Sacrificing Fun for Realism: 'Grand Theft Auto' Evolves into the Worst Game Series

The "Guinness World Records 2009 Gamer's Edition" lists Rockstar Games' "Grand Theft Auto" (GTA) series as the most controversial game in history. It has over 4,000 articles published about each game's violence against innocent the police, its rewarding of brutalizing innocent civilians, racial stereotyping, nudity, drug dealing, and whatever controversial features that the game developers threw into each open sandbox world. Well, here's another controversial article to add to the list:

"Grand Theft Auto" is the worst video game series ever.

And I've played "Superman 64" and "Desert Bus."

The first game was an exaggerated piece of open world rampaging. Pushing aside the violent context, the game itself was cartoon-like fun. Gaming technology progressed to the point where simple cartoon graphics grew to gritty realistic visuals. And somewhere during that evolution, GTA made a mistake and thought its game play had to match the realism.

GTA III was the series' first major step into realism. Being able to watch in graphic detail that would later get better in future GTA games blood and gore from killing people was shocking initially. But after the umpteenth kill, the shock wore off and became monotonous. Then I spent more time noticing carious glitches, poor navigation, and a story that got in the way of me accessing the cool toys to have some open world fun.

Later incarnations of the GTA series (not counting that clumsy return to its roots in "Chinatown Wars") kept adding realism and additional features to the game. Violence was more visceral. Cars handled realistically. Interactions and relationships with the ancillary characters became more involved. The developers were throwing everything into the sandbox world. All they forgot was to throw in the fun.

The biggest problem with throwing so many gaming elements into an open sandbox world is that you have to spend time in boring tutorials to learn how to play them. Then the developers felt that you should spend more time doing them regularly so they pretty much assign you to play each ancillary element. GTA IV really brought this to life where you had to maintain relationships with your cousin, your date, eat some hotdogs, and watch some awful television. Is this "Grand Theft Auto" or "Grand Theft Typical Tuesday Night"?

Where GTA failed, "Saints Row" succeeds; namely "Saints Row 2." "Saints Row 2" developers felt more in touch with their audience and knew that players play an open sandbox criminal video game want to tear stuff apart. The games provide plenty of creative and rewarding ways to go completely nuts within the world and rewards you to boot. You can spend hours hurling people into the sky with your speeding car or shooting any of the bizarrely dressed rival gangs before remembering that there's a story mission somewhere.

While GTA has a hold or realism well, it dropped the fun aspect. And since fun is a priority in gaming lest it becomes a second job, GTA has evolved into the worst video game series.

Now to let my burly "Saints Row" gangster with a voice of gravel wreak havoc around town in a purple floral dress and sandals.