Grand Theft Auto V
Grand Theft Auto V (PS4, 2014) Nine years after a botched robbery attempt, Michael de Santa (real name Townsley) lives a relatively quiet life in the city of Los Santos under witness protection with his wife and two children. Though he lives a life of luxury, his life is far from perfect. Also living in Los Santos is Franklin Clinton, a young gangbanger who aspires for a better life and who works as a repo man for a less than credible car dealership. A chance meeting between the two as well as a misunderstanding leads to Michael and Franklin being forced into committing a high profile heist in order to pay off the resulting debt. The heist catches the attention of one Trevor Phillips, a former associate of Michael’s in robbing banks and who believes Michael to be dead. Traveling from the desert town of Sandy Shores to Los Santos and discovering that Michael is indeed alive, Trevor’s sudden appearance causes the worlds of both Franklin and Michael to unravel as they both must deal with the trouble it brings.
--
After a five year absence, Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto franchise came back with a bang in Grand Theft Auto V. Set in the fictional State of San Andreas and in a way an HD remake of GTA San Andreas, the game takes place mostly in the city of Los Santos and the surrounding desert, based on Los Angeles and its own arid climate. The scope of the game is absolutely extraordinary, and feels like a living and breathing world no different than ours. Though not the same as San Andreas that featured three cities and multiple diverse locations and small towns, GTA makes up for this in the exceedingly beautiful city and landscapes that are present in the game. Where you are fleeing from the police in the Los Santos canal (based on the LA canal), cruising through Vinewood Hills in a fancy sports car, or visiting a cult in the mountains north of the city, the game has practically everything you could ask for in a city and a state. The draw distance in the game has also improved to the point where you can see things from a much greater distance than you could in previous games, really enhancing the beauty of the world. The level of detail in the game is absolutely mind blowing, and simply does not disappoint. Rockstar really threw everything into creating a masterpiece of a world for the players to play in. The map is huge, and with so many places to explore, you will almost always find something new.
What almost immediately sets this game apart from its predecessors is the characters. Unlike in previous games where the player took control of a single protagonist (with the exception of the DLC content of GTA IV), the player has control of three interesting and unique characters that all have a story of their own. Though you initially only have control of Franklin and Michael, Trevor becomes available later in the game, and Rockstar takes full advantage of the new system. Each character has their own missions (main and side missions), where only they participate, while all characters can also take part in many of the missions, where the game will either offer you the option of switching between all the characters or making the switch for you. This allows for the player to build a diverse set of characters each with their own strengths and weaknesses while also allowing for the player to participate in all aspects of a single mission in a more realistic way than previous games where the main character did everything. Switching between the three characters is easy, and only limited by the point of the story you are in (some characters are unavailable at certain points) or limited by the point in the particular mission the player is doing. Each character has their own safe house, car, relationships, skills, money amounts, and more that all make them unique and fun. Additionally, with all characters available you can drop in on them at any time and see what they were doing just before you take control. This can range from Michael coming out of a movie theater to Trevor waking up hung over and confused and in the middle of nowhere. Every character has a different personality and a different sense of morality that creates an interesting story as well as gameplay possibilities. Finally, each character also has a “special ability” to utilize at certain key moments: Franklin can slow down time while driving and increase his driving ability, Michael can enter a sort of ‘bullet time’, and Trevor can enter a state that allows him to deal double the damage while taking half the damage he normally would. In addition to each character having their own strengths and weaknesses, having three characters allows for the player to engage in three separate yet linked stories, allowing each character to grow on their own when they are not interacting with each other.Missions and their effect on character and story progression has been changed slightly from previous games. For the most part, most missions no longer reward the player with money or respect or any sort of tangible benefit. A lot of the missions involve the specific character’s person lives, but many of them involve the overall story; the pursuit of money. The point of most of these missions is the groundwork towards pulling off increasingly more difficult heists throughout the state. These heists are the main way for the player to make money, and each character has their own money amounts. For the heists, the amount of money obtained depends on the quality of participating NPC’s. For exampe, for a heist the player can recruit people a selection of people to act as an extra gunman, a hacker, a getaway driver, etc that all have their own levels of skills that can affect the outcome of a mission. Their skills directly affect their ability in the mission, and making a poor choice such as a bad driver could cause you to lose a significant chunk of money should they screw up. Their skills also determine how much of a cut they can get from the heist, which is something to consider. Additionally, these heists are different in that the player can choose two ways to do the heist, typically simplified to a “loud and dumb” way versus a “quiet and smart” way. Also, in an improvement over its predecessor, GTA V has checkpoints during missions. Failure will not mean starting over from the very beginning of the mission. The benefit of this cannot be overstated at all, as some missions can take a very long time to complete, and failure near the end would be enormously frustrating.Side missions are also numerous and diverse. These are known as “Strangers and Freaks”, involving the character interacting with a large variety of people throughout San Andreas, from a paparazzi trying to get a perfect compromising picture of a celebrity to an exercise enthusiast that you try to keep up with in varying activities (running, biking, swimming). Each character has their own side missions with different people and some of the Strangers and Freaks are shared between characters. Additionally, the game has a number of “random events” that can occur throughout the game. These can range from catching a wallet thief to driving a person somewhere to rescuing someone from a dangerous situation. These can reward you with small amounts of cash, a person to participate in side activities with (such as golf), or even a new person to add to your heist crews.
