Bleargh, I've never played any of the GTAs, and realized I had the GTA3 series lying around. Aside from requiring the CD it didn't seem to have any DRM. The problem is that I can't get the damned things to run on Windows 8.

Never will I ever have an opinion on GTA it seems.

Quite the opposite I think, so far from GTA3 onwards every "ganster" character either is a misarable bastard or will die like one, even the protagonist will slowly devolve into this with no hope left if he doesn't change his ways, and even then it's usually too late. The only ones that escape this fate are the comic reliefs.

I also don't really get the point about not showing the victim's prespective, or at least not in the context of a game that's about running people over with cars with a satirical story to tie the gameplay together. I'm mature, legally at least, and I still think it's pretty fun.

I think the first GTA I played was GTA 3 or something a decade or so ago, didn't even know it had a plot, cuz I was out on murder spree (disclaimer (for the NSA): only in the game, dudes, I was, like, 10) :D

Didn't really get to try out the newer ones, so I can't say I'm crazy for this game.

I can't talk about GTA 3 - as stated earlier, GTA 4 is the only game in the series that I played. The "no repercussions" thing is definitely true for GTA 4. You can steal cars without the police even noticing, even if they have a clear line of sight to you. You can wildly shoot innocents (or mow them down in your car), drive to the next big road, hit the accelerator, and the police will completely forget about you within a minute or two (you can then repeat the whole thing). You can get into gunfights, but your character can take ridiculous amounts of gunfire, I think I remember only one single mission in which I was even remotely in danger. In GTA 4, as far as I can tell, these things remain true throughout the game.

I'm under the impression that GTA 3 was similar based on comments other players made about it, but I can't really tell.

GTA 4 is not a satire. It can probably be interpreted as one in the same way as some thug punching a woman on the street can say "Hey, it was only a JOKE, har, har." AFAIR not even Rockstar claims that it would be a satire. Actually, Rockstar tries to claim that is a "serious, mature story", which is a rather ridiculous claim. I guess the thing about the "satire" came about when people were smart enough to see through Rockstar's marketing, and tried to find a way of interpreting the story in a way that would make the content less atrocious.

this thread will devolve into a flame war.
I'm calling it

Well personally I don't like GTA very much, but when I look around the people who seem to like GTA are mostly adolescents (who are below the age to play it btw) that hype each other up like it is the greatest game of the moment, same goes for Call of Duty.
It's like those teen horror movies that aren't great at all but they all want to see it because it's bloody and gory, I think it has something to do with that it is cool if you can show that you can stand that stuff or even (pretend to) like it.

I liked GTA 1 & 2 as a kid. Come on, what kid doesn't like murder, mayhem, and total silliness? - it's basically their lifeblood. :)

I picked up the series again with Vice City, which I also loved. It was a different kind of fun but still very entertaining. The gameplay was diverse, the cinematics were funny, and the characters were memorable. However, the pinnacle of the series is San Andreas, in my opinion. For me it just got the formula perfect.

I tried to play 4 but lost interest an hour in or so. I guess too many good games were coming out at the time and my free time was also dwindling compared to what I had earlier. There's also that it was essentially "more of the same", and I think I had played enough San Andreas that I didn't really need any more of it.

I'm not sure if I'll ever pick up 5. I just kinda lost interest by now.

*shrugs* all I can say is that The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire are very popular TV series so there's clearly a market for gangster based computers games and if you accept that violent gangster games are going to be made then I think you could imagine a much worse implementation than the GTA series...

I see this statement a lot, but it has no facts to back it up whatsoever.

GTA is filled with very mature and smart satire. Like South Park a lot of people like it for other reasons, but the political and social commentary is there and draws adults in. Combine that with Michael Mann style crime drama and decent driving and shooting action and you have a solid product a lot of people obviously like. If it was just teens swayed by marketing it wouldn't make a billion in three days.

Honestly GTA is a hell of a lot more mature and smart than Quake and games like it, which were "adult" games.

GTA is easily my favorite game series, although I have barely tried the first two and haven't played 5 yet. Usually I never look forward to future games. I really don't care about Half-Life 3 for example. But I was really excited about San Andreas, IV and now V when they were announced. There is this whole community of fans, totally crazy about speculating on the future releases of GTA. I am not really part of that but I understand them.

What I love is the freedom, the exploration, the cities they create in these games. The sountrack is always terrific too. The gameplay is really good but almost secondary in my opinion. It's as if the whole package is so good, that focusing on one aspect, like the story or whatever, is totally missing the point. I never undersood the criticism about GTA IV for example.

On the other hand, I have never played Saints Row, but I am pretty sure I wouldn't like it as much and have absolutely no interest in it. Maybe I'm just a fanboy?

I agree with Psyring. When playing San Andreas, I'm asking "Why I'm killing those people?What they did to me?".
You come back in San Andreas, start killing people. Stop. And killing is easy as eating a hod dog. The main character has no moral at all.

The way you describe GTA IV makes me think that you have barely played the game at all. The fact that your examples are from the very early game suggests this too. GTA IV does not glorify the gangster stereotype, nor does it teach you that your actions have no consequences, on the contrary. I don't want to spoil the story here, but I can tell you that the game does not have a happy ending. GTA IV is a bitter satire of the American dream - it is about a man leaving behind a brutal war and coming to America in hope of a better life, only to be find himself surrounded by violence once again. His pursuit of money is ultimately successful, but ends up costing him the only thing that actually matters to him. The lack of choice that you complain about is simply necessary because the game is trying to tell a story. Making a game that gives you actual freedom and builds a dynamic, meaningful story around your choices is simply not possible with today's technology, so criticizing GTA for not doing that seems pretty naive.

Yes, that's my experience as well. It's one of the reasons why I agree with Tallima's statement about an "immature game that has an M on its package". It's my impression that adolescents are precisely the main target group of this game, and that the "M" rating is just a clever way to make the game even more attractive to them, while at the same time getting an excuse against critics.

I agree here as well. When I'm seeing kids talking about GTA (and I was working professionally with kids for a while, so I did get my fair share of first-hand statements), I see exactly the same mechanism that were valid when I was a kid myself, and video tapes like "Faces of Death" were THE big thing among the boys.

I've not played Saints Row either but its in my backlog and I do hope to get to it one day, in fact once I finish San Andreas I will get Random.org to choose me one of the following 'Open World' games to play next:

Bully
Retro City Rampage
Cargo: The Quest for Gravity
Saints Row 2
Just Cause
GTA 4
Driver 2
Assassins Creed
Brútal Legend
Omicron: The Nomad Soul
Total Overdose
Urban Chaos

Unless I get anymore to add to the list in the meantime (its the PSX version of Driver 2 on a PlayStation emulator from the original media, BTW)