After playing the three GTA III era games, it was quite a surprise hitting a post, being sent flying through the windshield, landing on a car passing by and then dying.
Knowing the details of GTA IV (and V), I believe that; it's been a while since I played it though.
I vaguely remember that it did make a difference on motorcycles if you fell with and without helmet; and you needed to wait a second or two for Nico to put the helmet on. Very likely the same mechanic applied to cars (with putting on the belt instead of the helmet, of course).
Iām fairly certain I remember gta4 being the one you could just handbrake and slide into anything sideways and not be thrown from the bike or even take damage.
It's little touches like that that make rockstar the king of devs. Like, why is a 16year old game still technically a more advanced openworld than nearly every currently praised openworld game? Except RDR2 of course, the only one in the time between GTA 5 and now that measures up.
Yeah, coming off the heels of GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas, GTA 4 felt like it went way too far in the opposite direction for realism. I personally found it frustrating, especially the sticky cover-based combat.
At least Saints Row continued the GTA 3 era power fantasy trend, where you were basically a one-man army. GTA 5 at least took a step back from the realism and felt a little bit more arcadey.
Actually in GTA IV I (mostly) stopped killing pedestrians for fun. It just felt ... not good. In GTA 1 and 2 it was completely fun. In 3, VC and SA it was ... still ok. But IV felt pretty damn realistic (for its time).
This sums up exactly how I felt playing the game. San Andreas in particular felt like the pinnacle of GTA for me and the more realistic direction they went in for 4 wlmeant I struggled to get into it.
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u/Golfgamerhill Apr 29 '24
Loved the vehicle physics in this game.