Post by ANWAxSC(+)PE on Jan 20, 2014 11:23:23 GMT 8
Grand Theft Auto V:
More of what you love
Grand Theft Auto has long been considered one of the greatest video game series of all time. The first real sense of success accompanied the release Grand Theft Auto III (which happened to be the first “3D” GTA game), and continued with Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (arguably the greatest game ever made), Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: IV. Following a 5 year hiatus, Rockstar Games finally announced Grand Theft Auto 5, and after countless delays and issues toying with the emotions of many who had been hyped for this game since its announcement, it was finally released on the 17th of September to the delight of many fans, and Rockstar truly delivered their most in-depth and complete (mostly) game to date.
Grand Theft Auto 5 is set in the fictional city of Los Santos, based in the fictional state of San Andreas. The explorable world itself is the biggest city in the history of Grand Theft Auto, and possibly one of the biggest of any game ever created. Rockstar successfully captured almost every aspect of life in America in this city, with much of South Los Santos considered a ghetto, filled with gang-bangers, Vespucci Beach, Vinewood and the Rockford Hills the high-end living areas with rich folk, and Chumash, Paleto Bay and Sandy Shores a desert area filled with hillbillies and bikie gangs.
As soon as you enter into this world, it completely comes to life, with random events constantly occurring as you travel, whether they be helping a woman get her purse back, getting chased by a person whose car you stole or actually being tricked and robbed yourself. The whole city seems to be an exaggeration of American life, with radio stations, TV channels and movies constantly ridiculed by hilarious dialogue and constant ads that may drive you insane, or may just keep you entertained for longer than you think.
Los Santos is inaccessible at the beginning of this game, as it requires the completion of a prologue that gives an introduction to two of the characters almost 10 years before the game actually takes place, explaining much of the tension that arises throughout the story. You’ll begin life in Los Santos playing as Franklin Clinton, a young gangbanger forced to live with his Aunt, who follows his quite stupid best friend and fellow gangbanger Lamar Davis. Dialogue between these two characters is very entertaining, particularly one scene which occurs out the front of his Aunt’s house that will have you in stitches. Franklin begins his career boosting cars for an “international businessman” with Lamar and helping out an old friend with her towing business, but fate has him meet the second playable character Michael De Santa.
Michael De Santa is an ex-criminal who had a reputation for pulling off some amazing scores in his prime. He is the typical bad father, living in Rockford Hills with a fake and cheating wife, a son who sits at home and plays video games all day, and a daughter whose dream is to be famous and becomes a slut in the process. His confrontations with his family provide quite hilarious moments and really highlight Michael’s flaws as a human being. Michael eventually befriends Franklin, and decides to help him begin his true career as a criminal. Michael hires the help of old friend Lester, who keeps both Franklin and Michael busy with side missions throughout the game, and is the mastermind of many of the scores that will be pulled off throughout the game.
Trevor Phillips is the psychotic former best friend of Michael, and the third playable character in the game. He runs his own “international” criminal business called Trevor Phillips Industries and finds himself in a lot of trouble after his business deal with the Asians ensuring his company’s success went sour. Trevor provides some of the funniest dialogue out of the three characters, and constantly finds himself drunk in random places he can’t remember. After discovering the whereabouts of Michael, Trevor travels to Los Santos to confront him.
As these three characters, there are countless activities that can be undertaken. For example, Michael is able to partake in Yoga and Tennis at his house. These activities are not only fun, but will increase the total stats of each character. There are 8 different stats that range between 0 and 5 bars. These are: Special, Stamina, Shooting, Strength, Stealth, Flying, Driving and Lung Capacity. Each character begins with their own individual strengths: Michael has higher shooting and stealth, Franklin has higher driving and stamina, and Trevor has higher strength and flying. Each character also has a special ability which can help you get out of a tight spot. Franklin has the ability to slow down time when he is driving, making cars control more easily, Michael has the ability to slow down time when shooting, making hitting enemies much easier, and Trevor has the ability to go insane, making him invincible to bullet damage and makes him much stronger. Sometimes these abilities can be forgotten in many situations, but prove invaluable in times of dire need.
The single player campaign itself will most likely take around 15-20 hours to complete, but due to the in-depth experience Rockstar have created, if you are trying to max out stats, earn all trophies/achievements and achieve 100% completion, it could take anywhere between 25-40 hours depending on your skill level and how fast you complete many of the missions and activities. There is so much to do in the city however, making play-time near impossible to estimate. You can compete in triathlons and street races, fly planes, sky dive, go mountain biking, play tennis, partake in yoga, go scuba diving, and much more. There is also a very in-depth customization feature for players, allowing you to change the clothes and hair-styles of each character how it best suits you, as well as extensive car customization, which allows you change the rims, body kits, spoilers, exhausts, colour and lights, as well as increasing performance with armour, engine upgrades, turbo upgrades and more.
