Grand
Theft Auto V
Rockstar
Games
PS3
& XBOX 360
Right.
Firstly a quick word from me to say that there’s been many a reason why for the
last month I’ve not been posting. Firstly there was this thing that kinda took
up all of my time and writing was put out of my mind completely and secondly
I’ve been religiously playing GTA:V since the 17th September 2013.
But
here’s the thing right, GTA:V is amazing, there’s no getting round this.
Visually it’s spectacular, the gameplay is sublime and it’s quintessentially
British in a lot of ways. The open world gameplay hasn’t changed, the
characters are all unique and the story is one that is bursting with flavour.
Online, despite its initial problems is just fun, really fun. I mean the kind
of fun that just doesn’t go away. Uber fun.
But
there’s something that’s niggling at me. I’ll get to that in a while though.
One
of the first things that struck me about GTA:V, is that it’s pretty much a slap
in the face of Microsoft and Sony. Yes, GTA:V might be pushing the limits of
what the current gen of consoles can achieve, but it’s there in the market,
showing that this gen of consoles still has a lot to offer. And it has
confirmed to me, that there is no reason to rush into the world of XB1 or PS4
just yet.
Visually,
the game is stunning, it’s appearance is a real mix of San Andreas and GTA:IV
with added decals and advanced lighting effects which make the game that much
more realistic – especially when Los Santos is bathed in that dusky orange
light of the low Sun in the sky. The way everything looks from the sidewalks to
the clouds and everything in between has been rendered with such loving detail,
it’s hard to play sometimes for the appearance of everything around you. Have
you ever walked into a lamppost because you were looking at that really fit
bird on the other side of the road? Well that’s a bit like GTA:V, I crashed a
few times because I was looking at the pretty things dotted around me.
There
are lots of random things that happen in the game as well, some that are
structured randomness (stumbling across a woman just outside Paleto Bay who was
about to be buried alive for one) and some unscripted randomness, like on one
side mission, in which Michael (one of the leads – I’ll get to them soon) is
helping his son, after completing this mission, I was driving back to the road
– for I was off road – and in front of me I must’ve spooked a deer, easy enough
to do, they’re skitty fuckers. In any case, I spooked this deer, and it started
bouncing away. Well I’m not completely heartless, I wasn’t about to run over
this deer, I don’t know why, but I have no qualms about hitting people in the
street, but with the animals I’m more hesitant to go for them…unless they’re
like some of the wild dogs around Sandy Shores or a wildcat out for blood.
Anyway, Bambi was bouncing off away from my noisy, heavily dented car, straight
toward what looked like an empty, quiet road. What LOOKED LIKE, an empty quiet
road. Bambi ran straight out in front of a truck and was propelled down the
road in a dead and floppy state.
And
that’s just one example.
The
characters of GTA:V are all uniquely bizarre, with the most normal people being…erm…
I’ll
start with the 3 lead characters, and the fact that there isn’t just 1 lead
character, but as previously mentioned just now – 3. It’s a great premise, a
great idea and where the 3 characters stories interlock – it’s a great way for
the GTA franchise to evolve. My only issue however, is that you don’t get the
connection with your characters in the same way as you did with characters like
Tommy Vercetti or Niko Bellic. They’re all great characters (2 more than 1) and
they all have their funny moments, deep moments and memorable moments, but I
found that you just didn’t feel the same level of intimacy as you did with
Rockstars previous leads.
Niko
Bellic and John Marston are 2 of the most beloved characters that I’ve played
with in computer games in my life (I can’t really count Commander Shepard,
since they are different all the time for me), and it’s because we were able to
put in so many hours into being that person. We got to experience the highs and
lows of their lives, we got to find out what made them the men they are, and we
got to realise their story from start to finish.
I
completed the story of GTA:V a couple of weeks ago. I wasn’t playing
particularly rushed, I did some of the extra-plot activities, and with each
character I only played about 12-13 hours with each. In a game like GTA:V, you
need more time with those characters.
