So as many of you know, unless you live under a rock, literally, that GTA V's trailer will be hitting on November 2nd, 2011. Despite my many problems with Grand Theft Auto IV, I can't help but be excited beyond containment about a new GTA. I've fallen in love with the GTA series since it's debut on the pc way back when, and it's one of those rare games that I actually still own every single game in the series. 2008's GTA IV was a massive disappointment for me, as I felt that they stripped out a lot of what was fun about the series in exchange for putting down a more serious tone. In many ways, Saint's Row 2 revitalized a lot of what I love about the Grand Theft Auto series. The only downfall there is that I feel Saint's Row 3 is going to be just a bit too over-the-top. However, I present the five things that need to be addressed or changed to make GTA V a true successor to it's predecessors.

5. Bring back some hilarity to balance out the serious tone. One of the biggest things that bothered me about Grand Theft Auto IV was the insanely serious tone 90% of the time. The tone was so serious in IV that anytime a joke was cracked or something was played off as being funny it came out of no where and misfired. The DLC tried to add humor and at times it was funny, but at times it was just completely distasteful (digital penis anyone?). But bring back the crazy things, like jetpacks and bizarre weapons.

4. Bring back some of the fun arcade elements like Rampages. There were always some pretty cool side-mission things in the earlier GTA's, that fell off on the wayside with IV. I'd love to see Rampages and some of the other cool side-missions you can discover to bring a nice distraction to the series, not to mention something more fun to do then simply run around and shoot pigeons as a collectible. Those "hidden package" pigeons really sucked.

3. Don't focus so much on a multiplayer aspect. I'd rather see the development team spend more time on making a great single-player campaign then dump there time into a throw away mutliplayer component. Grand Theft Auto IV's multiplayer was a joke. Let's be honest. And in a world where only games like Halo and Call of Duty are really played competitively online, lets stop while we are ahead. I'm all ok with a freemode, but that's about it. Unless Rockstar can blow my mind and make a decent multiplayer like Red Dead Redemption, but I doubt that's the case here.

2. Fix the driving! Anyone who claimed that GTA IV's driving mechanic was the best, they were simply drunk or just flat out stupid. I shouldn't hop in a car and feel like I'm driving on a thin sheet of ice at all times. That would make sense with it raining or snowing in the game, but not when it's Sunny outside. Seriously, the driving in IV was abysmal to say the least. It was so awful I never finished the races for Brucie. Saint's Row has a nice driving mechanic, I hope that Rockstar has been paying attention to them.

And the number one thing?

1. DON'T BE LIKE GRAND THEFT AUTO IV! Honestly, it's time to move on Rockstar. You had your fun making a serious entry into a series that has never been serious or never was meant to be, but it's time to move on. Grand Theft Auto IV was never a perfect game, it always felt like an 8/10 in my opinion, but Rockstar has had a nice break between games and really came into their own with Red Dead Redemption, a game that I still think is that studio's masterpiece. I'd love to see them climb back to the top with Grand Theft Auto V. I really hope they do a new location too. Revisiting Liberty City was a nice change of pace, but it's time to do something unique and cool. And bring back the MASSIVE world style that was in San Andreas, because that was awesome. Overall though Rockstar, just don't be anything like GTA IV.

So as many of you know, unless you live under a rock, literally, that GTA V's trailer will be hitting on November 2nd, 2011. Despite my many problems with Grand Theft Auto IV, I can't help but be excited beyond containment about a new GTA. I've fallen in love with the GTA series since it's debut on the pc way back when, and it's one of those rare games that I actually still own every single game in the series. 2008's GTA IV was a massive disappointment for me, as I felt that they stripped out a lot of what was fun about the series in exchange for putting down a more serious tone. In many ways, Saint's Row 2 revitalized a lot of what I love about the Grand Theft Auto series. The only downfall there is that I feel Saint's Row 3 is going to be just a bit too over-the-top. However, I present the five things that need to be addressed or changed to make GTA V a true successor to it's predecessors.

5. Bring back some hilarity to balance out the serious tone. One of the biggest things that bothered me about Grand Theft Auto IV was the insanely serious tone 90% of the time. The tone was so serious in IV that anytime a joke was cracked or something was played off as being funny it came out of no where and misfired. The DLC tried to add humor and at times it was funny, but at times it was just completely distasteful (digital penis anyone?). But bring back the crazy things, like jetpacks and bizarre weapons.

