Saints Row 3 Ruined Grand Theft Auto IV

As a budget gamer I'm not able to play every game, especially at release. I was able to pick up Saints Row 3 on a Steam sale a while back and I absolutely loved it. I played around 50 hours of it. Recently I saw a 360 copy of GTA4 for relatively cheap, so I picked it up. After playing it for probably 4-5 hours I find the controls painful. The driving seems too loose, the shooting is a little hard to get used to.

I was trying to figure out why I was having such a hard time with a game that was so universally loved. Then I realized I was trying to play it how I would play Saints Row. I'm not sure how much time I want to sink into a game that I'm not having a ton of fun in. The story is intriguing, but hasn't really been worth dealing with some of the janky mechanics.

Is it worth it for me to fight through my difficulties with the controls, or should I just give up on this one because there are a ton of other great games on my play list?

(I should probably note that I played SR:3rd with a controller on the PC)

You'll get used to it. Same thing happened to me, tried to go back to GTAIV after playing Saint's Row and it's tough. It's worth seeing the story through so you should still play it.

I find the shooting and driving in GTA IV alot more fun than SR3. Everything in SR3 is just too easy, I enjoyed having to learn how to drive in GTA IV, police chases are so much more crazy with the RAGE physics engine going on, plus the story and characters are really good. I would get it on the PC though, it is like 20 bucks or less.

I feel like I should have played SR3 a lot longer then I did. I think I went up to 40 hours... but I really can't get myself to go back to it for some reason.

GTA IV on the other hand, I'm way passed 100 hours. It's always something I can get back to after a few months. I guess everyone just has different preferences.

All in all though, I guess I enjoyed the shooting and driving 50 times more in GTA IV. Along with the awesome physics that came with... shoving someone down a flight of stairs never gets old. I've been playing it on the PC btw, so performance, visual, and control wise, I just enjoyed it more over SR.

If you've played any one of the hundreds of Rockstar sandbox crime games, you don't need to bother with another. Same characters, same satire, same exact gameplay. The Saints Row games are much more interesting to play IMO - take my advice, GTA is not worth the grind.

Use that time constructively by putting it into Saints Row 2!

The only problem with the controls in GTAIV for me was the cover system. Undeniably clunky and tough to work with at times, but everything else like the movement and the driving are still perfectly fine. There's still no other open-world crime game that does driving better than GTAIV imo.

GTA IV was clunky then and going back now is real difficult. I enjoyed the feeling of the shotgun in GTA IV but nothing else. I used to just mess around on the old games, I'm not sure if I've changed or if I just didn't find GTA IV fun, well I didn't find it very fun, but I'm not sure if any game would make me want to just dick around the way I would when I was like, 12 on Vice City.

It was also a step back from the older games because the driving just wasn't fun, the framerate also made it annoying because going fast = yo framerate dips. Especially on the PS3, disastrous.

Liked the physics though, I hope GTA V has much improved gunplay, assuming they build on what was established in Max Payne 3 for that engine I doubt there's anything to worry about.

edit: and dat bank job mission, so good.

...I kinda want to play it now. Wonder if the PC version is fixed, it used to stutter badly on ATi cards but I'm on a Nvidia now.

GTAIV is just bad.

After playing Gta IV I found Saints Row The Thirds gunplay near impossible to enjoy. For all the praise that game gets (it is a really fun time) the gunplay was atrocious - would love to see Saints Row 4(?) improve it.

I need to go back and finish it..

@Chavtheworld said:

GTAIV is just bad.

I hate that this opinion has become "cool"

GTAIV is not a bad game. It is an incredibly well made game.

@Chavtheworld said:

GTAIV is just bad.

You're bad, CHAV!

@Huey2k2 said:

@Chavtheworld said:

GTAIV is just bad.

I hate that this opinion has become "cool"

GTAIV is not a bad game. It is an incredibly well made game.

