Grand Theft Auto 5 (GTA 5) - Reviews

(4.7)

11214 reviews

Info

Reviewbucket.co.uk scanned the internet for Grand Theft Auto 5 (GTA 5) reviews.
You can find all Grand Theft Auto 5 (GTA 5) reviews and ratings on this page.

Read the reviews.

Analysis

For Grand Theft Auto 5 (GTA 5), 11214 customer reviews collected from 4 e-commerce sites, and the average score is 4.7.

Detailed seller stats;
Amazon has 10188 customer reviews and the average score is 4.7. Go to this seller.
Argos has 454 customer reviews and the average score is 4.9. Go to this seller.
Ebay has 563 customer reviews and the average score is 4.6. Go to this seller.
Very has 9 customer reviews and the average score is 4.9. Go to this seller.

Detail

Click to list all products in this category.

17.9.2013

-Firstly, ignore the 1* reviews, they're pretty much all about Amazon not delivering on time rather than this game. (I ordered from Gamestop, chose non-recommended free delivery, got it this morning.. It's down to Royal Mail I guess)Ok, remember that game GTA IV? erase it's awful movement, shooting and car mechanics from your mind along with the storyline that soon plunged into monotonous two bit thug favors with pointless dilemma's thrown in. Forget about the big lack of features missing from the previous installment Sanandreas. Forget about the overwhelming and chore like take on realism in place of fun gameplay.GTA V is finally here, some got it a week ago or yesterday, hopefully the rest got theirs today.The chances are, between the information already released and the leaks, you probably already have a good idea of the game, it takes place in a parody recreation of L.A; Los Santo's, and a vast expanse north of it called Blaine county (taking notes from their successful wild west open world, Red Dead) that features desert and Montana-esque country side whose motorway's don't look out of place in police chase programs. You play three protagonists Michael (a retired mid life crisis former bank robber) his best friend Trevor (former partner in crime and all out scizophrenic, sexual deviant violent bully.. Yet somehow you just gotta love him) then Franklin (street hood turned car repo man trying to take the right path) The game is essentially an amalgamation of R*'s best recent efforts (Max Payne 3, Red Dead Redemption and Midnight Club L.A) and is back brimming with it's wonderful blatant humor taking shots at America and many things from pop culture to politics, even Call Of Duty. But the reason you're here is to find out why it is a good (exceptional) game. So onto the ridiculous amount of features new or improved, and why you should buy this game. This might take awhile...=========GAMEPLAY=========DRIVING; It is greatly improved, it no longer feels like you're going around a corner on ice with a piece of jelly. Where braking plus hand breaking in good time still leaves you veering into a lamp post. Some may worry it's arcade like and not realistic anymore, but it wasn't realistic in GTA IV, it was a pain and sluggish. Now cars are more akin to R*'s big racer Midnight Club, they are fast and very responsive, you can weave in and out of traffic at high speed which is fun and thrilling along with the games other effects. But the car's that're lighter and heavier still handle differently, having enough weight so that your average 15 year old COD fan will probably handbrake in a circle rather than 90' a corner everytime. The same improvements apply to motorbikes and aerial vehicles as well as boats.MOVING & AIMING / SHOOTING; Again greatly improved, having learned lessons from Red Dead, the movement is easy and fluid, you can easily step or vault over fences and small obstacles, or climb over fences and onto vehicles, ledges etc. Holding A allows you to jog and tapping it to sprint, there is no longer a crouch button (L Stick) which feels odd, but it's been replaced with stealth mode which allows for stealth takedowns and still fast movement. RB allows you to take cover just as with Red Dead and works nicely, aiming is also similar and not a mess like with GTA IV. You no longer have to worry about how hard to press R Trigger just to free aim, it's easy and responsive, plus you can move at speed while aiming by pressing A. Also pressing X allows you to do an evasive roll. LB brings up the weapon wheel which is a welcome and intuitive addition, even making it's way to the vehicle with radio stations being selected that way. The D-Pad has more use now, controlling the cars lights, roof, character stat screen and character switch. Your characters health regenerates past 50% but if badly injured need a health pack or sleeping. You also have a armor, health and skill meter which allows you to use characters individual abilities (slo-mo driving for Franklin, slo-mo bullet time for Michael, double health and damage for Trevor.WEAPONS; There are a nice number of weapons in this game, all the types you'd expect, except they are customizable (scopes, silences, magazines skins etc) and can be purchased from the resurrected Ammu-Nation stores, these stores also feature different clothes and body armor. Some even with firing ranges where you have 3 challenges per weapon and can sequentially unlock weapons with Silver or Gold scores, this is reminiscent of the N64's Perfect Dark and is fun to see what weapons the game features. The weapons are meaty and sound authentic, reloading them looks the part too. There are also a number of melee weapons; knifes, baton, gold club etc. The crosshair is a white dot but can be changed to have a circle and white dot.VEHICLES; They are out in numbers, coach, tow truck, 18 wheelers with containers and logs, jeep, jet ski, crop duster, Chinook helicopter, trains, dirtbike, superbikes, quad, moped, lavish sports cars, boats, giant quarry trucks, forklifts, tractors, a 1 birth submersible (lil yellow submarine) you name it and it's probably in this game. With the improved controls these are all a joy to try out and the diversity really adds to the games realism.CUSTOMIZATION; It is back after a seemingly vacant appearance in GTA IV, the three protagonists can now get various haircuts or purchase different clothing, changing them in their houses wardrobes. Cars can now be customized to a degree like in Midnight Club, meaning both each vehicles performance, and look. Allowing to change the bumper, skirting, hood, spoiler, tires, many different paints from metals to chrome. Then there's the weapon customization mentioned above which is indeed a nice addition.WHAT IS THERE TO DO?; Well.. Tennis, Golf, Yoga, Darts, sea races, street races, triathlons, sky diving, offroad truck, ATV or motox racing, Bong Smoking, Watching TV, Towing Cars, Firing Range, Deep Sea Diving, Catching Illegal Immigrants, various find the missing pieces quests, hunting, a nice amount. The mini games if possible to play with friends will be quite enjoyable, then there's the vast expanse of the map to enjoy, traveling at around 130MPH it takes 7 minutes to go across the maps motorways to the other end, that's around 14 square miles to explore. The game has a large number of random events or miscellaneous side quests that can happen at random (helping someone who is mugged for instance) investigating random occurrences make the world feel really alive with it's own series of events. Simply exploring the environment or getting into cop chases is more fun than before thanks to improved AI, offering more of a challenge. Then of course there's a main storyline. Or simply trying to max and level all your stats or find all the hidden stuff. So running out of things to do in singleplayer won't happen anytime soon, and that's before even touching on the Multiplayer dubbed GTA Online, launching on OCT 1st. Which is where the games lifespan will really come from.REALISM; The game is really quite realistic, but whilst retaining fun, and Los Santos feels teeming with life.- You can get a dog that you can train (even with a app Ifruit for a real phone)- There are animals like deer that'll jump out in the country roads, great white sharks that'll eat you, wolf's or coyote's out in the country and desert, plus those evil cougars again.- With the smartphone you can use it to take camera shots, or turn it around clicking R Stick, and actually take a selfie. On the internet you can purchase stocks, check up real estate, cars, media. Just to show the amount of content in this game, I typed in "porn" and it came up with a funny parody site on Japanese Hentai, so just the games own internet is fun to browse.- The car engine stutters as it turns off, and you can hear gear shifts.- The ocean contains ship wrecks and other things to find.- You can purchase food and drinks to restore health.- You can watch TV and do the list of mini games listed above.