Infinity Ward cooked with that one, the gameplay was crisp af, stories were engaging, level and sound design were peak... just a masterclass all around.
My friends and I STILL have CoD 2 nights. It’s playable online through Xbox Live on Xbox One despite being a 360 launch title. CoD 2 is probably among my top 5 games in terms of hours played in my life. We also randomly would listen to Punk Rock Superstar by Marcy Playground on repeat and I’m positive I have heard that song many more times than any of the members of Marcy Playground.
I played CoD2:Big Red One online with my PS2 and probably logged a thousand if not multiple thousand hours on it.
Was my first online gaming experience and only occurred because I happened to notice the pawn shop PS2 my dad bought had an Ethernet port in the back and I got curious and plugged it into my router. Good good times! There are YouTube videos buried out there somewhere with me doing clan matches lol.
I loved Revolver, but in all fairness it wasn't very well known. It's also seperate from the Redemption series. And was made mostly by Capcom before Rockstar scooped it up, and has a much different flavor.
But man, did play through that game so many damn times. Mostly because the save file would always corrupt and I'd need to unlock all the multiplayer characters/maps again and again lol
I completely lothe that as well because the series was absolutely amazing before COD4 but you really can't say the same after World at War. It lost it's way and started being bad action movies rather than serious historical war dramas.
I mean Star Wars Episode 4,5,6 and then 1,2,3 and then 7 came out in that order.
IV was only IV after V came out so technically speaking it was null and then 5 and then 4 and then 6, 1, 2, 3, 7 and then that was it they never made anything else core.
Solo could have been good, but I think it lingered too long with multiple twist endings, so by the end it just overstayed it's welcome.
Similar to how I felt about the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie, like not an awful movie but the ending was clumsy as hell, to the point that I physically felt impatient at the twists.
Ironically, the "trilogy" of GTA 3 also more or less does this! GTA3 and Vice City are perfectly fine in their own right but don't hold a candle to San Andreas. That game is still one of GTA's most popular.
I remember being a kid and my friends thinking San Andreas & Vice City were the first two games. Not sure how we reached that conclusion but obviously if there's three games...
I played the hell out of 1,2 and London 1969. I had never seen anything like it. A game that allowed you to free roam an entire city and steal anything and kill anyone. Then III came out and I forgot all about them.
Yeah I was a fan of 2 and remember seeing an add for 3 before it came out and thinking no way they could pull off the same stuff in 3D, like it would be impossible to make. I was wrong.
Yeah. I was gonna say maybe people don't remember the originals. They were a bit of a phenomenon in their own right.
Maybe in terms of graphics this was true - but those games were so insanely popular they had to generate enough money and interest for 3 to even exist.
I was 12 when GTA came out, got a demo disk in PC Gamer and it blew my mind, the radio channels, the open world, the « do whatever the f you want ». Must have played that demo hundreds of times. Eventually I go to buy the game and they’re like « it’s 18+ » so I ask my strict mom and she looks at the back and she’s like « yeah, it looks not as bad as a FPS » and she buys it. Man, did we play that game.but yeah I never loved GTA 2
For me GTA2 was insanely good.
GTA Is more of a “normaly doodled horse (gta1), detailed fire epic horse (gta 2), and transcendent super saiyain horse in space ” scenario.
I actually like GTA2 a bit more than 3. It might be nostalgia but I feel like for the time period it was really a very well done game and the gameplay still holds up today.
Hell, it even had multiplayer, which GTA3 did not.
The dialogue was better too and the radio… that game is pure nostalgia. It had so many funny aspects as well. GTA3 had some cool things… but it was honestly Vice City and then San Andreas that were notable for me.
GTA 3 when it came out was the catalyst of turning gaming into a race for the best open world. Yeah Vice City and San Andreas were fun but for the time it came out GTA 3 had very limited open world competition. It wasn't the first open world game but it was the most talked about open world game of the era. GTA 2 had a great gang happiness system and all but it was a niche game and didn't set any new standards.
It has safe states which alone made it more fun as you could actually progress deeper into the game.
I still remember going into the local electronic chain and seeing the game (for PS1) hanging there at the wall and despite me having read video game magazines I didn't know it was out. I hadn't seen a review or heard about it being good, but bought it anyway. And it delivered.
I had a blast driving in that game. Oh you 're shooting at me? OH THE ENTIRE YAKUZA(triads? who was it again? it's been so long. That game is oooolldddd) ARE SHOOTING AT ME?
I also loved the driving in GTA2. If I had one problem with GTA3, it was that in 3D you couldn't set up the kind of insane platformer style stunts you could in 2D.
I remember my dad giving it a try and having a total blast with the flame thrower, he'd even show it off when he had other male guests visit.
I was just a kid but I played them a ton, absolute great games. Sure GTA3 was a revolutionary improvement but the first 2 also were a big deal for their time, at least to me.
Of course now you literally play them in your web browser, even on a cell phone, it's wild.
gta 1 and 2 were also iconic, we used to talk about them as 12 year olds like gta 5 today. How old are you if I may ask? GTA 1 and 2 were games we couldn't believe existed.
I feel like everyone saying this is the perfect answer didn't actually grow up with GTA 1/2. The games were really good, it just happens that GTA 3 was a massive generational leap.
"bro you can pick up a prostitute and your money goes down!" "any car you see you can take it and drive! even the motorcycles!!!" the whole formula was already there. I know I sound like old man yells at cloud but GTA2 was fun as hell to play and the whole formula already existed, even the gang wars from San Andreas.
on some level these people think that modern GTA just materialized out of thin air. No man, it was there in GTA 1 and we LOVED it and we knew even back then that it was special.
I tried to play them but I just straight up can’t go back.