I don't give a fuck what opinion is "cool," I found GTAIV a boring game. The story was dull, and it was incredibly disappointing to me when I loved Vice City and San Andreas so much. They stripped away everything I enjoyed from that franchise to try and make some shitty mature story, and it was bad.

@Zenthere: I bought GTA4 back when it came out and I felt this way. SR3 might have spoiled you, but GTA4 has always been a relatively un-fun video game, and a mildly competent story.

Although I did enjoy Free Roam multiplayer

Why must one choose to enjoy either exclusively?

Even without SR3 it might be hard to go back at this point if you didn't experience it when new. The game is nearly 5 years old. A lot has changed since then in those types of games.

@Chavtheworld said:

@Huey2k2 said:

@Chavtheworld said:

GTAIV is just bad.

I hate that this opinion has become "cool"

GTAIV is not a bad game. It is an incredibly well made game.

I don't give a fuck what opinion is "cool," I found GTAIV a boring game. The story was dull, and it was incredibly disappointing to me when I loved Vice City and San Andreas so much. They stripped away everything I enjoyed from that franchise to try and make some shitty mature story, and it was bad.

I agree with that. And I played it in 2009.

Well we don't agree.

Saints Row is a lot of fun but it will never replace GTA for me. So much more depth there... to well everything.

I enjoy SR as a fun experience but it has never been close to GTA. GTA blows me away when I have played every new version.

@Huey2k2 said:

@Chavtheworld said:

GTAIV is just bad.

I hate that this opinion has become "cool"

GTAIV is not a bad game. It is an incredibly well made game.

Bad games sell 20 + million copies all the time dude. And they win GOTY on this very website... for it's story mainly no less!

It's the lamest argument. Forums just kill me with this stuff.

@VoshiNova said:

After playing Gta IV I found Saints Row The Thirds gunplay near impossible to enjoy. For all the praise that game gets (it is a really fun time) the gunplay was atrocious - would love to see Saints Row 4(?) improve it.

I need to go back and finish it..

This I also agree with. There is nothing that fun about the combat in SR. The first game, yes that was a big deal because it had shooting that was miles better than your lock on in Vice City or San Andreas. But SR The Third? It was okay at best. GTA IV's shooting wasn't anything that good either but Natural Motion alone makes it way more satisfying. Red Dead was already a big time improvement and I'm sure V will continue that.

My experiences with both games are pretty much the exact opposite of yours. I've played GTA IV for a stupidly long amount of time, yet got bored of SR3 after about three hours (luckily I got it in the Humble Bundle so no money was wasted).

If you're not having fun with it you might as well just move on, there's no sense playing something that you don't enjoy.

It's funny, I recently tried the Full Game Trial of The Third on PS+ and I truthfully couldn't wait for my 60 minutes to be up. The gunplay felt useless, the driving just wasn't much fun and the characters moved weirdly, to me.

Meanwhile, I just recently finally played the Episodes from Liberty City and had a blast. Not as much fun as Niko, but the new guns and cars were cool. I still maintain turning off all HUD elements and making a go at a completely uninformed rampage feels like one of the most realistic, nerve wracking experiences I've had this generation. Scrambling through alleys and backyards looking for an easy car to jack, careening through Central Park with no idea how many stars I have or how much health I have left. Having to keep track of my ammo mentally, or by the fact the gun is just clicking lifelessly. Exhilarating stuff.

More than anything. my time with Saints Row: The Third had me eyeing San Andreas on PSN for $14.99.

Also, while I played the multiplayer for MAYBE two weeks, I have to say that two moments during Free Roam TO THIS day were so amazingly vivid and exciting I can describe them point by point to this day. I'm not in the mood for typing them up right now, but let's just say one of them ended with me doing an e-brake turn out of a tunnel on a Harley as a rocket launched right past my head, and mid-swing I pulled my pistol out and hit my target for the kill. I felt like Tom Cruise in a John Woo movie.

