Grand Theft Auto V (2013)

I had hours of fun roaming around the map in single player, but then one day I launched the game and found I had completely lost interest in the story mode. I have to say it is still one of my favourite games and I had a lot of fun with it before I quit, but I just had no desire to finish the campaign.

Positives

The open world map feels very alive and is a lot of fun to just bum around in. Driving is also a lot more fun than in previous GTA titles and feels great. The game is very cinematic so it always just looks super slick no matter what you're doing. The cut scenes are very well thought out and are also very cinematic and the voice acting is really well done for a game. The characters are some of the edgiest in video games in a while, and being able to switch between three different players was a real novelty for this type of game. Subtle touches like the way the different characters move around and what characters were in the middle of doing when switching to them were really well done.

One improvement on earlier titles in the series is the way the missions are actually integrated with the open world and the overall story. Earlier GTA games have tended to just have the player drive around completing random missions in between fooling around in the open world. In GTA V the missions are built around heists which have smaller missions that need to be completed to build up the bigger heist missions. There are also subtle ways the progress is reflected in the open world as well, such as the radio announcing news stories that relate to missions that have just been completed after assassinating someone etc.

Customisations

Compared to previous games in the series there are more limitations around customisations in the single player story mode. There are a lot of clothes and items that you can buy, but each character has a certain range of items that they can purchase, even from the same store. The outfits the characters are wearing also get changed over automatically so it's easy to lose interest in redressing the characters.

Some of those little random tasks that were in the earlier games like being able to get fat on takeaway or bulk up at the gym have also been removed. This is obviously not a major loss to the gameplay, but some of these little customisations made the earlier games more fun to muck around with. There are hobbies and interests that you can muck around with such as playing golf or tennis, but these don't really seem to have any purpose or impact on your player.

Owned items

Ultimately why I lost interest in the game was to do with the limitations around items that can be owned and purchased. For example, it is possible to buy a car, but if you drive it out of the garage and lose it, the only way to get it back is to retrieve it from a vehicle impound. If you don't go and retrieve it, you lose it for good. You can also steal cars and park them in garages, but these cars also seem to disappear without warning regularly. You can customise cars that you steal, but there is no point since it is easy to lose them without having a way to recover them. In the end you end up just having to upgrade the character's cars.

Money

Another point of frustration is the way money is acquired in the game. Outside of the main missions there are hardly any ways to actually make money. A lot of the side missions don't make you any money, so it forces you to stick to the main missions and also buy shares to make any money.

In general it seems like the single player mode forces the player into the story missions a little too much and makes it hard to care about customisations. Being in the open world feels great and is super immersive, but ultimately with a lot of the limitations around customisation and progression it's hard to really care about the story missions after a while.

Alright so nearly 8 years after its release, I finally got around playing GTA V and damn I should have played this earlier. I had played some of Liberty City Stories and didn't tell me much, so I went into this without high expectations and it ended up really growing into me and spending hours playing it because of how invested I was.

The game mechanics were nice. Nothing new or original. Flying around for was kinda difficult, but overall it was easy to handle everything. I loved driving. Usually I get bored when have to free roam and here there is a lot of "Go there", but surprisingly I enjoyed it and had a lot of fun driving around this huge map. Also I loved how many extra things the game allows you to do. There really is so much extras that you don't even have to follow the story.

But the story was amazing. I really didn't expect being so invested in the story and the characters. The characters were kinda cliche, when it comes to their basic behaviour, but I loved how they had a connection and backstories and how everything came to play some part. Trevor obviously was my favorite, because I found him to be the better-written character, but Franklin and Michael also had a character and all of their choices, always follow that character.

Now the story was a hell of a ride. I loved how things would constantly get bigger and bigger, without feeling too much and also I loved how everything came to play in the end. The 5 big Heists were brilliant and I loved the idea that you had to set them up and depending on how you would and which people you would choose, things would go. It made you feel like you had a lot of control over the story and of course the three endings also prove that (I went with C, which obviously is the best).

Technically, I played this in my PS3 and for a 7-year-old PS3-Game the graphics were really nice. The city was beautiful and I loved the scenery and the roads. I would say that the facial expressions were kinda meh, but just that. Also the voice acting is fantastic in this game. Especially the three main characters have amazing actors, but everyone involved was really good. Also I had many laughs with certain radio-shows and talks and I really appreciated it that they went for it and tried everything to be kinda more realistic, even small things like the radio.

