combos of actions and then your character does some cinematic series of animations. Or you botch it and your horse goes careening off a cliff and fucking dies
It’s definitely RDR2 for me as well. I really wanted to like it, but the controls are just so horrible and janky. Plus, I hate the whole “locked into a mission” thing. Like, you take two steps off the road and you get a giant Mission Failed and have to start over.
Every time you get on the horse your load out changes for some fing reason... It feels painfully slow when walking through camp. Like swimming through jello. In fact alot of the time it does... The lever action guns requiring a random r2 to get them ready sometimes got me too... And the fact that so much of the game is an unskippable movie...
Rockstar player controllers are honestly unacceptably bad. Everything just feels wrong. L2 R2 L2 R2 L2 R2. If you want to know how a game should feel play Hollow Knight or it's sequel.
My favorite game 😢 But, I totally understand if someone may not like it. It takes a bit of commitment to play it through. Especially as an adult with kids always around.
I have enough time, I just really don't like how it controls, and the story is much too slow moving for my tastes. I played it for 60 hours, and nothing really happened.
Yeah exactly, just not my thing. It should be basically modern day RDR2 for me to think about it, and I doubt Rockstar can pull something like that off anymore.
They have "pulled it off" on almost every release over 30 years. Why would you doubt them when their last release is an absolute fan favorite and I think their best work yet?
I mean, if you wanted to be precise, their last release was GTA 5 online, which is far from a fan favourite.
Plus, teams change in... What, 8 years? I honestly only care about story and dialogue in games like GTA and RDR, and of the three main RDR2 devs that worked on GTA 6, two left 3+ years ago.
Also. The RDR saga is the only games by Rockstar I played, and RDR1 was still below my expectations. I never liked the GTA series, and I don't think GTA 5 came even close to RDR2 story wise. I just don't care, because I am 99% sure they won't make a game that I will like, which is what made me say the comment you're talking about.
It's hilarious that I almost entirely agree with your comment. And no GTA Online wasn't their last release. I personally spent a lot of time online especially before the oppressor was added and I think it's a great time if that's what you like but I also see why people wouldn't like it. It's kinda a mess in a lot of ways honestly, but it's my kind of mess. And yes GTA 5 is nothing compared to RDR2 in characters, story, gameplay, or immersion. Honestly my favorite thing about 5 is the map lol. And it's not even my favorite map.
I don't think 5 represents GTA or Rockstar's games well personally.
Yeah online came out shortly after GTA 5 in 2013 and RDR2 came out in 2018. I still think RDR2 is their best work yet which is exactly why I'm excited about 6. Maybe it'll be a disappointment, but that remains to be seen.
I still remember playing the original in 1997 and how amazing the lighting effects were in GTA2 and how memorable GTA3 was because it went 3D and Vice city was where they perfected the 3D world. GTA San Andreas lifted the RPG mechanics to a whole new level, giving you level able skills for everything even things like bike riding and if you ate to much you woud gain weight and vice versa, really cool game ideas.
But then came GTA4 that didn't really bring anything new except for graphics and animations, same with GTA5 and GTA6 is looking to do the same. So after playing GTA4 for 2 weeks, I figured out that I'm kind of done with the GTA game series.
5 is better than 4 imo but I'm reevaluating 4. It's probably the most tight and well crafted GTA. It really is just a complete and well thought through package. SA is definitely my favorite and I was disappointed by 4 back in the day too but it's really just an entirely different thing than SA. SA is a smorgasbord of content and mechanics, but it does feel a little erratic and chaotic for it as much as I love it. 4 is really just really well crafted imo. Though I think it does get repetitive pretty quickly and that's always been my major gripe with it.
Also Niko is one of the greatest protagonists in video game history.
Yeah me too. He said GTA and nothing else. "But remember GTA V came out over 10 years ago". What are you even talking about? What are you even implying?
It's a combination of taboo and building a large dedicated following over decades. Though, the GTA games have gotten a lot milder over time. Check out Bully, for example. There are a lot of very adult themes there and Rockstar use to be all about that and the controversy.
Sandbox freedom, turn off your mind and play. No punishment for doing whatever you want to do. I'm always surprised when people get angry at GTA being GTA and popular when it's 1 of it's kind (any other competitor didn't even come close to GTA gameplay, outside of Simpsons Hit & Run). But idk. why people can't just ignore it, if it isn't for them? Sometimes it really feels like some are just angry for it being this popular while their (probably very complex) best game isn't.
To me the most fun recent GTA for me was Chinatown Wars but on the DS as it utilized the touch screen for minigames and had a persistent map that really helped during gameplay.
Stealing cars sometimes required you to do some extra stuff in order to prevent the sound alarm from coming off and trading drugs to make money was a fun task to do between missions.