Should have picked up Red Dead instead of gta4

@Bourbon_Warrior said:

I find the shooting and driving in GTA IV alot more fun than SR3. Everything in SR3 is just too easy, I enjoyed having to learn how to drive in GTA IV, police chases are so much more crazy with the RAGE physics engine going on, plus the story and characters are really good. I would get it on the PC though, it is like 20 bucks or less.

Agree, driving in SR3 felt waaay too easy. There was almost no physics to the cars. On the other hand, GTA IV's cars feel somewhat boaty, but it's still more interesting. I enjoyed SR3 for a ton of other reasons though.

@Yummylee said:

The only problem with the controls in GTAIV for me was the cover system. Undeniably clunky and tough to work with at times, but everything else like the movement and the driving are still perfectly fine. There's still no other open-world crime game that does driving better than GTAIV imo.

@BestUsernameEver said:

@Yummylee said:

The only problem with the controls in GTAIV for me was the cover system. Undeniably clunky and tough to work with at times, but everything else like the movement and the driving are still perfectly fine. There's still no other open-world crime game that does driving better than GTAIV imo.

Agreed with you guys. People have crazy taste when it comes to open world driving though. I love arcade racers and all, but I see people saying Sleeping Dogs has good driving for example and GTA IV doesn't... I don't even know how to reply.

Video killed the radio star.

Gta 4 hasnt aged well but its still fucking hot ! , i prefer saints row 2 more then 3

I never could accurately compare SR to GTA. GTA took a shot with their nuanced driving system, whereas SR has just always felt like an arcade style of driving to me. Sort of like Simpsons Hit & Run. The shooting in GTA4 is better, imo, solely because of its targetting. If you turn off aim assist/auto lock, which to me felt like the reticle "attached" to your target way too easily. I hated GTA's cover system though, but at least the option was there. I'm sure somebody liked it. They certainly did a better job on it in RDR. GTA4 had two flaws to me, Niko's personality and its repetitive missions. Niko is the worst GTA protagonist by far, such a dull character. I've always felt that Johnny and the Lost & Damned story should've been GTA4, instead of DLC. I was okay with SR3's story and missions. In the end, neither game did much for me, but I'm still anticipating GTAV. I personally felt let down by SR3 in comparison to 2.

Being 5 years old ruined it.

@Zenthere said:

As a budget gamer I'm not able to play every game, especially at release. I was able to pick up Saints Row 3 on a Steam sale a while back and I absolutely loved it. I played around 50 hours of it. Recently I saw a 360 copy of GTA4 for relatively cheap, so I picked it up. After playing it for probably 4-5 hours I find the controls painful. The driving seems too loose, the shooting is a little hard to get used to.

I was trying to figure out why I was having such a hard time with a game that was so universally loved. Then I realized I was trying to play it how I would play Saints Row. I'm not sure how much time I want to sink into a game that I'm not having a ton of fun in. The story is intriguing, but hasn't really been worth dealing with some of the janky mechanics.

Is it worth it for me to fight through my difficulties with the controls, or should I just give up on this one because there are a ton of other great games on my play list?

(I should probably note that I played SR:3rd with a controller on the PC)

GTA4's story is one of if not my favorite of the generation, right up there with The Walking Dead

IMO time ruined GTA4 open world games have gotten so much better...

I thought GTAIV was very un-crazy even before I played Saint's Row. Like really, I couldn't have much fun with that game at all. I don't think SR ruined it, it ruined itself.

I went back to GTA4 a few months ago. MAN, there has probably never been a game rated so highly that controls so sluggishly, other than the other GTA titles. I like GTA 4 a lot, but it's not going to hold the test of time. People are going to look back 20 years from not at GTA4 and they are going to wonder what the big deal was.

@ArtisanBreads said:

@BestUsernameEver said:

@Yummylee said:

The only problem with the controls in GTAIV for me was the cover system. Undeniably clunky and tough to work with at times, but everything else like the movement and the driving are still perfectly fine. There's still no other open-world crime game that does driving better than GTAIV imo.

