Customization-O-Meter (I'm really not good at puns, sorry)
It's no secret that having a character in the game look like you makes the game more fun. It's just simple math. Wait...no it's psychology. My bad. It's called character identification, and it's a major principle of game theory. The idea is that the more you can tweak the way the character looks to make it how you look (or how you want to look) the more you will feel involved in the game. GTA has never really been all that interested in excessive customization.GTA did allow players to start dying/cutting their hair, buying new clothes, and modifying their cars, but the selection has always been pretty limited. The game's level of customization reflects the focus. GTA tells a story. Each game has a different story about a specific person in a specific point in time, and that has created some restrains on the ability to customize. San Andreas offered the highest level, and a surprisingly addictive "working out" minigame that increased player's musculature. Other than San Andreas, though, most GTA games have been limited to mostly just the clothes you wear when you're out smashing. Saint's Row kicked up the bar a notch with their character customization. Players got to choose their race, gender, body type, hair cut, and a ridiculous beard. And, if you changed your mind, you could always go to a plastic surgeon to get things switched about. Saint's Row also has a pretty extensive tattoo and clothing selection. However, the cake goes to APB, which allows players more customized options than a Thai bathhouse (spoiler: there really aren't many options in the bathhouse.) Players get to customize cars to a ridiculous level, spray painting and loading them up, can buy from an unparallelled number of haircuts (each of customizable length), probably thousands of combinations of clothes, and guns. Of course, usually that just means a bunch of people with green mohawks, but at least the option is there. Final Tally: GTA: 1 Dead Civilian - this game is a lot more about destruction than creation Saint's Row: 2 Dead Civilians - The Row starts out strong with the customized body, but the end game choices just aren't all that abundant APB: 3 Dead Civilians - you could probably create exact replica of your favorite actor or actress (including their clothing) using this system.