theliferobotic

But the first time I heard Ray Liotta's voice in Vice City as Tommy Vercetti, I got giddy.

Danj3ris: man of many overlooked ideas.

That last sentence was amazing, sir.

Darthvinder

GolerGkA

My biggest memory is driving around while Foreigner was on the radio. It was great to just wander around the city while all those 80's songs played. It sometimes actually feels like a real life memory to me. Weird.

goddessakasha

errington07

great idea about ripping the music uncut to cd, i'll prolly put it on my mp3 though

still hoping GTA4 makes it to PC.
this thread makes me want to play GTA2 en Vice City again

zyberteq

Sigma-D

Billie Jean being the first song that plays the first time I get into a car in VC. Finally finishing the last ambulance mission for 100%, great T-shirt!

babyfarmer

all this reminiscing has me stupidly excited.

bialia

Ra is on That 70s Show

PersonalSpaceInvader

We would switch off runs. We allowed ourselves to use all the cheats we wanted at first (no tank spawn nonsense of course), but as soon as the run started, no more cheats. The run was just to see how much mayhem we could cause before dying. My friend knew the city well enough to play in cinematic mode which was a work of art.

Pikadrew

By the time I had completed the storyline I was so adjusted to the game that I could (and did) actually give complex directions to locations in the city to a friend over the phone with no help whatsoever.

Blah8

Also, I think GTA 2 had the best radio of all the games. The 3D games' radios never had the same feel to them. They're still funny and all, but not nearly as over the top and crazy as they were in GTA2.

brieeyeball

I enjoyed Vice City, but San Andreas was the first GTA game I truly loved. There was such a variety of things to do and places to explore. GTA Vice City probably had the better soundtrack, though.

And here I am four years later, without a PS3 or an Xbox 360. While GTA isn't my famous gaming series, it's a bit strange knowing that I won't play it until who knows when.

Forkball

GTA: Stealing a bus and driving it alllllll the way along that road which ran east-west along the entire map. The speeds you could reach were impossible.

GTA2: That one mission. The one you do for the Russian Mafia. The one where you collect a busful of Buddhist Monks, take them to the hot dog factory, and then drive around selling the hot dogs. I don't think a game has ever disturbed me that much, and few have made me laugh that hard.

GTA3: Okay, this was something else. I'd been in somewhat sandbox worlds before, but Urban Chaos was kinda fun. This was incredible. I could steal a car and just drive around. I could start a fight. I could just cause car chases - I didn't need to play a particular mission, do anything in a particular way, or anything else like that. I could just do it. Favorite thing: get a Banshee, and bomb around Staunton forever. Just drive as fast as possible for as long as possible, around and around. Oh, and Asuka. "Asuka, I know I've been a naughty girl but I really need to pee, okay?!"

VC: A Flock of Seagulls. A motorbike. Driving the entire length of Vice Beach on a rainy night. Heaven on a disc.

SA: Anything and everything to do with Mike Toreno or Wu Zi Mu. Also, running around with a dildo beating people to death in broad daylight. The sense of time passing was great as well, the exile from Los Santos, making a new life almost in San Fierro and Las Venturas, and finally returning home to clean everything up.

Mister Adequate

For me, chatter-wise, it was in VC when you'd occasionally hear a woman go, "check out the balls on THAT guy!"

PlayerX

*Recalls how that mission frustrated him into giving up on the franchise entirely.*

*Reads Owen's solution.*

*Feels an eye twitch.*

Lezard

Foglight55

I remember being dropped into the game, and initially finding just running around very awkward. Then a car pulled up to the corner.

I ran over, pushed a few random buttons and, lo and behold, I stole the damn car. My friend and I went nuts - "you can just STEAL CARS in this game!?"

Yeah, I guess that's been about ten years ago now, huh? Damn.

DOC409

Male Announcer: How do you like to enjoy a Rusty Browns Ring Donut?

Man: I like to lick lovingly around the outside and then thrust my tongue
in the middle.

Woman 1: I like to munch it vigorously.

Man 3: I just love the batter all over my face.

Man 4: On Friday nights I just can't stop eating Rusty Browns ring donuts.

Woman 2: Oh my god it's so good.

