Grand Theft Auto (series)/YMMV

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For specific games:

• Grand Theft Auto Classic
• Grand Theft Auto II
• Grand Theft Auto III
• Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
• Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories
• Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories
• Grand Theft Auto IV
  • Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned
  • Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony
• GTA Radio

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For the series in general:

• Acceptable Religious Targets:
  • The Hare Krishna appear as pedestrians in the first game and as one of the gangs in the second one, putting the "Targets" in Acceptable Religious Targets.
  • Conservative Christians in Vice City, as well as in later games in the franchise.
  • A certain real-life religious movement gets this in San Andreas.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Many characters' actions, personalities and motivations can be interpreted in any one of several ways.
• Anticlimax Boss: Most of the bosses are very easy in comparison to the hordes of mooks you fight to get to them. Justified in that, while they may be criminal masterminds, they are still human.
• Broken Base: Following IV, the fanbase seemed to have split into two directions -- those who missed the more over-the-top style and player customization of the past games (particularly San Andreas), and those who preferred the more realistic tone of IV. A good deal of the former crowd has gravitated to the Saints Row games, which is why you don't hear them as much. There was also a brief split after it was announced that the protagonist of San Andreas would be a black Gang-Bangers from South Central (complete with claims that Rockstar was trying to pander to the tastes of pasty suburban white boys), although that rift healed pretty quickly after San Andreas was released and the "ghetto" parts turned out to be some of the best parts of the game.
• Catharsis Factor: Running down pedestrians and blowing stuff up can be very therapeutic.
• Canon Discontinuity: Advance. Neither its characters nor plotline are referenced in the rest of the series, and many fans either deny its existence or do not even know it exists.
• Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch: A perennial victim of this, thanks to the likes of Jack Thompson, who during a VGXPO debate stated that the whole point of the series was to kill as many cops as possible. The all-gamer crowd quickly told him how wrong he was, and he responded, "I thought this was going to be a friendly debate." While some missions do require the player to gun down law enforcement e.g. in heists, this isn't mandatory outside of missions. And speaking of heists, GTA Online does penalise the player for committing civilian casualties at least in some way.
  • And despite what you may have heard from the moral guardians, there is no "rape" option in the games (nor do any of the player characters ever rape anyone), and there is no particular focus on "killing hookers" in any of the games. The in-game website for "Little Lacy Surprise Pageant", a parody of both children's underwear and the exploitative and creepy nature of child beauty pageants was reported by the British tabloid The Sun, painting it in a negative light through an interview with a (former) player who was quoted as having been sickened by the site's inclusion despite the site being actually a satire of law enforcement response to child sexual abuse than an endorsement of paedophilia.
• Complete Monster:
  • In Liberty City Stories, Donald Love had his mentor killed and blew up Little Italy to regain his fortune. We're not going to get into the morality of the guy who executed his orders.
  • Also in LCS, Ned Burner has Toni commit quite a few atrocities, including the murder of three celebrities and causing tons of damage and casualties with a fire truck, just so he can get good stories to cover.
• Epileptic Trees: Many of the explanations that some fans have given in order to support the idea that IV and Chinatown Wars are set within the same canon as the previous games, rather than an Alternate Continuity. Among them is the claim that there are actually two Liberty Cities, the one from III and the one from IV, explaining away the vast differences between the two depictions of the city. The fact that these cities and their inhabitants do not seem to have ever heard of each other, in spite of the fact that both are large cities located on the East Coast, and even when places like Vice City and San Andreas are frequently mentioned on radio and TV, doesn't occur to them.
  • Word of God has confirmed ^{[dead link]} that III and IV are set in different worlds.
• Fandom Rivalry: With Saints Row.
• Goddamned Bats: Not literally, but Taxis and Police cars apply. The former can occupy the whole road at times (especially annoying during races). While tiny scratches on Police cars can make them onto your ass immediately.
  • Regular civilians also count since they have the tendency to hog the road, spawn in front of you while driving, jump into your incoming vehicle and make abrupt turns. Any one of these acts can jeopardize your current mission and they will do any of these acts randomly at any given moment.
• "Grand Theft Auto" Effect: The Trope Namer. The games are very well-known for their soundtracks, particularly Vice City. Also, it's tough to listen to Lazlow's radio show without thinking of his work with the series.
  • Funny thing is, you can avert this trope in the PC games, which install a folder in your documents folder (where usually your saved games go), in which you can stuff as many MP3 as you want and/or recycle its content ever so often.
• Memetic Mutation: "Realistic steak" is this at the GTA Forums, as a parody of both the increasing trend towards realism taken by the series and the demand by some fans that it go even further in that direction.
• Older Than They Think: GTA III was not the first open-world game. Zelda, for example, predated it by well over a decade, and there are probably some text games that are even older. Hell, it's not even the first 3D open-world game, as there have been notable open-world games released earlier such as DMA's own Body Harvest, Driver, a game that came out in 1999 on PlayStation, and earlier examples like Elite and Vette! to name a few.
• Rated "M" for Money
• The Scrappy: Most fans aren't too fond of the GBA release, though it is popular among those who like the old-school games.
• Sequel Displacement: Many people only know that III was the third game in the series by virtue of the big Roman numeral III in the title.
• Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: Many of the minigames have this effect.
• Spiritual Successor: The 3D games are this to Body Harvest, DMA Design/Rockstar North's previous 3D open-world game.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: III. The games before this were rather mediocre action titles that were only distinguished by their open worlds and controversial content.
• That One Level: As good as the games are, each one has quite a few missions that are so frustratingly hard that they're sure to make you want to hurl the controller through the nearest window.
• That One Sidequest: Paramedic missions. Completely optional, but doing them gives the player character a permanent health boost. You can't repair the ambulance at all during the mission, the slightest nudge can kill the people you're trying to save, and (until Vice City Stories) you can't save your progress -- if you mess up on the last level, you have to start from the beginning! However, each completed Paramedic mission does restore the health of the Ambulance to some extent, making life a little easier.