Grand Theft Auto, Iâm pretty sure we all know the one. Grand Theft Auto is the vastly developed, long-timed series that combines the subtle features of sandboxing, driving, shooting and adventuring. Many kids wish to play this because it feels so cool to do whatever you can.
The many many releases behind, here comes Grand Theft Auto 5, or should I say GTA V. I personally didnât feel an urge to get it but as soon as the hype intensified near the release, I didnât have a choice but to buy it as well.
Grand Theft Auto V was released on 17th of September 2013 on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. This was the first disappointment for the large audience of PC players. The enhanced version is to be released on November 18th 2014 to Playstation 4 and Xbox One, but the PC release got delayed once again not earlier than April 2015.
Story: Classic Grand Theft Auto style plot, but with protagonists getting in deep with each other and also with the rest of the world. The idea of a prologue and history in characterwise was refreshing.
It all begins with the prologue of M, T and B robbing a local bank in Ludendorff, North Yankton. This concludes B and M getting shot. B (Brad) becomes arrested and T (Trevor Phillips) running for his life as more and more law officers show up. M (Michael Townley) ends up faking his death and changing his persona to Michael De Santa. He moves to the big city, Los Santos with his family and leaving his old crew.
In Los Santos, San Andreas (The smallest state there ever was) we get introtused to a new character, repo-jobbing Franklin Clinton. Franklin gets to know Michael. As Michael begins to dream the big money once again, he begins to run some big operations and comes back together with some old friends. Trevor finds out Michael is indeed alive and when he gets his hands on Michael, wouldnât he want to become a part of the scores. GTA V is first in the series to present multiple playable characters.
Meet Franklin: Franklin Clinton is the âreasonableâ one of the trio. He is the one that gets the âThis ainât rightâ feeling but still is as criminal as the other two. He is often pressured to choose between his downtown homies and his new crime partners. Franklin is introduced at the very beginning after prologue. If you are not familiar with the idea of three playable characters, switch between characters at the very beginning may confuse you. I know it was confusing to me.
Meet Michael: Being the father of a good-for-nothing fat gamer son, Jimmy and the "doing-anything-for-fame" daughter, Stacey, the life at De Santa resident is no ordinary life. Not even mentioning about his cheating wife Amanda, no wonder Michael is so cold hearted. But deep inside, he wants good for his family. Michael De Santa is the planner and the initiative member of the crew. His profit-lust makes him un-retire and get back into business. Not spoiling anything (though everyone has already played through this game) but Michael could've been better off without ever meeting up with Trevor, they got some complicated history.
Meet Trevor: Now this guy is nuts. He has some problems comprehending with people and often just killing anyone in his way, especially business rivals. He runs a company, the âTrevor Phillips Industriesâ which is mostly drug and firearm deliveries by planes. Assisted by Ron and Wade, Trevor has made multiple enemies across country and has become a public enemy. Does he care none? No. Trevor seems to have a thing about screwing anyone. You might find him doing some private stuff with almost anybody. He cherishes all women possible and can be a sensitive person, especially when it comes to his mother. Otherwise heâs pretty obliged on harassing everyone, both physically and mentally. When switching to Trevor, you might find him in some absurd scenarios, like waking up with a hangover wearing nothing but his underpants on a beach with a dozen bodies.
Gameplay: You'll sink countless hours into this masterpiece, but nothing is perfect. Some things were better in earlier entries in the series. Grand Theft Auto V was the first game in the series that really felt like a true open-world game.
Thereâs just so much to tell about this game, both good and bad. My opinion is that this game was a little too hyped because even though itâs an amazing game with a lot of play hours to enjoy, there were some disappointments and just from the amount of excitement everyone gave into it, i expected a little more.
To me, this game focuses too much on shooting people and driving around. There is a beautifully designed nature environments out there, Rockstar didnât utilize this. Sure thereâs a couple of missions and other past-time hobbies there but the way I see it, itâs kind of a waste of some good work. It just isnât done so like you want to spend time there in the wilderness. Itâs all in the city life. But this is the feature Grand Theft Auto has had in it the whole time so I donât know if itâs a good or a bad thing. I just wished more from Blaine County.
The wanted star system is a very good advancement, but has some irritating issues. For example, imagine a situation where you leave your character idling and there happens to be a cop nearby. So what, right? No. If you stare at a cop for some time, you get a star. Well then, you immediately think of escaping. When you start running away, you get an another star. Driving away you find out that it begins spawning cops possibly right in front of you. This sucks because when you get out of their sight, they get a âsight coneâ which indicates their vision. And the evading time is something ridiculous.
