Grand Theft Auto V

In the city of Los Santos, a young hustler falls under the wing of a former criminal living a difficult retirement. Circumstances lead to the pair to have to do a job to pay off a debt – a job which gets national coverage and draws unwanted attention from a former partner, corrupt cops, ruthless movie moguls, rival gangs, aggressive fitness fanatics and many others.

I have played this game series on and off over the years but (criminally) did not play the former one based in Los Santos but instead rejoined with GTA4, a game I enjoyed but not one without its flaws. The good news with V is that the game keeps the strengths of the fourth game but makes many improvements which produce a much more fun and enjoyable experience across many aspects. The first thing to say is that the world of LS is technically amazing in terms of its attention to detail and beauty – it is hard to describe to people who decide they do not like these games, but to see a glorious sunset from a hillside, with perfect shadow effects and vegetation movement and know that someone designed and made this, not just filmed it, is something that hit me over and over throughout the game. The map is enjoyably large with diverse landscapes and character and I still find great pleasure in just going around in it even if I have nothing specific to do.

The story is solid enough for the game even if it is rather generic and overblown. The characters are quite clichéd in some regards. Michael's story for instance is not so imaginative and generally I found him the least of the characters. Franklin is similar but covered by him being the "intro" character, so I stayed close to him throughout. Trevor is a wonderfully violent and funny character and his entrance is memorable and really shakes the game up. The events of the story are necessarily overblown but this is part of the fun and generally I liked the flow to it. The many supporting characters are great fun and the energy and color of it all does cover up for the fact that the story is not really that complex or engaging at times. As it is though, it is about events and set-pieces and the game provides plenty of fun memorable missions (admittedly as well as a handful of awful ones), and in this way there are loads of missions to replay and enjoy and, most importantly, this game actually allows you to load them to do just that.

Side missions add color and fun and, although I do miss ongoing missions like the vigilante ones from IV, there is still plenty to do. The range of vehicles adds to this and I also enjoyed how much easier they are to drive than in the previous game. Weapon customization and the range of them provide fun destruction, although the police are a lot more aggressive in this game than in IV, so it is harder to go on a rampage and make it last. In theory the Online world offers endless gaming – I tried it for one evening and it was fun despite all the issues, but the community seemed messed up and very reliant on having an existing group of players – it looks fun but I'm just more of an offline player these days.

Grand Theft Auto V is a great game, even if you "only" play the days and days of content in the single player game. Technically the game is astounding with its attention to detail and just the sheer beauty of the audio and visual design of the whole world. The plot is solid enough to do the job while the characters (main and supporting) are colorful enough to engage while playing through missions which are mostly enjoyable and offer plenty of big set-pieces that are overblown and fun.

After I joined college I started playing PC games, and that was the time I began learning about gaming outside of Nintendo. Open world games were something that really fascinated me, so that was the genre I started from. I played Assassin's Creed and Watch_Dogs, but I didn't understand why normies liked GTA so much. I thought it must be because they don't know about bigger ad cooler games, until I tried GTA V myself. And I have to say, boy was I so wrong! This really is something unique, something I couldn't get in any other open world AAA game I had played to that point.

GTA V is something I'd call the era defining game of our time. It has everything we want: A good story, interesting characters, a dynamic open world, interactive NPCs and most importantly, it can run on any device (other than Nintendo and mobile phones). I have a habit of playing games linearly, that is, going from point A to point B. I only care about the story of a game and explore the open world only after I complete the main story mode, so that I can delete the game in case my laptop starts going slow (it's an Nvidia 940MX), and also because I have too many unplayed games in my library and I'd choose to finish them rather than look at a game whose story I've already completed.

And that made it even more engaging; because the story is really gripping and funny at the same time. In the beginning I was annoyed when Michael was shown the first time, putting his gun on Franklin's head. But after Michael's family left him I was really interested in knowing how he will fix things back. But then the scene shifted to Trevor. I was really annoyed, and I would always shift to Michael to finish his quests. But after I replayed the game after it became free on Epic, I realised Trevor's story was the funniest of them all. Now Trevor has become my favourite character of the three.

The graphics are really realistic. And the best part is, if you have a high end PC you can download mods to make the game look as realistic as possible. There are even mods for bringing your own characters like Superman or Hulk, and the best part is that Rockstar, unlike other AAA companies (read Nintendo) encourages players to do it rather than punish them for the same. The NPCs are also very interactive. They behave just like how any person in real life would. Being an indie game developer myself I know how much effort goes behind doing this.

Just by looking at GTA V you can see how much love the developers poured into making it. The game has been available for every console from the 7th generation and will also be for the 9th generation. Gaming companies should learn from Rockstar and take this example for their games too (especially Ubisoft, Assassin's Creed II would have been so awesome if it was remastered for PS5 and Xbox Series X). I really hope GTA VI is able to outperform this game. They can take as much time as they want, I have no problem with it.

Pros:

• Great story & characters
• Amazing extravagant open world
• Great side activities and missions
• So much freedom
• Amazing graphics
• A-grade voice acting and animation
• Deep gameplay
• Great customisation
• GTA Online is a complete video game of itself

Cons:

• None

Verdict: The perfect sandbox video game to do everything and literally anything. A compelling campaign alongside an online mode where countless hours can be spent. Definitely worth every cent.

10/10

One of the most highly anticipated games we have seen ever and it has not disappointed. I have been a fan since the very first GTA entered my console a number of years ago and have played them ever since with great enjoyment and GTA 5 just tops the rest.

From the characters to the amazing graphics it is easily the best game I have ever played, after playing The Last Of Us I didn't think the graphics could be topped but they have and then some.

With the selection of 3 characters to play it adds that little bit more fun and you get a more in depth view of the person you're playing, and of course GTA would not be the same without the crazy dialogue and damn right funny events that happen.

Borrow,Beg,(don't steal) and get yourself a copy. 10/10

Grand Theft Auto V is one of the most Universally praised games of all time. This juggernaut of a game lives up to the hype and exceeds it. With 40-50 hours of story and an incredibly packed online mode, Grand Theft Auto V would already be considered one of the greatest games of all time, but including its vehicles, customization, acting, weapons, comedy, depth and messages about a modern America, this game cements itself above some of the greatest games of all time and may just be the greatest game ever made.