4. Bring back some of the fun arcade elements like Rampages. There were always some pretty cool side-mission things in the earlier GTA's, that fell off on the wayside with IV. I'd love to see Rampages and some of the other cool side-missions you can discover to bring a nice distraction to the series, not to mention something more fun to do then simply run around and shoot pigeons as a collectible. Those "hidden package" pigeons really sucked.

3. Don't focus so much on a multiplayer aspect. I'd rather see the development team spend more time on making a great single-player campaign then dump there time into a throw away mutliplayer component. Grand Theft Auto IV's multiplayer was a joke. Let's be honest. And in a world where only games like Halo and Call of Duty are really played competitively online, lets stop while we are ahead. I'm all ok with a freemode, but that's about it. Unless Rockstar can blow my mind and make a decent multiplayer like Red Dead Redemption, but I doubt that's the case here.

2. Fix the driving! Anyone who claimed that GTA IV's driving mechanic was the best, they were simply drunk or just flat out stupid. I shouldn't hop in a car and feel like I'm driving on a thin sheet of ice at all times. That would make sense with it raining or snowing in the game, but not when it's Sunny outside. Seriously, the driving in IV was abysmal to say the least. It was so awful I never finished the races for Brucie. Saint's Row has a nice driving mechanic, I hope that Rockstar has been paying attention to them.

And the number one thing?

1. DON'T BE LIKE GRAND THEFT AUTO IV! Honestly, it's time to move on Rockstar. You had your fun making a serious entry into a series that has never been serious or never was meant to be, but it's time to move on. Grand Theft Auto IV was never a perfect game, it always felt like an 8/10 in my opinion, but Rockstar has had a nice break between games and really came into their own with Red Dead Redemption, a game that I still think is that studio's masterpiece. I'd love to see them climb back to the top with Grand Theft Auto V. I really hope they do a new location too. Revisiting Liberty City was a nice change of pace, but it's time to do something unique and cool. And bring back the MASSIVE world style that was in San Andreas, because that was awesome. Overall though Rockstar, just don't be anything like GTA IV.

I think the "bring back the crazy" is in general kind of a bad point now that we have Saint's Row for that.

I'd personally rather have GTA stay serious now so we can have both types of games. : )

Also, claiming people that do not agree with your opinion are drunk or flat out stupid is a sure way to make people disregard your entire opinion.

I have to say, when I saw the cheats list... I was very disappointed. They were nothing compared to the 2-3 A4 sides of cheats in San Andreas. Plus... NO FLYING CARS?! What the hell?! And the driving... sheesh, they tried to make it realistic, but because of GTA's hyper-realistic physics, it kind of screwed it up a bit. I liked GTA4, but I like the older games much better. San Andreas will always remain the best GTA to me. It had some very funny glitches and easter eggs.

For GTA5 they need lots of cheats that don't have any impact on achievements/trophies and return to its arcade-y roots. The multiplayer need fixing, maybe more co-operative stuff? Like missions from the story and not just Bomb da Base, Hangmans NOOSE and Deal Breaker...

The only one I really agree with is point 3. GTA IV may not have been a perfect game, but the serious tone is more mature and also good for the industry as a whole - it pushes games from being ridiculous teenager toys to something much more meaningful.

Also, I believe they have learned lessons about how to make a serious story from Red Dead and L.A. Noire since IV, and V could be a great game given iteration on all of the ideas they had the first time. Think of it as the switch from III to Vice City and Vice City to San Andreas - it was very similar, yet better in every way. That is what I would hope for.

I hope it's like GTA IV, so we're at a pass. If I want crazy, I'll play Saints Row. It just so happens I'd rather a GTA IV type game than crazy.

Also, claiming people that do not agree with your opinion are drunk or flat out stupid is a sure way to make people disregard your entire opinion.

@TEHMAXXORZ said:

For GTA5 they need lots of cheats

DAMN STRAIGHT!

GTA IV was so hot. I'll agree the driving wasn't the best. But it definitely wasn't the worst like so many people seem to think it was.

I disagree on all fronts. I'll play Saints Row for points four and five. Rockstar has clearly moved on from being all about bawdy humor - look at RDR and LA Noire. The driving in GTA IV felt weighty and real - crashing into cars while trying to speed through an intersection was a ton of fun. "Abysmal" driving is dramatization at it's worst - but opinions are opinions. I guess I'm "flat out stupid."

Really, it's your final point that discredits any other point you made, though. It really just turned this into another thread about how you disliked GTA IV.