Man 5: Sometimes I like to wear women's panties and walk around Fifth Street.

Male Announcer: When you go downtown make sure you enjoy Rusty Browns ring
donuts.

Magnum_PI

Then 'Horse With No Name' came on, and it started to rain. As the sun went down the chorus hit and suddenly I wasn't somebody holding a controller in my lounge room, I was CJ, and I was driving through the countryside, listening to that epic song.

splines

rameses2

one phrase will be forever etched into my brain. out of all the pedestrian chatter, the dude who says "i been drinkin' again!" (or whatever it was) -always- cut through the din and grabbed my attention. i still find myself saying that phrase aloud, for no reason, at weird times, often in the company of others who usually have no idea -what- i'm talking about.

bialia

arto

I loved it so much, I actually bothered to rip the audio from the game discs of GTA3 and Vice City and converted it to play in my real-life car. Uncut, with commericals and all.

Xiedo

MrLister

To this day, I look at any game that doesn't feature open-world gameplay with a hefty dose of skepticism. GTA3 was the most revolutionary video game since Mario64, or Pong before that, full stop.

legacyed

Erwin

Hey, I even found the link to the "forum" the video was posted on: [progressiveboink.com]

peAr nectAr

I rented GTAIII a week after it came out. I played it and quickly realized this was no carmageddon. This game is so deep! I wonder what I can do next? I dove right now and for 5 days straight I played, on the first island only mind you. I was sad when I returned it to blockbuster and quickly bought it thereafter. I was excited to return to the massive world of Liberty city. It's so BIG!

So I'm finishing the missions and what's this another island? Can't be? How does it fit on a DVD disc? This was my mentallity back then hehe. I then found it had a third island! No way! I then realized I was in love and wanted to marry GTAIII.

My fondess memory of GTAIII Is flying the Dodo around Liberty city for 659 seconds and not by fate. I decided to land her. I could have flown longer but got bored.

Orionsaint

smoketewmuch

Ulquiorra Schiffer

My favorite? VICE CITY. As much fun as San Andreas could be, Vice City had the vibe that I loved. Maybe because I'm a child of the 80's (actually teenager, but, yeah) so the homages to Miami Vice and the music just sucked me in. I wanted to actually GO to Vice City, unlike any of the other games.

Best part was finding the little spot on the roof next to the northern police station and managing to sit up there for several game days to get the highest rating for media coverage.

Now I'm tempted to put GTA III on the backburner to play Vice City again.

Beelzebozo

They even had that Restaurant boat you see from the original pilot episode...

Frank

VC was just good. Very good.

Salen

cerberus011

cerberus011

Sush

Ah, but I still remember that final fire fight in the mansion like it was yesterday... I drove around on a bike in the grey t-shirt from the mall hitting as many pedestrians as possible in a huge victory lap around the city.

Cola82

So, I started swimming all the while thinking to myself "Ha, Ha, you dumb devs! I out smarted you!" Until I set foot on that part of the map and was immediatly swarmed by SWAT teams.

I did manage to make it to the strip only to come to the realization that I couldn't go inside any of the buildings. I was shot dead on the sidewalk in front of the 4 Dragons Casino. Those diabolical Devs may have won that round, but it made making it to Vegas and making my first million $ at the roulette wheel that much sweeter.

Mr.SithNinja

That is all.

markusdragon

meltyman

Go Team Venture

octoSink

He called to us from the basement door and wanted to show us this awesome new game he got.

"So what do you do?" I asked. Then he stole a fire truck and ran through the busy city streets at full speed spraying people with the hose.

I was sold

RagingTowers

Having had some familiarity with Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and living in San Francisco at the time, exploring San Andreas was a blast.

The variety in police officers when they were chasing you was a great touch. The ones in Los Santos were very aggressive vocally. The ones in San Fierro were often trying to get you counseling. At least one helicopter policeman claimed to be a pacfist. Great attention to every detail.

I've never wanted to kill any character in any video game more than "Zero" the electronics guy. You do some missions to help him out, and in the first mission, he is just hectoring you and whining pretty much the whole time.