Rockstar have also made significant improvements to the controls and playability of Grand Theft Auto 5. The control scheme has been tweaked to near perfection, allowing players to choose a suitable control scheme to suit their play style. The weapon system has been changed, with the game going into slow-motion and showing each category of weapon individually in a wheel that uses the thumb stick to choose weapons, and with that the shooting mechanics have also been changed, with more assistance helping to create a much smoother experience for newer players, but can still be changed if more experienced players want a more challenging task. Driving has also been changed significantly after many complaints arose from Grand Theft Auto IV about the driving. Now, cars feel more realistic and have more traction, lessening some of the issues surrounding cars spinning out randomly. The damage mechanics have also been improved, and although cars can still take a beating, they will not last forever if you damage them too much. The only issue that has been mentioned countless times is the flying of helicopters and planes, which is actually very realistic but is very difficult for people to control them smoothly; making some missions that should be fun a tedious task.
Through all its perfection, Grand Theft Auto 5 struggles to impress with its performance. The game itself is absolutely gorgeous, with constant changes in weather and time of day quite stunning, especially when seeing the sun set down at Vespucci and Del Perro Beach. The beauty and scale of the city does create a very long loading-time when starting up the game, which can take anywhere between 1 and 2 minutes to complete (which is a substantial time for an impatient person). There are also many graphical glitches within GTA V, with textures often not appearing for some times and constant pop-ins of objects on the side of the road that is very noticeable even at high speeds. There are also some pop-in errors with cars appearing out of nowhere while driving, catching you off guard and wrecking your dream car. Grand Theft Auto is said to run at 30FPS and looks quite smooth most of the time, but entering some areas of the city creates large drops in frame-rate and can be very frustrating, especially when it happens during an important missions and you find yourself crashing because of it. As an addicting game, the fact that it pushes both Xbox 360 and PS3 to the limit means that overheating is an issue, so people playing for more than 4 hours may encounter more constant FPS drops, as well as risking the game freezing or crashing during important missions.
Grand Theft Auto Online also falls short in its expectations and was a disappointment for most who bought Grand Theft Auto 5. Aside from the fact that it wasn’t actually available with the game at launch, when it was finally activated the servers were unable to handle the sheer volume of people attempting to go online (even though Rockstar should have realised) and crashed very quickly. Thankfully Rockstar was able to fix this issue, but GTA Online still has a lot of issues. As far as I can tell, there are around 32 people in each server that you enter, but the lack of any sort of skill-based matchmaking makes it very difficult for newer players to play and have fun. Most people will hunt down the newer players, ruining the experience and driving people away. Thankfully there is an option to go into a private lobby with friends, which is infinitely more fun most of the time. Online requires money to do anything in Los Santos. You have to buy cars if you want to keep and modify them. Properties are available to purchase (the most expensive costing $400,000) which add a garage (largest garage of 10) and there are heists that can be planned. There are a number of modes in Online which do add a new dynamic to playing publicly. Deathmatch, as the name suggests, is simply a match-up of up to 16 people who must compete in a Free-for-All and collect as much money as possible to win. There are races between 16 players to see who reaches the finish line first (can be in aircraft or vehicles), rallies that rely on teamwork to complete, survival which lasts around 10 waves to keep Trevor Phillips Industries protected as well as many more. You can also hold up small stores and rob them for money. Grand Theft Auto Online is very in-depth, but there are too many issues that will hamper the experience for many newer players.
Summary:
Grand Theft Auto 5 has set a new standard for gaming. It has built upon what has made the series so famous and created a fun, dark and immersive experience that is matched by none. The characters are likeable, the missions are mostly fun, the banter is hilarious and the game looks amazing. Sadly, for all its perfection Grand Theft Auto struggles to maintain a steady FPS, and Online isn't very "noob-friendly", with a skill-based matchmaking system seemingly required to help these newer players to get into Online, and much larger heists, more properties and possibly more activities still to be desired for. Thankfully, Rockstar have really succeeded in giving this generation of gaming a proper sending off before the release of the Playstation 4 and Xbox One
+ Stunning Visuals
+ Immersive Campaign
+ Hilarious Dialogue
- Performance Issues
9.5/10
Ive done the easter egg on the dlc1 zombie map in solo on my ps4 folks