Air grievances. Praise the lord. Whatever is on your mind, when playing GTA V.

Like:

• Nipples at the Titty Bar
• Walking Chop
• Driving mechanics
• On-foot shooting mechanics (using free aim myself)
• Cover mechanic
• Missions are crazy awesome

Dislike:

• in-vehicle shooting mechanics (seriously dude?! No improvement over GTA IV? No toggle to aim? As in I can't aim without continuously shooting my gun? What the fuck is that?)

I'm fucking baffled that one of my major gripes made it from GTA IV to GTA V. I can't wrap my head around it really. Seriously? Can't aim my gun from inside a vehicle without constantly squeezing the trigger? That's 'effed up design right there. No excuses! Not to mention that it didn't get mentioned in any of the reviews I read/watched either. That's fucked up! I mean it's painfully obvious. It ain't sound design. Mental really.

P.S. Only a couple of hours in thus far. Haven't even met Trevor yet. I'm sure there's a lot more to like and dislike down the road.

I know! That aiming in the cars is messed up! Worse than IV! It's the only thing I really dislike in this game, as well as the fact that you can no longer see the health remaining of the person you are targeting.

+ Effective range of shotguns
- Low poly nipples

Planes are fucking hard to fly with precision.

I popped in the disk. Installed it. Shot some dudes, then got my car flipped over by floaty physics.

Yup, sure is a GTA game. :p

So much aliasing. So. Goddamn. Much.

I like that I'm almost off work!

I dislike that you jobless SOB's played before me!

I feel like the only person who dislikes the car physics, but I do. I hate them. It's like your rear wheels are made of ice or something.

Also, I just wanna teach Chop tricks but I don't have a smartphone ;_;

Well, it's only available for Iphones right now, which I shouldn't be surprised about, but considering the amount of shit they talk about the tech industry and the way it works, it's "nice" to see that they can't release an app simultaneously across devices..

Maybe I was unrealistic, but the framerate is something I hate. If you are going to go from super smooth to choppy, at least cap it in some areas so the change isnt so drastic.

EDIT: But I love everything else. I'm very early in, but the story is compelling and it looks fantastic.

This and the ability not to swap the trigger functions on the PS3 are my biggest problems. I have a cheap third party PS3 controller and holding R2 to drive constantly gets my carpal tunnel flaring like a bitch.

You can. Switch the control type to 'alternate'.

• Clothes shopping is kinda messed up. Some articles - shoes for example - mess up the whole outfit for some reason, by automatically switching out other items. It's really kinda mysterious.
• Had a 100k car disappear on me. That sucked some major balls.

• btw. some of those Strangers & Freaks missions are off-the-hook insane. Totally awesome. Well, almost all missions are off-the-hook amazing. So it's no surprise.
• The shooting, cover, sneaking mechanics are so damn good.
• There's a surprising amount of destructible stuff in the gameworld. For example most smaller plants in the open world. Indoors almost everything reacts in some way to gunfire and explosions. Also - propagating fire. Excellent.

As usual just little details. I was driving around and bumped into some youngish looking dude in a convertible in front of me. He proceeded to raise his hand and give me the finger and curse me out.

Another was after a mission with Lamar I headed home. When I went inside I heard all sorts of craziness going on out front. I head out and see people fleeing and hear gunshots. I see a man with a gun running in my direction. I put him down and now he's dead in front of my home. I laugh about it and walk back inside. A few moments later I hear sirens. I go outside and there is an ambulance and two EMT's checking on the dead guy in front of my house. They're having a conversation about it saying things like "it's a shame. nothing we can do" and things like that. All completely natural and not a part of the story at all. I've seen a shoot out between some gang bangers and the police and all sorts of shit. World definitely feels alive.

I enjoy the driving, albeit I'm disappointed by how arcadey it's gotten. I guess GTA IV was too polarizing in this regard for Rockstar to stick to their guns. Don't get me started on the cars that flip themselves right-side-up, when flipped over.

I am disappointed by the direction they've taken with most of the vehicle physics, but not really by the endresult - it's definitely a lot of fun - though I don't enjoy racing cars as much as I did in GTA IV & San Andreas. It's just too easy, because it's much harder to fuck up. Makes all of it feel too inconsequential, at least in comparison to vanilla GTA IV.

P.S. Just go easy on the gas. It's an analog trigger for a reason. The back won't break out, if you don't floor the triggers all the time.

I dislike that there's no PC version. Yet.

External camera when driving is still far too slack. The only way doing races feels right is doing it inside. They've had forever to fix that shit.

I'm really not enjoying the game at all and feel almost upset that I'm not having fun. I loved GTA IV. Maybe it'll click with me eventually.

I really like the 3 characters, im able to "role play" 2 of them(not go crazy) and just go bat shit insane punching anyone that looks in my direction with Trevor.

