Free Aim it is for me. The lock-on and auto aim settings are crutches for non-core more casual players that franchises like GTA manage to attract. I feel like it's beneath me. Just think of Michael's bullet time special ability, which only is meaningful for Free Aim players. Well I guess Aim Assist users benefit from it too. That says it all really.

P.S. I find it odd how stubbornly game reviewers refuse to tailor games to their needs. The game being too easy and Michael's special ability being useless because of the default lock-on system baffles my mind as a critique. It's wrong to do so. It's okay to mention it, and steer people towards changing their settings - but downright criticizing a game for something that can be changed, it baffles my mind.

Hell, even in podcasts, more often than not, it's obvious that most games personalities do not personalize their experience. I feel like that's something that should be called out.

Dont own the game ... but if its like othe R* games then free aim for me

Free aim. Auto aim is just incredibly boring.

I don't mind both of them.

Wow you never cease to be pissed off at the smallest things, do you?

Oh well, at least you said it without being a giant asshole.

...

Ha ! Ha !

Whichever one is the default.

Lock-on. The shooting in Rockstar games are mediocre on PC and just plain bad on consoles. The crosshair isn't dynamic (e.g. no indication of spread or initial shot range) and the player moves like a tank (which directly affects aiming). The cover system is improved from GTA IV but it's still far behind your average shooter. The open world level design often leads to getting behind objects that the player did not intend to take cover from. People seem to find reward in being skilled in a flawed shooting system, which is something I don't understand.

I'm not saying you meant it that way, just perhaps just the way it came off. I guess it also has to do with the way I imagine you making all these threads, where you are always extremely unhappy about the smallest thing. I don't know man, that's just funny to me. I guess I also dislike polls/posts that ask people something, then immediately mentioning that they are in fact the superior one. Like making a poll asking how much people make, then making it all about how you make $400k on your new job. That just comes off as a little dickhole-ish - to me at least.

Haven't you played a Barbie game, @video_game_king? I could have sworn you reviewed a Barbie game.

Also, Grissefar telling anyone that they're an asshole or pissed off at the smallest thing is the pot calling the kettle black.

Finally, I complained about how the free aim doesn't feel quite right but I've also found that using the "super" lock on that the game defaults to feels like cheating.

Yeah that's a good point man. Also, I don't want to stay here all day, carefully picking off fodder enemies one by one. It kills the otherwise great pacing, man.

I think I did. Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses, I believe it was.

Also, what the fuck is going on, here?

I just feel like auto-aim just destroys the fun and free-aim makes it more enjoyable by far.

Free aim, warming up for GTA Online!

I don't know who you are man, but you keep throwing shit around. To each their own, I guess. Ha ! Ha !

Free aim. I don't even get why lock-on is even in there. It's 2013 and lock-on feels like a hold over from when the shooting was bad on the PS2 games but it's actually pretty good now. Jeff's complaint about the game was how the combat just felt too easy but he played with it on the whole time. I did the opening segments with it on and hated it.

Auto aim is too easy. I switched to free aim after a few missions in and it's been 100% more fun.

Free aim, all day, erra day.

It'll be free-aim if it's anything like RDR - auto aiming makes me wanna puke.

Not playing GTA V until they release it on a less shitty platform though.

Auto aim to remove any chance of me blaming the game for its failures, because it'll be all on me when I fail a mission. It certainly didn't help in Red Dead Redemption, that game is just ass to me.

If I choose to play with a mouse and keyboard on the PC version, I'd probably play with free aim. Given the platform, head shots just come naturally. If it could auto switch between two control schemes, then great, but I doubt that'll happen.

Free aim because when GTA Online launches auto aim makes you look like a bitch.

Free aim because its really similar to max Payne 3 and just makes the combat more rewarding. Auto aim / lock on seems like a hangover from from when third person shooting sucked, no need for it now.

Is the lock on / auto aim different in GTA 5 compared to past GTA games? Everyone keeps saying its easier but I swear its implementation always been that way.

Free aim, its so much more satisfying.

This - trying to stop relying on the crutch of auto-aim/lock on in anticipation of GTA Online

I'm using Lock-on because I feel that is exactly what the game was designed for. The deadzone is also pretty awful on PS3 and free aiming feels clunky and just not fun. Snapping between people while not challenging looks really cool and keeps the gunfights flowing at a faster pace. So,Lock-on all the way.

Lock on. Shooting with a controller is rubbish. GTA games are extra rubbish. This way it's at least playable so I won't give up on it halfway through like I did with GTAIV.

EDIT: And for the record, saying that something is beneath you does make you a bit of an asshole since you're basically saying that you're a more elevated sort of person than those who might choose to use lock on or auto aim.

Flawed how? I feel like I'm in perfect control. If you account for the physics priority of animations - with Euphoria Engine simulating weight and inertia and such, factoring these things into all character animations - you are just as much in control as in any other game without such a thing, only it's much more rewarding to be in control than otherwise.

As for the non-dynamic crosshairs, I guess that's true, but an extremely minor complaint, since the spread increase is insignificant. The weapons' kick is translated fine.

