| Platform | OVERALL |
|---|---|
| PlayStation 3 | 9.50 |
| Overall | 9.50 |
|
The latest entry into the legendary Grand Theft Auto series promised to be the biggest and best open world game ever created. All the lessons learned from Rockstar's games throughout the generation all came together to form the best playing GTA yet. Heists became the focal point of the gameplay, a promise of performing large scale missions in which you could plan in multiple ways. It all sounded too good to be true, could Rockstar pull off another masterpiece, well I think that is arguable. In nearly every way GTAV is a fantastic game but it never reaches its full potential due to some issues from past games still rearing their ugly head. As soon as the game begins you are introduced into the new combat mechanics which make this the best playing GTA game. Aiming and cover is taking straight from Max Payne 3, guns pop in a way they never have before in a GTA game. There is still an option to play with the semi lock on targeting of past games but I would recommended going with free mode which feels as good as the best third person cover shooters. Each of the three main characters have a special skill, two of them Michael and Trevor have combat based skills (think bullet time) which add a nice bit of strategy to the gun play. Gun fights come alive mainly due to the fantastic euphoria physics engine creating a world that reacts to the carnage in stunning ways. Nearly every type of gun is represented and each can be customized with new parts like an extended clip, scopes or suppressors. It has never felt so much fun to gun down people in a GTA world, I would go as far as say in any open world game. Great mechanics can only take you so far, the design of the firefights is a major component of keeping things fresh and this is where GTAV falters a bit. Every single fire fight boils down to hiding in cover and shooting other people that hide in cover. This is not a game about aliens, or super soldiers so it is understandable that our characters can be doing any advanced moves, super dodging or pulling off crazy moves. Still there needs to be a little more imagination than waves and waves of the same kind of enemy over and over. Driving constitutes the other major gaming component to GTA and just like the shooting, driving has never been better. Gone are the heavy tank like cars from GTA4, cars turn much faster making pulling off crazy maneuvers a norm. Driving in GTA should feel more extreme than reality, cars need to crash in spectacular fashion and this game lives up to that promise. To further compliment the driving Franklin has a special power that allows physics breaking super control of your vehicle which can let you pull off the insane weaving through traffic moments as if you were in a movie. The various car types have a unique feeling meaning when you get into a slow small car it really feels like a poor drive, but when you get into that super car oh the exhilaration of speed is felt. Customization of vehicles is a nice new addition though the modifications are not that noticeable outside of the physical appearance. What GTAV does best is to give the player a world that feels real with levels of detail we have never seen before. GTAV has the best game world ever created, period. Los Santos oozes with personality and is detailed down to every single street sign. Most games will just copy paste certain items of buildings to populate the world, not Rockstar, every single location is unique. Most locations in the city you cannot enter but that doesn't matter, being able to tell what street you are on because you know the Caca clothing shop is on that street is something special in itself, every street is different. Walking down a random street in Los Santos can result in some hilarious moments with one of the many NPCs that populate the city. Random conversations are overheard, you may get into a fist fight with a guy who bumped into you, or a random event just might break out. The in game cell phone is used to further flesh out the living breathing nature of the game world by keeping the internet world updated with almost every action you do in the game. Kill a movie star and NPCs on the in game version of twitter will respond about it. What makes Los Santos and its surrounding areas such a compelling game world is the sheer variety in the landscape. Cityscapes lead to hills, mountains, deserts, lakes, forests and beaches. There is a moment early on in the game where Trevor is finally introduced, he lives in a trailer in the middle of the desert and it almost felt like playing a new game after being in the city for so long. Every area, even the homeless camp on the hillside is handled with the most intricate detail. There maybe one to many giant mountains, those take up huge chunks of the map without much to do on them. The game world is so huge there are massive areas like a military base and a prison that are never used once in the story. This leads me to believe that DLC will cover many areas that the main game did not. The biggest complaint I can give about the world is that its so big there wasn't enough content to fill every area, which is like being upset that you can't have a second dish of that amazing filet mignon. Which leads us to the missions which maybe the most important component of any open world game. Here is where GTAV could have reached milestone status but it is where it falters the most. Heists were advertised as the driving force of the missions, the dirty secret is that there are very few heists and only two of them have the level of planning promised in previews. Most games will start off with basic missions then slowly grow them as the game goes on. The first heist you do in GTAV is the most complex one in the entire game, even the final heist is not as complex as the first one. The first heist has you picking out a huge team with multiple roles, depending on the skill level of the crew the mission will play out differently. Get a poor driver and he will get lost in the tunnels, maybe someone will drop their bag of money leading to a lesser take. I felt like choice was going to play a major part in these missions. Then the game goes on and you do heists that are extremely scripted with only your three main characters. A bunch of missions are basic gathering of items for these heists, really basic fetch quest like missions where you simply drive to a location and get something or watch a cutscene. There are some truly incredible missions, the best ones in the series actually. One involving a train heist will go down as one of the best gaming moments of the