Summarizer

I always feel old when I read Reddit comments by people who say they feel old because they remember when GTA III came out. I played a lot of GTA I and II in the late 90s/early 00s. Admittedly GTA I felt a bit dated at the time but GTA II was great. The top-down view didn't age well I guess but made it feel quite distinctive. I feel like in a lot of people's minds the series only really began at III.

I remember one of my brother’s friends bringing over gta 3 and, after having played gta 2 and the 1960s London version, having my early teenage mind absolutely blown. One of my older brothers had a job and had copped a ps2, and let me play it when he was at work or with friends. I must’ve crashed the dodo hundreds of times, trying to figure it out in a pre YouTube world, where the best I could do is exchange tips with my friends at school.

I haven't played GTA 2 much, but the first one was certainly pretty violent narratively speaking. I remember a mission where you have to drive a truck full of explosives into a building and blow it up, for instance.

Played the first "3" on the first PlayStation. Completely different game from where it went since GTA 3. And while Vice City will always be my favorite, looking back, I think the originals were better and I had more fun. But maybe I was just younger ...

Yes! I remember it, it was around 1997/98, I was a kid and couldn't believe a game like that could exist lol! it was so crazy for that time

I'm old (ish?), was an avid gamer and grew up on DOS, playing games like GORILLA.BAS, Alley Cat, Dangerous Dave etc. Yet somehow I never played GTA I and II. I did hear about them but none of my friends played it, no one I knew had it in fact, so was never compelled to try it. GTA III was my first GTA game so for me and my mates, that's when the series began. Not really sure why I and II were so low-key where I lived.

https://www.npr.org/2002/07/09/1146385/grand-theft-auto-iii If I had heard of GTA games previously, I hadn't really considered playing them because stealing cars just didn't seem interesting. But I remember hearing about GTA3 on NPR and the review made it sound so amazing that I purchased it.

I like how GTAⅢ is the only 3D GTA game (not 3D- era GTA game, because Chinatown Wars lol) where you can permanently select the oldschool top-down camera. It's kind of a trip to play it that way.

I never knew that. PS: loved Chinatown Wars. Unfortunate it’s not better known.

A couple of days ago a colleague of mine was talking about very old rts games he still liked to play , and mentioned red alert. It turned out he had never heard of dune 2, Warcraft 1 and 2!

I'm more than old enough to remember the original GTA and GTA II, and I have friends who played and loved both of them. For me, I thought the first GTA had graphics from the past (I'd got too used to playing 3D shooters on PC - along with Wipeout on the Playstation - so struggled to get past the top down presentation), and just felt janky to play. GTA II was more polished, but I still didn't love it. Yet people raved about them. Anyway, the negative associations I had with GTA I and GTA II stopped me from playing any other GTA game until 4 came out in 2008, at which point I was like, OK, FFS, people won't stop banging on about this so I suppose I'll try it again. I ended up really liking it but, because I only played it on friends' consoles, and I started the game several times over, I never played it all the way through until 2018. I then played through both the expansions, along with GTA V in 2019. I've subsequently gone back to play III and Vice City, both of which I also like - as well as Vice City Stories on the PSP. I've barely touched San Andreas, but the few minutes I have played suggest that I'll also enjoy it. I've even fired up GTA and GTA II again... but still don't really get on with either of them. I presume there must be others out there who were put off enough by them that it meant they've never touched the rest of the series, or only got into again several games later, but it doesn't seem to be a particularly common experience.

Oh my, this is a slap in the face for me too. For me, GTA is the first one. The other ones (III and following) are GTA with 3D and a story line slapped on top. I must have a dislike for 3D because I've tried again the original GTA a few years ago and liked it a lot more than GTA III+. It's just fun without complication.

I played a lot of GTA1 and a bit of 2 when it came out. I think we used to play it at LAN parties my friends and I had as well. For me that’s where it stopped and I never clicked with GTA3 and onwards!

Those were GTA3 versions. The linked version is for the original GTA with the classical top view perspective.