The second Zero mission (the biplane one) is the worst in any GTA ever. I think I had to do it 80 times before I beat it. And I have a pilot's license (Airplane Single Engine Land, Airplane Single Engine Sea) in real life!

After GTA:SA, I went back and got GTA3, GTA:VC, then later on LCS and VCS. VCS would be my second favorite, but they were all fine games.

bloatboy

He's an eccentric fellow with a weird sense of humor. He immediately "got" GTA and started inventing little games of his own as we played it.

Over the years and through three GTA games, we'd have a playsession once a week where we'd each play a "turn," wreaking havoc and trying to survive. When one of us would die in the game, we'd hand the controller over.

His very first time playing GTAIII is especially memorable. After having seen me play it, he really wanted to steal an ambulance. So when he got the controller, he immediately popped a pedestrian and waited for the ambulance to arrive. When it did, he killed the EMTs and stole the ambulance, roaring in triumph and raising his fist in the air. I about fell off the bed laughing when, six seconds later, he drove the ambulance off a cliff and into the water.

Two of his inventions were especially funny (at least to us).

In III, he would pull "Canadian Hit and Runs," where he would get a large vehicle (a Patriot, most of the time) and then ram into another, smaller car. He would then jump out of his vehicle and rush over to the door of the other vehicle and pull the person out. He'd then give them a good kick on the ground "for being in my way" and then run away on foot.

In Vice City, when he found the Officer's uniform in the Police Station, he created "Officer Hate Crime." He would run around the sidewalks and beat a certain group of pedestrians to death with the nightstick. Sometimes he'd target prostitutes, occasionally the grandmothers with shopping bags, but his favorite target was the men and women in pink or green shirts. "Damn Yuppies" he would yell as he beat them senseless.

tlozwarlock

Fave things? Whenever I see a cab get irate, hammer the horn or run a stop sign, that little sound clip from GTA 3 when you steal a cab plays in my head...'hey I'm a cab' in an Indian accent. priceless.
Collecting packages and subsequent 100% both Vice City and SA gave me a sense of completion that 3 years of university has yet to give me.
And that song from the scarface soundtrack in GTA 3.."whoa whoa with the yayo?" Me and my buddy in our innocence thought it was "whoa whoa with the mayo." for the longest time.

wef

He's an eccentric fellow with an odd sense of humor, but he immediately "got" the point of GTA: do crazy stuff and run from the cops.

His first "action" was to kill a ped. He did so, causing an ambulance to pull up. He then killed the ambulance crew, stole the ambulance, roared in triumph only to hurl the vehicle off a cliff and into the ocean five seconds later.

He also developed "The Canadian Hit and Run" where you ram into another vehicle, get out of your own vehicle to check on the status of the other driver, and then run away on foot.

We also developed (in Vice City) "Officer Hate Crime." We'd dress Tommy up in the police uniform and then go around beating certain types of peds with the nightstick. We'd target prostitutes and make a run for it until dead, and then target old ladies, track suit wearers, leather wearers, etc.

Ahh, fun times. GTAIV is going to really bring our adventures into the next level with multiplayer. It's a shame we're both supposed to be focusing on stupid things like Grad school and jobs.

tlozwarlock

Another awesome weekend was when San Andreas came out... we spent the whole weekend doing nothing but GTA and we devised our own 'mission'; find a way into into the airport, steal the learjet, and fly to Las Vegas without getting shot down. My buddy had his PS2 hooked up to a DJ mixer for turntables... I can't even say how spectacular it was when we finally got the jet after hours of unsuccessful tries and sidetracking rampages, flew it up high above LA, er LS, and flipped on the cinematic camera right as a hot track was dropping through his mix... the camera did one of those angles where it starts out low below the plane and moves up above it to reveal the ground below and both of us were speechless like OMFG, could anything possibly be cooler than this moment?!

gloveofpower

I'm right with you on that. GTA3 had the best soundtrack with all the original stuff that was created just for that game. For me, that's what made that city come alive. Having songs I already know killed some of the atmosphere in the sequels.

SquirrelPhister

I had been a moderate gamer until college, at which point school and then later real life took over, but having heard of this 'GTA' my interest was piqued. I figured, eh, what the hell - I'll get a PS2 as a xmas present to myself and a copy of Vice City, just to see what folks are talking about and how far the console games I used to love have come.

