Grand Theft Auto is one of the most popular and beloved video game franchises in history. Many of us have that one crazy GTA story in which we invaded an army base, carjacked a tank (or tank-jacked a tank?), did a wheelie while running over hippies, obliterated 20 sunbathers on the beach, and then drove into the sea to go out like a boss. It was awesome, right?
Part of what makes the GTA games so good is the series’ goofiness. From cheats that make all pedestrians look like Elvis to crazy characters —like our fav Trevor— GTA has it all. Peak GTA is probably the infamous “Hot Coffee” debacle, about which the less said the better.
One of the side-effects of GTA’s trademark comical silliness are the hilarious gaps in logic present in the game. Some of these, like the police hunting you down just because you touched their car, are highly infuriating. Others, like an old man running faster than Usain Bolt when you fire a bullet into the sky, are just GTA gold.
Of course, games can’t be 100% realistic. What fun would it be if you have things like taxes, commutes in public transport, and traffic to care of in GTA 5? So, let's appreciate 20 hilarious moments when the series made no sense at all!
20 Be One With The Earth
Synesthesia: the production of a sense impression relating to one sense or part of the body by stimulation of another sense or part of the body. Cool right?
Famous musicians such as Kanye West and Charlie XCX are said to have this condition which allows them to “see sounds.” Apparently, GTA characters have this ability too.
Attentive players must have noticed that in GTA V zooming down a sniper scope at a car or a helicopter somehow enables you to hear the things you are looking at more clearly, bending all known laws of physics known to man.
Perhaps this is intentional, maybe all GTA characters are synesthetes and this odd quirk in their personalities will be explained in a later game. Or perhaps it is a design choice made by Rockstar to keep the gameplay intuitive.
19 Mother Nature Is Supreme
Most people have a similar story of when they first got into a tank in a GTA game. They are amazed at how overpowered the vehicle is. They demonstrate their new toys capabilities by blowing up any vehicle by merely touching it. Helicopters are nothing but annoying flies before this beast — its cannon makes quick work of such pesky insects.
But behold, a tree! You are dumbfounded, shocked even. How can a mere tree stop my mighty tank without even taking on a scratch? A glitch in the game it must be, you think. You attempt to put this ignorant tree in its place one more time but the tree once again bests your tank. By this time the police and NOOSE have surrounded you and you are 2 seconds away from a fiery death. The only lesson to learn here is, don’t mess with mother nature.
18 Barbers From Heaven
Normally, people go to a barbershop and pay the barber so he can remove excess hair from their head. Some people even get their shaving done by barbers, the joy of sitting down on a comfy chair while a 50-year-old man with exceptional conversational skills shaves your face is something that can not be described in words.
However, in Grand Theft Auto those barbers aren’t just barbers, they are superhuman barber/hair implant gods who can make the rock look like Bradley Cooper in only 2 minutes for $20. If that is not the very definition of divine power, I don’t know what is.
Other skills GTA barbers have include: growing you a beard. Obviously, this would be a huge help for those 17-year-olds trying to impress their girlfriends (but who just can’t grow a beard with more than 2 hairs).
17 Dance Is Love, Dance Is Life.
Have you ever gone to a gentleman’s club in GTA: Vice City? Turns out you can go full Tony Montana on the club’s patrons and still not get any attention from the dancers. If this is not dedication, I don’t know what is!
Perhaps this is a noble effort from Rockstar, an attempt to highlight the substance abuse problems prevalent among young "women of the night" across the nation. More likely though the programmers just forgot to program them to react to a maniacal madman butchering all signs of life around them.
16 Al Capone With A Badge
If you ask a police officer for directions, some of them will go out of their way to make sure you reach your destination safe, some of them will point you in the right direction, and some of them will pretend you don’t exist hoping your non-existent self will walk away and stop pestering him. Point is that all cops aren’t the same, unless Grand Theft Auto has something to say about it.
The behavior of the police in the games can best be described as bizarre. The police force has a very strange set of priorities. Drenched in blood head to toe? Have a good day! Carrying an RPG on the streets? Have a splendid day! Accidentally touched a police car at low speeds? Prepare to meet your maker. Their behavior is actually more of a mob boss from the Godfather movies than a Police Officer from real life.
15 S’all Good Man
Some people are more chill than others. No one, though, is more chill than the staff of the restaurants in Grand Theft Auto. These guys really don’t care. Even pointing an RPG while standing 2 cm outside the door of the establishment does not faze them. It's as if they've never put two and two together. I guess having a busy work week will do that to people.
In moments like these, their thought process is probably something like “This guy is probably just covered in ketchup — hard to think of what else it could be." And then, "…. May I take your order, sir?”
