GTA V Review

17 september 2013, the day that Boston celebrated it's 383th birthday and the day that the first Space Shuttle became 37 years, but the most important of all, it was the launch day of Grand Theft Auto Five. The launch was the biggest success in entertainment history. Rockstar became one billion dollars richer in only three days. After playing the game for nearly two weeks, I thought it was time for a review.

So, where do I need to start? This game is so extremely big and comprehensive, it's nearly unbelievable. The world is approximately three times as big as Liberty City from GTA IV, but there is also a massive underwater world. The game let's you explore the map by yourself. Every time you go further into the map, your map get's updated. I like this system, because it gives me a good reason to go to the most remote areas of San Andreas, and there are many remote areas. The biggest advantage of the huge world is that you can find new spots for many hours, so the world stays fun to explore. San Andreas looks amazing. The level of detail is fantastic. Every little piece of the world has the smallest details. Even a garbage bin or a towel looks good in this game. The water is greatly improved since GTA V. The waves very realistic. When you are at the ocean you see the typical slow and big waves of an ocean, but when you are at a smaller lake, you see tiny and fast waves. When you are under the waves, you are amazed. The seabed is as detailed as the world above the water. You can see all kinds of different plants, huge underwater canyons and some shipwrecks.

Grand Theft Auto Five is the first game with three main characters. The characters are totally different. The first one you meet is called Michael da Santa. He is a retired bank robber and father of two kids. The second character you meet is Franklin Clinton. He is a young guy who grew up in the poor district of Los Santos. The last character is Trevor Philips. He is totally insane. Trevor is a drug addicted murderer who runs a weapon and drug smuggling company. The characters feel like real persons. Their background story is very good and gives the story an amazing boost. Every character has a special ability. Michael can shoot in slow motion, Franklin can drive in slow motion and Trevor can do more damage and take less damage. The special abilities are very useful during gameplay. The special abilities also fit the stories of the characters. When you play as Franklin, for example, you have much more driving mission than with the other characters. You can switch between the characters using the down button. When switching, the game will zoom out, move to the place of the other character and zoom in again. This looks really nice. You get a cool overview of the area you're in.

The story is very good. The missions are varied and great fun to play. In the beginning of the game the story starts slow, but not too slow. The further you get into the story, the more intense and action packed the game is. Later in the game the missions are very challenging and spectacular, and they are definitely worth it to replay them. The game is all about heists. In the storyline you can play several heists, from a jewelry heist to a stealing the gold reserve of the biggest bank in town. You need to prepare the heists yourself, by choosing a crew and the way of performing the heist. You can always choose between tactical and explosive, gun blazing raiding. After your decision you need to do some small preparation missions to get ready for the heist. This system of making your own heist is really cool. When playing the heist you can truly notice the difference between a good and a bad gunman, which is very important in succeeding.

Vehicles are very important in every Grand Theft Auto. In GTA V there are 257 vehicles, which is amazing. There are trucks, sports cars, boats, classic cars, planes, helicopters, trailers and many more vehicles. Many vehicles are new, but there are also some vehicles from other GTA games. The vehicle handling is totally different than the handling from GTA IV. In GTA IV the vehicles didn't had much grip and leaned much. In GTA V the vehicles are sticked to the road. They have good grip and have a good handling. In the beginning you need to get used to the different handling, but after a couple of hours you can drive much better than in GTA IV. The damage model looks more like the other GTA games when you have little damage, but when you have much damage, the damage looks more like the GTA IV damage. When you have small accidents your bonnet will loosen and your bumper will hang a bit down, but with bigger accidents, your vehicle has a more round damage, just like GTA IV. Your car can lose most of its body parts. The GTA V damage model is much more realistic than any other game damage model on this world.

As mentioned before, cars aren't the only vehicles in GTA V. The boats didn't change much, but I think that wasn't necessary. The boats react very good to the waves of the lakes and oceans. It's even possible to explore the waterworld in a submarine. It's fantastic to explore the seas in a submarine. With the submarine you can discover many underwater easter eggs, but I will tell more about easter eggs later on. Sadly the submarine can only go down to 500 feet, but the seas are much deeper. The trucks and some cars can pull trailers. The truck trailers are very funny to play with. You can, for example, drop a trailer when driving at the highway. This can cause some fantastic accidents, but you can also create roadblocks, have amazing crashes and do many more things. The car trailers are much smaller. Most of the car trailers are boat trailers, and sometimes they actually have a boat on them. There are also some smaller utility trailers. With the car trailers you can have just as much fun as with the truck trailers.

Planes are back again, and this time you can fly in them. When you are in a plane you can see the amazing world really good. The planes in GTA V are very different. You can fly for example in a private jet, or a fighter jet or a jumbo jet. The fighter is fast and has a very good handling, but the jumbo jet has a bad handling, but can go really fast. Using planes in GTA V is very useful, because of the size of the world. You can land them on most of the hills, if you aim good, but when you jump out of the plane later in the game, you get a parachute. Skydiving is much more difficult than in The Ballad of Gay Tony. You fall really fast down, and you can control yourself worse. Parachuting is also more difficult, but you can still land very precise, for example on a driving car. I think the GTA V skydiving and parachuting system is much more realistic, but maybe it's a bit too realistic. Helicopters are more steady than in GTA IV, which is a good improvement. Hitting a building isn't a very big deal anymore, because your helicopter will stay steady.

The AI is extremely good. People on the streets talk to you, react to your actions by taking pictures or calling the police. The police is another one of these great improvements. They are very intelligent. When you are driving they try to block your path, or do a PIT maneuver.  The helicopters of the police have snipers inside them, which try shoot your tires, and they often succeed in doing that. In combat the agents try to stay in cover until they get a chance to shoot you. When you are in a static position, the agents try to flank you. The way of attacking you is extremely deadly when you're not aware of them. Gang members choose a more direct way of attacking you. Every type of enemy has a different way of attacking you, which makes the game much more challenging than any other GTA.

The weapon types of GTA V are nearly the same as in GTA IV, but they shoot very different. I have the idea that they have less recoil, but that isn't a problem for me. For the first time you can customize them. The customizing isn't very extensive. The customizing is nearly always limited to a suppressor, a flashlight, a grip and extended mags. There are three prints: black, army and LSPD. I think the customizing is too limited, which is sad because nearly everything of this game is amazingly extensive. One weapon surprised me: the jerrycan. It's a surprisingly useful weapon. When you have the jerrycan equipped, you can make a gasoline trail. By shooting at it you can ignite it, which creates a flame wall. It's one of my favorite weapons to play with.

Grand Theft Auto Five is one of the biggest games I've ever seen. The world is enormous and highly detailed. The three character idea is fantastic and works very good. The story is good balanced and very exciting to play. Vehicles are very important in GTA and this time they are better than every. You can do many things with with the vehicles. The AI is very intelligent. Every enemy tries to attack you in a different way, which makes the game very challenging. The weapons are good, but the customisation is too limited. Grand Theft Auto Five is the best game I've ever played. I think this game is the best way to exit a generation of consoles. If you don't have this game yet, buy it now! For more GTA V, keep an eye on this blog.

Written by: WZ

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Categories: GTA, GTA V, Review, Rockstar, WZ