The only thing I disliked about GTA IV was the constant cell calls , other from that I loved the game and saw no flaws with it

Basically it just seems like your discribing SaintsRow3, I pesonanly liked the serious tone of GTA IV and your piont about multiplayer is kinda worthless, it usually is when anyone tries to make that piont, just because they add multiplayer doesnt mean it detracts from the single player as its usualy different people who have a completely different skill set that make it. 
Also this :

@Cloudenvy said:

Also, claiming people that do not agree with your opinion are drunk or flat out stupid is a sure way to make people disregard your entire opinion.
 

I thought the driving was great, that plus the amazing physics engine made the driving the best part of the game for me. I spent hours running people over in that game.

Now that saints row 3 is comeing out and most likely a 4th one in a few years. I'm never playing a GTA game ever again.

You know, I really couldn't disagree much more with most of the points:

5. I loved the balance of humour and seriousness in GTAIV. I mean, it managed to convey a serious and powerful story in which you cared about the characters, yet still parodied modern culture and kept plenty of humour too. It was the perfect balance.

4. Some more variety in side missions would be good, yeah. I probably agree with this one. But the pigeons were cool too. They aren't for everyone, but there is no harm putting something like that in too.

3. I don't think IV did focus too much on the multiplayer. There were some fun multiplayer aspects, but the single player certainly didn't suffer because of it. What harm is there in having an awesome single player AND some fun multiplayer aspects?

2. I found the driving in GTA IV was so much better than the previous instalments. The driving in III, VC and SA always seemed floaty and like I was inches away from flipping my car, even when I was taking a corner at 20 miles an hour. IV improved that and brought in a driving system that kept a certain amount of arcadeyness, yet felt at least a little bit grounded in reality. Maybe I'm just crazy since I seem to be the only one who thinks this, but it's how I feel.

1. I basically want it to be a refined and improved version of IV in a new setting and with a new story. IV wasn't a perfect game by any means, but refining the formula of GTAIV to make an improved game in that style would be awesome. We have Saints Row for the crazy, over the top, half broken open world games that GTA used to be. And Saints Row does a great job at that. They're excellent games that go above and beyond the craziness of GTA San Andreas. If we didn't have Saints Row, I might want a crazy GTA game too, but I think the two developers have found a nice balance. Volition excel at the crazy and over the top stuff, while Rockstar can do well realized, in depth stories in a vibrant world.

@Cloudenvy said:

I think the "bring back the crazy" is in general kind of a bad point now that we have Saint's Row for that.

I'd personally rather have GTA stay serious now so we can have both types of games. : )

Also, claiming people that do not agree with your opinion are drunk or flat out stupid is a sure way to make people disregard your entire opinion.

@Hitchenson said:

I hope it's like GTA IV, so we're at a pass. If I want crazy, I'll play Saints Row. It just so happens I'd rather a GTA IV type game than crazy.

Go play saints row if you want that. And the driving was fine.

They should add some of the changes they made in RDR. 
 
The shooting in particular felt a lot smoother.

I thought GTA IV did a good job of being serious but still having some funny stuff, and the driving was great. You crazy.

There was humour in GTA IV? I don't even recall the odd joke. It was just fucking mind numbingly serious from begining to end.

And hey guys, guess what, you can have a less serious GTA without it being like Saints Row. Saints Row is all out crazy, way more then San Andreas was.

Think about Vice City. There is nothing over the top crazy about that game, it's a story about a psycopathic mobster rising to the top. But it was fun in a way that GTA IV just never managed.

@Joru said:

but the serious tone is more mature and also good for the industry as a whole - it pushes games from being ridiculous teenager toys to something much more meaningful.

Plenty of other games were doing the serious thing before GTA IV. It's making no difference to the industry.

and GTA III, Vice City & San Andreas were hardly batshit crazy games, far from it.

@kmdrkul said:

look at RDR and LA Noire

@Joru said:

The only one I really agree with is point 3. GTA IV may not have been a perfect game, but the serious tone is more mature and also good for the industry as a whole - it pushes games from being ridiculous teenager toys to something much more meaningful.

Also, I believe they have learned lessons about how to make a serious story from Red Dead and L.A. Noire since IV

Rockstar didn't make L.A. Noire, look up the difference between publisher and developer.

I mainly just want them to fix the checkpointing, driving the same long journeys and having to repeat conversations got kind of annoying, though I'll admit that's probably down to me sucking a certain amount. I wasn't that keen on Nico either to be honest since I didn't think he had much personality to him, a lot of the time and kind of felt like a thug for hire. I'm not saying he has to be some tortured soul or someone looking for redemption since GTA has never really been about that sort of character, just someone who has more of an opinion on what he is doing and is a little more memorable. 
 