I dislike the free aim, it doesnt feel right...it could change when i get the skill leveled enough though

+ Great Presentation

- Ugly models

- Horrible framerate

- Awful Driving

- Terrible UI

- Annoying characters

- Bad music selection

- Generally bad controls

- Sad that it took them so long to make a game that's basically GTA IV with different Characters and a bigger world

Likes

• Great Setting
• World feels alive
• Heist set up is great

Dislikes

• Arcade feel of the vehicles, handling is much better in GTAIV imo
• Radio Music...I'm really disappointed with the choices.

Its a freaking good game though.

+Dudes flipping you the bird when you bump into their car at a stoplight is pretty awesome.

+First time you dive underwater. Pretty even though the framerate takes a shit.

- There is some dodgy ass framerate issues here and there, and weird streaming issues if I start driving too fast. Once the world just completely disappeared from underneath me.

Overall I'm really enjoying my time with the game and happy that I caved in and got it instead of waiting for the PC version.

Likes:

• Voice Acting
• Graphics
• Beating the shit out of Simeon
• Driving cars. Seriously, guys, this is way better than GTA IV. Not quite as good as Sleeping Dogs, but that game was going for an arcade feel anyway.

Dislikes:

• The aiming. Rockstar, dudes, it was acceptable in the PS2 era but we live in a post-Saints Row world. Open world third person shooters should be able to do aiming right. It's much better here, and the shooting still seems enjoyable, but it's far from where it should be.
• The fucking radio is atrocious. I was complaining about that damn Trivium song, Anthem, that seems like it's been in every open world crime game since SR2, but I'd be happy to accept that now.

An aside - in this age of MP3 players and headphones, why can't the game pretend that all three protagonists have iPods and earbuds that just happen to be full of your music?

EDIT: I also hate that they advertise their phone apps and website in-game. It's not bad, as long as it's limited to only one text box, but it is annoying.

I've played a few hours but mostly dicking around. There's a heck of a lot to like but since GTA IV, open world games have evolved so much that there doesn't seem to be a lot that V can claim as its own. I have to give them to nod to presentation and overall detail, no other game compares to it. The poor framerate is really bumming me out the most though, especially after a lot of people said you wouldn't notice it drop below 30, nor I have I seen any mention of performance in reviews. The driving feels a lot more fun but maybe they made it almost a little too loose now after the complaints against IV for being too stiff and rigid. After playing games such as Saints Row and Sleeping Dogs, I can't believe how slow it is to actually get to your map. I love being able to set way points in SD so easily yet here, you have to pause (which takes a few seconds) then select the map then choose where you want to go. It feels so clunky and weird that a "lower tier" of game does it better and that goes into the fighting and in car shooting that SD both do better.

A lot of what GTA has become reminds me of Playstation Home where you have to physically go to the place to perform a mundane task. If I just want to buy new clothes I have to go to each and every rack and shelf in the store because apparently that's more immersive. It's not, it's just annoying.

So in summary:

+ Presentation

+ Soundtrack/ radio

+ Driving

+ Dog

+ Shooting (yes, I'm serious)

- Map

- Shooting in cars

- Too real

- Framerate

- Aliasing

I may come back with some more things but I've barely done many story things but I can say that Michaels family are the fucking worst. Franklin seems alright. Haven't gotten to Trevor yet.

Like:

-The atmosphere. The world in this game truly feels alive.

-Driving is fun, fast, and easy. I enjoy swerving in and out of traffic like crazy.

-The combat is pretty awesome too, although the aiming system might take some getting used to.

Dislike:

-Some of the dialogue is just awful. I get that it's meant to be a gritty crime story, but the amount of swearing in every line just makes it sound silly.

Like:

the new system for losing a low (2 star) wanted rating is nice. Feels much better to sort of hide somewhere to drop the wanted rating than the system in IV did.

some minor grips:

Only an hour or so in for me. I didn't like the driving mission part of the prologue. Seems weird to me you'd put one of the absolute worst GTA style mission types up front like that. It's not as bad as follow and don't let the person see you mission, but auto-fail if you happen to lose track of Lamar... don't do that at a time when players are still figuring out the physics and controls. They could have easily just made it -meet Lamar at dealership- instead. The banter during the mission is poor anyway.

I don't like the HUD at all. In fact I think it's the worst HUD of the entire series.

The slow mo byyyeeewwwww thing it does every time you pause. Just pop up the fucking menu thanks. edit--- this bothered me at first but now i'm fine with it. i dunno.

Otherwise I'm liking it. Just haven't got into the good stuff yet.

Like:

Jumping and hitting circle to go ragdoll. It's the funniest shit ever. Walking down the stairs with my son as Michael and I just launch myself over the railing to land in front of him was hilarious.