Holy shit. The first thing I did was punch a pedestrian to death. It was maybe the first time seeing human blood and extensive profanity (my previous consoles were Atari and all the Nintendos minus the Cube) in a console game and I was hooked. Add to that the extensive 80's soundtrack (I'm a child of the 80's), the open-world, do-anything gameplay, the details, and I've been a fan ever since. It didn't matter that I hadn't purchased a memory card, I drove around for a week - listening to the radio, causing mayhem and having a blast - before finally getting one.

I later purchased GTAIII and loved it as well, and was frothing by the time SA came out. I'm about to explode now with GTAVI on the horizon. I'm now a big gamer again thanks to GTA.

zovietsquid

I can't pinpoint an exact moment where I fell in love. Though there's a scene from "Contact" with Jodi Foster where she travels through the teleporter, and overcome with amazement, she whispers: "I had no idea..". That's kinda the way it felt to be in Liberty for the first time.

BlackdogGT

Bobby McPresscott

Best sign I ever saw came after much exploration, it said something along the lines of, "You weren't supposed to get here, you know."

Mantra_

mrdietsoda

alextheblade

As for stand-out missions - Death Row comes to mind. Much like Owen Good's experiences, I became incredibly frustrated with this mission.

Until I had a brainwave. I parked a helicopter in the road. It would be my escape vehicle. I ran in, rescued Lance, and escaped back to the chopper, only to see a huge line of traffic being blocked in the road by the chopper!

I hopped in, and the rotors began spinning. I looked to my right to see the enemy cars speeding around the corner, and a sense of dread filled me. I wasn't going to make it off the ground in time.

But then, the pursuit cars went headlong into the rear car at the back of the huge traffic jam, and a huge pile-up ensued. I lifted off and Lance and I flew off into the sunset.

That mission alone typified the freedom of GTA, as well as those laugh out loud moments of randomness that just make the game so, so good.

Fullforce

For anyone who doesn't know, GTA and GTA2 are free to download.
[www.rockstargames.com]

Harteex

I also love it, when a song from GTA comes on the radio in real life, when I'm driving. In fact, the Duran Duran song came on the radio today on my way home-- awesome!

SpearXXI

:)

Billkwando

Wonderfully said :)

Sith_Librarian

The radio stations are probably my most favorite aspect of the games. I've put nearly all of them on my iPod and listen to them often. I get a deep feeling of nostalgia whenever I hear "Alright you're listening to Chatterbox, this is Lazlow..."

And the commercials!! Rockstar surely is the master of the craft.

Sith_Librarian

[www.gamershell.com] <<-- image

TheTimeRanger

One thing that I love about the game was the fact that you could do almost anything you could imagine.

And that's why I respect this game the way I do; because the game was made to let you do, everything you could imagine. No traps, no false borders, no cheat coding. You are free.

What a great game.

Herodito

Vulgar Display of Power!

Woodwater

VC fixed all the rough edges in GTAIII and added much better characters, setting, music and gameplay. San Andreas was a bit of a let down in comparison, yeah it had a huge game world but the music was terrible, the cars were slow and the characters weren't as good. It's also the only GTA I couldn't be bothered to finish.

Anyway, my first memory of GTAIII is playing it on a friend's PS2. As everyone seems to do when they play a GTA game for the first time, I mowed down a load of pedestrians and had fun being chased by the cops. It was good fun, but I really warmed to it when I got the PC version. I think the mission where you have to collect prostitutes and take them to the police ball was where I totally fell in love with the game.

GTAIV can't come soon enough in my book!

photoboy

...and, I DID play GTA3 when it came out, for hours, without doing a single mission.

But the real beginning for me, the version that makes me weep at the thought of waiting another day for GTA 4 was San Andreas. I mean, that game was perfect. In every respect.

I can't say one bad thing about that game.

Seriously, well, ok. The graphics weren't that hot. But they didn't get in the way of the enjoyment.

I mean, that game was so HUGE!

I think I've done the whole game 3 times. That's not counting the hours of driving around doing stupid stuff.

GTA 3 was awesome. Vice City was a hell of a good time.