- The motorways are full of traffic and 18 wheelers, you can cause traffic jams and mini pileups (Don't shoot the oil tanker connected to your cab while driving an 18 wheeler, it does kaboom..)- Cars can lose petrol in a trail when damaged badly that can be ignited, the same effect possible with a jerrycan.- You can do hunting in the wild, assassinations, etc.- Tires only burst when shot, not the rims, and eventually burn away to the metal rims. Cops in helicopters seem to try aiming for your wheels. Stingers at roadblocks are back too.- People react to where shot, leg shots drop them etc.- Bullet holes and other injuries show up on you and NPC's, and scrapes to hands/faces.- The three characters even have their own walk and animations for some things.- The water looks very realistic and puddles form that your character will tread in making a splash, the waves also come up against the shore. If entering water your clothes get soaked upto however far in you go.- When changing characters they will be doing their own random activity usually correlating to their personality, the psycho Trevor for instance might be running about in underwear from cops or wake up drunk in a dumpster.- The car actually goes into cruise if you press R trigger gently but not all the way as though the clutch is down but you're not accelerating!- Drive over grates etc and your controller will vibrate, or speed through a bridge with tall girders or past oncoming traffic and you'll hear them whiz past. - Try walking down a hill that's too steep and you'll lose your balance tumbling to your doom, it's funny.- Aim your gun at someone in a car and they'll try to run you over, shoot them in the face and a blood spatter on the screen will ensue along with their head pressing the horn and the car veering into a wall somewhere.- Pressing LB in a car with no guns makes the character give the finger.- Rain and storms affect helicopters making them harder to control.- If you run and jump into a wall, you'll knock yourself over.- The police response to crimes is probably one of the best things in the game, their radio chatter as the character specific ambient music kicks in and choppers start gunning for you riddling your car with bullets makes it quite eerie and tense, they will actually respond realistically via radio to your crime and it's location; that's the games 1000 page dialog for you. They'll use their door as cover and shout through their cars tanoy (Try driving through a fort army base..watch out for tanks and swat though, they don't play around in this game, hanging out the windows shooting you, or tanks turning their turrets quick to waste you.)- Kill someone and an ambulance will pull up and they'll assess the person, write notes etc.- There are firetrucks with a usable hose on top that can knock people over.- There's parachuting too I should add which is fun and controls rather well.- The vehicle damage physics worried me at first, but only because your car doesn't look half wrecked from one bump, I got my car stuck down an alleyway hiding from cops, in anger shot it, stood on it stamping on it etc. Then kicked a bin and of course freed it, the damage in the suns reflection is crazy (can see each individual dent from Michaels foot.) and scrapes of missing paint along with severe dents in the sides.- You can take pictures and send them as messages to a character on your phone contact list, getting a individual response.- Pressing Right on the D-pad will make your character say something, usually suited to them. It can be a friendly gesture or often something rude, ending in a phone call to the police. Or you can mock a policeman making them want to arrest you.- You can swim of course, and swim to the bottom of the ocean with a breathing apparatus and at times find various wrecks and loot.The list goes on.. The amount of detail R* has put into this game is huge, and really pushes the games boundaries, making many other games or franchises feel a let down in comparison.The game will also make many own unique stories for everyone, I drove through a fort in a firetruck avoiding tanks (if you enter an army base it's auto 4 stars) then drove over a mountain and crashed down a ravine with police cars, then jumped out as it was on fire and got pretty much washed down a fast river while being shot at by 3 copters..came out and ran through tall grass and into the shotgun barrel of a cop.=======VISUALS=======A wonderful job done with the visuals, most notably the games lighting (the sunset glistening on the sea, or shining in the camera, the shimmer of it against cars or glass, the reflection of headlights against the road) it all looks great, especially at night in conjunction with the neon signs and street lamps. The draw distance has been greatly increased making skyscrapers in the distance give a real sense that you're in a sprawling metropolis. Cars etc can be seen from quite a height too which is nice when in a plane. The weather effects are also improved and are enjoyable transitions to see take place, when the rain gets heavier the roads start to fill with puddles and water churns round the tires, looks great. The vehicles themselves look nice, the character models are fine and don't seem fake at any point. The animations especially like with Max Payne 3, are great so all good on the visuals front. But installing the GTA 5 playable disc can for some reason reduce texture performance so avoid doing that (R* said this on their twitter) The best testament to the visuals are standing on the dam, and looking down the mountain vista at the city, it's almost real looking.==============SOUND EFFECTS==============The radio stations are back and regardless of your music taste are well selected, suiting the mood of cruising down the street at night, there are modern tracks ranging from Elton John and Rhianna to Queens and 80's tracks. A genre missing is Metal disappointingly, but given everything else on offer it's a small preference based niggle. The games adverts, TV shows, dialogue are a lot of fun, and R* has quite a good sense of humor as before. The cars and vehicles sound authentic too, whether taking off with a burnout or smashing into something. (200 hours of real ambient audio was recorded from people's homes and real gangsters were used for some dialogue) There's also the character specific ambient music mentioned above which kicks in during intense moments (police pursuit namely) and are a great new feature.=========STORYLINE=========It's very good, mainly thanks to the great characters and the brilliant dialogue. Whereas GTA IV started off funny and quickly delved into repetitious boredom, GTA V manages to always surprise you and at times make you laugh in shock from (mainly Trevor's) outbursts. The ending isn't as much an impact as Red Dead Redemption, but it tidy's the game up nicely (depending on how you choose to finish the game) so overall an enjoyable singlplayer storyline.===========ONLINE MODE===========There was a number of bugs with this to be expected, and no one could really connect, but patches have been released now and the online is quite fun. 700 missions, 16 players, your own house, cars and crews. Plus room for much more updates offered by Rockstar, so all good on this front. The character creation isn't bad, albeit a little fiddly at first, will take a few minutes to make your character not look like a complete fool, or ugly. There are still server connection problems where for no reason you'll lose connection to xbox live (not with any other games) and also randomly be disconnected for no reason, frustrating but still a fun mode that'll pave the way for future games and content.There's not much more to say, the storyline I will update upon completion, though so far its highly enjoyable with a good script. I have come across only one minor bug involving Michael's family standing on a chair, and a kitchen counter, don't know why, was a one off I think. The visuals are both the same on the xbox 360 and the PS3 having seen a direct comparison between the two.The only real disappointment with this game is lack of an army wanted level. With a more realistic than ever game and army (tanks with functioning turrets, jeeps, etc) it seems a huge waste you cannot make them actually pursue you. It would've made for a better challenge than just police and swat/FIB.To summarize, the game is brilliant, and definitely worth purchasing, it's on par with Skyrim easily (it has much less content and side quests, or characters who live a real life, but makes up for in attention to detail or realism) Also Gamestop did an offer where you can trade in 2 of 200 games on their list, they'll give you £35 refund. If the offer's still available, go for it.

