All things considered, it's not really that surprising, that GTAV has remained popular as long as it has. It's simply just the best tuned modern GTA game and overall the most interesting iteration on the long-running series since Vice City that was released in 2003. In comparison to the GTAIV (not Vice City despite it being a 4th game released in the series, there was an actual GTAIV released in 2008), the 5th numbered entry is every way far more enjoyable experience.
Franklin Clinton is a small-time criminal from the poorer parts of Los Santon, living with his aunt and trying to figure out a way to get ahead in life. His current main occupation is doing car repossessions for a shady car dealer and this career path takes him to Michael De Santa, who happens to be a former bank robber now living under witness protection 9 years after a botched bank heist. Michael, who is now trying to fill his days with doing nothing while enjoying his millions, takes a liking on the young hood and becomes his mentor of sorts.
After Michael finds his wife Amanda from bed with her tennis instructor, the hot-headed ex-crook takes Michael with him to teach the loverboy a lesson. This results in them tearing down a house, which they soon learn belonged to a mistress of a Mexican drug lord Martin Madrazo, who demands the duo to pay for the damages. To do that, Michael has to contact his old friend Lester, who is a genius planning heist. These heists also are one of the better and most memorable aspects of GTAV, all providing two possible methods for the approach you need to prep for.
After a successful heist, Michael and Franklin need to lay low for a while, but what they've done is not left unseen. Firstly, there is Michael FIB (Federal Investigation Bureau) handler, who protests deeply, as he actually arranged his witness protection around the books. And then there is Trevor Phillips, a psychotic former partner of Michael's, who has assumed him dead and is now looking for some payback. Or an explanation. Or something only his own deranged mind can fathom.
Things take another turn when the corrupted FIB agents Dave Norton and Steve Haines begin to demand services from the trio. The Federal Investigation Bureau agents force them to do black ops for them, which includes getting more funding through criminal means. This tied to the tense relations of Michael and Trevor make the soup even thicker.
In the end, it's up to Franklin to decide the fate of the trio. As he is forced to make a choice between killing either Michael or Trevor, he can take a third way out, which leads them to clean Los Santos from all of their enemies. So, in essence, you can have three different endings, two of which are wretched and one which is as happy as it can be for a trio like these guys are.
One big change in gameplay for GTAV is the ability to play with three characters, Michael, Franklin and Trevor. Each of them has his own share of missions to complete and are on occasion tied together by story missions and the heists. Trevor's lot is trying to get ahead in the cutthroat business of gun and drug smuggling, Franklin is trying to shed his hood life and Michael is trying to find something meaningful to fill his life as he's bored in his life of leisure and demanding family.
You can change between the characters on the fly most of the time and if you aren't currently tied to a mission. During each change, you find the character in the mids to doing something, Trevor is usually getting crazy while Michael and Franklin are spending time in bars or with their family or friends. This gives a sense of them having lives of their own besides you controlling them.
As it was in GTAIV, you have a contact list of people you can call, these include all the three playable characters, with whom you can hit the town if they are free. You can then proceed in hitting the bars or try some recreational sports like tennis. In all, there's a lot of non-story related activities you can partake in either alone or with a buddy in tow. It's also possible to buy businesses and properties which then provide you with extra income and missions.
The missions are more or less in line with the rest of the series. Besides all kinds of criminal acts, which often lead to full-scale massacres, there are the races and the random encounters. In the midst of all this mayhem, there's one mission that stands out as extremely unpleasant, as it has you playing as Trevor torturing a man. It could have worked as a cutscene, but having to play it makes it much worse. As I stated before, the real standouts are the heist missions, which at least to a degree break the standard GTA formula.
Now, GTAV might not be the best action game nor the best driving game around, but it is good enough in both of the main activities to make it fun to play. The story and the characters are fun as well. And that really sums up GTAV: it's good enough to be entertaining and fun enough to play.
But what has really kept GTAV on the surface longer than any of its predecessors is the online gameplay. Rockstar wanted to extend the longevity of the massive location that is Los Santos and achieved that by adding in an MMO game utilizing the same set. You can jump into an online game at any time from the single-player game. Chronologically the online mode takes place after the story events of the single-player game, so you might want to complete that first before tackling it.
As such, the online gameplay offers more of the same, but with a possibility to play with or against real humans instead. There are fights and heists and other activities you can do, so if you want to spend some more time on the streets of Los Santos, the online mode is the way to go. I've gathered the online mode still is quite a moneymaker for Rockstar, which is visible from the bugs that are still present on the single-player game 7-years after its release. Why bother fixing the small bugs from the main game, if the big money comes from online. That's really the only way to explain it.
Considering the age of GTAV, I'd assume the next entry to the series is already in the works. It'll be interesting to see if Rockstar wants to change the formula from here and if they do, in what direction. With GTA5 they do have a solid foundation, so now all it needs is adding more things of interest in it. One thing could be increasing the interior locations that you can visit, as now, Los Santos is filled with empty husks of houses. Something like house invasion missions could be a solid addition to the mix.
If you still haven't given GTA5 a spin, you should, if you like the GTA series. It is a fun game with a good cast and it doesn't look bad either. Graphically it is at times hard to remember it is already a 7-years old game. If you aren't into wanton mayhem, then you should probably steer away, but then again, that's the case with any GTA game.
GTAV is available for every major platform, excluding Nintendo and mobile devices. And apparently, there's a version of it coming for the next-gen consoles as well, so that in mind, it seems this puppy is destined for an even longer lifespan.
Comments
Post a Comment