But San Andreas is a masterpiece and is installed, to this day, on my PC.

Also, it made me like country music.

K-ROSE 4 EVER :D

Woodwater

Now that i have that anecdote out of the way I'm going to lightning round it for a little bit:

The guy with the cement shoes in vice city in the middle of the ocean

The Stealth Mission when you have to sneak into B-Dup's apartment and knife people.

Strettchhhhh Armstrongggggg Isssss Nowww In Your Worlddddddd!

Lance Vance's Last Dance (Lance how could you do that to me!) I still haven't forgiven him.

LecharlzBently

R3nko

ironik513

I'll see a building or a picture of a neighborhood in Japan, or ANY picture of Kowloon.....and I'm reminded of being at a certain place in the game.....as if it was a memory of something that happened in real life.

Alas I haven't played any GTA games, so that's the best I could do.

Billkwando

yep. I've been drinking again.

chenslee

kidjesus

"She's On Fire"...good times.

Dr. Steve Brule

Bam345

misspaula54

in vice city:

how many seagulls have you shot?

WHAT? i have zero. i didn't know you could do that!

ah, i just love gta.. it doesn't copy anyone.. it pushes the gaming industry into new and more awesome places with each iteration.. i love that about it.

joelface

Nothing beats that feeling.

More recently, launching my bike of the top of a huge pillar of rock in the desert, dismounting the bike a hundred feet or so above the reservoir and then pulling the rip cord in time to float down to the cliffs on the other side.

What other game lets you do that?

And the countless opportunities to beat a mission by the pre-planned strategic placing of a Tank.

Added_Fibre

it was like, the last game i picked out, with my 3 for 1 coupon!

but there was a moment, not too far into the game, when i was powersliding my car across some grass, with the cops on my tail.. and i was thinking to myself.

i am SO buying this game!!

and i did buy it, and ya, games have never been the same since that moment.

i do like the story in gta, but its really the free-time in gta, where you just do what you want... THATS what makes gta special.

in fact, gta4 is the first time i've actually been excited about the STORY in a gta game.

joelface

Starting up GTA3.. and realizing that me and 8Ball were going to be fast friends. Just driving around in a city that felt more real than anything i had ever seen before.

Farming FBI cars with the garage on the second island. (get your 5 star wanted level up.. stand near the ramp and wait for the fbi to come down after you .. blow up the car with a rocket launcher.. push it into your garage with another car. Bam... best car in the game. (i had every garage full of them.. except the 3rd island garage. reserved for bullet proof cheetahs ;) )

Shooting your girlfriend at the end of 3 :)

Vice City.. i will always.. ALWAYS remember. Me and a friend of mine had a long standing fued over who was the better criminal. who could do that most insane shit, rack up a wanted level and run around town for a while before deciding, at our leisure, that it was time for a Pay n Spray. I was hauling around town on a motorcycle for at least 20 minutes, evading SWAT and eventually FBI with my normal effeciency. Shrugging off near misses and even lighting a few up as i drove along .. i headed towards the docks and remembered that there really wasn't shit i could do there besides get killed. Flipping a 180 and pounding the gas into a wheelie, i see that 2 FBI cars had managed to stay far enough behind me that i had time to actually line up as they slowed to pile out and take aim. jumping off the back of the bike and turning it into a mini-missle, it ran straight over the 2 FBI agents on the drivers side of the car .. while depositing me standing right next to the drivers side door. All i had to do was hope in (door is already open) and drive away.

Later in a helicopter.. trying frantically to make it to the mansion i pulled in low to make a landing .. only to be assaulted by cops on MY OWN ROOF and on the floor... lighting up my heli it caught fire before i could really even line up or slow down. Mash on square and triangle... hit the edge of the roof.. run up the shingles and dive over the banister as the heli explodes. Land 3 steps away from the adrenaline shot.
"now your all .. in real big trouble."

silkysm00th

Tubatic

Erwin

El Patricko

From the moment I started playing I was hooked I strictly followed the missions to complete the story but soon strayed off course to complete races and jumps, get cars and drive as fast as I can.