If you are any accurate with your gamepad inputs, the cover system performs almost flawlessly. Just aim your character at where you want to take cover behind, and he'll go. I like it better than most cover systems really. Almost anything will serve as cover, not just your average waisthigh walls, like with most other cover based shooters.

Gunplay overall is almost as good as let's say Max Payne 3, which is top-of-its-class, as far as I'm concerned. GTA has one major quirk though. You don't see a crosshair unless you actively aim. It's unusual for 3rd person shooters to do that, but it makes a lot of sense, simply because having a crosshair whilst not aiming doesn't make any sense outside of increasing playability. Since GTA puts believability and consequence over playability, to ground all the on-screen violence in a more immersive virtual reality and give it more impact, it makes perfect sense for the game.

Just learn to aim without crosshairs, before commiting to aiming down sights, kinda like no-scoping with bolt-action sniper rifles in modern military FPS games. Feel the dead center screen, and be doubly rewarded for popping in and out of cover to land that perfect headshot with nothing but your gut feeling to go on. Once you have developed your instinct for where your crosshair will be at when you go Aim Down Sight, it will start to feel as flawless as it really is.

In short. Free Aim gunplay is not flawed. It's cohesively designed. It's in-line with GTA V's direction. It makes sense, and is fully functional. A realization that'll come once you have adapted to its quirks.

Shooting on gamepads isn't rubbish, once you've got it in your blood. Just spend a couple of hundred hours with your favorite FPS locked in online competition, and you'll never complain about such things ever again - at least if the game in question has sound gamepad controls to begin with.

Sure, keyboard and mouse controls are a little quicker and more precise, and it takes less effort to be precise and quick, but overall I much prefer the feel of shooting guns with a gamepad. The tactile feel of pulling a trigger. The rumble. Well done rumble can add a whole new dimension of awesomeness to gunplay. Ever shot a bow in Dragon's Dogma? You can really feel the bowstring snap forward, hurling the arrow on its way with brutal force. So good!

Go to the shooting range with Franklin (because he needs it), set the game to Free Aim, aspire to earn a gold medal for every event and every guntype. Get the hang of it. The most pertinent tip I can give you - learn to use the whole range of movement of the analog stick. Once you can move your crosshairs slowly, and later shift on command between full turning speed and inching the crosshairs like a snail across the screen, you'll combine speed and precision in a satisfying more tacticle more skill-driven way than KB & M could ever provide.

Trust me, it's worth it!

I did auto-aim, I played GTA V on both a fairly large tv and then switched it over to my pc monitor midway through beating it. Like in Max Payne 3 I am really finding it difficult to play the game with the redicule white dot cause I keep on losing that line of sight. I wear glasses so I don't have the best eyesight in the world.

Did you try out the complex setting for crosshairs?

@seppli: Nah I looked through the settings seeing if I could change it to something else but didn't find it. I just spent 40 hours this week beating the game so I'm a little burnt out on it right now, will probably check when GTA Online is up and running.

Always be free-aimin'.

No, its there you just missed it. It changes the dot to weapon specific crosshairs.

I'm a "core" player but I use the default auto-lock on system because the gunplay isn't really that great in GTAV and I treat combat encounters as speed bumps before the more interesting parts of the mission get underway.

I've died several times because you can't take a lot of hits, your movement is quite sluggish and enemy AI are very good shots. There were times where I'd get shot to death before my character had time to finish the getting-out-of-the-car animation. GTAV may share a lot of gunplay elements from Max Payne 3 but Max Payne 3 it is not, so auto-lock on is fine with me.

I mean, it's certainly not beneath me or anything.

Lock-on because I'm not a fucking monster.

Free aim, it's come a long way from having to pop tires with select rifles in Vice City.

For the moment, lock-on. Aiming on a controller feels like utter garbage to me after playing PC games for such a long time and GTAV on PS3 seems to have a particularly large deadzone which annoys the crap out of me. Add on the sub-par framerate and I'd rather just take the least painful route.

I used lock-on. The gunplay isn't great and it's not why I'm coming to the game. It's not "beneath me" and it doesn't make me a "non-core casual player", it just means I don't want to deal with the shooting.

Started out using free aim, but ended up switching it to assisted aiming about 5 hours into the game. The aiming is tougher than it should be. It just doesn't quite feel right. Definitely had to change the shooting reticule from simple to complex as well, because it was just way too hard to see.

Just out of curiosity. How much time have you spent in the game with Free Aim activated? If you haven't spent any meaningful time with it, how can you judge if it is great or not? I mean, if you haven't spent at least a couple of hours with it, with serious intent to master it, there's no way that you can judge it with any accuracy.

You are definitely missing the crosshairs being up all the time, like in other 3rd person shooters. As soon as the crosshairs are up, it controls just as well as any well-made 3rd person shooter, if not better. What it takes for it to feel good despite the semi-absent crosshair is the willingness to *kinda no-scope*. As soon as aimiming with just the camera comes naturally to you, it's all gonna fall into place. The crosshair always appears dead center in the screen, as soon as you aim. It just requires mental adjustment. Account for it, and your qualms should be a thing of the past.

