Grand Theft Auto V

Story

Welcome back to Los Santos (if you've played San Andreas.. yeah) and it's changed quite a bit from a geographical standpoint, instead of 3 islands its now one big one that’s mostly mountains and desert, it brags to be bigger than a couple of the rockstar's worlds combined but to be honest it doesn't feel like it, maybe they've made vehicles in general faster or something but after a few hours of play you'll be memorising routes which kinda disappointed me.


 There's 3 main characters this time round :- Franklin, Michael and Trevor and they are very stereotypical in my opinion, a young black kid that is a nobody boosting cars for a dodgy repo company, an old veteran that’s borderline retired and a psychopath that worked alongside the vet in his prime. The characters felt very one dimensional to me, it is entertaining to watch how they interact with others and deal with situations but I couldn't get invested in them if that makes sense.
 The storyline, I've personally not finished the story so I can't speak of it as a whole but it feels very linear.  There's been no choices that can create different scenarios, I guess its to be expected but I would've liked at least some choice(even GTA4 had it in some sense), but the missions for the story on the other hand are awesome, there’s not much of the whole drive from A – B with passengers, they are a lot more creative and individual, like pretending to be dock workers to get more details on a docked freighter and being forced to do some actual dock work while your there to spoil one mission.

Gameplay

As expected of GTA its a sandbox game with a bunch of stuff to do:- buy properties, customise cars and weapons, tennis, golf, explore the ocean and much more.. or you can just go about killing people the good old fashioned way.  You can change between the characters on the fly which has been implemented pretty well.  In missions where they are working together the switches are instantaneous for the most part but if you switch on the free roam, it zooms out and finds where they are and zooms back in, if you haven't been that character for a while you interrupt them doing their own thing, getting drunk, getting somewhere in a car, having a smoke on a chair etc.  Like San Andreas your characters have stats that they need to raise but its not skills similar to SA where you kind of sculpt your own person, this is more making the people better at doing stuff:-


 Doing stuff associated with the skill obviously contributes to levelling up, but on the plus side comparing it once again to SA, the flight school is back in some form.  If you focus on them they are quite easy to level up, stealth and driving probably being the longest to level. Each person has their own special ability which are handy at times but I won't spoil what they are.  The shooting in the game reminds me of Red Dead Redemption, its got a soft auto lock on but you'll need to do more than that to make the kills quicker.  Driving in the game feels more polished compare to GTA4 but still feels a bit floaty, there's more damage to the vehicles this time round.  Reckless driving might damage your front axis on the car and make a wheel buckle into the rim making it a lot harder to drive.  Speaking of which, the police this time round are annoyingly awesome as they properly try and box you in now plus a lot less forgiving.  The response time of the police is still exaggerated but I guess it would be less fun if it were more realistic, its a lot tougher to lose them this time round unless you hide in the hills like a mountain goat.  Wildlife has been put in this game so random accidents are more frequent since some deer dare to take on the freeway often and fail horribly.

Graphics

Considering the game was made to work on like 8 years old console hardware it looks very nice, there is no slow down for loading and such. The only time I've seen a spot of lag was when I was out at sea on the surface with a submarine, the water in the game is the best I've seen to date.  Currents, waves, splashing from random stuff, fishies and sharks which all can be explored and avoided quite easily.  On the land if you are traveling quite fast there might be some texture pop ins but nothing major for you to be put off by it.  Weather is in the game and works quite well, makes cars more floaty lol.  The landscapes look very neat and feels like there has been some attention to detail.  Some places feel a bit samey but the cities, villages and iconic places are done well so.. its all good.


Music

There is a big variety of music styles in the game with some good music licenses like Queen and Steve Miller Band or.. Brittany Spears and Rihanna if you like that stuff lol but it feels like they've focused on too much and made the choices per radio station a tad too thin. It could just be me nit picking.  Not that I'm complaining but I felt I heard too much of Radio Ga Ga for one car ride to a place, that's all.

Longevity

I'm somewhat conflicted to what to say about this since the 'Collectables' have been seriously dumbed down this time which is kinda disappointing. Get 50 of this, get 50 of something else and the good old stunt jump/fly under bridges/races stuff. The story feels longer than the other but I might just be taking my time with it so it feels like that.  I feel that after the story it might dip quite a bit for enjoyment since some chievos seem a little tedious.
 I'm hoping it's like this because they maybe invested more time into the GTA Online that goes public on 1st October which claims to do much of the things you can do in the single player so, with a good posse that could be very enjoyable.