Some side-missions were kinda boring and repetitive but that;s for the guy who wants the 100%. The main story moved fairly quick, without getting boring or slow. It took me more than 30 hours to finish the main story, so WOW. That's much more than the average tame it takes me. Other than that the game has a ton of things for you to explore and it really just is a really fun time.

ГТА 5 — это отличный «летний» блокбастер. После унылейшей четвертой части в серию вернули веселье.

Первое, что замечаешь, (кроме того, что игра снова разноцветная), это выросший уровень постановки. Вообще, как мне показалось, единственная причина для ввода трех играбельных персонажей — освежить старую формулу. Рокстар на самом деле не предлагает ничего нового и революционного: все миссии это езда и перестрелки. Но вот постановка катсцен, миссии, где можно переключаться с пилотирования вертолета на стрельбу, OST в самых важных сюжетных заданиях — всё это создаёт ощущение, что ты играешь в очень крутой боевик в духе «Плохих парней 2», только с рейтингом 18+.

Сюжет не хватает звёзд с неба, а нормально прописанный персонаж здесь только один — Майкл. Он единственный проходит хоть какой-то путь, начиная принимать себя таким, какой есть: грабителем, который кайфует от бандитского образа жизни. Остальные персонажи на деле всего лишь функции, инструменты для грамотного геймдизайна и сценария.

Тревор — психопат, который только и делает, что убивает конкурентов, мешающих «бизнесу». Убивать наёмников, китайцев или байкеров — Тревору без разницы. Игроку тоже. Хоть и прекрасно отыгранный, Тревор очень быстро начинает утомлять своими однообразными приступами ярости и социопатией. Кроме того, Тревор явно используется, чтобы постебаться над теми игроками, которые ценят серию исключительно за возможность перестрелять кучу народа и повзрывать машинки.

Франклин — такой же одномерный, но в другом ключе: единственное его качество — верность товарищам. А кроме этого он нужен только чтобы вяло затронуть тему «сына, которого я всегда хотел» для Майкла. В остальном вся его линия это какой вялый и унылый рип-офф приключений Си Джея: все эти тёрки о том как выбраться с района были в «Сан-Андреасе», и там тема раскрывалась лучше.

Но когда персонажей сводят вместе они работают как надо. Их перепалки довольно забавные, а одномерность меньше бросается в глаза.

Если же говорить о геймплее, то тут тоже всё стало лучше, чем 4-й части. Самое главное, что в игре снова приятно ездить. Рокстар облегчили физику и уменьшили количество транспорта на дорогах и это пошло игре только на пользу. Маслкар от суперкара по-прежнему легко отличить, но вождение не становиться пыткой, а радует чувством скорости.

Поездок на дальние расстояния, как и в прошлой части много, особенно во второй половине игры. Но большую часть пути персонажи обычно болтают между собой, и болтовня эта иногда бывает уморительно смешной (например, спор о хипстерах Майкла и Тревора).

ГТА 5 вообще постоянно стремиться развлекать всеми возможными способами. В игре куча побочных занятий: от йоги до триатлона, от миссий «рэмпейджа» до прыжков с парашютом. И хотя иногда игрока и троллят (1-я гонка триатлона длится 3 минуты, а последняя — 28!), игра очень простая и... «удобная».

Здесь наконец-то можно сохраняться через внутриигровой смартфон, в миссиях логично расставлены чекпоинты, а спустя 3 неудачные попытки миссию вообще можно пропустить! Стрельба, впервые в серии, сделана на уровне нормального шутера от 3-го лица.

Без минусов никак, но найти надо. Честно говоря объективный минус (я бы даже сказал пол-минуса) тут только один — ограбления. Они крутые, но их мало и выбирать между тихим и громким вариантами можно не всегда. И зачем при таком раскладе прокачиваются подельники тоже непонятно. Проще брать новых и самых крутых на каждый новый налёт.

ГТА 5 — как фильмы Джерри Брукхаймера в его лучшие годы. Можно пенять ей на то, что элементы игры по сути не меняются, а все новшества — перетасовка старых трюков. Но какая разница, играть же весело!

P. S. Единственное, что меня по-настоящему бесило это то, что персонажи самовольно меняют одежду, когда ими не играешь. Блять, зачем наряжать Тревора, если в следующий раз ты всё равно найдешь его в одних трусах?!

I did it! It was not a short endeavor, I played for 35 1/2 hours and managed to finish the main story mode missions which was my goal. I did complete many of the side-missions, but not close to all of them. I do hope to try to 100% the game because I really did enjoy it. It's a beautiful game and I wouldn't like to be done with it just yet.

