Grand Theft Auto V

Overly Dramatic Review in One Sentence

A group of demented, narcissistic, and fiendish outlaws end up working together for their own benefit, only for corrupt officials to make them pull off bigger and bigger risk.

The Actual Review

Game time:

PC: 28 hours
Xbox: 88 hours

Gameplay

I talked about large maps in Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint and this one feels large, however, the roads are nice, and the cars are fast. Giving you the ability to traverse the big map with joy. It is also full of other people that have their own AI so it doesn't feel empty like Breakpoint. Sometimes it is still annoying when you have to cross the entire map to get to a mission, but you can call a taxi to take you there. However, you call the taxi and then whistle for it and that gameplay loop is not my favorite.

The way the missions are structured is really fun. You have these "?" on the map and that leads to really interesting encounters and random gameplay events like Trevor's Rampages. These events are just an overload of him going crazy and killing a lot of people because he feels upset by them, typically for calling him Canadian. Outside these "Freaks and Strangers" missions, there are storyline missions that follow the "Overly Dramatic" portion above. There are races, sports, yoga, darts, and really just a bunch of city activity in it. You can play for hours and really just enjoy the city. There is multitude of different radio stations you can listen to when in the car, just like you scrolling through the frequencies on your radio today. Not that anyone doesn't listen to Apple or Spotify these days, but it is possible.

As for the gun play in this game, it is simple and easy to understand. There is a little dot, pull the trigger and bullets go where the dot is. There are different weapons and the shooting while driving or in a vehicle is pretty easy. It honestly is pretty good when you compare it to other games that have come out AFTER and done a worse job like Watch Dogs.

Speaking of Watch Dogs, the driving in this game is almost perfect. The cars are blatant copies of real cars with different names, and I'm down with it. It is fun. Motorcycles, SUVs, hummers, helicopters, planes, sedans, bicycles, and ATVs. You want to drive something or fly something, you pretty much can. This is even a Bugatti Veyron copy.

Graphics and Sound

My biggest complaint about sound is the guns. They all sound the same as far as overall sound, but just sped up or slowed down fire rates.

What makes the sound really nice is the way it fills the void with noise. I sound pretentious saying that, but hear me out. When you are playing games usually it is just sirens, car engines, and tires squealing and when you are in a long police chase or race, it can get annoying, redundant, tired. However, GTA gives you the police scanner, the pedestrians in other cars that you hit, the character voices, and all of those things together just give you a complete feeling of closer to real life.

The game is stunning to look at during the sunset. The rest of the game isn't bad with it basically being a facsimile of Los Angeles and San Bernardino County, but the sunsets are where it is at. I know that this game has had some updates for graphics over the years speaking that it came out in September 2013, so over a decade ago. However, I remember playing on the Xbox 360 and thinking the same thing. They did a great job with that, and it is crazy to think that it was that good back then.

Story and Characters

This is where it is going to get rough. I am cool with the setup, the opening story beat of the game is awesome. A bank heist. I'm down. How the characters meet up and get twisted with each other, I'm cool with that too. Where you lose me is the stupidity of the characters in thinking that corrupt federal agents aren't going to keep manipulating them. It takes way too long for someone to say it.

You have 3 playable characters in this game. Franklin, Trevor, and Michael. In most cases you can choose who you want to play as, but there are times when you are forced to play a certain character. That back and forth is nice. Trevor has zero growth and it just a lunatic the entire game and people like him for that, I don't. I find him overindulgent, berating to my ears when he talks, and just frustratingly manipulative. Franklin is a dude trying to pull himself up out of the gang life. I can get behind that, but they call it out in the game, and it does feel like that where he just lords it over other people. I don't think it is his intention at times to lord it over, but that is what it looks like. Then there is Michael. He is a "retired" bank robber who hasn't disciplined his kids ever or taken his wife on a date in the last 10 years. He lives for the glory days and just is there.

With these three characters, it is fun to play. You have this wide variety of interactions with the AI as you run around town, but for the most part, you end up sticking with a particular one of them. I always played Michael because he has the most character growth out of the three. It is nice to see him attempt to be a better Dad and husband.

My Rating

I played this when it first came out in 2013. I worked at GameStop part-time during the holidays while I was active duty and was able to see the rush this game had on the world. I VIVIDLY remember a mom not paying attention to what game her young son had picked up and was about to buy it and then just saw the title, and slap her son on the back of the head. Then another time that my manager told a mom what the content of the game actually was while her son was elsewhere and mom still bought it. The popularity of this game is crazy. There were still making content for the GTA Online portion till a couple of years ago, I'd say last year. I think now it is mostly recycled content. I beat it back then doing almost everything and the feeling that set itself with me when I was about to play through it again was how long the story was. However, As you can see from the PC time above it was only about 20 hours of story just do to ONLY the main story, with a couple accidental side missions. The main story is interesting, and I enjoyed the playtime even going back through it. I forgot about quiet a bit and the missions are really entertaining. Its is a good time. There is a reason this game is still so popular that there are RPG servers 11 years after it was created. This game is absolutely "Worth a playthrough." If not then it is a "Must play" with the only real negative comment being the language just being so hard (Which should say something speaking that I "swear like a sailor") and it just being a dry story overall. Fun, but dry.

Parental Rating

Back then, the language was rough. 11 years later, it is still rough. There isn't a sentence that cuss word isn't used multiple times it feels like and some of the characters say absolutely crazy things at times. There are scenes of sex, and a crap ton of violence. They would never let me play this game as a kid.

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