Anyway,
I’ll start with the first lead character you encounter (after the prologue), he
is also the least appealing of the 3, because his character seems a little…meh.
It’s Franklin, he’s an ex-gang member trying to make a better life for himself
by not restricting himself to “tha hood”. He’s made a more appealing character
by working with his homie Lamar, who is so annoying, I just wanted to shoot him
after the first 5 minutes of being with him. His over use of the “N” word and
general cockiness despite being a twat, and his demeanour serve I’m sure to
only make Franklin seem like a better character. But I’ll be honest: Franklin
is dull. He has his moment’s now, don’t get me wrong, but he’s generally a bit
boring. Of the 3 leads, he’s obviously the understudy and the newbie learning
the ropes from the more experienced heads around him. He’s the character least
likely to get angry and do something he regrets, and is the most likely of the
3 to do something morally just, like return a ladie’s stolen purse. All in all
though, the game would have been just as good if they had made Franklin an NPC
but who was still a main character, putting those 12-13 hours into the other
leads.
Speaking
of other leads, Michael is the ex-bank robber turned retired family man (ish),
who is just trying to relax and enjoy retirement by the pool with a glass of
whiskey. He’s a much more solid character, torn apart by his own demons and longing
for some kind of real closure on his past life. I won’t go too far into the ins
and outs of his back story, but know that he has secrets that aren’t for anyone
else to know. He’s an utter hardman, cut from the same cloth as Tommy Vercetti
to a point, you could quite easily see how TV would have fitted into this role,
and with a bit of story tweaking, it would have been immense.
The
last lead I’ll touch on is Trevor, the out and out fan favourite. The anti-hero
you just love to egg on. He’s an unstable, sociopathic, psychopathic, insane,
angry, uber-hard guy who takes no shit, and can create chaos and mayhem
wherever he goes. He has some of the best one-liners in all of GTA history, and
is one of the most shocking characters that I’ve ever experienced in any game.
He is without a doubt the most fun character to play with for me, because I
feel you can do anything to anyone and not feel like it would be out of
character of him. You could just wander up to a random guy in the street and
punch him, and as Trevor, it would seem like something he’d do. Maybe he looked
at him funny or took this piss out of him for being Canadian. Trevor is
amazing, and you could potentially have made GTA:V with Trevor being the only
lead character and it would be just as great as it is with the 3.
Now
because you’re not able to really sink your teeth into the 3 leads in the same
way as in previous titles, it does take a little of the shine off of the game.
Now the premise of having 3 leads is fantastic, and the way missions play out
with the 3 characters is pure brilliance – but I think a lot of people have
been so in awe of this, that they’ve overlooked the flaw that the game isn’t
long enough, and in that, GTA:V has an enormous amount of unspent potential,
however there are areas and avenues to explore with regards to DLC.
Leading
on from that, the story of the game is utter genius. There are plot twists,
betrayal, reconciliation, heartbreak, love, hate, comedy, shock, drama and
action in GTA:V, and it’s all done so fantastically…but I was left feeling a
little bit empty when the story was finished if I’m honest. Don’t get me wrong,
the ending is superb, it’s a great and fitting way to end the game, it’s just
that it feels like it’s a bit rushed.
Thinking
back to school, you learn that plays have 3 acts, in the first act you’re
introduced to the story, the characters, the theme and a general feeling of how
the story is going to play out. In the second act, you have turmoil, the hard
place, the low points, the “woe is me” moments for the characters and the
feeling that everything is going wrong. The 3rd act, you get the
resolution, the fight back, the victory or defeat, the hope and the
reconciliation. GTA:V… GTA:V… GTA:V has 3 acts. Just.
