My Thoughts on GTA V (So Far)

The thing about Rockstar and the Grand Theft Auto franchise is that they really can never go wrong. When has Rockstar ever failed to deliver a good Grand Theft Auto game or even a good game in general? I mean sure, not everybody enjoyed L.A. Noire (haven't played it, just read the reviews) as much as they do Grand Theft Auto or Red Dead Redemption but nobody denies that it's a good game. So when it comes to evaluating a Grand Theft Auto game you're really evaluating it in comparision to previous GTA games rather than comparing it to other games on the market. With that said, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas remains the top dog among it's GTA bretheren. You can't find anyone who didn't enjoy San Andreas. It had the best characters, best story, and the best map out of any GTA game before. GTA IV was supposed to blow our minds as the franchise made the leap to next-gen consoles but other than having nice graphics I wouldn't say it exactly took the franchise to the next level. If you ask fans of the series which they like better, most will probably take San Andreas over IV. Some might even argue that they enjoyed Vice City more than IV also. It's not that IV is a bad game. I personally thought that IV took out some of San Andreas' best features and added ones that at first were entertaining but then later got repetitive. As funny as things like this are it got pretty annoying when your cousin would call you in the middle of a mission asking you to go bowling. Seriously, you had the most needy group of friends ever in GTA IV. With this all said, we finally come to the newest and probably the most hyped game in the series GTA V. The game came out last month and I'm sure that many people have already posted their first impressions and their thoughts. But hey, I'm a college student on a budget who can afford to be dropping 60 bucks on games left and right, especially after FIFA 14 came out. So I picked up the game this past week and I figured I'd post my first thoughts about it here.

So GTA V takes the series back to the world of San Andreas which is essentially a replica of the actual Los Angeles. When the game first starts you get dropped right into the middle of a bank job, where the game breaks down a few of it's new features. You now have the ability to switch between characters, which is pretty freaking awesome. That aside, the game's opener is fast-paced and sets the tone for the game, well sort of. We get introduced to one of the three main characters, Michael. He's one of the guys on the bank job who faked his death and is now in witness protection. He got put up in a ridiculously nice house in Los Santos and has two kids and a wife. It would be a great life except for the fact that this is a GTA game and there are no "normal" characters to speak of. We also meet Franklin, a former street gangster who's trying to make good (sort of). He works for a car dealership and takes part in repoing cars that people can't afford. It's not an entirely legitimate business but he's good at it. Through a strange series of events Franklin and Michael cross paths and shenanigans ensues. What kind of shenanigans you ask? Well this is a GTA game so you'd expect to be jacking cars, shooting people, and blowing stuff up. Well, yes and no. The early stages of the game feel more like a life simulator more than anything. Seriously, GTA V has more distractions that any other GTA games befores it. You can go through a daily set of activities and never have to leave your real, physical house. You can play tennis with your wife, ride a bike with your son, browse the fake internet. Hell the game lets you sit on the couch and watch TV. Yes, the game lets you watch the TV programs that exist within the game you're playing. You are playing a game to watch fake TV. Of course, there is some merit to this because this being a game made by Rockstar, these programs are often hilarious. But like I said, early missions (especially Michael's) are missions that feel like they came out of a The Sims game more than a GTA game. However, once you get a little farther into the game, things start getting awesome. You spend the early game switching between Michael and Franklin, doing missions on both sides. Having two characters to switch between is a great feature because it exposes you to a whole cast of characters on both sides. There is a third main character, Trevor, but I've only just gotten to the part where he's been introduced so I haven't really gotten to know him yet.

GTA V feels very similar to GTA IV in the way that the main character moves. I feel like the programmers thought the ragdoll physics from GTA IV were hilarious and figured they might as well keep them. This leads to some pretty humorous results and your character can actually die if you run full speed into a wall (realism ftw?). However, this also means that your character can be rather cumbersome which will cause you to fail a mission on more than one occasion (or maybe it's just me). The car physics are much better as well and they feel really smooth. Plus this game has a much better environment for driving than IV did.The graphics are certainly an improvement over the drab surroundings of the previous game's Liberty City. Of course, you could chalk that up to one being a replica of New York and the other being a replica of Los Angeles but one can't ignore how good GTA V looks. Los Santos definitely isn't short on things to do. Sure, most of them are monotonous and don't really make sense. Some of them make me just want to yell "GO OUTSIDE!!" to some people but there are a fair share of good features here. I mean, the game's tennis mini-game is probably on par with a regular tennis sim which is definitely saying something. The creators clearly put a lot of time and effort into these distractions so you might as well enjoy them all.

The game world is beautiful and there is so much to see and explore

So as I said before, I've only owned the game for about a week and haven't played a ridiculous amount of it but enough to make up my mind about the game. The best new feature in my opinion, is the bank heist missions. I've only done one, but I don't think I've ever gotten more of a kick out of a GTA mission in my life. Your buddy Lester lays out the plans for the heist. You then get to pick the people you take on the heist with you, each of them have stats that determine how effective they'll be. The higher the stats, the higher a cut they'll want from the score. I've found that the benefits of bringing the best possible people outweigh their costs. For example, on the heist I did, I picked a cheap gunman to back me up. He ended up getting wasted about halfway through the mission and wasn't there when I could have used him. I still made it through alright, but theres no doubt he could have helped. There is a benefit to bringing the guys with weaker stats however because their stats improve with every successful heist but their cut doesn't change. You can develop guys to be experts without them leeching large amounts from your score. I love it when a game lets you take multiple options to achieve an objective. It allows for the player to flex their creative muscles which is always welcome. That and the fact that the heists are ridiculously fun missions to play in general. Also, it would be a shame if I didn't mention how great the game looks and feels. The area of Los Santos is bright and colorful, the game world feels alive and looks absolutely beautiful. It's an improvement on GTA IV in pretty much every way. It feels like theres so much to do all of the time, not to mention that the map is massive and you can kill hours just by driving and exploring the game world. I could mention everything else that you can do but the list would drag on for ages.

Overall, I've really enjoyed GTA V so far. There's nothing that you can point out and say that they left out or is disappointing. They've brought back the things from San Andreas that made that game so good (the most glaring thing being able to fly planes again) and added loads of new features. The heist missions are a blast and the ability to play as three distinctly different main characters adds some diversity to the game. We've never doubted Rockstar's ability to make good games and nobody has doubted that GTA V would be good. It's just nice that the game has lived up to expectations and at points even exceeded them. GTA remains the king of sandbox games and this one is probably the best of the bunch. I don't think any GTA will ever have the same amazing cast of characters that San Andreas did but theres no question that GTA V is a better game. Also, I can't express enough happiness that the game is back in Los Santos. So, if you haven't picked up what is probably the biggest release of the year yet, go pick up what should be the swan song for this current generation of consoles. And a hell of a swan song it is.