You can dive underwater. First discovered this when I drove an armoured truck into the river and wound up underwater. Wound up diving and getting the contents of the truck (which had come out when I hit he water) from the riverbed.

Maybe something's wrong with my setup, but I Wish I could turn up car radios more. In-game TV volume is also way too soft and there doesn't seem to be any zoom option.

Not sure why there's so much complaining about the radio stations. They seem pretty solid to me, though I suppose the rock station is pretty fucking lame. They don't seem to have very many songs a piece though, as I'm hearing repeats all the time. I'm fairly disappointed there aren't any more esoteric stations, too. I loved the ambient/minimalism and jazz stations in GTA IV; it's a shame there's nothing like that in this one. The west coast punk, indie-ish garage rock, Flying Lotus, old-school rap stations are all a hit though. Much better than any recent open world game I've played.

Also, I don't know if everyone else has been doing this, but I must be used to how other games handle, because when I want to climb over walls and fences and such, it seems that I almost invariably just launch myself face first into the wall, and it's fucking hysterical every timem.

Likes:

• Best looking game to ever go in my 360
• Shitload of guns and vehicles
• So much to do
• Driving is pretty great, though it felt weird as hell after playing so much GTA IV
• The advertisements still crack me up
• Heists are such a rush

Dislikes:

• Vehicle shooting was actually better in GTA IV
• Losing a wanted level takes too long
• I'm hearing a lot of the same songs.

I'm loving everything about it, but so far Trevor is a real stand out character. I love him so much, but I would be so terrified to meet him in real life.

I like almost everything, so my dislikes list will be shorter

1. Car feels like it has ice wheels

2. Every radio station BLOWSSS!!!!

Yeah, I've been accidentally mashing square for everything except jumping. Reload? Square or R2. Punch? Square. I've faceplanted a bunch of walls so far.

EDIT: Also, there doesn't seem to be a metal or modern hard rock station, which is why I'm complaining. Saints Row had 106.66. While not really perfect, it was fine. I'd rather avoid this ambient noise rock shit and I dislike almost all rap.

Yeah Radio isn't that great this time. Then again there's usually only a handful of songs I like anyways. Wish I could just make a custom station with those tracks.

Are you kidding? The aiming is top notch...Makes saints row look like garbage combatwise.

What are the dedicated pop stations? Top 40 kind of stuff. I heard some of those songs in the strip club but otherwise, I can't really find it.

And yeah..the aiming is great...what's wrong with it?

This is sort of a cop-out answer, but my one dislike is that it's just another GTA. It's probably connected to the fact that I've been playing GTA since they came out, but these games have just run their course for me. It's gotten way too predictable and unoriginal. Even though they don't come out every year like certain other franchises it certainly feels as redundant. I'm doing the same shit I've done for years and the few changes they've made are either crap or wholly under-represented. It's really unfortunate actually, as they have done some good things but seem way too scared to drift away from the formula.

(also, as others have said, the radio sucks)

It's top notch in the sense that you hold a button and the game does it for you, or you can turn off any sort of aiming help which shows just how incompetent it is. OK, it's more complex than that - you also have a middle ground that only snaps to the target when you're aiming in their general direction and not while they're in your screen space.

Consoles need some kind of aiming help, but they need to do while simultaneously making the player feel like he's got some shooting skill. SR3 does that by implementing the same aiming mechanics that practically every shooting game since Halo has used - acceleration, slightly curving the bullets, slightly nudging your crosshair in the right direction, etc. GTAV just snaps your crosshair on someone's center of mass and you just have to pull the trigger, or you can flick the analog stick up to get a headshot (which actually makes it kinda difficult to get headshots).

This doesn't make me dislike the game, nor does it make me dislike the shooting. But it is a little disappointing that a game of this caliber with this budget couldn't get the aiming perfect despite all of the other big-budget third person shooting games this console generation doing just that.

My only issue is you cant turn off that stupid X that pops up when you get a kill (at least I dont think you can). I

Besides that, Im quite satisfied with my experience (so far)

Dude. Turn on on free aim and stop blaming the game cus you can't aim for shit. SR3 has awful shooting that feels terrible, how can you say thats good? Saints row gameplay (at least in the 3rd) was the definition of generic and middling.

Free aim has really great feeling shooting, almost as good as max payne 3. I'm playing with free aim and the shooting is fast, responsive and satisfying. (btw free aim does have the very mild aim assist most console shooters have, so stop making stuff up.

Though i will say, the shooting while driving is AWFUL.

What radical thing should Rockstar have done to their "GTA formula"?

I have enjoyed my time with the game so far (Just reunited Michael and Trevor) and my biggest issues with the game were all within the first couple of hours, but now things are consistently crazy and incredibly varied. I'm also not a fan of the time it takes to lose the cops. I ended up in a 10+ minute loop of being unable to lose them at one point which just became boring. The feeling of the cars depends on the vehicle, but for the most part it's fine.