I don't think I'll do the online mode though, after I 100% GTA V I think I will uninstall it from my computer. (Online mode looks interesting but from what I've played it's very toxic, a shame as I was looking forward to playing some slot machines in the casino etc.)

I am removing one star because the game does crash on me semi-regularly. Maybe once an hour or two, maybe more frequent then that I didn't time it but longer than 30 mins between crashes. I have a brand new computer which makes this frustrating. I looked online and it seems other people with similarly powerful rigs experience crashes too. I thought maybe it was a heating issue but I'm playing The Outer Worlds now and I can feel my PC putting out more heat than it did playing GTA V but I've experiences no crashes whatsoever even after long gaming sessions. So, like the posts online sort of summarized, it seems to be an issue with GTA V. No fun to have the game crash and for you to lose your progress, as GTA V does have a quick-save but it's auto-save is limited.

That criticism aside this game is and was fantastic.

Every time I think about this game I want to play it again. I love it in every respect.

(Rest of Review imported from Steam) Grand Theft Auto V is easily on of the best games I have ever played, and is my favorite in the GTA series.

Pros:

• Extremely well written story
• Main/side characters feel real, and develop thoughout
• The actions you do actually feel like they matter
• Los Santos feels alive
• Smooth driving mechanics
• Action is great
• Trevor
• It looks beautiful
• Free Updates for multiplayer portion of the game
• Fun to play with friends
• Awesome soundtrack that appeals to every taste (Famous artists even host the stations)
• The different UIs
• Plenty to do (Even after finishing the main story)

Cons

• The game has infrequent frame drops on more insense scenes on higher settings
• No Story DLC ( Only a con because Rockstar said it would happen/Rockstar makes good DLCs)
• There is the occasional hacker online

This is one of the only games that I can call a 10/10. Every time I see it in my Library, I want to play through it again. I bought this for $60 on PS3 and $60 on PC, and I definitely do not regret either purchase. Do yourself a favor, and pickup this game.

Played on PC, PS3

I've enjoyed various GTA games before, but usually more for the thrill of the open world than the actual story. GTA V is different: it's the first GTA I've played where I cared about the characters.

Maybe "cared" isn't quite accurate. I enjoyed them. Franklin's young innocence, his bright-eyed loyalty. Michael's world-weary depression and self-destructive habits. Trevor's, well, utter bat**** insanity. I may not think they're GOOD, but I love spending time with them.

The heists are fun, the subquests vary between entertaining and annoying, and I would LOVE for Lester to be a playable character (alas!). But ultimately, GTA V is the only open world sandbox where I have just as much fun spending an hour goofing off (lately I was trying to break INTO prison) as I do doing things that actually advance the story.

Played on PC, June 2017. Single Player campaign only so far.

Pros: I loved this game and I just want to stay in its world. The driving, missions, music, story were all well done. I liked the three protagonist system and think it's a great idea for storytelling/campaign that I hope more games adopt.

Cons: I never could get used to the flying controls, especially for the helicopters. Trying to get gold medals on missions was too much of a hassle. I lose some FPS sometimes even after turning the settings down, but I just need to get a better computer. All minor hassles really that don't detract much from the overall experience.

Replay at some point.

I played this briefly on both the 360 and the P3, neither of them come close to the glory you'll experience playing this on a next-gen console. From my standpoint, this was a big improvement on GTA 4, and it took me back to one of my favorite locations in the series, the San Andreas area. As usual, there's so much to do in the giant sandbox you've been handed, so you're never short on something to occupy yourself with. What's even better about the mind-numbing amount of activities to participate in, is that to get the "100% complete" achievement, you don't necessarily have to complete every single thing in the game, but it basically requires you to take part in most of the activities at least once -- i.e. -- there are 50 stunt jumps, the checklist requires only completing 25 -- so i get to feel like somewhat of a completionist without having to spend the rest of my life trying to do everything.

Overall, this game is amazing. The graphics are incredible, the soundtrack will have you lost in some of your favorite songs while driving around San Andreas, and the story, as always, is about as crazy and comical as it always has been. But good luck trying to complete the story with tons of side missions and activities, not to mention a stellar multiplayer experience that makes this GTA unlike any other sand box game you've played before.

Read my full review at Glitchslap - Punishing Polygons with GTA V

Recommendation

I do not give 5 star recommendations easily. R* has done an amazing job with GTA V and I believe they should be commensurately rewarded for that. The attention to detail in almost all things is apparent and the game is just plain fun to play. Granting that you have a predilection for wrecking havoc on a polygon community that has done nothing to deserve your ire...