year. But there are more crappy missions than there are incredible ones. It is such a shame cause you can see the developers know what goes into making a great mission, was time an issue, why couldn’t they all be great. Even the best missions still suffer from the rigid structure of classic GTA mission. Go here, do that, kill him, now escape; we have been doing this in GTA games since the beginning. Almost every moments is scripted for maximum cinematic presentation, it leads to some stunning gameplay moments but in a game about an open world why can’t the missions be more open. The gameplay in GTA games is at its best when the unexpected happens, the crazy things that occur when simply escaping cops lead to the most fun moments. Why can’t the missions try to bottle that magic. The missions are at their best when they involve all three main characters and giving you the option to switch between them. I loved being able to be right in the thick of the action but having trouble with a sniper only to switch to Michael who can snipe the sniper, then switch back to the action. Character switching in general is the best gameplay addition GTAV has and I hope all games going forward keep using this system. It allows for instant teleportation if you get stuck in a boring part of town with no car for instance. Stuck in the ocean and don’t want to travel back to land, just switch to another character, the game smartly starts you off near a mission or activity. Just like the heists, missions involving full control over all three characters is few and far between. No GTA is complete without a ton of side missions and activities to perform and GTAV has loads of them some hit and miss. Hunting has become my favorite GTA activity, its a scaled down more focused version of the excellent hunting in Red Dead. The races are better than ever due to the better driving but they are still way too easy. Mini games like golf and tennis are decent distractions fun for a few matches. All the underwater missions boil down to really slow tedious fetch quests leaving that entire area of the game a huge disappointment. I really miss the vehicle specific missions like vigilante, I cannot believe they removed those. On the flip side rampages are back but there are only 5 of them. There is only one side job where you fly a plane for trevor which is about the only flying related activity, another missed opportunity because flying is a joy. Quite a few strange design choices really hinder the game from reaching its full potential. The biggest one involves money which is supposed to be the key goal of the game, making millions from large heists. Well for most of the game you are broke. Even after you make big money at the end it is still not enough to buy most of the properties or buy the most expensive vehicles. Exploiting the in game stock market is the only way to make large amounts of money. Lack of garages is another horrible choices, each character gets a house and a garage and that is where your owned souped up vehicles stay. Trying to get to those vehicles are a pain, its quicker to just steal a nice one, why not have multiple houses or garages. From a story perspective GTAV is decent but not as one of a kind as it once was. Games have gotten so good at having hollywood levels of production values and now games are actually reaching dramatic milestones that GTA feels childish in comparison. The best compliment I can give the story is that it is funny, I laughed at loud plenty of times because Trevor is hilarious (and scary at the same time). I loved the family dynamic Michael has, its unique to play a father of two in any game, especially one as crazy as this one. The story has its moments but its mostly a black comedy with phenomenal voice acting. Satire still plays a major role in the creation of the in game media, the radio commercials remain as funny as always. Some of the TV shows and fake movies are trying too much, maybe the style of parody GTA uses is getting a bit predictable. In terms of the soundtrack it feels as if they musical variety is too vast leaving a feeling of spreading the music too thin for each person. I found myself sticking two 2 or 3 stations and ignoring the rest. A more focused soundtrack I feel is the way to go. Graphically GTAV is BEAUTIFUL but it chugs, these systems can’t handle how big the game is. The animations are some of the best I have ever seen in a game, when that gets combined with a super detailed world it creates this semi realistic look even though it is clearly cartoony. Oh the water is the best of any game, period. I haven’t even mentioned GTA Online cause I won’t let it affect my overall score because Online is a work in progress. As of now it is a compelling even some what addicting experiment with many issues that can drive many people away. At the heart of its many problems is the backwards matchmaking which makes playing with others a waiting game and the lack of content in the open world mode. There have been many amazing moments when playing with others, just enough to keep me hooked. But for every random hilarious situation there is some frustrating aspect that rears its ugly head and spoils the fun. This has the potential to be something special but for now it is a fun but flawed experience. Ultimately Grand Theft Auto V feels like a game that could have been in the running for greatest of all time if not for the many “yeah but” moments. It has the best mechanics of the series by far, yeah but it also is stuck in very rigid old school GTA mission and combat design. It has some of the best missions the series has ever seen, yeah but there are just as many if not more boring filler missions. The negatives are but nagging issues in a game that for the most part an absolute blast to play. There is no open world game that even comes close to being as fun control, to simply drive around and get into random trouble. I have put over 100 hours into this game and I still loved every moment I got into a car chase or I saw some random shooting occur. GTAV takes the open world genre to new heights and yet I got the feeling it could have gone even higher |
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Posted by Dvader Tue, 15 Oct 2013 08:17:12
Yup.
"driving has never been better"
Yup.
[missions]"Here is where GTAV could have reached milestone status but it is where it falters the most."
Yup.
"strange design choices really hinder the game from reaching its full potential. The biggest one involves money"
Yup.
"spreading the music too thin"
Yup.
I give you 5/5 Yups. Wish I had written a review before reading yours now.
Quit bullshitting me.