For once, the game makes it difficult to evade stars if you're on the move, so if there's a bit more heat going on, you're stuck to hiding in alleys and other shady areas. In a game like GTA, you would want to get rid of the lawforces quickly. This is not possible because itâs takes the minimum of about thirty seconds to evade even one star. It sounds like such a short time, but when you are just trying to play and you keep getting those wanted stars, you find yourself hiding quite often just trying to get the cops off of you. Most ridiculous one is when you have high enough wanted level to get chased by helicopters, if you are on a helicopter yourself, evading the stars gets close to impossible. They keep spawning right in front of you and donât ever stop. If not for the city skyscrapers, evading those pilots would be impossible.
The driving mechanics are one of the best there is. I remember the first times playing, driving was just so satisfying. I donât mean itâs not still, but you get rather familiar with it. Collision detection and car crashes make the vehicles too heavy in my opinion. You could crash a car going 200Â km/h and it would only slide for about ten metres. I donât mind really, but itâs so different compared to earlier Grand Theft Auto entries, like San Andreas and Vice City. In those games you got the satisfaction of making an NPC car blast off when you hit them.
There are many activities and games other than going through the storyline or terrorizing the city in free mode. There are tennis, yoga, taxi driving missions, darts, going to the movies, playing golf, call and hang with your friends, hunting, the rollercoaster and ferris wheel, collecting hidden items all around San Andreas, doing tasks for strangers and freaks, parachuting, racing by land, sea and air, taking the flight school, surfing the web, walking and playing with your dog, taking rides in a taxi, submerging and scuba diving.
As you can see, there are quite a lot of stuff to do other than missions. Only one problem, most of these are just plain boring. I mean, come on, yoga? And itâs always the same thing. Where are the vigilante and other emergency missions? How about the arcade machines from San Andreas?
In GTA V, you can get drunk, but they removed the ragdoll effect. You canât do much on the internet. Street Racing gets kind of pointless when you have Franklinâs ability to slow time, of course this is depends on the player. I loved how in GTA 4 (IV) the taxi drivers, if you told them to hurry up, they did. The amusement park contraptions are the worst. Parachute jump doesnât give me the intense daredevil feeling like it should, but parachutes are really neat generally.
They could have made the underwater world more useful, because Iâm loving it! The secrets down there, all those sunken ships and planes in the bottom. Thereâs quite a few easter eggs below the surface, too. The biggest disappointment was that thereâs no sea monster. It would have been awesome when you wander off too far from the island and you hear some crumbling in the distance. Next thing you know, thereâs an enormous whale eating you alive. Just writing this gives me the chills, but itâs just my fantasy. The underwater world is not used properly enough, only major purpose is when submerging in two different missions and collecting submarine parts and nuclear waste. Thatâs pretty much all there is to it.
Graphics: As of 2013, hardware limitations restricted this game from being the most realistic-looking video game up to date! Even today, the graphics are still stunning.
First of all, what Iâd like to point out is that the AMOUNT OF DETAIL in this game is incredible. The houses, all the small stuff everywhere. If you were to seach every little detail in San Andreas state, be sure to say good bye to all your relatives. Must I say, this game probably has the best looking explosions to date. I just feel like I'm just saying the same thing over and over again, but my point is that the game is very well made and I tip my small tophat to the leading art team.
Soundtrack: Classic thing for Rockstar to include a bunch of in-game radio stations with licensed songs. The game itself includes incredibly high quality sound effects and voice acting. Being a multi-million company, that's no surprise.
Not much to say about the music in GTA V. Thereâs pretty much something for everyone considering the genre-sorted radio channels. The songs picked for this game are not exactly up to date. Of course, due to copyright and budget reasons, Rockstar wasnât able to include much music from todayâs lists, so weâll have to deal with the old-school gems. I just wish theyâd include a feature for one to add their own playlist from external devices.
As usual for high companies, sound effects ranging from vehicles to voice acting is top notch. Much like done in graphics, GTA V is as realistic as it gets (not gameplay-wise).
Cinematics: With Rockstar's large budget, it doesn't matter whether you're watching a GTA V cutscene or an acted scene with real people. Perhaps I'm exaggerating, but I know many people such as myself enjoyed not skipping through the story.
Really I don't have anything to tell you about the cutscenes other than they match the quality of the Last of Us and Metal Gear Solid 4 (or any other MGS for that matter), just to name a few.
Conclusion: 9 out of 10. A must buy game for anyone mature enough to handle the freedom of doing anything without responsibilities. Grand Theft Auto V is really the video game you can do anything in. I reduced one point on the final score because of the dull activities in this game.
As much as I enjoyed this game, it does not rise over the original San Andreas. It is most likely out of nostalgia, but I feel like San Andreas had more interesting activities and minigames. If you were to combine GTA V's game engine and graphics into San Andreas and somehow merge the two worlds together, that would be the greatest thing ever.
I apologise for the review being rushed, but I really had no time (being the lazy ass I am) and most of this article was written two years ago. I know I really shouldn't be sorry.
Purchase the game on Steam here or search your local video game dealer.
Bob will be back with us on thursday with a little extension review regarding Grand Theft Auto Online. Be sure to check it out! Next monday we'll get back on normal schedule.
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