If they fix those things (and rockstar's other open world games and the gta expansions seemed to show they mostly have) then I'll be looking forward to it.

I don't mind the more serious tone but they gotta ditch the cellphone socializing shit, and reverting the driving to a more arcade-style would be a plus too.

This is what my ideal gta5 has: A smooth framerate Crisp graphics- not muddy or overly thick Good driving and shooting mechanics

The only one I really agree with is point 3. GTA IV may not have been a perfect game, but the serious tone is more mature and also good for the industry as a whole - it pushes games from being ridiculous teenager toys to something much more meaningful.

I disagree. I thought GTA IV was really funny, and not very serious at all. (Note, I didn't play the previous ones.)

Well, it got pretty serious during some of the story stuff, especially at the end, but there's a lot of goofy stuff in there.

I loved playing GTA's multiplayer. It was my absolute favorite part of the entire experience. Roaming around the city with my buds never ceased to be a fun experience. I'm really hoping they do what they did with Red Dead and simply enhance that experience.

I hope GTA V spends more time on the player character being a common thug and gunplay scarce. Missions involving baseball bat fights and melee combat were the best. Once the baseball bat became obsolete in that game I lost interest.

I'd love an in-depth melee fighting and damage system I guess. But all about dirty street fighting. Groin-kicking, eye-gouching, headbutting, nose breaking e.t.c.

I hope they make it more like GTA IV, I liked they grown up direction they brought the series in and it's probably my favorite game this gen. If you want silly nonsense there is always Saints Row.

Disagree with bring back the humor and crazy, I liked gtaiv feel wise and saints row got the crazy locked down. I do think the movement/driving and mp could be fixed up though

I thought GTA4 did a great job of balancing humor and seriousness, and I honestly dont want to see rampages return unless there is a good reward for completing them. Also, the GTA4 multiplayer was pretty cool for what it was. Giving a giant sandbox to players who just want to mess around is a great idea. I hope they get rid of the deathmatch stuff, but it would be nice if they kept the freeplay mode in there.

Overall, though, I think I would rather the game be more like GTA4 than anything else. I loved the story, driving mechanics, and online options. I hope they fix the shooting mechanics because squeezing the trigger halfway for free aim was awful. Also, mission variety is a must have. The only problem I had with GTA4 was that the missions basically devolved into driving to a location, shooting a bunch of guys, then driving to another location and doing the same thing or finishing the mission.

This is just a personal thing, but I hope they put the property stuff that they had in Vice City. Rockstar tried to do some of that stuff in San Andreas and a bit in GTA4, but it was never done as well as it was in Vice City. I am talking about raising money by doing various jobs to buy property, and once you unlock that property you can do missions to make that property more profitable. Rockstar could introduce some really interesting missions in that way while at the same time keeping the player pushing toward a clear goal.

@thehexeditor said:

This is what my ideal gta5 has: A smooth framerate Crisp graphics- not muddy or overly thick Good driving and shooting mechanics

I got so surprised when I bought GTA IV for PC during the Steam summer sale, that game is soooooooo much better at 60 frames. : )

You make some good points. I hope they lighten it up a bit and bring back some of the more outrageous things like planes. Also, I really hope they have personal garages and that you can customize any car like you could in San Andreas. That's what I missed the most in IV. Yet, I think Rockstar tells stories well with some very memorable characters within their GTA worlds. They'll do what they want without apologies and most likely it'll be awesome. Every GTA has been. It'll be serious but it will have humor even if it is dark humor like IV.

Also, don't insult me just because I think the driving in IV is awesome. I pretty much mastered it and I frickin' love it. You can do some awesome stuff in IV with a car. There's weight to the cars yet you have a lot of control over them. It's awesome. I hope the driving is very similar in V if not the exactly same.

@TEHMAXXORZ said:

For GTA5 they need lots of cheats

DAMN STRAIGHT!

None if your points mean anything to me. Right on the contrary, I don't want any of those changes. Well, except for #3. I never saw Grand Theft Auto as a multiplayer game.

I have to agree with all the points in the OP. I loved the hell out of GTA3, Vice City, and especially San Andreas. GTA4 bored me to the point where I couldn't bring myself to finish the game. Without all the craziness of the previous games, travelling around and exploring just felt dull.

And I for one HATED the new driving controls. If people think they seem better, that's fine, but don't try to say they are more "realistic" when I constantly found myself power sliding and drifting around corners at a mindblowing speed of 10mph.

Also found the radios stations to be significantly less entertaining. It was the first time in the GTA series where I actually kept the radio off most of the time. Then again, maybe I'm just too damn old for this contemporary shit.

