I'm itching to put this behind Saints Row 4, because all told, I had a bigger, goofier grin on my face throughout the entirety of GTA V. And in fact, GTA V seemed bound and determined to make me hate it at its start. Rockstar does the low vision no kind favors here in its goddamned hard to read fonts and minimap. They have fucking black on black colors on the minimap - or at least, that's what it looks like to me when I'm trying to read it.
It doesn't help matters much that the game seems stuck halfway between wanting to be fun and trying to be pretentious. You can't store cars ala Saints Row IV, leaving little purpose to the car upgrade shops. The diversions are, on the whole, bland and devoid of the fun of the centerpiece of the game - the heists.
And yet, there's still quite a bit of fun to be had with Rockstar's latest. Some of the main missions are terrific, such as a mission that sees you doing yoga and ending up on a bad drug trip. The heists are a riot, but unfortunately there are only a few and none of them are optional - some more heist missions after the main game ends would have gone a long ways towards keeping me coming back.
And then there's the abominable multiplayer, which should have been excised from the game from the start. Seriously, Rockstar - thanks, but no thanks. Leave that fucking shit at the door and devise more fun stuff for me to do when I'm not picking up hippie hitchhikers in the desert.
I'll also freely admit that at certain points, playing as Trevor made me slightly uncomfortable. I'm not trying to preach any sort of morality here - it's just a game. But two plot points of his did unsettle me, and it led directly to me being a little hesitant to continue down his path until I absolutely had to.
If it sounds like I'm down on GTA V, it's because I am. As a technical showpiece, it's unrivaled. There are so many small things going on all at once that it's hard not to put this near number one on a purely technical level. But on the other hand, I'm tired of Rockstar's pretentions and the blatant shrugging of the shoulders at the advancements of its rivals in minimaps, navigation, and general playability. It's time the master learned a bit from the students.
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