May have been true for me once, but nowadays i much rather go back to GTA2 than to GTA3 (i agree that GTA1 just seems pretty crappy by todays standards)..kinda for the same reasons i cannot play most PS1 games anymore. 3D Graphics age soooo badly. (also, GTA 2 has a very unique style that is unlike any other GTA Game).Bad Jim said:GTA3 is a prime example actually. I enjoyed the first 2 GTA games, but GTA3 just blew them away and I could not go back. GTA3 was itself overshadowed by Vice City and San Andreas, but not to the extent that GTA3 overshadowed the 2D games.
Always troubling as "destroyed predecessors" go is Max Payne 1. The Story (cheesy as it might be) still holds up alright, and in terms of graphics it's mostly alright (even though the photographed face textures look really weird, not only on "Sam Lake Max") when compared to Max Payne 2, but with the changes the so called "Bullet Time 2.0" brought to the entire gameplay of Max Payne 2, the first one just feels annoying to play nowadays. When activated, Bullet Time drains far too quickly to be used for anything outside of the "diving moves", and without the possibility to "chain" kills in Bullet Time as well as being able to do fast reloads, combined with the fact that just about every shooter mimicked the Bullet Time Mechanic in some way, Max Payne 1 just plays a bit too dull.
Well, at least you can fix it to a certain degree with Mods.