Last one was abit shite so hopefully the make it fun again like Vice City or San Andreas, until then Saints Row shits all over it.
I wouldn't say the last one was 'shite' but it certainly didn't have the humour or real world excitement feeling that Vice City and San Andreas had.
San Andraes especially was an absolute masterclass of a game. It started off with the main character and you thinking WTF - to understanding his world and how he wanted to get away from it.
Yes he and the characters from Vice City got up to all sorts of dodgy stuff - but both had pressures on them and both seemingly wanted to get away from it. They had goals and the people they were involved in things were as bad if not worse than them.
In GTA IV - you had the fella doing over the top things cynically at every avenue and then (When he's walking around with $50,000 in his pocket and a range of houses and cars) he's taking jobs on saying "Sure.. I need the money"
You can argue there were morality traits in CJ and Tommy and that they had a sense of humour and did the 'right thing' on occasion, but Niko had no such redeeming qualitites. Yes they were all nutters and got up to all sorts but it was much darker, more cynical and far less fun in IV.
You felt oddly unsettled by many of the plotlines and outcomes.
I think it was mainly the humour that was badly missing and the humour there was just evil.