Vanquish looks really cool. Wasn't it made by someone affiliated with Resident Evil 4 or something?

I disagree with you disagreeing of his disagreeing.

San Andreas wasn't just the pinnacle of the GTA series, for me it was the pinnacle of gaming as a whole. So many memories with that classic game, I've had it since the day before it was released and I still never get bored of it.

Besides nostalgia what other reasons do you like it/think it's the pinnacle of gaming?

lots of negative comments about the Kinect

think I'll hold out for the PS3 again and Move

good idea, Xbox sucks anyways.

Well to be fair it's a personal pinnacle of gaming. Otherwise I'd pick something obvious (and boring) like Tetris. But I think it perfected what made GTA great in the first place; insane, over-the-top gameplay with awesomely unrealistic physics and a zany art style. It had a cartoony, humorous side to it that perfectly counterbalanced the (for it's time) very violent gameplay. Above all, the San Andreas world was a place to behold back in 2004. It was easily one of the most awe inspiring game maps I had seen at the time.

GTA IV took the series in a new direction, no doubt, by preferring gritty realism to the cartoonish violence of past games. Which I find odd, because that was the exact thing that "GTA clones" used to get ridiculed for back in the day; that is, taking themselves too seriously (DRIV3R, The Getaway, etc.). I prefer it to GTA IV because when in GTA IV do you take a bulldozer and bury a foreman hiding in a portapotty under 6 feet of concrete? When do you fly an RC copter? Break into Area 51? This is the kind of stuff I missed while playing GTA IV.

In GTA IV, it was the same premise 95% of the time (with maybe a little wiggle room here and there). Drive to your destination and either A.) Exchange gunfire with your target or B.) Pursue them in a vehicle and take them out in a high speed chase. That seems to comprise the vast majority of the IV missions. that's not even mentioning GTA IV's physics and how driving a car in the game is like trying to drive on ice (I'd like to accelerate to 200 MPH in 5 sec in my video games, thank you very much). I preferred the characters and storyline in SA (not nearly as dark as IV, though I can easily see why someone would prefer IV's storyline). I found IV's map pretty amazing at first, but it grew very stale. Where's the planes, jet packs, tanks, fire trucks, ambulances, taxis, jets? How about forests, mountains, deserts, valleys?


I think you get the idea.

I take it you didn't play the GTA IV expansions huh? They included more characters and different sides/perspectives to the main story and I loved them for that. They added the tanks/combat helicopters and going to take over a jail is just pure win with a biker gang. Being a bouncer/bodyguard for a coked up gay boss was pretty awesome as well. I do agree with you that the driving took some getting used to because of the physics of it. I never got bored of the map because I knew all of those areas irl. So , it's pretty cool to see them in such detail in the game.

No I didn't play them and I know I'm missing out. I swear that I'll get around to them one of these days, Ballad of Gay Tony in particular looks awesome.

Aside from all the stuff I listed, I'm sure a good amount of why I prefer San Andreas is the nostalgia. GTA IV just feels very un-GTA like when compared to the other ones, to me at least. I still like it, just think it's less original then the old games.

The NYC re-creation is a site to be seen for sure. However, while I think Liberty City is awesome to look at, it's nowhere near as fun to play in as the state of San Andreas with it's varied terrain and three distinct cities.

it's purely a nostalgia thing for me - i think i like GTA 2 the most - the old top down thingie

Wasn't very original though considering it felt more like a GTA1 with new textures etc. I remember these games fondly, but when I play them again these days, I realize they're not really very entertaining.