I'm surprised how much I have ended up liking Franklin, I really like the radio stations and am surprised how good the game looks despite some pretty awful frame drops in cutscenes. I don't know how I feel about Trevor... One minute I cannot stand him and the next he says or does something so crazy I'm in stitches.

@clonedzero: I played Max Payne 3 with a mouse specifically because the aiming wasn't great.

We're going to have to agree to disagree.

Maybe something totally fucking nuts, like having three protagonists that you can switch between at any point except in missions, or maybe have you elaborately plan heists or something. And they could even have you switch between the three different protagonists mid-heists to take on different jobs! Wouldn't that be awesome?

Smartass answers aside, it should be evident by now that AAA games are for the most part going to be refinements of ideas already laid down. This is a shame, but it's also why it's so exciting to see smaller budget and indie games get more attention these days. Sometimes, though, it's nice to slip into big, comfortable, obnoxiously expensive slippers and drive along a busy sidewalk.

@believer258: If you couldn't use a controller to play max payne 3 and you think its shooting is bad, well i dont think you should be talking about shooting mechanics because you clearly don't knwo what you're talking about. Don't mean to sound like a dick, but thats like saying super meat boy had bad platforming because you couldnt do it

But! Anyway, that aside.

Likes -

The shooting - It's tight, responsive (free aim obviously)

The Missions and pacing - no more wait 3 hours for anything to happen. Ive only done the first hiest so far, but DAMN was that a cool mission.

The three characters - They're all really well done, they're all horrible people (well franklin doesnt seem so bad) but super likable.

The entire game is just remarkably well done.

Dislikes -

The car shooting - its crazy, leave the crosshair there, lemme use both bumpers for it or something.

The pop-in stuff, its not AWFUL i rarely notice it, but its still there (yeah i installed, my disc drive aint so hot)

SUPER nitpicky - i dont really like the blue flash effect as a kill indicator, its pretty inconsistant anyways. Also the effect when trevors power is active makes me a bit queezy

Holy crap on the little details everywhere. They really went nuts on that stuff.

Little further in now. Game seems to front load its not so great bits but after the first couple hours it gets going properly and you start to see the strengths of it shine. I'm definitely having fun with it now that I've acclimatized myself to all the oddities of the control and movement. I'm really missing Saints Row's action button for car jacking and just general getting into cars, though. Action button best innovation in open world games ever. :D

... nice incognito license plate Lamar. >.<

Am I the only one who was confused about the iFruit app thing? Game keeps popping up tips when you first meet the dog and it was not clear at all, to me anyway, that the iFruit thing is a real world thing that you download on your actual real world phone.

You pretty much answered your own question why the stations aren't that great. The hip hop, R'n'B and Soul stations are good. World Music is okay but the other genres have a really lacklustre playlist.

GTAIV's (+Episodes Add ons) playlist was so much better as was SR3.

I don't like that they removed the ability to manually dial numbers (unless I'm ...not seeing it?).

I answered it to some degree, but overall I like the radio stations in this game. I just wish there were a few more genres covered.

I didn't think SR3 had a particularly good playlist at all, actually. I guess the Adult Swim station occasionally had some good tracks, but I pretty quickly turned the radio off entirely in that game. A metal station was nice in theory, but it was almost entirely metalcore and that shit is the worst (at least it had Mastodon though). Same goes for the classical station that played a selection of compositions everyone in this world has been already overexposed to. This is still steps above anything I've played in a recent open-world game, flaws taken into consideration.

Also back to the main topic at hand, holy shit. I just got to where you play as Trevor and holy shit. He is fucking awesome and the countryside is also fucking awesome and impressive in the way that RDR is impressive.

Dude... Lost MC Alderney chapter :(

@microshock: Well, what they've done with the heists is at least a step away in an interesting direction. It's not like I'm sitting on some amazing ideas for the franchise or anything, but it would've been nice to have seen some more evolvement of the gameplay mechanics since GTA 3 came out. All I'm really saying is that I've done all this before, several times, the driving to mission marker, cutscene, drive somewhere, shoot/blow something up routine has pretty much stayed the same now for 5 games. It's just feeling all too familiar to really amaze me.

I guess if I really think about it what I would've liked to see was the game being less directed and more versatile. Like you were given a story reason to earn a bunch of money (or just given good incentive) and then you could either go set up a heist, steal a bunch of cars do a hit for someone or whatever. I'm probably wrong, but I seem to remember earlier games in the franchise having some element of that. In the end though I guess it's just that the theatrics doesn't really impress me anymore, and I'd rather have a game where I feel like I'm the big bad criminal instead of me watching some dudes being bad guys.