17.9.2013

Video gaming has come a long way since the late 1970s and early 1980s. Game budgets have balloned into astronomical proportions and marketing campaigns have become blitzkrieg extravaganas. Major video game titles, like the major "tent pole" movies of the summer Hollywood so heavily relies upon, represent significant investment of capital. If you believe the marketing copy, each of these big budget video games represent the very best the video game industry has to offer. *Sadly, such hyperbole is very seldom the case, especially with non-Nintendo titles. Unlike Nintendo's IPs, which are consistently recognized as some of the most enthralling, well-designed games out there,and also certainly among the most bankable, newer games must establish such a strong, realised world and marketing presence that big budgets are in demand. While Nintendo and Mario/Link are the family friendly alternatives, there exists an large opening for more adult oriented fare to enter and dominate the market place. Enter Rockstar and the GTA titles which, while always controversail, has long helped bring adult themed video gaming into the mainstream with writing that is both brilliant and deeply satirical of modern day life..GTA V follows the Grand Theft Auto social commentary satire the series is so famous for, and expands it tremendously, becoming a mirror of post-economic collapse America. Nothing is held back from Rockstar's barbed wit: the game tears apart such recent social realities as Facebook (called Life Invader) and the rather sinister undertones by which Mark Zuckerburg and Co. selling our personal data for profit, the ever deepening political divide between the right and the left, America's obsession with celebrities, and their preoccupations with drugs, sex, and violence, and the carnival, fun-house mirror perceptions of America's darkside. Pop culture is alluded too everywhere, from the Sopranos to Breaking Bad to reality TV to the "entitlement" mentality to the absuridty of video game culture and the continual retreating of "Call of Duty" to Millenials. Smart phones which extensively use the Internet (complete with parody websites that also include Twitter) are also heavily featured, which has become a mainstay in today's culture and catapulted Apple into the world's most valuable company..CHARACTERS: Rockstar changes up the GTA formula by introducing three main protagonists. Introducing for the first time three different characters, GTA V features Michael, a retired criminal in his forties; Franklin, a young gang-banger reminsent of Carl Johnson, and Trevor, a psychotic, in-your-face nutjob who is so unhinged that you can't help but feel he is little more than a caricature than an actual person. Of the three characters, Trevor is by far the most over-the top. A raging lunatic, Trevor is a perfect zeitgest for the GTA player, and is what Hunter S. Thompson would be if he appeared in a video game.One of the weak points with the GTA series has always been the sometimes unavoidable narrative inconsistencies brought on by its open-ended gameplay, all the while moving the characters down specific narrative arcs. A notable example is Niko Bellic philosophically railing against violence and then engaging in deeply violent behaviors. Likewise, the Elder Scrolls games from Bethesda suffer from this flaw to some extent. By introducing three characters, Rockstar is able to marry that illusion of cohesion between character and gameplay much better than the superficial unions of past games.At any time (other than specific points restricted for story purposes) you are able to switch between the three characters. The game will then take you to where the characters happen to be at the time - Michael may be at his therapist's, or at the golf club, etc; Franklin may be at a strip joint or other various locals, and Trevor could very well be surrounded by dead bodies in the desert somewhere. Each location fits into the character's story and place in the GTA universe.STORY: Rather than gradually introduce a wide cast of supporting characters and develop their backstory, Rockstar has streamlined the writing, focusing largely on Trevor, Franklin, and Michael, at the expense of having numerous, secondary characters that so frequently stole the show in previous titles. That's not to say there aren't any memorable secondary characters; rather, the narrative focuses on the big three (and I don't mean Harry, Ron, and Hermione) and delves expensively into their lives and how the characters' fates become inextricably intertwined as the game proceeds.SETTING: After the sprawling landmass of GTA: SAN ANDREAS, which featured three cities divided by expansive countryside, deserts with secret government bases that may or may not hold alien bodies, and rural communities that appear to be straight out of Deliverance, GTA IV focused on a reimagined New York City. GTA V returns to the west coast, taking place in Los Santos, one of the three cities first introduced in SAN ANDREAS. While not as widely broad and disconnected as "San Andreas", GTA V features the series' biggest map yet, which also includes surrounding mountainsides and Sandy Shores, a costal village.Unlike previous titles, the entirety of Los Santos and the surrounding areas is available from the very beginning. The gaming world, while always artificial, feels truly alive, with people camping in the woods and bustling city life, and characters interacting with each other in what appears to be (but of course isn't) unscripted, natural way.GAMEPLAY: The gameplay elements of GTA IV have all been finely tuned: AI is superb, auto-aim works almost flawlessly as does the cover system. You can engage in a wide variety of activities, such as base jumping, cycling, flying, golfing, hunting, tennis, triathalons, vehicular racing, and yoga. Expanding on "Vice City", "San Andreas" and "GTA IV", you can also unlock vehicle storage facilities and purchases businesses and go on missions to help those businesses make profit. You can even play the stock market on your smart phone. There are also individual activities tailored to specific characters (Michael visitng a therapist and playing tennis or practicing yoga, Trevor hunting, etc).Like any GTA game, there is driving, and a LOT of it. For a series focused so heavily on driving, GTA V is the first time that Rockstar has nailed the driving down so effectivey. Cars handle so much better overall (though the joy rides can still turn into some memorably spectacular crashes). Certain elements of driving in past titles have been frustrating, due to how wildly odd they handle. (Just try driving the combing back from the mission "Body Harvestor" in "San Andreas" and tell me you weren't screaming at the television!) The vehicles handle with precision, while still providing a wide variety of gaming experiences. Rockstar still has not mastered the aerial acrobatics like they have the terrestrial driving, with the plane/helicopter flying still feeling rather primitive in an otherwise impeccable game.One of the best mechanical revisions introduced in GTA V is that Rockstar has finally fixed the conundrum of mission checkpoints, which saves you from making long, winding drives multiple times if you fail a specific mission.MISSIONS: The shining point of GTA V, undoubtedly, is the missions, which constitutes the core of the gameplay. Several of the missions are tailor made to one of the three characters. Michael's missions deal with his increasingly fragmented family life as he goes back into crime. Franklin becomes more and more involved with grand theft auto and assassinations. Trevor's missions intimately suit his extremely psychotic psyche with larger-than-life explosions and wild, freewheelin' rampages that would earn anyone in real life a one way ticket to an impenetrable mental instution.GTA V grades missions on different qualifiers, contingent upon completing optional objects as well as time, appealing to the speedrunners out there. The biggest addition (and it's been a LONG TIME COMING), is, after failing a mission three times, you are able to skip that section of the mission, though your score will be directly effected. Since the 1996 N64 classic "Super Mario 64", open world games have been notorious for having that one, infuriating mission. In the GTA series, often times that mission must be passed in order to progress, and it's high time Rockstar has come up with a solution for those "one mission" nightmares that so often send us into tirades (I'm looking at you, "Wrong Side of the Tracks" from "San Andreas"!). Why develop all these hours of content if, because of one mission early in the game, the player eventually puts down your product, with the game unfinished? Likewise, you can replay missions at any time, another needed addition to the franchise.A major addition is the heist missions, which involve all three characters. Rockstar is able to show off just how effective they are at featuring three protagonists in the Heists missions, and add a new depth of gameplay not previously seen in the GTA universe. The heists can be done one of two ways: guns blazing, ala Clint Eastwood, or channel your inner Solid Snake and infiltrate and plunder by stealth. Depending on what route you go, the three protagonists then must chose a crew (such as computer hackers, drivers, gunmen, etc) with varying degrees of experience. The better the crew, the more expense, but the less likely the mission will fail or you will run into further complications. The multiple character mode, the choice between stealth and combat, the action-packed setpieces, along with the variables of the crew you have chosen, make the heists some of the most engrossing missions ever seen in an open world game. Unfortunately there is only a handful of such missions in the game. The future of GTA, and sandbox games in general, resides in these type missions, and there is so much untapped potential in them that it almost comes off as a criminal waste.Off the main story arc, you will find a wide variety of missions, including one where you use a digital camera to produce a sex tape or work with the paparazzi. Trevor also has a rampage mode where he kills onslaughts of enemies.VISUALS: Fantastic and breathtaking. The game features a wide variety of environments for Rockstar to show off their graphical prowess, from scuba-diving sequences to cross-country to wealthy neighborhoods to seedy, dank areas more terrifying than they are amusing. The variety of locals is astonishing and adds to the overall texture of the game. You will be very hard-pressed to find a more gorgeously looking game on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, with all the details becoming much more crisp and the character animations superb.SOUND: Fantastic as always. GTA V does everything the other games in the series does and more, with a wider variety of musical content, new original music, and the best talk radio (featuring the GTA III perennial favorite Lazlo) this side of Rush Limbaugh. The voice acting is top-notch, as always.CRITICISM: The game comes across as rather misogynistic, with no strong female characters treated with respect, even given the criminal nature of the gameplay. While boundary-pushing content has always been a hallmark of the game, there is an (unskippable) torture mission that Trevor must complete that [comments] is little more than a veild criticism on the US policy of waterboarding. Even for a game as intentionally lewd and morally reprehensible as GTA V, this mission is deeply troubling and the one time that Rockstar breaks the illusion of "this is just a video game" and actually feeling dirty about yourself as a human being, even though you are playing as Trevor. Sometimes Frankenstien's seams show through, breaking the illusion of reality. Kill an NPC before the mission requires you too and you fail. Even though you are in stealth mode, if a mission requires an enemy sees you, then your stealth is for naught.ENDING COMMENTS: The GTA games have become a massive cultural phenomena the likes of which few games can attest too, attracting both controversy and fanatical players. With the release of GTA III in 2001, Rockstar introduced a fantastically realised, open sandbox world which was deeply satirical in nature and have only built on the foundations laid by that groundbreaking game.But twelve years in the electronic entertainment industry and pop culture in general can be an eternity. With the prevelanace of increasingly violent and sexual content regularly displayed throughout our culture, games like GTA V aren't quite as shocking as they were in 2001, let alone 1994 with Mortal Kombat's spine-ripping fatalities went all the way to the United States Congress. Even Christine Hefner, Hugh Hefner's daughter, has stated pornography has become such mainstream that it can hardly qualify as edgy anymore. By this point, the major groundbreaking gameplay elements introduced in GTA III has become a matter of course for big-budget titles. To Rockstar's credit, they have prefected and honed the GTA gameplay to such fine precision that GTA V stands proudly as among the best games ever made in the admittedly very young medium of video gaming [history].Overall, despite the jaded, cynical culture we now live in, GTA V pushes the boundaries of sex, drugs, and violence to a new level. Like Insane Clown Possy's Dark Carnival mythology , I believe Rockstar is more moral than their detractors allow for. They hold up a twisted, exaggerated picture of life in America today, twisted by crime and sleaze which is enacted by deeply pathological, flawed people. You won't find anything or anyone even remotely redeeming in San Andreas. Essentially, GTA V is a video game equivalent of the sleaze of Guns N Roses's "Appetite For Destruction", and, more specifically, "Welcome to the Jungle".And what a twisted, warped, manically unhinged jungle that truly is.*Both Steven Speilberg and George Lucas said Hollywood's reliance on huge blockbusters would cause the implosion of Hollywood's business model when several pictures costing over one hundred million would fail to recoup their investment, shaking the studios to their very core, Modern video games can also represent a significant investment of capital. Disney's video game division estimates the new Disney Infinity game, with its focus on NFC enabled action figures, has a development price tag of one hundred million dollars. Disney's video game division has lost 3.4 billion between 2010-2013.).