Summary

Overall a very enjoyable game but doesn’t live up to the hype in my eyes but still the best GTA so far.  I've lost quite a bit of time in the game just playing golf and tennis so it can suck you in for doing the nothings in the game easily.  You can tell they've taken some things from their other games and made them mash well plus there is a lot of cameos from previous GTA characters we know.  They have put love into the game but just falls short in some areas. With time and the GTA Online that might be solved.

9 Minigun Badgers outta 10

Very good matey. A nice honest review!

thanks mate ^^ a TGD crew next week will certainly make it more interesting  

Nice review. Still holding off on this one, but it'll have to be bought at some point!

I am tempted to get it, but I haven't finished no. 4 yet, and have various other sandboxers to get through too. Don't want to buy this and then find that all my others feel old and crap in comparison.

Great work mate, moving this to official!

They should set the next GTA in Colorado as smoking skunk is LEGAL for everyone there from 2014  

Great work again pal.
Hard game to review without having a go at the multiplayer. Not long now though...

Yeah mate, I'm seeing the multiplayer as something totally seperate since it'll have its own wee missions and stuff, curious about the level customization we will have for our wee dude/dudettes.

Colne Crusader wrote:I am tempted to get it, but I haven't finished no. 4 yet, and have various other sandboxers to get through too. Don't want to buy this and then find that all my others feel old and crap in comparison.

Yeah it's probably best to hold off on it mate, after playing this I cant really see me going back to red dead or gta4, it's not perfect but it's a defo step up in quality.

great review there mate very honest.

I think that the game is great and can see the longevity in the story but think that this is only because I am taking my time at playing through it.

I personally am gonna hold off on the multiplayer and play through some more of the story first and then join later on can see the mp being very busy week one

Nice review mate!

Also you may want to check your signature... Unless you really want people to smell your fingers. I suspect you have been kented

Good review mate I'm really enjoying this can't wait for the online to go live

This game has started to suck me in now.
Only Diablo 3 stops me from spending more time on it. Co op gaming always comes first though

cool review, I have GTA 5 now as well it is a ok game so far. But I still need to finish GTA 4

microtransactions confirmed for GTA. That's rubbish. Here come the parents of kids under 18 ," my son has run up a bill I can't pay" well stay of the crack bitch and what are you doing letting your 9 year old playing it -fuckwit. 

lol yeah mate but on the plus side they said the transaction stuff won't give them any major advantage that will seperate the gamers, but it's easily said isn't it? xD We'll see

can see me having to get some points or credit on my account when these start

Wasn't too sure if I should make a thread just to show this off so I'm putting it here o/



Recorded some gameplay of the online when I was finally able to get on for a wee while earlier so..  here's team last man standing for people to nosey if they are curious

Nice work Jevil. Thanks for the video

Nice review mate

Nice win Jevil, although I was more amused when you face planted off the curb at the start!  

Are their achieves connected to online?

I am not the best at online shooters. Esp with the tiny invisible dot to aim with  

lol well.. anyone thats played GTA V knows how it easy to fail fall =o silly trip ups or trying to jump a wall and face planting it instead. So... shush kent You'll do the same when we play and I will laugh  

Yeah there is some chievos tied to the online, stuff like.. ranks, doing everything, survive doing some stuff to name a couple but there's nothing super over the top. I'm not a fan of online chievos in general but they are somewhat decent.

KENT HAMMER wrote:
I am not the best at online shooters. Esp with the tiny invisible dot to aim with  

You can change this in the options, look for crosshair or reticle or whatever it's called, by default it's set to simple, change it to complex and you'll get a more traditional reticle instead of just a tiny dot.

Nice video, looks like it could be quite fun - definitely something a bit different to the traditional GTA style of gameplay.
Will have to pick it up at some point, probably when everyone else is bored of it.

Maybe I'll play it when they release GTA VI.

Ninja Yaro wrote:

KENT HAMMER wrote:
I am not the best at online shooters. Esp with the tiny invisible dot to aim with  

You can change this in the options, look for crosshair or reticle or whatever it's called, by default it's set to simple, change it to complex and you'll get a more traditional reticle instead of just a tiny dot.

I did this when I first played

Now instead of an invisible dot I have an invisible circle with an invisible dot in the middle

Still with the cockarse way you need to select your guns its all fucking meaning less anyway lol