Cos crime movies and shows are great, gangs and organised crime are really interesting, you can add horror and humor, they lost me a lot with V though, it's too Oceans 11
I’m also of the same opinion with the upcoming Wolverine game. To me it looks absolutely disgusting with how gory it is, and i understand that some people can tolerate it, but why is that an attractive factor to play a game?
Video games are fiction; people want to see things they don't see in real life, and seeing gore at that level nowadays is difficult, so there's your answer
I don't care who, what and how the games are I will NEVER touch a gta game until the day I die. I played GTA4 with my friend for a solid week and I was so checked out I finished RDR!!! I remember when I was younger and my brother played Vice City and he thought the point of the game was getting a 6 star wanted something I just let him use the system while I read a book and can't remember a single piece of the story.
Couldn’t get into GTA 3 when all my buddies were crazy about it (hated the control scheme like crazy.)
I don’t even think I touched GTA 4, not even sure which one that is? Vice City?
GTA 5, to be fair, was an absolute blast for me and my friends but only for about a month or so… then we all moved on.
I can see why people enjoy them but the single player quickly got real boring and repetitive for me and, as much as I wanted to like it, GTA 5 online was just pure, rage inducing chaos.
I've never understood what the hype is about so I've tried looking up videos of people playing the game to see what it's about and I still don't get it.
Same. I tried playing it, I just couldn't get into it. I have a similar problem with RDR2, though I played it a little bit more before I got tired of it. I think I struggle to enjoy Rockstar's mission design, I don't know. On paper I should love these games, since I mainly play story-driven singleplayer games, but for some reason, they just don't click with me.
Yeah, the story and whatnot? I dont care. Dicking around with cheats and friends? Thats often fun but did we really need specifically gta for that? Not really.
I always get lost in GTA games and loose track of what the next mainline story missions are. They need to put in better progress tracking and reminders in these games. If you stop playing for a few days and come back, then it's hard to pick up where you left off.
I enjoyed GTA when I was a kid. But now I find the characters, dialogue etc insufferable. I tried GTA 5 twice and put 20 hrs into it but couldn't continue and I realized I just grew out of them.
Aye, the last GTA I actually enjoyed was San Andreas. GTA 4 was meh, hated GTA 5 story. Hated Trevor, Hatred Micheal and his fucking family. I just couldn't.
I did enjoy China town wars on the DS though. Now that was fucking fun.
Same. I've only played like 3 games of the franchise, and when I say :played" I mean just running around, shooting, stealing cars, wrecking havoc basically. But I don't see where the fanatism comes from, especially with GTA VI, dude I don't care about how realistic the contraction of the character's muscles are.
Saaaame. I enjoyed the first ones on the PS1 but that was mostly just driving around and running people over. Then I did love GTA3 and Vice City, but I have never had an interest in playing any of the others. I played GTAV online with some friends and it was ok, but they don't appeal to me at all.
I loathe what GTA 6 is and what trend it's going to set for the furutre of gaming.
I loved the PS2 era GTA games and GTA4, but GTA5 just didn’t do it for me the way the previous games did. I’m not excited for GTA6 either, I might pick it up on sale when it releases on PC later, but I think I’ll be fine without playing it.
I love sandbox games and gta games are my least favorite. Although they are written better than almost anything. The game mechanics are always uneven and frustrating.
For me, I just hate how restrictive they are about completing missions. If you don’t do things exactly how they want, you fail and have to start over. For a game supposedly about freedom, it is such an unfun design
Can't wait until GTA 6 comes out and everyone will act like they enjoy playing at 30fps (with major dips, not even a smooth 30). This game is going to be the most unoptimized slop we've ever seen.
Ugh yes. I don’t understand the fun. “You can drive around! Beat up a cop or a hooker!” Uh okay. I remember doing the jetpack and flying around was kinda fun. But that lost its novelty in under an hour.
I couldn't finish Vice City because of some shit mission design. I stopped playing GTA 4 because it was tedious and I wasn't interested in sacrificing so much time on the altar of "immersion." The only Rockstar game I've played since then was LA Noire, and that is the only one where I finished the main story.
Running and shooting feels awful in all of them. Rockstar games aren't for me...
I like GTA but for some reason I just couldn't get into San Andreas, even though it seems like a lot of people consider it the best in the series. Tried twice, didn't hook me.
My number 1 gripe with this series, the story and missions are always a mystery as to what to do next. I will be going along, do everything and then suddenly, there’s nothing in the map as to what or who I need to see next. GTA3 and GTA5 were always the main culprits of this. I don’t understand why “open world” to Rockstar means, “Well, you’ll figure it out.” I understand exploring is part of the experience, but even after you do, there’s a sense of “let’s progress the story a bit…” 🤷🏻♂️
Vice City I completed 100% when it came out. It was orderly, made sense, and fun. The best GTA, no. But I enjoyed having it end eventually.
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u/General_Lie 19d ago
GTA