17.9.2013

THIS IS NOT MY REVIEW. This review originates from GameSpot and I couldn't agree more with it."Where do you begin talking about Grand Theft Auto V? Do you start with the vast, varied, beautiful open world? Do you start with the innovative structure that gives you three independent protagonists you can switch between on the fly? Maybe you talk about the assortment of side activities you can engage in, or the tremendous number of ways in which you can go about making your own fun. Or perhaps you dive right into the game's story problems, or its serious issues with women. GTA V is a complicated and fascinating game, one that fumbles here and there and has an unnecessary strain of misogynistic nastiness running through it.But it also does amazing things no other open-world game has attempted before, using multiple perspectives to put you in the thick of cinematic heist sequences and other exhilarating, multi-layered missions like no open-world game before.Those perspectives come courtesy of Michael, Franklin, and Trevor. Michael's a former criminal who's dissatisfied with his current life of privilege and relaxation. His marriage is on the rocks and he struggles to connect with his shallow daughter Tracey, who dreams of making it big in reality TV, and with his lazy, entitled son Jimmy, who spends most of his time spouting hate-filled trash talk while playing video games online. Franklin's a talented young driver and repo man who doesn't seem to have too many opportunities to move up in the world, until he has a chance meeting with Michael. Michael finds Franklin easier to connect with than his own children, and he promptly takes him under his wing and ushers him into a life of big-time crime.And then there's Trevor, a former friend and business associate of Michael's who is now a methamphetamine entrepreneur living in a desert town north of Los Santos. Trevor's a truly horrible, terrifying, psychotic human being--and a terrific character. He possesses a chilling combination of intelligence and insanity, and he's so monstrously violent and frightening at times that he almost makes the other two protagonists seem well-adjusted by comparison. Exceptional voice acting and animation help make Trevor a character you will never, ever forget, even though you might want to.When circumstances reunite the long-estranged Trevor and Michael, the tensions between them complicate the entire group dynamic; Michael, Trevor and Franklin may work together, but they don't always get along. Their dialogue is sharp and snappy and it's usually a joy to watch them interacting with each other, but unfortunately, the characters sometimes behave in ways that don't feel consistent. For instance, Franklin takes the moral high ground in an argument with a paparazzo, then casts his reservations aside to help him take degrading photos of a female celebrity. And when Trevor shows up in Michael's life after an extended absence, the speed with which the two start working together again is at odds with their deep-seated reservations about each other.Perhaps most troubling is a mission in which you're instructed to torture a man. Trevor states that torture doesn't work, and the person ordering the torture is an arrogant and corrupt government official, suggesting that the scene is meant to be a critical commentary on the United States' use of waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation" methods. But the fact that Trevor (and you, if you want to progress through the story) tortures the man regardless, and that he does end up spilling more information as a result, sends a very different message. These moments of hypocrisy and inconsistency diminish the otherwise strong characters; it feels like they are leaping into situations not because it's what they would actually want to do, but because the mission design demands that they must.Thankfully, the missions are frequently incredible, which makes it a bit easier to overlook the occasional contradictions in character behavior, if not the mixed political messages. The high points of the game are the heists, big jobs planned by Michael and the gang. These jobs usually give you a few different options for how you want to approach a situation, and your choice completely changes how the heist plays out. On one job, for instance, one option has you posing as a janitor to infiltrate a building and plant bombs, then triggering the bombs and entering the building with your crew disguised as firefighters. The other, more direct option involves parachuting onto the building and busting in, armed to the teeth.These are elaborate, multi-stage sequences that involve prep work. You might need to acquire equipment ahead of time, find a good place to hide a getaway car, and make other arrangements before you're ready to pull off the job. You also need to select supporting members for your crew, as some jobs may require a hacker, an additional getaway driver, or another gunman. More skilled crew members typically take a bigger cut, but if you hire cheap, inexperienced people, they may end up failing at their tasks and compromising the operation. Of course, not every step of this process is thrilling, but these early steps make you feel more invested in the job when it does go down, and they evoke the feeling of films like Heat in which the slow buildup to the crimes makes the payoff in the action-packed scenes more intense.These missions and many others have you switching between characters. You might rappel down a building as Michael, provide sniper cover for him as Franklin, and fly a getaway helicopter as Trevor, all on one mission. In another exciting mission, you take out a plane's engines from a great distance as Michael, then pursue the doomed, burning aircraft over land as Trevor. It's exhilarating, swapping between these roles and these perspectives, and it's part of what makes GTA V the current pinnacle of open-world mission design. Even putting the three-protagonist structure aside, the mission design is frequently surprising and sometimes stupendous. You don scuba gear to infiltrate a heavily guarded laboratory via the ocean, recklessly fly a small aircraft into the bay of a large cargo plane, and get thrust into all sorts of other memorable situations.Even when not on missions, you can switch between the three protagonists, and the transition is handled via a stylish satellite view sequence that zooms out from one character's location and then zooms in on another's, building up anticipation as you wonder what the character you're swapping to might be doing at this particular moment. Sometimes you find them in relatively ordinary situations; you might happen upon Michael relaxing at home in front of the TV screen, indulging his love of classic movies. At other times, the circumstances you find them in are more dramatic. Trevor might be on the beach in his underwear, surrounded by dead bodies, with no explanation offered for how they got there. Each character has his own contacts and his own missions, and because the characters have such different vibes, the freedom to switch between them at will makes the game feel more multifaceted than it would otherwise. There's a terrific contrast between the urban lives of Michael and Franklin and Trevor's existence in a poor, secluded town in the desert.The three-protagonist structure also means that you can be engaged in street races in Los Santos one minute, and hunting elk in the forest the next. In fact, the number of activities available to you throughout GTA V's world is almost staggering. You can play golf or tennis or darts, or participate in races on streets, offroad or on the water. You can take in movies, buy businesses, and play the stock market, which is designed to respond to player transactions, creating an opportunity for collusion and insider trading. You also stumble upon random occurrences in the world from time to time, creating a sense that this is a place with a life of its own. You might go into a salon for a haircut, only to find that the place is being robbed. You might rescue a woman from a burning car wreck who then becomes a potential getaway driver for you on future heists.And of course, there's no end to the ways that you can make your own unstructured fun. Maybe you want to use a truck to block lanes of traffic, pour gasoline from a gerry can all around the stopped cars, ignite the fuel and watch the spectacular explosion that occurs. Or perhaps you prefer to see if you can fly under bridges in a jumbo jet. Maybe you want to parachute onto the roof of the tallest building in Los Santos, or climb to the peak of Mount Chiliad. Or you can blow up a gas station and then run into the hills, where you might be safe from the cops but find yourself being pounced on by a bobcat. Whatever kind of freeform mayhem you cause, you're sure to get the authorities on your case from time to time. Police pursuits here can be tense on city streets, where you might try to find secluded back alleys to hide in until the cops give up the chase. They can also be silly at times; you might shake off some police pursuers just by driving offroad up a hill in plain sight of the cops.Whether you're evading the police in a rickety junker or a road-hugging sports car, the handling in GTA V is great, and the fact that vehicles feel so different from each other means there's a real reason to store the cars you like in the garages at your characters' homes or in ones you can purchase in the city. Driving is so much fun that you'll likely enjoy crossing even great distances in the game's large world, taking in everything from the artwork on buildings along Vespucci Beach to the setting sun reflecting on the Alamo Sea. Should you tire of commuting across Los Santos, however, you can call a cab and warp to your destination.When shooting breaks out, as it often does in the lives of these criminals, you have a terrific variety of weapons at your disposal that you can customize with suppressors, scopes, flashlights and other doodads. By default, your aim snaps to enemies. This makes picking them off quite easy, but gunplay is a lot of fun despite the ease of aiming, because you're regularly fending off so many attackers and you still need to make good use of cover to stay alive. If you're looking for more challenging shooting, you can switch to an aim assist option or to free aim at any time.There's so much more to say about GTA V. In series tradition, it has an eclectic assortment of radio stations featuring great songs from numerous genres and eras. In a break with series tradition, it also has an excellent ambient score of its own that lends missions more cinematic flavor. On a less positive note, it's deeply frustrating that, while its central and supporting male characters are flawed and complex characters, with a few extremely minor exceptions (such as the aforementioned optional getaway driver), GTA V has little room for women except to portray them as strippers, prostitutes, long-suffering wives, humorless girlfriends and goofy, new-age feminists we're meant to laugh at.Characters constantly spout lines that glorify male sexuality while demeaning women, and the billboards and radio stations of the world reinforce this misogyny, with ads that equate manhood with sleek sports cars while encouraging women to purchase a fragrance that will make them "smell like a bitch." Yes, these are exaggerations of misogynistic undercurrents in our own society, but not satirical ones. With nothing in the narrative to underscore how insane and wrong this is, all the game does is reinforce and celebrate sexism. The beauty of cruising in the sun-kissed Los Santos hills while listening to "Higher Love" by Steve Winwood turns sour really quick when a voice comes on the radio that talks about using a woman as a urinal.So Los Santos is a place of contrasts, of luxury and poverty, tranquility and violence, beauty and ugliness. GTA V is an imperfect yet astounding game that has great characters and an innovative and exciting narrative structure, even if the story it uses that structure to tell is hobbled at times by inconsistent character behavior, muddled political messages and rampant misogyny. It also raises the bar for open-world mission design in a big way and has one of the most beautiful, lively, diverse and stimulating worlds ever seen in a game. Your time in Los Santos may leave you with a few psychological scars, but you shouldn't let that stop you from visiting."