Agreed with you guys. People have crazy taste when it comes to open world driving though. I love arcade racers and all, but I see people saying Sleeping Dogs has good driving for example and GTA IV doesn't... I don't even know how to reply.

I can't really comment since I've only watched Sleeping dogs being played, but as for the driving in GTAIV, sure it feels boat like at times, but it's consistency and physics that make up for it and make sense. I hate games where even if it's 'easy' to learn the driving, it still sucks accelerating at an impossible rate, give me arcade control, but ground it in at least some reality so I know what to expect.

@ArtisanBreads said:

@BestUsernameEver said:

@Yummylee said:

The only problem with the controls in GTAIV for me was the cover system. Undeniably clunky and tough to work with at times, but everything else like the movement and the driving are still perfectly fine. There's still no other open-world crime game that does driving better than GTAIV imo.

Agreed with you guys. People have crazy taste when it comes to open world driving though. I love arcade racers and all, but I see people saying Sleeping Dogs has good driving for example and GTA IV doesn't... I don't even know how to reply.

The driving in Sleeping Dogs really threw me off, especially since the tone of the world seemed semi-realistic up until I started driving. I loved the driving in GTA IV. Also, Ballad of Gay Tony greatly improved the car handling without really sacrificing the satisfying feel of it.

This is such a stupid comparison. GTAIV is what, 4/5 years older than SR3? Of fucking course its design and controls are a lot worse! Other than the philosophical divergencies between the two it's pretty silly to compare them as equals.

I tried playing Grand Theft Auto 4, but I found the missions to be too frustrating, and that whenever I died or failed it, I had to start all over. I did find Niko to be an interesting character, but overall the game just wasn't keeping my attention, so I returned it to a friend of mine who owned it.

Saints Row 3, I haven't played yet, and I would like to, because it sounds like a really wild game.

I would have to disagree with you. I liked the driving and shooting in GTA more. The story was great as well especially compared to saints rows story. Also GTA 4 has a way better soundtrack IMO. The side stuff with hanging out with your buddies or whatever was the worst part of GTA. I found the missions in GTA 4 more interesting and fun as well. Don't get me wrong saints row 3 is a good game in some ways but it isn't near GTA IMO.

@Nottle said:

I went back to GTA4 a few months ago. MAN, there has probably never been a game rated so highly that controls so sluggishly, other than the other GTA titles. I like GTA 4 a lot, but it's not going to hold the test of time. People are going to look back 20 years from not at GTA4 and they are going to wonder what the big deal was.

I don't agree. It's a design choice. I love the feel of Rockstar's games with Natural Motion, it gives the character great weight and the way characters all react is so believable.

It's similar, in my mind, to the decision of how Dark Souls combat handles vs something like Devil May Cry. There is an intentional weight.

I really believe animation systems like Natural Motion are the future and if anything they would age better. Some developers might make it all work faster, but I think it'll be the norm, vs non reactive animation and ragdolls.

It's really the same principle as the driving. The "weight" to everything is great. I do feel it's not that refined in comparison to Red Dead and especially Max Payne 3, which is truly amazing to me, but that all takes time. Looking forward to how GTA V handles.

I'm having the same issue with this game now; I got all pumped from the new GTA5 trailer and decided to go back and give 4 another shot, I'm about 5 hours in and it's really rough, especially after recently finishing and loving L.A. Noire and Sleeping Dogs.

I'm going to slick with it, but I'm really amazed this series made it past the first game, I've tried them all in the past when they came out and none of them has ever done it for me.

The worst thing about going straight from LA Noire to this game; the run button in LA Noire is the shoot button in this game, I've shot alot of randoms so far...

GTA IV ruined GTA IV

This. I had all the same complaints you did, except that was back when the game came out. The controls are ass and the story sucked too. Zero believable characters.

Saints Row the Third does it better. Heck, even LA Noir had better driving. The car physics in GTAIV were atrocious - not realistic but not arcadey either. This weird hybrid that wasn't fun one way or the other.

