Playing in open worlds often feels frustrating because of poor navigation and lack of meaningful paths.
Playing in open worlds often feels frustrating because of poor navigation and lack of meaningful paths.
I really enjoy open world games, especially the sense of discovery you offer. There’s no limit to what you can find, and you often discover amazing spots. For instance, I could play GTA V for hours just wandering around without any missions, staying entertained. Yet, some titles like Just Cause 3, Ghost Wildlands (and to a certain extent Watchdogs 2) offer larger, more detailed worlds with even richer exploration possibilities than GTA V. It makes sense that I’d prefer those experiences more. Still, I don’t understand why cars in GTA V feel so realistic and grounded compared to the lighter, more exaggerated physics in most other open world games. Why can San Andreas or Vice City (2002) handle decent car dynamics while others turn crashes into silly bounces? Another game with solid car physics is Mafia 1 (2002), Mafia 2 is decent, and Mafia 3 falls short.
Playing in GTA V feels really bad, the physics don’t work right, and the cars behave strangely.
Have you actually tried GTA 4? It feels like driving on ice. The only positive part was the soft body physics. I still remember the frustration of jamming my car into the swingset and taking off the front end. GTA V seems to have well-balanced physics, with good scaling as you progress through vehicle levels. Heavy vehicles behave realistically (you’ve been spending a lot of time on Franklins Car, by the way), while fast cars tend to understeer and drift, and top-tier cars are tight but can be unstable if you press the gas out of a corner. I just got Beam.ng during the Halloween sale as a “break” game to unwind when I didn’t feel like playing anything. It’s really enjoyable and lets you spend hours exploring different maps without pressure. The mods section is straightforward to use—it’s in-game, so I’d strongly suggest it if you haven’t tried the paid version yet.
I really enjoy the driving mechanics in Mafia 2 and 3, particularly when simulation mode is turned on. It adds a lot of excitement to maneuvering sports cars. Trucks, on the other hand, feel quite disappointing.
Mafia 2 and GTA 4 required some adjustment, both showing sluggish performance. You struggled to navigate tight turns at high speed. The physics in V felt quite poor, making driving uncomfortable. Just Cause offers less attention to vehicle handling. Ghost Recon has no justification, yet it appears Ubisoft hasn't mastered car dynamics across their titles.