Grand Theft Auto V
It’s time to review the most controversial game ever. You
know, that game with tons of graphic examples for kids how to be next
generation Hitler, Jack the Ripper and Vlad the Impaler mixed together into a
casserole with evil cheese sauce dressing. With the success of GTA IV along
with the 2 additional episodes with different characters, Rockstar thought of
making the next GTA a whole package with Michael, Franklin and Trevor.
GAMEPLAY
It’s a sandbox crime game, like every previous GTA with a
bunch of side activities. This time you can switch characters on the fly, it
feels like each character is a living human with their own lives going in the
background besides incinerating sidewalkers. The main campaign is great with
all the plannable heists, if only there were more of those. Side activities
also don’t have much depth, just some base jumping, sport events, assassination
for Franklin, rampage for Trevor and some other side activities, like back in Ballad of Gay Tony, Luis can
gather his buddies Armando and Henrique to go on drug wars, why can’t we gather
the 3 guys for side heists or something. I know that wouldn’t go well with the
ending, but they’re just side activities with no story relation, why not? It’s
also quite tricky to gather the trio in free roam, why can’t we just have a conference to gather
somewhere and start chaos, instead when we come across a character, we’re
discouraged to approach them by making the automated character shooing the
playable and if you keep following him, he’ll punch you in the face instantly
killing you in a short cutscene. Just when I thought I could actually fistfight
or gun down a friendly.
So free roam gets boring quite easily. The story
missions however, are mostly fun. I expected a lot more shootout, but I guess
with more of those in it, there wouldn’t be much variety like stealth bits,
hacking, torture, and the torturous yoga. I failed missions from dying a bit,
sometimes it’s for messing around and going too far from the objective and the
most is fucking yoga. I also love how every character has a special ability
with Franklin’s driving precision ability, Michael’s bullet time that looks
like Max Payne’s and instead of getting another heightened precision slow-mo
ability, trevor gets a rage mode, ya know, the usual less damage taken, more
damage dealt while the screen covered in rage-inducing vignette.
STORY
I must say this is the GTA with the best story so far, all 3
characters have a connected plot, but behind it, each also has their own side of
unique story. Franklin’s plot is about him getting out of his small-time
gangster life with Lamar and the OG Grove St. gang, going up the food chain and
raising his Gs while not entirely abandoning the OG. Michael is about a
zombie... No seriously, Mike faked his death, moved to Los Santos to lay low,
but he eventually gets bored and his family also doesn’t like him going into
retirement and feeling like shit, so he rises back up from his “grave” to score
some hard cash, he kinda has 2 plots about family issues and going back into
his game. Trevor though, his plot is about fucking shit up, and some trust
issues with Michael. They’re all interesting and sometimes I get my head
tangled in the plot trying to connect them all. 
In this game, we see tons of colorful characters, all GTAs
have always been like this, I remember when I was a kid playing San Andreas
always losing track of all the characters, it’s a good thing I’ve grown to
distinctively know them better and the characters in GTA V are also quite colorful
personality-wise, mostly are stereotypes though, and I was sure I hated every
single character until I met Trevor, he’s just a blast to see in cutscenes with
his rambling and drastic actions. From all 3 protagonists, I must say that the
TRULY main character is Franklin, he kinda has the traits of basic game
protagonist type-0, shut up and follow orders, he does make some character
development by the end, but most of the time, he’s the pawn and always told to
do stuff.
GRAPHICS
I play the PC version, do you need to ask? This game’s already gorgeous on last gen
consoles, Rockstar’s really made all that delay worth it. I still encounter
graphical glitches like models going all over the place, lighting flickery but they
barely happen.
The major problems with visual though, is the HUD, the default
simple aiming reticle so tiny, I had to set it to complex and this game is like an annoying girlfriend who keeps saying she's fine while clearly she's pissed, that tiny health bar under the minimap is
just so excruciatingly unnoticeable, when playing a game with lots of shooting, I wanna know
clearly when I get shot and where it came from, especially when I’m a poke away from death.
Everything is so well-animated in this game, every
single thing like even the movement of hair and clothes blown by the wind is
noticed. I know we all can live without it, you’re not gonna lose sleep over it,
you won’t feel a disturbance in the force, but it’s nice to have those little
details.
MUSIC
The first thing I notice in this game is actual BGM in
certain points in a mission, in every previous GTAs, I have to rely on radio
stations just to make sure the silence doesn’t put me to sleep. Like in a chase
mission, you don’t think about finding a suitable music, you just go, in other
GTAs I often find myself having a driving shootout while having classical or
smooth jazz blasting from the radio and foot chase feels so tedious, GTA V
actually has the decency of shutting the radio off immediately to kick the
music in for the moment, after that, you can always switch it back, but I
personally prefer the game’s BGM.
CONCLUSION
This game is like a warm chocolate milk, it’s so sweet and awesome
while it lasts, but a while after you finish that mug, you just wanna fall
asleep. Playing through the story is so good, it’s immersive, I seriously didn’t
want it to end so quickly, it lasted pretty long, but not long enough and
replaying missions just doesn’t feel as fun anymore. Basically, this game needs
more offline contents because most of the truly sweet stuff is planned for GTA
online and I’m one of those people who doesn’t wanna be tied down by internet
connection just to play a game (my internet connection sucks, SHUT UP!) or
maybe I just need a friend to play with. Overall, it’s an awesome game, but
it’s still lacking in side activities, I’m a fucking forever alone bastard and
FUCK YOGA! This game gets 9/10
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