Lie, Cheat, Steal
With a name like "Grand Theft Auto 5", how could you possibly live up to the expectations that the name brings? But if anyone could pull it off, it’s Rockstar. So did they? Well yes…for the most part. GTA 5 returns us to the sunny coasts, lush woods, and blazing deserts of the imaginary state of San Andreas. Only this time it’s present day and not the early 90’s. Also this time, players take control of three protagonists as opposed to the usual one: Michael, the ex-bank robber turned retired couch potato, Franklin, the promising upstart criminal stuck working petty jobs, and Trevor who falls somewhere between Johnny Knoxville and Charlie Manson. The three gentlemen play generally the same except for the differing starting stats of each character. These stats include driving, shooting, stealth, etc. and are a welcome returning mechanic first introduced in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and are increased as you play the game.
If you’re like me, the Liberty City environment of GTA 4 just got a little stale after a while. That’s not to say that the city looked bad, it’s just there’s only so much you can do with the New York City motif to make it look interesting after 25+ hours. Fortunately GTA 5 provides a much more vibrant environment to look at with several different areas to play around in such as cities, forests, and deserts. It gives you the opportunity to see a lot more color variation rather than just the boring slate gray in Liberty City. This is all, of course, if you can get past my main complaint with the game: the graphical issues. Slow loading textures and pop-ins plagued my time with this game. Usually issues like this are forgivable if the gameplay is unaffected, but I experienced several instances where I would try drive through what I thought was an open gate only to hit an “invisible wall” because the gate just had not loaded in yet. And just watching the opening credits sequence is just plain ugly with all the texture pop ins. Now to be fair it sounds like not everyone was receiving the amount of issues that I was, possibly because I am playing on an Xbox 360 from 2007, but still. Issues of this magnitude are frankly unforgivable and it’s a shame how negatively it impacted my experience. The one graphically good thing I can say is that the character models and animations look fantastic.
Now, that being said, the actual game part is pretty damn fun. Missions are varied and interesting, and every race mission is not mandatory to finishing the story, so there’s that. Gunplay is the best it’s ever been being very reminiscent of the gunplay from Max Payne 3 of last year. Speaking of past Rockstar titles, as you play GTA 5 you will definitely notice Rockstar reusing past mechanics. Random events a la Red Dead Redemption make an appearance (along with getting mauled by mountain lions) and even stealth and noise mechanics recognizable from Manhunt can be seen. Heists are a new introduction the series. These large scale missions make up the big set pieces you will see in the story and are definitely fun and exciting. The most interesting part about these missions is just the amount of variability they can have. You choose who’s going in with you, how it’s going to be done, and, depending on how you and your crew do, the amount of money you get away with.
The story is fairly on par with past Rockstar titles though it falls a little flat towards the end. The voice acting on the other hand is incredibly well done and it really rounds out the story presentation. I’ve got 30+ hours of gameplay clocked and will say that it’s the most fun I’ve had with the GTA franchise yet. I’ll finish this by saying this: if you can wait for the mythical PC release, definitely wait. I can safely say that the PC will fix any of the graphical problems this game has and even make it look better. Seriously. Just wait.
