Bulletbrain
Member
Personally had way more fun playing Sleepy Dogs and Watch Dogs 2.
Bully happened right before the 'switch' to the post-GTA4 style of gameplay, and thank goodness for that.All of them with a decent budget. Scarface: The World Is Yours, Mafia series, True Crime series, Saints Row series, Watch Dogs series, The Godfather: The Game, and even Rockstar's Bully play better.
The problem with C2077 is that the world feels rather empty & fake during normal freeroam. The gameplay can shine during missions, but it's definitely not one of the better open worlds.Maybe Cyberpunk 2077? Not exactly a GTA clone but it is a game set in an open world urban enviroment where you do missions stuff. Gameplay is definitely much better than GTA's, story/characters are also good though this can be subjective still.
Didn't get that impression at all when i played. I often found interesting stuff just walking around, from remnants of some events, interesting dialogue from random people, just cool stuff in general. And that was before 2.0 and the dlc. Only aspect i'd say is worse than GTA is the physics/chaos elements.The problem with C2077 is that the world feels rather empty & fake during normal freeroam. The gameplay can shine during missions, but it's definitely not one of the better open worlds.
If you haven't already, give State of Emergency, The Warriors, and Manhunt a chance.I find it hard to name one that has worse gameplay than GTA.
if there's one thing GTA always sucked at, it's the core gameplay. they mainly triumphed in terms of atmosphere and map design.
the only GTA with decent gameplay TO THIS DAY, remains San Andreas. everything before and after played like ass
If you haven't already, give State of Emergency, The Warriors, and Manhunt a chance.
Rockstar was starting to lean into more responsive controls and arcadey design, but then they threw it all away once GTA 4's design philosophies became the norm.
I buy old games cheap when I see them at retro and antique stores with my wife.Sleeping Dogs was and still is pretty amazing, said that here are 2 prequel from same group of devs:
True crimes: Streets of LA:
Those are a direct extension of what we have in GTA San Andreas.Sleeping Dogs would be my pick from that group. Has some actual fighting mechanics.
I wonder if there is a tally on old good devs ruined due to the GAAS push? It would be interesting to know, and explain why we get so few new AAA games anymore.Square Enix didn't know how good they had it with Sleeping Dogs, which is why it makes complete sense that they canned it and went live service. Which, of course, ruined the series and the devs.
Back in the day controls felt clunky but good enough, like i said, only game of the 3 that holds up today in 2025 is sleeping dogs, and for a very good reason, controls are crucialI buy old games cheap when I see them at retro and antique stores with my wife.
I recently got True Crime streets of LA for $3.
I wasted $3. It sucks, the controls are horrible. I get that its ps2, but GTA3, VC and San Andreas had much better controls and they came out 1-2 years earlier.
Also all the timed driving, I barely played it for a few minutes before i was completely frustrated.
I've been playing video games since Atari 2600, I know bad design and this was a shit game.
How they went from that to sleeping dogs (which had good controls) I don't know, but glad they did.
Three on-brand Rockstar games with their signature dark cartoony aesthetic and responsive gameplay.If you haven't already, give State of Emergency, The Warriors, and Manhunt a chance.
Rockstar was starting to lean into more responsive controls and arcadey design, but then they threw it all away once GTA 4's design philosophies became the norm.
Add the Scarface game and you have trifecta of the GTA clones.saints row and sleeping dogs