It amazes me that so many people think the GTA III era games are superior to GTA IV. IV is the first GTA game since GTA2 to actually have good combat, with AI that at least approaches the level of passable. Do people not remember what firefights consisted of in the GTA III era? A bunch of idiotic enemy AI would charge blindly at you (assuming there wasn't an object between you, in which case they would most likely glitch out and get stuck), while you would just hold down auto-aim and fire until they died. That was it. And then of course there were the horrendous vehicle physics, which caused certain vehicles to flip over if you so much as hit a pebble in the road. We also can't forget how cars would spontaneously combust after sustaining a certain amount of damage.
Now all of this isn't to say that the GTA III era games were bad, but I think some people need to replay them to realize how much the core gameplay has improved with IV. When it comes down to it, the gameplay of GTA is all about driving and shooting, and the mechanics of IV in this regard are so much better it's absurd. Of course there are a lot of flaws with IV, and it's a shame some of the nicer features of the III era games were removed (property and business purchasing, better weapon selection, etc.), but it's downright stupid to say it's inferior to the last series of games.
On an unrelated note, I find it amusing how this thread seems to be getting bumped at the same time every year. I wonder what everyone will have to say in 2010.
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