This is pretty much my feelings as well. The framerate is pretty awful especially in heavy firefights and the controls just feel too clunky to deal with most of the time.

I played the first hour, maybe hour and a half, with free aim before deciding that it felt bad and I didn't want to keep hampering my experience by using it.

Wouldn't aim assist have gone far enough to compensate for you? I mean lock-on gunplay is pretty much just about rhythmically pushing the aim button and squeezing the trigger for instant win. It pretty much turns shoot-outs into cutscenes. At least there's some minor active aiming involved with aim assist.

Personally, the shooting-centric missions are amongst my favorite in the game. Besides driving, gunplay is definitely the tightest gameplay mechanic in the game - at least as far as I'm concerned.

It's O-K at best.

I beat Max Payne 3 with free-aim and got all those achievements for killing everyone in a single set-piece slow-mo sequence. That game had satisfying shooting and free aim was a good way to play it, because it's JUST shooting. GTAV doesn't feel nearly as great, mainly because you can't shoot dodge and evade gunfire as well as in Max Payne 3, so the shooting turns into a weird Gears of War cover shooter situation.

Of course everyone is entitled to their own opinions, as long as they're not beneath them I mean.

Sure, there's no shoot dodge mechanic. Frank and Michael and Trevor are also more frail and less agile than Max, and can't pop pain killers like candy. This certainly makes it less deep than Max Payne 3. Point taken.

However - aiming itself is pretty much of the exact same tactile quality as in Max Payne 3. The big difference being, that crosshairs are only visibile while you aim, which makes aiming in GTA V a little harder. A circumstance one can account for when playing. This quirk gives GTA V's gunplay its own kind of depth. A depth that can be mastered. Once it's mastered, I am in full control. Gunplay is super rewarding, with excellent visual feedback from particle effects and excellent ragdoll physics - again being pretty much as good as Max Payne 3 is in this regard.

It's not really opinion. It's a fact that free aim gunplay can be mastered, and that it controls great once one gets there. It's certainly bound to be many times more rewarding than a game that's set to play itself. No question.

Look - if you are offended because me feeling that GTA V's default lock-on gunplay mechanic is beneath me - a purely self-centered declaration - that's your own a self-esteem issues skewing it in that direction. No offense intended. No need to be a dick about it.

This thread is beneath me.

@humanity:

Imagine you had a Max Payne 3-style dot on screen, whenever you have your weapon drawn, instead of nothing like in GTA V. And whenever you aim, the dot turns into the comlplex crosshair. GTA V's basic gunplay would feel no iota different from Max Payne 3's - which you said yourself feels great - if it was indeed handled so.

To be honest, that's what Rockstar really should have done. I don't see how this increase of playability would have hurt their vision.

Now ask yourself, do you really need an ever-present dot to mark dead center screen to be as capable as you were when playing Max Payne 3? The correct answer is *No!*, at least as far as I'm concerned. I regard the lack of crosshairs when not aiming as a challenge, and as such it can be overcome. It's not the inherently *less good* thing you make it out to be. It's less immediatly playable. Obviously by intent and design. Sure - it's a matter of taste, but that's besides the point.

I just argue that it's not inherently worse than other 3rd person shooters, because I can account for this specific quirk, and compensate for it with ever increasing confidence.

Lock on, because I think the shooting feels like trash on an analogue stick, possibly mostly because of the fact that I never use controllers for shooters any more and as a result am god awful at doing so. If this were on the PC, I'd use that.

I'm really tired of third person games shifting the fucking aim any time you move out of cover/shoot out of a vehicle. And I feel like the way they set up combat encounters didn't make use of their shooting mechanics especially well. Mostly in that enemies were super accurate and did a ton of damage and pretty much always out manned you significantly. I don't feel like I am really doing things that differently when I use the lock on method than just sitting in cover, aligning the center of the screen with a dude as best I can, and then popping up to blast him and popping back down, because a lot of the combat feels like you need to play that way, at least for me.

On the PC, if it ever comes out there, I will be free aiming all the way, because lock on feels just bizarre on a PC. Even autoaim pisses me of when I'm using a mouse (actually always). Maybe then I'll be able to freakin' shoot out of a vehicle. God that sucks on the 360 for me. I'm awful at it, even when I have a high rate of fire gun that sprays bullets everywhere I can't hit a damn truck, let alone a dude squirming around on a boat or whatever.

You were kind of being a dick when you said that. The whole point of saying something is beneath you is to suggest your place relative to a thing which then suggests that others also have a relative place against that thing. Also it just sounded super douche. That and the sentence after was mad dickish, and if you can't see that, that's your problem not someone else's pal.

Quote from Stephen King's Dark Tower Epic, which kinda applies to aiming without crosshairs:

You do not aim with your hand. He who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. You aim with your eye.

You do not shoot with your hand. He who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. You shoot with your mind.

You do not kill with your gun. He who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father. You kill with your heart.

P.S. I had no intention of coming off as a dick (I guess I am inherently a bit of a dick, displaying some elitist attitude towards this topic). I'm sorry if I offended anyone.

Lock on. I don't come to this game to shoot people. I think most of the shooting is pretty boring and I'd rather get through it as quickly as possible.