SR3 was fun and hilarious. it lasted about 12 hours. (mainlining the storyline).

GTA4 was amazing. i played it for months. beat the story multiple times, played the multiplayer, ran around the city a ton messing around. it just has so much more depth.

Oh Hell Nawwwwwwww.

SRTT's driving was OK, but it can't even compare to GTAIV's. L.A. Noire is a more suitable comparison, though, and I remember thinking it was pretty alright. Even still GTAIV driving is God and you will bow down to its perfection, worm.

This man speaks the truth, and only the truth.

It's really bad.

I remember hating the driving in GTAIV, but eventually I got used to it and kinda liked it. Although I mostly just drove armored trucks and constantly tried to reenact that scene from the Dark Knight wherein I ram SWAT vans off the highway.

I would ask you to explain it to me but I'm afraid it is mostly taste. Just recently I played Saints Row the Third on PC and the driving in that is pretty damn good - a little stiffer than I remember but you're not fighting for control on every corner. How could we forget Sleeping Dogs which also had pretty enjoyable driving. I have played realistic driving games like GRID or DIRT. So I know how cars handle in those games. GTA IV did not resemble that at all. I remember coming back to it time and time again AFTER beating the main story in order to just drive around and finally comprehend the driving mechanics. I could never get it. At one point I was able to almost reliably "drift" with most cars around corners using the handbrake but it involved a ton of gas feathering, braking, coming in at a very precise angle and a whole lot of luck. Mind you it didn't feel or control like a drift would in DIRT, it was like battling for control with a physics engine that just didn't want you to drive that way. The best way to take corners in GTA IV seemed to be just braking to an almost complete stop before you even turned. Maybe that is more realistic but it's not a lot of fun. Granted I do recall a handful of sporty cars that handled "better" and you could drift more reliably in them. Not that you needed to do any complicated driving in GTA IV since most car chases were so completely scripted that you couldn't ever hope to catch anyone you were after.

The fact that so many people are divided on this issue is proof alone that something is wrong with it. No one ever complained about the driving in previous GTA titles. In San Andreas the cars acted a bit squirrely before you got your driving skill a bit up but even then they handled better than 90% of GTA IV vehicles. Oh and let's not even mention the bikes, which were basically useless. They could not turn for shit, there is nothing to defend there, they were just bad, even after the Lost and the Damned update.

I've seen many people playing GTA4, give those people bikes and they act like they're out of a video from AFV and crash, give me a bike and people call bullshit and claim I activated a secret AI script that helps me drive. It's all about skill. (Well, skill and actually figuring out how to drive, cracking the nut that is the system, and realizing how shit GTA3 series driving is, not to mention the shooting compared to GTA4s. It's a relic from the early 2000s that even then felt like a relic from the late 90s)

Or using the keyboard like I am.

@humanity: Bikes in GTA were awesome. I always went out of my way to ride 'em and they were even better in the L&D. The only problem they had in GTAIV was how insanely delicate you had to be when riding on one considering a gust of wind could knock you off it. But in L&D they pretty much glued your ass to the seat so they were a lot of fun to use and I pretty much exclusively rode bikes in L&D. They had a superb sense of speed and, like the cars, had a great feeling of weight to them.

Anywhoo I found the driving in GTA to be fantastic, but it did have a learning curve. It was a skill to be earned first and once you got the hang of it, it was pretty damn gratifying to be sliding around and doing stunt jumps everywhere and it made getting into crashes feel like they really hurt. There's nothing inherently wrong with it and you even said yourself that it's just a matter of taste. Just because it's divisive shouldn't instinctively mean that it's broken or it's got problems; some people like it, some don't, it's as simple as that really.

No, time did. People talk about GTA IV these days like it came out last year. It most certainly did not.

People saying the driving is about skill fucking baffle me. No matter what, it's still not as much fun as driving in Vice City or San Andreas. Not even close.