14 From Afar, A Jewel. From Near, Ehhhh
Imagine walking down the street and spotting a wad of cash. “OMG, this is the best day in my life. I want to thank my mom and dad. I want to thank my teachers” is probably how you will react until you get closer and realize the majestic stack of cash is filled with only singles and adds up to a total of $16. Big whoop!
According to Grand Theft Auto logic, a wad of cash can range from $5 to $500 yet still look exactly the same no matter its value. It’s probably some high-level tech wizardry beyond the scope of mere mortals’ understanding making this possible. Has to be right? It is impossible that the developers and designers just got a little lazy to make more than 1 model for a stack of cash after creating the millions of other models for the rest of the game. Yes, it must be some tech wizardry.
13 The Physical Embodiment Of “Thug Life”
Meet Jonny. Jonny is a regular joe from L.A. who likes his boots dusty and his beer cold. He has a 9 to 5 job, 2 kids and a wife, and a has an hour-long commute to work every day. Jonny’s hobbies and passions include cars, murder, movies, murder, Italian food, video games, gardening, and killing. Oh, and did I mention Jonny likes sending people to heaven in his free time?
Jonny absolutely loves it when his rocket launchers cause cars to go boom boom. A mans gotta do what a mans gotta do right? Eventually, though Jonny gets bored and gets done-in by the police. He then wakes up in the hospital, asks the nurse for a smoke, and walks out the front the door a free man to his loving wife and kids.
12 Business Is Business
Some people like to shove their noses where they don’t belong. Too many governments and companies care too much about doing business only with non-genocidal, non-homicidal, non-tyrannical, and non-violent people. Whatever happened to business is business right? Where is the world going to?
Fortunately, street vendors in the Grand Theft Auto universe still subscribe to old rules of business. They don’t care if you are a monster, or just a plain old D-bag. You want a hot dog? You get a hot dog. That is their mantra. Dictators and tyrants world over place GTA Street Vendors on a pedestal.
11 Paramedics Or Angels?
Ambulances are my favorite thing in Grand Theft Auto V. I absolutely love calling an ambulance to a crowded spot, watching it crush 10 different people and then watching the medics miraculously fully heal 1 person and then drive away in their ambulance. It's a tried and true GTA player trick, but it's still satisfying every time. It's a video game logic moment that you could imagine being written as a subvert joke in an animated sitcom. Can you imagine the conversations these paramedics must have? Do you think they high-five every day when they finish work, or lament that they couldn't save more people?
10 The Not Fast But Very Furious
One of the strangest things about GTA is how little the police cares about major crimes such as murder and reckless over speeding and how much it cares about people not touching their shiny cars.
You can be cruising on your motorcycle at 200kmph and be at a point where you genuinely don’t know if the bike can even get any faster. You can attempt to do a wheelie at this speed and you can even jump off bridges. The police won’t be bothered. But dare you touch their precious cruisers while stopping at a red light not even leaving a dent on their car, all heck will break loose. On the spot, the police will attempt to arrest you. Unless if they’re in a mood, in which case they will shoot you.
9 It’s Economies Of Scale Bro
Ever noticed how you can totally and utterly wreck your car and take it to the repair shop to get it fixed for say $900 but if you merely break a headlight or a window of the same car the repair still costs $470.
Perhaps Rockstar is trying to impress upon their customers the economic concept of Economies of Scale which basically means mass producing a thing drives its per unit price down.
Or perhaps this is just a digital middle finger by Rockstar to those car repair shops which charge exorbitant and arbitrary prices for minor repairs. Either way, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
8 Chivalry Still Exists
Like I said before, all cops aren’t the same. Whereas some cops in GTA will declare you an enemy of the state if you merely touch their car, others will risk their own lives and even die trying to save you.
If you have a high enough wanted rating with police cars chasing right behind you and you drive your car into the ocean or another water body, the brave and fearless officers will drive in right after you and…..drown.
Such is the dedication shown by some of Los Santos’ Finest. You may have just killed an entire district and half the law enforcement officers of the west coast may be chasing you but if your life is in danger, rest assured these brave hearts will risk everything trying to save you….and then probably arrest you.
7 Is This the Future of Driving?
You may have noted that cars in Grand Theft Auto games never use their turn signals when turning. Yet, GTA probably has the safest roads on the planet and have only 1 terrible driver, YOU.
Can you imagine such a sight in real life? Being Indian, I don’t need to imagine such a sight, I have lived it. It is utter chaos where you have to look at all 4 corners of your car at every second because you never know who is going to turn when or if they are even turning at all or if they just forgot to turn their indicators off.