20.3.2017

Grand Theft Auto V should really be thought of as two separate games. First you have the singleplayer story mode but then you also have GTA Online, which has taken on an identity of it's own that's separate from the main game itself.Visually the game looks fantastic on what is now a decade old console. Both the character models and the surroundings look fantastic and GTA V is one of the best if not the best looking game on the platform, although one irritating negative is that you can also see textures pop in from time to time and the console does occasionally struggle to keep up with everything that is going on, but fortunately it does maintain a good framerate throughout with only very rare dips.Similarly it takes a good minute or two to actually boot up the game,and you also have to deal with significant load times when switching between the three playable characters or between the singleplayer and multiplayer, though luckily there's minimal loading once you're actually in the game itself. The game itself is occasionally glitchy and prone to freezing too, especially in GTA Online, and although it isn't that common it's something to bear in mind.The game also features excellent voice acting and a great soundtrack, which is both a mix of music made specifically for the game as well as licensed tracks from all sorts of genres, as well as radio talk shows. I often found myself just sitting in the car listening to the music or laughing at the jokes being made by the radio DJs. As a whole the GTA V is presented very well and is incredibly polished.The story is very good too. GTA V bucks the trend of giving you a single protagonist and instead lets you control three people. Michael, Franklin and Trevor all bring diverse and interesting perspectives to the table and banter between them is charming and funny. The dialogue itself is full of pointed satire and is smartly written.The minor characters too do a good job, all the way down to the small conversations you can overhear as you're walking the streets of Los Santos.That said it was somewhat irritating that Michael was the only one out of the trio to have any real character development, whereas watching Franklin and Trevor not change at all ended up feeling boring from time to time, especially with Trevor.In terms of gameplay itself there have been a lot of significant if minor changes. Rockstar haven't quite reinvented the wheel so much as redesigned it, but for the most part the changes are very welcome.The weighty cars with their slippery driving that existed in GTA IV are now gone and the cars in GTA V have noticeably better traction - sure, it feels cartoonish, but it's fun.The same thing happens with guns where you get the same massive arsenal but now they come with more customisable options and give you a little more freedom in playing how you want. The cover system has been tweaked and now the characters are a little more intelligent in how they navigate the environment.There's also some light RPG elements where you get skills for each one of your characters, and what's great is that they get trained orgnically, such as the "Driving" skill going up when you drive at full speed and have near misses with other cars, although some seem useless too, like the "Stealth" skill, which is of no use outside some scripted story mode missions.The Friends system is updated too and instead of them phoning you and nagging you to spend time with them it is entirely up to the player how much or how little time you spend with them, which is great.The only real downside to these sorts of tweaks are the police, who are somehow hypercompetent and incompetent at the same time, being able to know that you committed a crime even if you were in the desert with no witnesses and shooting your tires out from half a mile away while at the same time giving up looking for you if you get out of their sight and hide for a few seconds.The game world itself is great too and has a whole host of activities to do - you can race on land, sea or air, you can play the stock market, play tennis or golf, or even go parachute jumping, you can get a haircut or get tattoos or change your facial hair or buy businesses. All these things and many more give you a lot to sink your teeth in to and you can easily put in dozens of hours here without much thought.The biggest change by far at the heists, which technically existed in the older games but now are properly organised, needing you to do setup missions before you go in, like securing specific vehicles or outfits, and professionally go in and do the job when everything is ready, coming away with massive spoils. These were incredibly fun to do and using the replay menu you can do them again and again, with the choice of alternating between the silent or loud treatment, which is a lot of fun.However one big disappointment here is the mission rating system where your performance is rated and awarded with a gold, silver or bronze medal at the end of each mission, showing you which optional objectives you completed, similar to how they were in The Ballad Of Gay Tony. These sound okay in theory but in reality you don't get given the option to turn them off or even being told what the optional objectives where until after you've done the mission, making them feel incredibly cheap and unnecessary. This is further made worse by the fact that some want you to complete a mission in a certain amount of time and yet at the same time counting cutscenes as part of the timer, penalising you for caring about the story. More than once I'd finish a fun mission only for the game to let me know that it was disappointed I didn't finish it in the exact way the game wanted me to and presenting me with a 20 second unskippable report card. It felt somewhat contradictory too since you'd think open world games like GTA are meant to be all about player freedom.The physics system is a little wanting too, like the ability to jump and hold on to something or the ragdoll physics that were present in GTA IV being removed, making the movement of the characters look and feel just that little bit worse.There are also the side missions, which, while great overall, often have confusing ways to get you to start them, and some are difficult to discover unless you go through a convoluted process in the game to gain access to them. There's one series of missions in particular which you can't have access to unless you go on the in-game internet and fill in a specific quiz specifically with Michael - how on Earth is anyone meant to know that you're supposed to do this?! That's just bad design.Similarly the game throws you an option on how to do things a few times in the story mode, but the choices either tended to have an obvious best option or they were of no significant consequence, making them serve no real purpose.One thing that's really impressive are the tiny little details. For example if you're driving in a car and someone is talking then they stop talking if there's been a crash, and continue when the journey continues, or if there's some damage on the wheel of a car then instead of falling off immediately or having it stop working immediately it instead deteriorates slowly before eventually popping off the axel.The game is also chock full of random events where you meet various characters in a lot of different situations and are often given the choice to help or hurt them.There's also a wonderfully convenient system where if you turn up to do a mission at the wrong time then the game simply moves the game clock to the appropriate hours instead of telling you to come back like they did in the older games, though unfortunately this is limited to the story mode missions and doesn't work with the side missions.These kinds of of tiny details are all great and really help the whole game world feel fluid and alive.And then there's Grand Theft Auto Online.Similar to the singleplayer it has a lot of stuff to do, including some things not present in the singleplayer, like being able to buy houses and garages, however this is let down due to the fact that the vast majority of the actual game modes are dead. Despite having a massive online community the only four modes that get played are the Heists, Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Last Team Standing. Most others are largely ignored and if you care about doing anything else then it takes quite some time to get people together to do those other activities.This especially ends up being problematic when you reach level 15 and get given "daily objectives", which require you to do 3 different things each day - these are often simply unable to be completed as they might require you to do something no one wants to, like playing the Capture game mode.A lot of aforementioned modes are littered with user made missions too, which tend to be very poorly designed if not downright biased towards the host who made them, which isn't fun to play.The matchmaking too suffers from serious issues. The online community is large but even then the game takes several minutes to get even the most played activities populated. Something as basic as this really shouldn't have such a hard time getting people together to start a game mode, especially with a company that has the resources and talent of Rockstar.Similarly GTA Online on the PS3 has been abandoned. Apart from the Heists (that came 18 months after launch and after several delays) the newer updates don't reach this platform at all, so you'd have to be careful if you have any plans to keep playing this in the long run.Speaking of heists, though, they are by far the most fun element of the Online experience. You have to do setup missions to get everything in place and then do the "heist finale" where each of the four players gets a certain role and walk away with a lot of money. These are often hampered by incompetent players - presumably because a lot of them are children - but if you can get a decent team together it is a ton of fun to pull off a heist. They really get your heart racing and are incredible fun to play.Unfortunately the heists too are let down by bad matchmaking. In addition to taking too long for the game to find you players, the system decides to dismantle the entire team if even a single player leaves, ruining the fun for everyone, when instead it should send you back to the lobby so the remaining players can wait for a replacement player to turn up and carry on with the heist.There are also "contact" missions where you get a text and are able to do missions for various characters, some of which you know from the story. These tend to be as varied as what you'd see in the story mode, and fortunately they can be done alone, meaning you don't need to wait for other players if you don't want to. These are quite fun, too, although they don't generate that much money.Speaking of money, there are only two ways to make a good amount of it - heists or shark cards. Heists are great but with the occasional tendency of having teammates that are let downs, but shark cards work entirely through microtransactions and need you to cough up additional real life money in order to be able to afford the truly expensive things in the game, which feels awfully exploitative.Ultimately you have Grand Theft Auto V, which is good if with some flaws, and then you have GTA Online, which has some redeeming factors but for the most part needs a significant overhaul to be considered good, chiefly with its flawed matchmaking system. On balance I would say it's worth it to get the game if only for the singleplayer.

