So what is it about these "types" of games that draws people so much? I tried Saint's Row: the Third and got bored. You drive around, shoot things, drive around some more, shoot things some more... lots of little unlockables that feel like a chore to unlock. I feel like most of the GTAs I've played were the same. I played GTA 1 and 2, and the first one in 3d as well.
I mean, I too want not to notice my wife and feel the need to clean myself!
S'probably because SR3 was bad.
The appeal for me is the open-world, personally. Even though all it really works as is a tedious thing to drive through between missions, I reeeally like that it's an open sorta playground you can do whatever in, as opposed to just being all level-based and stuff.
Also, for what it's worth, I
hated GTA:SA. The sounds the guns made were boring and terrible. GTA 4 was pretty much the same, except everything was now also
slow. Guns had low rates of fire, moving around on foot felt
super slow, even when you were sprinting, and cars accelerated horribly sluggishly.
GTA 5 feels sooo much better. I can blaze through the micro-uzi's magazine in like, a second, and cars feel so much faster now, but retain the sorta-difficult, squirrely handling that I recall there was in 4. It was cool, but mixed with how long it took to get moving again after losing control in that, it was also frustrating. That you can get going so much faster makes it much more fun in 5 - that, and delightful effects like visible damage to your car when you hit shit - body crumpling, paint coming off in huge tears and scrapes - and dirt spraying errywhere if you're on, uhhh, dirt, and getting your car filthy. Neat, immersiony things like that.
Also yes. The story and writing are pretty awesome too.