It
has a great 1st act, its introduction to the game itself is
brilliant and it really makes you feel that you’re going to experience
something epic. The second act really does plunge you into the lows, the
betrayals, the hardships…it’s just fantastic. The 3rd act…isn’t very
long. It’s as though near the end of the second act, just as you’re getting
going to start the 3rd act, they rush through and decide the game
should be finished. As a comparison, in GTA:IV there are 94 story missions, in
GTA:V there are 69. There are 25 less story missions, and 3x as many characters
to play with, and ridiculous amount more space and places to explore and
actually have the game in. The game feels like the finished article, but the
story feels as though it’s missing a few chapters towards the end.
I am
fully prepared to go out on a whim and say that the game is a masterpiece, it’s
a fucking masterpiece. It is to gaming, what Citizen Kane or The Shawshank
Redemption is to movies, and what the works of Dickens or Tolkien was to literature.
Dickens wasn’t perfect and The Shawshank Redemption had its fair share of plot
holes and glaring errors – but maybe that lack of polish is what actually helps
make them wonderful. Like a reflection on life though, nothing is perfect…
except for my arse. It’s wonderful.
The
many gameplay aspects of GTA:V are extraordinarily well polished. The driving
in game has been given a brilliant makeover, and it’s made more noticeable if
you go back and play GTA:IV after playing V. Once playing GTA:V, the driving in
IV seems very heavy and a little bit poor. GTA:V really makes you feel like
you’re driving a certain type of car, be it a sports car handling beautifully
and being very light to driving an off-road truck feeling heavier, but easy to
control…well off road I suppose!!
Despite
driving, flying, sailing, cycling, running, parachuting being just super in
this game, there is something that did eat at me.
Once
completing GTA:V, I found that in SP…I was bored. It’s all well and good having
all that stuff to do, and it’s great to chip in and do it when you’re playing
the story missions, but once you’ve completed it…it’s a little flat. Which is
where GTA:Online comes into play.
That
is…if it came into play. Give me a few minutes, just waiting to see if the
servers are up.
Right
ok, they look to be on, but my progress from the night before is gone…and that
new garage I bought is gone. And the mods on my car. And my level up.
Fuck
sake.
Right,
GTA:Online, is brilliant. It’s properly brilliant, some of the missions like
Top Fun are genius, but it’s still being ironed out a good 3 weeks or so since
going “live”. Be it on 360 or PS3, there is not much but problems with playing
GTA:Online. Sometimes, it works exactly like it’s supposed to, but a lot of the
time it either doesn’t work at all, or if you think it’s working, it probably
hasn’t saved what you achieved.
Right,
when it works, and works properly, it’s brilliant, you get a real sense of
accomplishment when finishing missions or winning races, and being able to
really customise your online avatar is a fantastic upgrade from GTA:IV’s MP.
And as an apology to the fans trying to get by online, Rockstar are crediting
everyone’s online accounts with $500,000 – which for guys like me who only get
to play online every other night, is a massive bonus, but for guys who’ve
played religiously and earned sometimes treble that for it to be lost, it’s
scant consolation.
Give
it time, and it will work just dandy-o! You’ll be able to randomly start
screwing with people, placing bounties on other gamers and chasing down
arseholes who steal your car.
Overall
the game is fantastic, but I can’t help but view it with an air of
incompleteness. There must be future DLC for this game to enable it to realise
its full potential, and GTA:Online will come good in the end. However despite
the awesome characters, the 36-40 hour SP play through time is a step
backwards, especially when there are 3 story arc’s to follow through with.
In-spite
of the swathes of 9+/10 scores, because there is so much that could have been
in the game, and for the serious fuck up of their online cloud servers, this
game just grabs an 8/10 for me, and I think I’m being a little generous in giving it. Maybe things
will improve once Online is fixed and they can add to the game with some high
class “Lost and the Damned” / “Ballad of Gay Tony” / “Undead Nightmare” style
DLC but for now. Now that I’ve completed the game, Online is what it’s all
about for me… I’ve just got to wait for the Cloud Servers to come back online.
Toolbox24