2.2.2020

Having seen this at £17.99 here on amazon for the "premium edition" (an affordable price for an older game) we decided to upgrade from the standard xbox 360 version.Obviously for playing online the servers are much busier! ..so newer player beware.Advantages, ..well the $1,000000 GTA dollars helps (code redemption required,code within the disc case) our million was there within 12 hours.Business start ups! ...sick of grinding so hard on the old version we wanted to try the business (starting with bunkers at 2 million plus) so bought this at a time where the 1 mill + a regular player bonus would give us another million or two over a handful of days played (still going at point of review).giving us a head-start into the bunker purchase, ...this is easy, because the premium edition gives you a starter bunker anyway!You also get a 10 car garage..conveniently down the road from a Los Santos mod shop (& conveniently close to the airport with a fast entry route) ..handily located, close to a jump point to get on the highway (next door to the arena) up a grassy hill ramp! ((use it)) ...this also gives fast motorcycle access to the train tunnel which takes you up towards the casino (its recommended jump off point is out of the tunnel, over the bridge, & jump off at the other mod shop (you'll see when you play) ..the tunnel knowledge is also very handy for police avoidance when being chased & getting off their radar.NB. I recommend stealing a few cars & bringing them back the same route to avoid traffic accidents in order to store & sell cars after your mechanic has fixed them (this happens automatically if left for a game day rather than shelling out more money on repairs.A free Office...(though kitting out this or he bunker costs your valuable money, which you ought save for business investment).A free counterfeit / washing business.... again steal cash for this one to get going & familiarise yourself with the mission system. (spend on maxing out the upgrades after a little while to help prevent raids on your operation)A free apartment (use it until GTA log in throws some cash at you, ..this is often found via rockstar newswire page, regular log ins often mean you catch a bonus, sometimes its $500,000 ...or up to a million, use it t buy a $200,000 apartment that gives you not only a heist room but another 10 vehicle garage (work that money don't waste it)...we opted for one in "del perro heights" there are several options there!!! ..but if saving money it is $200,000 & gives another fast *more or less* straight rote the majority of the way to the casino & beyond whilst being close to the pier, beach, ring road of gameplay area, (shops to hold up with hills nearby to ride up on our motorbike & wait out the police chase star rating).This version also has gambling (so if your kid is young you may want to check out suitability alongside its 18+ game rating, this takes the form of horse racing, poker, slot machines & roulette, ..we tend to save our daily bonus & NOT gamble, whether you believe it or not this seems to have improved our daily spin wins... a hunch neither proven / disproven ..but we are hopeful & have won 2 podium cars since adopting this approach with 5+ near misses (1 space away), ..this tends to improve our other spin prizes too ((we think)).The casino gives you $1000 daily "chips" (collect from the cashier) which can be converted to dollars at a 1 to one rate currently.In the casino you also get a "daily spin" which can accrue you money, levelling up XP, clothes, ..& "occasionally" the car of the week which you will see on the podium, we won this our first week of playing, a vehicle for racing that is "premium" & several million in-game dollars to buy.In the few short months of playing GTA online we have won 3 podium vehicles, bought one flying motorbike using the regularly offered discounts & have sold a lot of vehicles, look out for the one that looks like a range rover (the bonnet especially) that's worth $9000 ..as is the Lampadettti"felon" coupe often found in the car park of the casino (often white in colour) ..go into 1st person view & look at vehicle badges to familiarise yourself with "hunches" ..the lampadetti has a peacock tail "type" logo on the bonnet ..it is a nice car to drive (steal) & sell, there are two versions, both are a good steal & sell opportunity.Played right with lots of car stealing grinding the game will keep "topping you up" if you are not simply splurging & frittering cash away!There are changes to the city if morphing from the 360 to the Xbox 1 game, ..otherwise it feels the same!Money earning challenges, likely the easiest to earn a few thousand (just for participating) is the "drive the distance" (without crashing) ..which can accrue $4000 for losing but playing to the end ..everything helps ) with considerably more for coming 1st ;) ..so if in a car when that pops up with a 2 min 30 sec start warning, get on your map & get a quick route to the mountains / desert ..you never know it all adds up faster than you think.Premium edition gives you a starter apartment (2 car garage) & a conveniently located 10 car lock up garage near one of the 4 los santos car custom pitches, making it easy to pick a few half decent cars from just outside the lock up, store & latterly sell for $3500 - $9000 a piece you find better as the game levels progress, compared to the lower end cars getting a mere $1200 ..by hijacking driven cars in this way you can fill a garage within 10 minutes once you recognise the car type (EG>twin headlights & a very slight bonnet bulge).Overall? ..the logical upgrade for GTA5 with lots of extra DLC's combined within this edition.(don't buy a yacht, they cost 25000 every time you want to simply move it).To improve your cash / kit chances spin the wheel daily (about 10 minutes of gameplay) it can be a great "boost" to reaching your purchasing goals.NB: I forgot to mention, that since purchasing, with the GTA bonuses, casino spins (cash, xp, podium cars, etc) we have regularly had $3 million in our account, (& spinning nearly every day, + playing for a minimum of 40 mins - 3 hours ..there are two of us playing the same character, "dad & daughter" ..to give some more context, we have picked up 75% of memorabilia littered around the map & shot up radio transmitters for easy money + xp per item found (there is plenty of info on these on GTA forums / youtube, only a couple are a PITA to get without a helicoptor.Helicoptors, towards the top of the map, by the farthest Ammunation store is police station with a helicptor (armed) that is easy to steal, but harder to stay in the sky when other flying vehicles (players) are concerned, but a basic sniper rifle, pistol, machine pistol will get the majority (95%) of the radio transmitters I assure you! ..it makes for fast levelling up & map exploration as well as the "release" of more weapons, the ability to call down a mugger (cost $1000) etc ..more is released as you progress (level 100 being about everything on the table). .since buying this & not grinding too much we are at level 58 & go up a level a day or so based on play, stealing, cop avoidance, bonuses etc etc...Hardly touched the storyline so far, plenty of material in the online game alone.Our favourite owned car (bought so we can keep it) the "voltaic" (based on the tesla roadster mk1 aka the lotus elise with a battery motor, it is FAST, it is cheap & it is slender, making driving fast through traffic more or less bump free! ..we recommend it. ..it appears better than the $1.9 million podium vehicle from the same stable (wider, faster, poor brakes) ..so the cheap car is our favourite for versatility & silence when driving, ..you do get the opportunity with this package to FILL yur garage with lots of free cars, DON'T ..they don't go away, they sit there for the future when you have MORE garages (stealing cars FILLS garages, you can sell one every handful of game hours (about 80 mins real time) ..so keep looking out for the nicer cars, stick em at the airprt garage, drive them down the road to the very neaby los santos (about 1/2 a mile away).LASTLY: if you keep getting killed by the same player you can switch on "passive mode" ..it has a cooldown timer, but that obviously stops you doing aggressive things too, ..handy option to use periodically.(if you get that annoyed sell a car, set a bounty on them via lester (in your contacts list, access phone, press up to see game characters, then scroll through till you find the players name you want to set a bounty on.. for a *minimum* of $2000 ..it will follow them onto other servers also, ..even if they disappear!The first heist is not something to be afraid of, the rewards are good when you have at least level 25 under your belt (imho) ..again via "LESTER" it will consist of 2 players only at the local "FLEECA" (ringroad bank) ..set up is longer than the heist itself, ..it is a nice start point for bigger things (& replays of the mission & more money) ..check it out via you-tube if nervous (or need to guide a younger player through it).One of the biggest tips I can think of right now is to set a reminder alert on your tablet for 48 minutes (1 game day) when you have just sold a regular stolen car to a garage, & to put higher value stolen (sellable) vehicles in your garage to do a walk around, ..being familiar with the vehicle light fittings & rear logo (of a "baller" suv valued at $9000 in game dollars) is a nice one to load up with for a binge selling spree to up your banked cashIgnore ocelots (a canine animal head grille logo).Ignore the Hummer clone SUV when you get further into the game ($5000) ..but it is an ok starter!DO steal... "Dubsta" (a take on the mercedes G-wagon ..very angular)...$7000If you bash a vehicle up (for whatever reason) park it up in your garage ...voila it is repaired (so don't think you have to spend cash repairing every scrape, ..just drive carefully when you go to sell it to max price & profit!Have fun & see you in game! ..plenty of free stuff, so don't splurge the cash you start off with, we try to get to $3 mill in our account before our next big buy! ..keeps us concentrating.As far as rockstar games "newswire" is concerned, the website gives news of up & coming discounts as well as when the money for playing regularly is up fo offer, new missions with double xp (etc) is happening, ..even snow in Los santos ..so keep an eye open, as whilst it happens on the game loading pages too you get the news faster offline (online it is hit & miss as to when you play & how much attention you are paying to the loading screens).Rockstar games has news pages for all / individual games, so you might wish to set an alert from themselves.Whilst not a "twitch" user (we don't like spending real money in game, preferring to wait for the best & most calculated deals to get the best for our GTA dollars however as a new bolt on (paid for subscription) if buying the game for a kid you might wish to keep them away from the subscription model (short term gains).There is enough to be gained from both grinding & freebies, ...not to mention regular updates from this game, so whilst old it has another year (apparantly) of life as the latest in the GTA world ...& no signs of drop off of interest amongst players!