Sometimes I would turn on the game get in a car turn on a good station and just take a nap with the DTS 4.1 sound/music playing in the background sometimes hearing a rainstorm and thunder faintly hearing people talk to each other as they walked the streets, heard crashes, cops chasing a bad guy, shots being fired, an ambulance showing up then driving away and the sea flowing in the background.

Vice City for me was more of an experience than a game and I am glad I experienced it.

lilaliendog

LiBi

goombakiller

And Vice City...I knew I loved it the moment Billie Jean & Never Too Much played on the radio...I couldn't help but ride around in the game just waiting for my tracks to come on.

I don't care what anyone says...GTA period has all given us some of the most memorable moments we've ever had with a video game.

Batousi

Actually, even after seeing the paper buildings it was still awesome.

Clamchop

TheTimeRanger

DanteODiabo

Zeliard

But one fond memory is seeing Dave Chappelle in the Grand Theft Auto world. I could not stop laughing for days!

+ Watch video

Spoony Bard

Erwin

FuglyFloom

Then a few days later, at blockbuster, they actually had a copy of it in stock (this was back in the day when blockbuster wouldn't guarantee new releases in stock or anything, so seeing a copy was something pretty rare). After having just proclaimed how much of a terrible piece of trash and corruption it was to my mother I got my Dad to rent it for me. I played that game for hours on end and when my Mother found out what it was I was playing I got yelled at.

Somehow I managed to turn both of my parents onto the game and when it was time to buy Vice City my parents were the ones who paid for it.

I remember having so much fun just collecting all the different kinds of sports cars and storing as many as I could cram into the garage. There was a glitch to make the garage door stay open so you could store as much stuff in there as you wanted, even store cars on top of other cars. I think at one point I had crammed like 6 cars in a garage meant for two, but they never exploded because when the garage doors closed it automatically repaired all the damage.

Good times...

Clamchop

I used to think they were saying "I like mustard."

Atsumi

TheJeanGenie

zanzibarlegend

Erwin

gils0n

well Amos Moses was a cajun / he lived by hisself in a swamp / he hunted alligator for livin' / he jus' knock 'em in the head with a stump

I liked country music. God Damn you, Rockstar. Now I like country music.

wailll da Louisiana law gon' getcha' Amos!

Chances

[www.xbox.com]

DaPress

gils0n

My three fondest memories:
3. The same friend and I, hoping our local EB would get "Vice City" in on Monday night, playing "GTA III" to calm our nerves while calling the store every hour from the moment we got home from school. Finally, around 9 PM, on what we both claimed was our last attempt at calling, they finally had it. Driving to the mall, I don't think I'd ever committed such speeding violations in my life; once we got there, we realized that the mall had stayed open late solely because so many people wanted the game. We got it, left, and played until 3 AM; I woke up at 6 to play more before school, and for the rest of the week, we played from the moment we got home to the moment we went to bed.
2. Going back to Saint Mark's in "San Andreas", from first hearing of the mission to taking that long flight to seeing the bistro, now covered in snow, was a mission I had to replay a few times. Simply put, I couldn't believe my eyes.
1. The first mission in "Vice City" that takes the player to the western island was absolutely revelatory. First realizing I'd finally unlocked the rest of the map but not knowing why I was going there, then getting that loading screen before turning off the bridge and seeing those sun-drenched trees (I got lucky that at that moment in the game, it was dawn, with the sun rising directly down the main stretch of road), and then finally seeing that my ultimate goal was stealing that tank... I don't think I could adequately explain in mere words how amazing the entire experience was.

kicking222

El Patricko

DanteODiabo

When you come back to the LA-type city a long time after you have visited the Vegas-type city...it really feels like you are coming home and that a long time has passed.

reddevil3

I fully agree with the radio part. Frickin hilarious!

reddevil3

Everyone remembers GTA3, but when I try to think of any specific memory all I really get is images of driving around with "Rush Rush" playing. I think GTA3's music stood out more because it was much less mainstream, so I tend to remember songs like that and Push it to the Limit in the context of all memories, while more popular songs like those featured in alter games are just too common to stand out.