Hopefully we see a return to form in the next installment, but I won't begrudge those who want it to stay similar to GTA4. After all, there were a lot of people who enjoyed the last game, so who's to say what the right formula for a GTA game is? Except for the driving physics. Please god fix the driving physics!!!

@ProfessorEss said:

I don't mind the more serious tone but they gotta ditch the cellphone socializing shit, and reverting the driving to a more arcade-style would be a plus too.

You could turn that stuff off.

@Cloudenvy said:

I think the "bring back the crazy" is in general kind of a bad point now that we have Saint's Row for that.

I'd personally rather have GTA stay serious now so we can have both types of games. : )

Also, claiming people that do not agree with your opinion are drunk or flat out stupid is a sure way to make people disregard your entire opinion.

I absolutely agree.

@ProfessorEss said:

I don't mind the more serious tone but they gotta ditch the cellphone socializing shit, and reverting the driving to a more arcade-style would be a plus too.

You could turn that stuff off.

I like the driving in GTA IV. The only thing I want them to improve upon is the gun gameplay. There wasn't much satisfaction in shooting the guns, maybe it's cause of the sound but I didn't feel like it was powerful enough.

I really liked GTA IV when it came out, but since then I've played Saints Row 2 in co-op and I had a blast. I'm not saying it has to be crazy like Saints Row, but if GTA V doesn't have co-op I won't play it.

In my opinion GTA 4 wasn't as realistic/serious as I would have liked... in fact, I found the design to be kind of lazy.

For starters, there weren't enough gun choices in the game (if i recall correctly, there were like 12 different guns in total). I would have liked silencers on my weapons, so that I could try sneaking towards enemies, or hunting pigeons in peace.

Also, there wasn't anything interesting to buy, I ended that game with about 750k, since there wasn't much to spend it on beside random food stands. This lack of items to buy, really broke the story for me, since I saw no need to do most of the missions ("I need money, so i'll do this bad thing, even though, there nothing to spend said money on").

Next the god damn cell phone needs to go, or I should say that I hated the fact that the npcs would constantly call me up to go bowling, and then get irate when I refused. This also broke the game's story with me, since I would go on a mission with one of them, kill about 50 guys, and then after wards they would want to go play darts... I enjoyed the serious nature of the game's story at times, but stuff like this, just doesn't fit into it, which kind of ruin the experience for me.

Lastly, the enemy ai didn't react as fearful as i would have liked. This is a problem i have with a lot of games (and action movies). Where i am in a situation where i just clear out a building of about 24 out of the 25 guys in it, and the last guy decide that he'll try his luck against me by hiding behind a table. I am not saying that they should start running away from the get go, but at least, when in an extreme situation, they should react differently.

Just play Saints Row instead? Alot of people, including me, prefer the new more serious GTA

@Master_Prophet: @Cloudenvy said:

I think the "bring back the crazy" is in general kind of a bad point now that we have Saint's Row for that.

I'd personally rather have GTA stay serious now so we can have both types of games. : )

Also, claiming people that do not agree with your opinion are drunk or flat out stupid is a sure way to make people disregard your entire opinion.

I completely agree all those points except the multiplayer one are awful.GTA:IV was a great turn for the franchise I think they could expand upon the fun aspects a bit more, but it was definetly NOT serious.That GTA humor was still in there on the tv shows, on the radio, on the ads, in the cutscenes,in the dialouge.And the cars weren't messed up I admit it was a rather strange thing at first but I got used to it.It's nice to have a car with actual physics for once and not a cinderblock on wheels.

They should keep doing what they are doing.Just add more things to do besides driving missions and bowling.Ballad Of Gay Tony was great if they can expand upon that they will sell tons.Keep the arcadey shit out that's what Saints Row is for.

The GTA IV expansions brought back some of the sillyness.. not too much, but just the right amount. Doing any more would really off-set the serious tone and no matter what, would completely pale in comparison to what Saints Row is doing. They're much better off sticking to the more serious story telling now, just don't make it completely devoid of fun, like IV was.

I disagree on most points--I find GTA IV funny, the multiplayer is ok and the driving is great--but I do hope they take the kitchen sink approach a la San Andreas with V.

Saints-Row 3.

Done, done and done.

Some rhyme or reason to the tone would be nice. Don't sell me on a deadly serious revenge tale and then have the reveal be 'LOL LOOK AT HOW GAY THIS GUY IS! HE RUNS SO GAY HAHAHA!'

Grand Theft Auto IV is one of my favourite games of this generation, so hopefully they keep going in that direction.