However, this odd behavior in GTA also brings up an important point. Cars in GTA are handled by AI who can detect if the car is about to collide and stop the car. In real life self-driving cars are the new craze, does this mean in the future when all cars are self-driving we will never need to use indicators?
6 Fitness Trainers HATE Him
Studies have shown that gym memberships peak around early January. The people driving up the numbers are those that make new years resolutions like “I’m going to look like The Rock by the end of the year” or “Imma walk shirtless come the summer” or a more realistic “I'm 40, drink a lot, and smoke like a chimney. I should probably start hitting the gym and take care of my health”.
They realize soon though that looking like The Rock or even losing 20 pounds of weight is a lot harder than just going to the gym and cycling for an hour. Which is why gym members go back down to normal levels by February. Good news is GTA has the solution for your problems. Just spending 10 minutes in a gym in the games will make you into a muscular behemoth. So what if you couldn’t fulfill your new year's resolutions yourself? You can now fulfill them in game. It still counts….right?
5 Law And Disorder
GTA’s cities such as Los Santos, Liberty City, and Vice City might be the most dangerous in the world with maniacs going on mass murdering sprees every 10 minutes and the world’s worst drivers on the roads who crush dozens of pedestrians under their cars and don’t lose a second’s sleep over it.
With all these urban security nightmares surely the governments of GTA will take some action to improve their cities, right? Of course, they will! Some cities may think of arresting all the gangsters and increasing police patrols. GTA authorities, on the other hand, will do the American thing and place a bunch of freely accessible guns all over the city. Vice City just isn’t Vice City without its beaches, palm trees, and floating guns and rocket launchers.
4 ALL WE HAD TO DO, WAS FOLLOW THE TRAIN, CJ
Do you have that one skinny friend who likes to pick fights with anyone and everyone and calls you a coward for stopping the fight and saving his life? If you do then this scene from GTA San Andreas with Big Smoke and CJ would have surely reminded you of them.
In the mission, you are supposed to drive a motorbike next to the train and get close enough to the enemies to allow Big Smoke and yourself to be able to shoot the bad guys. Predictably, the bad guys fight back and since they have high ground it's only logical to step back and recuperate. Unfortunately doing so causes you to fail the mission or triggers Big Smoke's classic "should have followed the damn train" dialogue in return for saving his life or a deadly combination of both.
3 Sup, Officer? Just Walking My RPG Around. Have A Nice Day
Imagine this scenario. You wake up in the morning, have a cup of coffee. You do your morning rituals and get out of the house. You see your Audi parked in the driveway, but you’re in a BMW mood so you try to jack this other dude's BMW on the street but he drives away seeing you. The insolence of this guy! You decide to teach him a lesson and pull out your RPG. You walk to the right position when you see your friendly neighborhood policeman. “Morning Officer, warm day today, eh?” you say, “Yup yup, it's supposed to get better tomorrow. Nice rocket btw!” he replies. You bid him a good day with your winning smile, and he returns the favor and continues his patrolling. “What a nice cop, hope he stays safe out there,” you think while you aim your rocket launcher at the insolent fool in the BMW and utterly obliterate him.
According to GTA, such a scenario is totally plausible and makes 100% sense.
2 Grandma Showing Flash and Sonic the Rewards of a Healthy Breakfast
Every time I go to my grandma’s house I go with an empty stomach because I know I will struggle to find the space for all the delicious and healthy food she cooks for me. Everyone’s grandmas are like this. They are so cute and lovable with their 24x7 knitting, their insistence on feeding you food until you are literally a bite away from puking it all out, and their subtle reminders that they are waiting for great grandchildren now that their grandchildren have become moody teens or workaholic adults. Jk jk, your grandma still loves you.
After playing GTA you will surely regret not listening to your grandma about the importance of a good and healthy breakfast. Grandmas in GTAs run as fast as any other person which is probably why they have lived so long, running (esp from violent shooters) is a vital survival skill in Los Santos.
1 Error 404, Common Sense Not Found
Haven’t you always found it strange that sometimes when windows or doors of vehicles are open but the player character still breaks into the vehicle like it was locked? Perhaps the player likes to do things in style. I mean, if you didn’t suspiciously look around and punched the car's window, did you even steal it?
The most infuriating variation of this behavior is when you are in a high-speed police chase and your car breaks down so you run towards another parked car but the police start shooting and when you finally get to the car. Instead of getting in and dashing, our character looks around to see if anyone is watching him before breaking the window. I mean all those bullets he’s being hit by in the meantime are probably strays, it definitely makes sense to look around and make sure those cops who are 15 feet away and from whom he’s running away from in the first place aren’t looking.