Overall the missions are fun and fresh for the franchise. You can also go back and replay the missions whenever you want in order to take advantage of the new “full completion” mechanism that offers increased challenges in completing each mission. There are around a hundred and thirty missions and side missions, and fifty random events, lending the game a huge story and amount of side activities to play through.As far as other facets of gameplay are concerned, Grand Theft Auto V does not disappoint even in the slightest. As implied by the title, driving cars as well as operating other vehicles is a large component of the game, and features an (in my opinion) improved driving mechanic. Grand Theft Auto IV was criticized for its driving and Rockstar seemed to have listened, making the driving a bit more forgiving than before and allowing for cars to take a significant amount of damage before becoming inoperable. It’s still possible to really mess up the vehicle in one hit and make it difficult to drive, such as a wheel on your car getting jammed under a damaged wheel well, or getting your tires popped and the rubber coming off, but overall it seems more difficult to completely wreck a car to the point where it will not start. Some players are not happy about the controls and physics being relaxed a bit, but as far as I’m concerned it makes for a much more enjoyable experience.
In addition to cars, other vehicles are heavily featured. Planes make a return due to the incredible size of the map, and with a large variety of those and helicopters, it is easy to quickly travel around the map at certain stages of the game. There are also two main military aircraft, an attack helicopter and a fighter plane, available if the player is willing to take the risk in stealing them from the military base north of the city. Boats and other watercraft are also available, with the notable addition of a single-seat submersible that is used during a heist but is also available later for just diving.
Combat remains similar to the Grand Theft Auto IV with the addition of far more weapons to play around with as well as an improved cover system. With several categories (pistols, assault rifles, machine guns, sniper rifles, heavy weapons, etc) available, each category also has several different weapons to choose from with varying degrees of power and capabilities. Getting the weapons is easy as you can acquire weapons from dead enemies or by visiting the various gun stores around the state that offer weapons available for purchase depending on what stage you are at in the game. You can also purchase five different levels of body armor to protect yourself, with appropriate levels of cost for each one (ligher armor being cheaper, for example). With such a large variety of weapons comes a new way to switch guns: the weapons wheel. Pressing the appropriate button will bring up the wheel and slow down (but not stop) the gameplay as you select the weapon you desire. This makes it simple to change from a shotgun for enemies that are just a few feet away to a sniper rifle to pick off an enemy significantly farther away. The combat also allows the player to take cover from enemy fire by running behind an object and “sticking” to it. You can then blind fire around the corner or come out briefly to aim properly. The only REAL problem is the fact that the shooting reticle is somewhat small and can be difficult to see in certain conditions, especially while driving and firing, while the AI has the magical ability to shoot accurately at moving targets in a car from a great distance. Overall, the combat is fun but perhaps a bit too easy, especially with higher levels of shooting skill where you can headshot people at a hundred yards or more away with a pistol. Also, wounded enemies will no longer try to retreat out of the line of fire, but will instead fire at you from the ground. The game also takes into account headshots from the enemy on the character; it is now possible for one shot to kill you. Even still, the combat is rather fun and the enemy AI does seem to be substantially improved, if a bit too much improved.Speaking of combat, the police of course return to the franchise, and they return with a vengeance. The police are quite trigger happy and will search for you quite thoroughly. When given a wanted level the player must attempt to get out of sight of the police. When no police are nearby, the player is considered hiding, and must stay away from any cops and their cone of vision (established on the mini map). If spotted again, the police chase after the player, but if the player remains out of sight long enough the police will give up. There are varying levels of difficulty, represented by five stars, and with each extra star it becomes more difficult to escape as faster law enforcement vehicles and helicopters join the pursuit. At higher levels the enemies are better armed and armored, and substantially more difficult to kill. The helicopters also function as platforms for men to take shots with carbines at the player, or even rope in four officers into the immediate area. The police have substantially better AI than before, and this comes at a cost of more aggressive police who can be called in in seconds by witnesses with cell phones. The AI is actually quite something to behold, with police attempting to box you in or do the pit maneuver to bring the chase to an end. You will hardly ever see them on the streets outside of wanted levels, however, and if you do they will typically be chasing other criminals.