San Andreas is king though. The simple additions it made were additions I had wanted devs to make in many games dating further back than even GTA3. All the amazing over the top story driven moments like blasting your way out of a launch bay with a jetpack obviously stand out, but really those simple things really changed everything. GTA3 was so amazing it doomed Vice City to being as similar as it was by doing its job too well, but when San Andreas came they added the few small touches like climbing walls and swimming that sealed the gaps and made the perfect sandbox game.

It wasn't cheesy "press this button when this happens and this animation will play and make you go ooh" crap that many games confuse with depth. All it took was the simple addition of being able to scale height level walls and the sense of freedom went up drastically. Suddenly you were able to realistically escape the cops on foot by running and jumping through neighborhoods, and scale an incredibly vast number of structures where you could then use it as a sniper point or even jump from building to building as I did many times to escape the pigs.

While I think climbing was the singular biggest boost to the franchise in San Andreas, what really defines that entire trilogy to me was a result of the simpler addition of swimming. I had always loved the series for its freedom, but the first time I was driving along carefree in a boat only to have it blow up and force me to swim for miles back to scalable shore, that's when I finally respected GTA to the fullest. Its realism wasn't sacrificed for player comfort and the pursuit of a more straightforward, easy path from beginning to end. It was completely open to you fucking with the wrong police boat and having to jump ship before your skin gets melted off and being marooned in the middle of nowhere, leaving the player not just FRUSTRATED by their failure, but humiliated.

Grand Theft Auto is a video game series so incredibly amazing that I still find it difficult to accept that mortal men like I are allowed to, or even CAPABLE of playing it. Needless to say my inability to afford a PS3 or XBox 360 has me rather depressed, and I strongly doubt that if it comes out on PC I'll be even remotely capable of playing it. I'm surprised at first by my acceptance of this, but I quickly remember that the reason for this is that no matter how great GTA4 is, the GTA3 trilogy are still the best games ever made.

Bobby McPresscott

Fyren

And "In the Future there will be Robots" always cracks me up.

Meldy

Grimmjow Jeagerjaques

Rizzo88

NES8bt

Gray665

Grimmjow Jeagerjaques

I'm far too scared to ever ride a hog in real life, but to turn on Emotion and just ride around while looking for jumps felt so good. On hot, sunny days while I'm driving around and I hear an 80's love song, I reminisce of just rolling around in Vice City. It just felt so good.

ServiceMaster

WasabiJoe

El Patricko

I predict this thread to be 500+ comments shortly. Well played, Owen Good. Well played indeed.

Spoony Bard

Monsterbeard

The cuntry (sic) and western radio station of GTA - "that's so good, I think we'll listen to it again."

Finding my first unique jump in GTA III. Realising that's Joe Pantaliano... and that's just the start. Tw@ internet cafe.

Jumping into the car at the beginning of Vice City and there's Jacko on the radio. Finding the little Scarface bathroom. Taking a helicopter ride as the sun goes down.

Taking my first parachute jump in San Andreas. Driving at high speed off the top of Mount Chiliad. Juank Air.

I hate that I now have a job for when IV comes out...

Meldy

now I work for one of the guys responsible for the original game, while eagerly awaiting another trip to liberty city.

the_dudefather

i sincerely hope they bring GTA1 and GTA2 to XBLA.

TonyRockyHorror

Watching people scatter and other gangs / cops go after you depending on your actions.

This is the game that will make me get another console, now the question is PS3 or 360.

RBecho

Thorax

Shifty203

ultraViolence

;P

Spoony Bard

teh_joe

Gangsta-Grillz

teh_joe

captain_laxpants

Zombie999

epherlite

Spaceboy

So you start outside your lawyer's office after an explosive start. Fair enough. Nothing special. Nothing you wouldn't see in any old Hollywood Miami flick. I shimmied into the side alley and got on the pink scooter. You know what starts playing?

Billie Jean. Fron just that second, I was absolutely hooked. I spent hours roaming around the first island just listening to the radio. I credit Vice City for introducing me to 80s music (being born in the late 80s, I kinda missed the whole scene what with the whole 'being a baby' thing).

Vice City was so beautifully realised (albeit in blur-o-vision), so fleshy and full of life, that I *was* Tommy Vercetti. Never before and never since has a game has such an impact on me, and immersed me in the world so brilliantly.

Rotek

cynopt