Your opinion about Grand Theft Auto 3

[marconelly!]

I find 350 simulated lives in a virtual town where you can enter shops and interact with the citizenry with something other than a baseball bat to be far more impressive than GTA3. There aren't any real simulated characters in GTA3 except the main ones you occasionally talk to.

Interaction in Shenmue is mostly talking, where people repeat phrases over and over. At least, when you beat the people up in GTA3 you start the logical sequence of events (ambulance comes and police starts chasing you) What happens when you beat up a guy in Shenmue? He disappears.

Here's something: If GTA3 is so good, how come the publisher and Sony didn't run TV spots for it when it first came out? The answer is simple: It's not that good. Sony and Rockstar had no idea that it was going to become a phenomenon. The reason why legions of industry people (including reviewers at E3) overlooked GTA3 was because by all objective measures it's nothing special.

This is perhaps the most ridiculous claim I've heard so far. So, Black & White and State of Emergency have generated so much E3 hype and turned out to be excellent games? Wait, they didn't...

Do you really think that Rockastar had any influence over ads for the game? They are really small team with no marketing power of their own. Also, do you have any idea how clueles the marketing people that decide on such things can be?

Is ICO also a terrible game that deserved no advertising? According to what you just said it was, and I know you don't think so.

I predict the series popularity will fade away after Vice City.

Let's see... What game just screams "I want to go online"? GTA4.

 

[Ozymandis]

Jeez. Some Playstation2 fans act like dissing GTA3 is like dissing their favourite child or something

GTA3 definitely took a page from Shenmue. But for me Shenmue's atmosphere and character interaction made it better than GTA. Shenmue is INCREDIBLY atmospheric

 

[PC-Engine]

What happens when you beat up a guy in Shenmue? He disappears.

...so what you're saying is that Shenmue would be better if it had paramedics arrive to pick up the injured everytime you beat up a thug? Isn't the whole point of your mission in Shenmue to take revenge while not involving the authorities? I'm afraid I don't see the point in having the medics appear 10 or more times in a game like Shenmue..maybe I'm missing something..

 

[marconelly!]

...so what you're saying is that Shenmue would be better if it had paramedics arrive to pick up the injured everytime you beat up a thug?

No, but the beaten people could stay there where you beat them until they regain strength and walk away.

Also, see my other comments about shenmue world (about kids playing with the ball and stuff like that)

Don't get me wrong, I thought Shenmue was a beautiful and immersive game, but that was more because of it's quality graphics, music and sounds, not really because of the things that were going on in it's world.

 

[PC-Engine]

The player in Shenmue could do so many things in the environment that IMO far outweigh anything that the NPC's didn't do. That's probably why it's so incredibly immersive as opposed to shallow.

 

[Vince]

GTA3 is nothing special. It's hardly "the game". That's utterly ridiculous. I doubt that many more people are playing games due to GTA3.

Did you read Time magazine today? They say quite the opposite, not bad for a magazine like that...

Also, dispite the game not launching in japan - it still sold over 7M copies to a userbase of ~25M.

 

[PC-Engine]

IIRC "Myst" also did really well back the day.

 

[Plasmatics]

I loved it. Easily one of the best games ever, IMO.

Oh, and I loved Shenmue as well. I just played through it a second time in preperation for Shenmue 2.

This thread has been incredibly mean-spirited. It belongs on IGN. C'mon guys, I expect more from you than this.

 

[-tkf-]

I bet if GTA3 was released on the DC it would be cult among those that hates it now. And the same crowd would love britney spears if she only sold 2000 copies

ONLY JOKING!

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Yeah Vince, I'm sure that Time magazine has their finger on the pulse of gaming.

I suppose it's best at this point to let this one rest. Some people like GTA3 and some people don't. It's just a game. 8)

 

[Vince]

Yeah Vince, I'm sure that Time magazine has their finger on the pulse of gaming.

Thats the point - they have thewir finger on popular American culture. In case your still not getting it, they reporting it because it's been assimilated into the mainstream... you just helped prove my point.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Not really. Time magazine called the Dreamcast "Technology of the Year" in 1999. Look how that ended up.

The mainstream media knows nothing about gaming, nor do articles on the Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox, or Cube prove anything about how mainstream these consumer items or their games are.

I'm sure they wrote articles on Power Rangers back in early 90's and look where they ended up. Fads come and go and GTA 3 is a minor pop fad at this point. Talk to me again if it sells 20-25 million.

GTA 3 is popular. 20% of PS2 owners and about 5% of the estimated 150 million gamers in the world own the game. Big deal.

Mario 64 outsold GTA 3 by a 3:1 margin. Next you're going to tell me that Mario is about to rule the world of gaming and bring peace to the entire world gaming community.

 

[-tkf-]

Mario 64 outsold GTA 3 by a 3:1 margin. Next you're going to tell me that Mario is about to rule the world of gaming and bring peace to the entire world gaming community.

So apart from Mario appealing to every age group (unlike GTA) don't you forget that the N64 had very few quality titles. The PS2 owners has many good titles to pick from which just makes the GTA:VICE success even bigger.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

My point is merely that no one game is going to have the impact that Vince thinks GTA3 has. It's a popular game, but it isn't changing the world or anything.

 

[Brimstone]

Not really. Time magazine called the Dreamcast "Technology of the Year" in 1999. Look how that ended up.

When I saw a Dreamcast game running in a store kiosk for the first time I was very impressed. The image quality looked well beyond what I was expecting.

 

[FiggyG]

I agree, Dreamcasts graphics made my jaw drop down the first time I saw them. I still have my DC...mmmm Soul Calibur... Anyway, why are people comparing the realism of Shenmue and GTA3? Shenmue came out before GTA3 and on an 'inferior' console. Well, I'm going to compare Shenmue 2 to GTA3, since I have both.

Shenmue 2 (Xbox) graphics look way better than GTA3. The realism of the world is insane, you walk around and can hear people conversing, and you can interact with everyone. I was looking for a place and walked up to a guy, and he led me to the place I was looking for. Then if you see some drunk guys or whatever, and they see you, an altercation might take place. I haven't gotten to a part where I drive yet, so we'll see how the driving works. And the fighting engine is awesome in Shenmue 2, instead of gliding over to someone on GTA3 in order to hit them.

Sorry fanboys.

Forgot to mention I have GTA3 on PC, and my system specs are beyond the Xbox, so for how GTA3 runs, it sure is a crappy port.

 

[marconelly!]

There are no driving scenes in Shenmue 2.