Outside of the missions and the story overall, there is a large amount of features available for the player. Featuring a return to the franchise is the ability to customize both your character, your cars, and even your weapons to a limited degree. You can buy a variety of clothes to alter the appearance of your character at several clothes stores. You can change these clothing arrangements at that character’s safe house. It is also possible to customize vehicles, from changing the color to changing the suspension to even armoring the car so that it could take more hits/bullets. Characters can also visit several barbershops and tattoo parlors to change the physical appearance of each character. Finally, the guns themselves can be changed at a gun store by buying weapon modifications, which can be a silencer or an extended clip or even changing the color of the gun (though only two additional colors are available in addition to the standard black color. Though there is not as much customization overall in the game compared to its predecessor San Andreas, GTA V does offer more than GTA IV.
Another large feature of the game is the cell phone. Making a return from the previous game, the cell phone in GTA V allows each character to call and be called during the course of the game. The cell phone is important in several missions, enabling the player to receive updates outside of the missions and during, and allows the character to access the internet and even play the stocks online for a bit of extra cash. This cash can be put towards buying more customization for the characters or even toward the purchase of properties that can be used to boost each characters’ income.
Though the game came out over a year ago and already broken numerous records and won pretty much every award under the son, Rockstar decided to take advantage of the new capabilities of the PS4 and XBO, and eventually the PC, to re-release an even better game, complete with improved graphics and even many updated or added on features towards the gameplay itself. On the Playstation 4 this manifests in several ways. Rockstar utilizes the remote itself to add a new dimension to the game. The built in speaker in the controller is used for all cellphone and radio chatter that occurs in the game should the player wish it, ensuring the the sound itself does not mix much with the in game sounds such as shooting. The lightbar on the PS4 is also used, changing different colors depending on the situation. All three characters are given their own light color, represented by their in game colors represented in mission icons and other ways. Michael's light turns blue, Franklin's green, and Trevor orange. The light bar is also used when the police are after the player, and flashes between red and blue intermittently. While none of these features are particularly ground breaking, it does show that Rockstar considers the features of the Playstation 4 and used them to their full potential.The graphics are of course improved on in the transition from last generation to current generation, but Rockstar took it a step further by adding other new features as well. Players now have the option of playing in first person mode, a first for the franchise, and one that adds so much to the game. While it can be an awkward transition, the feature makes the world feel more alive, and even changes combat and driving quite significantly. The world simply feels much more alive when you feel like you are actually in the game, and there is no denying that it is a significant improvement over its predecessor. There are also new, smaller things to do in the game itself, but those will not be discussed as they are fun to discover all on their own.
I could go on and on about the game and its features, so instead I will wrap it up. Grand Theft Auto V is an amazing step forward for the Grand Theft Auto franchise. It builds upon the work of its predecessors and improves them (or brings them back) and even manages to introduce some new features. The atmosphere of the game is fantastic, with the world feeling almost too real, and the story can really suck you in. Of particular note is the weather effects, which are sometimes scripted into a mission to provide a dark or intimidating atmosphere for the plot, and with the new graphics of the PS4 effects such as rain look even better than before. The addition of more than one protagonist is a fresh take on the franchise, and ensures that the story never grows old as each character has their own motives in what they do. The combat and evasion of enemy NPCs is fun, though perhaps a bit easy. The writing and the voice acting are superb, the best of the series in my opinion. The soundtrack, featuring both real world music as well as an original score, adds much to the scope of the game. The re-release also adds new music overall to the game, which is a positive for many but for someome such as myself it does not matter much. The game is of course not without controversy, including a full and interactive torture scene, and has managed to offend pretty much everyone with its satirical look at aspects of American life present in dialogue, the world, and even the radio. And the ending…Well, the ending can play out in three different ways, offering the player a choice in how the journey ends. Really the only criticisms I can offer is that the heists are the primary way of making money, which can be a slight drag early on in the game. The countryside is also mostly unused, specifically the most northern part of the map, which I feel is a waste as the developers clearly put a lot of time and effort into making these places. Much of it is mountainous or desert, and while it does add to the realism of the game it is simply wasted space. Many of the places are so unused that I have significant areas of unexplored map even by the end of the game, and there plenty of things to explore. But perhaps the point is to explore them on your own, or use them in GTA Online. But even with these small negatives, there is no denying that Grand Theft Auto V is quite possibly one of the best games of all time, and is certainly one of my favorites. This game is simply breathtakingly awesome, and having now played it twice, I still want to play it again. It is that fun, and that good.
10/10
VIDEO
Enjoy some of my gameplay