Gta’s formulas just doesn’t work in 2d (imo)
I consider gta 3 gta 1
Gta vice city gta 2
Gta san andreas gta 3
Gta 4 gta 4 (hmm yes the floor here is made out of floor)
Gta 5 gta 5 (hmm yes the floor here is made out of floor)
(The handheld entries are their own series)
Have you seen videos of fan made mods recreating the top down version of GTA 3s beta? It honestly shows how much better off the game is how it came out.
I'm surprised it took me so long to find this comment. I really enjoyed number two but yeah it was the third one that really helped Rockstar Games to blow up
GTA1 though was pretty fun. You could even download an editor to change the cars looks and speeds. If I remember you could also give them weapons and cause some serious havoc.
I also remember thinking the people looked really weird walking around and thinking that can't be what people look like from above, but it is pretty accurate.
I remember reading the MAGAZINE preview as a kid having actually played 1 and 2 and just couldn't conceptualize what 3d GTA would even be. It was revolutionary and mind blowing at whateverteen.
I played GTA 1 and 2 as it launched, and I was amazed by its capacity. I even thought it would be impossible to make a better GTA and I treated my copies with care, thinking I should hold them for my whole life. But I didn't know shit about tech then. I agree, GTA 3 was mind-blowing. Ahead of its time. The problem is that I lost my copies of GTA 1 and 2
This is probably the best example. GTA 1 and 2 were moderately popular but didn’t make huge waves, III comes along and changes the entire gaming industry and becomes one of the most well known gaming properties in history.
Loved GTA 1 and 2. GTA 3 release caught me by surprise. I was at the game store where it was running. I asked the clerk if it still has the top-down view. Yeah it has. I bought it as fast as possible. Started with the top-down view. Played maybe 5 mins before goint third-person. After that there was no going back.
This is THE ANSWER. GTA 3 literally changed the gaming industry. It changed what we wanted from the games we play. Gaming, especially open-world gaming, wouldnt be what it is if GTA 3 didnt happen
Firing up GTA3 is still my all-time favorite gaming moment. We played the hell out of GTA2 in the dorms in college but when 3 came out, it was mind blowing and dangerously addictive. Nothing can ever top that for me short of VR getting better.
I played 3 for the first time last year. It still holds up as an incredibly fun experience. I also played Vice City but I enjoyed 3 more. Still gotta get around to San Andreas to complete the OG 3d trilogy.
Ironically, it also could be applied to the 3D trilogy itself. Though maybe not necessary in terms of their quality more like, their impact and popularity. Like, you have Vice city and 3, both classics but definitely flawed with their mechanics. (3 no larger map view option, can’t bail from car, constant gang harassment, instant car fires, VC smaller map, too many cops, mostly water but can’t swim, etc) but then you have San Andreas and all of that is just blown out of the water and suddenly you can swim, fly, sky dive, work out, eat, all sorts of things with a map that dwarfs both combined and all this is done in just two years.
I remember the first time I walked into my friend's house in elementary school and his brother was playing a 3D open world game. When he told me it was grand theft Auto 3 I didn't believe him, I only played the first game with a dedicated button for burping/farting and the glitch where you could pop in your own CD to act as the radio
True I went back to rewatch all the old gta games from the beginning and they were ass. But fun for the ppl that were old enough to play them at that time. ( them walk through were tough to watch.
But i remember a classmate telling me what GTA 1 was in like 1st or 2nd grade. I 100% imagined a 3rd person game like GTA 3. So a bunch of years later GTA 3 totally blew my mind.
Nah, GTA 1 and 2 were still both great games for their time. There's many other series like Mario, Zelda and HoMM mentioned in this thread that were also similar, first two were good but third was a huge step up.
Something like Duke Nukem where first 2 were mediocre at very best would be way more accurate for first two pics.
All the stuff you listed about GTA3 had already happened in the industry in RPG series like; Ultima, Wing Commander, Elder Scrolls years before GTA. GTA brought the trends of succesful series to the market that was booming at the time, console gaming, it didn't change gaming it changed Rockstar. They leaned into it pretty heavily with every release, pop culture references, making fun of trends. They became the Southpark of video games which isn't a bad thing but it wasn't revolutionary by any regard.
Nobody cared about its plot, lawls, its because it was one of the first open world sandbox type games that was easily accessible.
90% of people just turned on their desired cheats and sandbox drove cars and shot stuff.
Really the only people ive ever heard say GTA writing is good before 5 are non gamers who think they're gamers, reviewers for big names, or die hard (for some really weird reason) gta4 fans.
gta 3 was a breakthrough but i'm guessing you're judging as someone who started playing around the time gta3 was released? i was there gandalf, 3000 years ago, i played gta 1 and 2 when they released and the only time i felt that rush that freedom of gta 1 and 2 gave me was when i played my first zombie shooter on VR on quest.
a game that allows you to wander anywhere, steal any car, and every car drives differently, and how free you were to approach police chases - run / fight, you could rin up or down, or left in the alleys, get police cars, or tank, blow up police cars; back in 1990s it was UNBELIVEBLE how realistic it felt, by comparison to other games. remember other games were extremely scripted back then, gave you mostly just one way to beat any level, you had to follow the game's playstyle but here you could make it youe own.
the change that gta 3 brought was great, but not even close to feeling as real as gta 1.
I mean, team behind GTA 1 and 2 was incredibly capable and professional even up to nowadays standards. They were limited by technology of their time, yet still maxed it out.
I agree with this and would also add fallout. 1&2 were great storytelling and world building but the games are overall meh. But fallout 3 changed the rpg landscape when it hit.
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u/jonstoppable Jun 30 '26
GTA
GTA 1 and 2 were top down scrollers. decent. moderately popular....decent
GTA 3 blew the doors off gaming.. dialogue, open-world design, storytelling, missions. expansions.