18.9.2013

OK the first thing to say is nobody including professional game reviewers will have completed this game, it's simply too big with the depth and variation of the story set to take many hundreds of hours of game-play plus all the extra side quests and random missions that crop up along the way.Set in Los Santos, GTA 5 is the successor to GTA 4 and needless to say it doesn't disappoint. The graphics, audio, characters, cars, weapons, destruction is a good as ever... i would argue better than we've ever seen before on current gen consoles especially when you take into account the size of the game which has taken over 5 years to create and not to mention the hundreds of millions of $$$ they spend creating it.The main difference between this and it's predecessors is that in this you can play as multiple characters with their own different storyline (which all become interlinked funny enough). I don't want to spoil it for anyone but needless to say there's lots of missions as usual from many people to do a variety of things including bank/jewelry store heists. You form a "crew" and choose the best way of doing it, but beware if you pick rubbish crew thinking you'll keep more money then don't be fooled, pay decent money and get a decent crew and the heist will be a total success! Cars handle remarkably well, better than GTA 4 with bikes in particular being impressive. Convertible cars can now have their roofs retracted and vice versa with everything being customizable including the addition of armor and heavy duty tuning to any car you want! One of the biggest improvements to be found is the more realistic way the police respond in their cars to you with their actions being much more human like and aggressive compared to their previous counterparts. The star wanted system makes a return but it is harder to loose the cops in my opinion, with you having to stay out of their range for much longer than past games. The radio tuner is as good as ever with around 16 stations on offer so everyone should be able to find a station they like or indeed they can choose to turn the radio off. There's public transport including a metro, and the downtown cab company is always on hand should you need to get somewhere quick without having to drive across the map but as usual it does incur a cost.As ever your safe-house is a place to rest till morning and sleeping in the bed will also save the game, health can be filled by either walking over medi-packs or taking food/drink from a vending machine. Many missions often start or are located around your house so it does well to really get to know the area well. You get a dog to look after and train (only with a certain character mind). There is an online section due to launch in October where you can team up with friends and invite them to your game and believe me that is bound to take it to a whole new level, just driving around and causing havoc never becomes dull although if you are wondering can you play the main story in co-op then sadly the answer is no. There is an app for your smartphone and ipad called "ifruit" so you can connect to the game and customize your cars and other stuff remotely.You can tattoo your character up, give them a stunning haircut and fit them with the finest clothes a gta game has had to date although no two characters are the same so all the missions are different and indeed the way characters react. Oh and before i forget the characters voice-over are fantastic, they chose well and really help make the characters, rather than just using any standard voice actor they evidently wanted 5 star performances and by Joe they got them. Holding LB will show you the wagon wheel of available weapons and RB will get you into the nearest cover. The auto aim system is a pleasure to use and makes light work of ploughing through enemies. If you do screw up a mission then you instantly get the chance to retry it so don't worry and if you get wasted (die) then you re-spawn at a hospital who charge you money for the privilege (joys of private healthcare :D).You get a modern smartphone this time around to call you're contacts, receive texts, browse the Los Santos web (no internet cafe this time, it's all on your phone) and also you can take snapshot pictures that can be uploaded to the cloud and shared with friends. The map can be simply explored and the dark cloud is removed as you go rather than before where you had to unlock certain areas. Speaking of the map as usual it features all the places you need to go including weapon stores and strip-clubs (it is 18+ rated so don't complain and yes you get to see more than ever before) and if you plot a way-point on the map the sat nav will guide you there in your car. Besides all the missions and characters you meet you can also play golf, tennis and race in street races to make money and increase your street cred. There is an airport so planes, choppers and indeed a blimp are waiting to be used to explore the skyline and what a skyline it us. Skyscrapers look as good in this game as they do in real life, i stood on the top of one and watched across the map while the sun was setting... it was beautiful!I could go on a whole lot more about this game but doing so would spoil it for you instead i will give a round up of the game and some advice.PROS: From what I've played so far (around 15 hours) this is the biggest, best looking, most detailed, most fun and most engaging GTA game to date, The characters are spot on and their voices are perfectly suited to their rolls, cars look and drive as they should, you can buy property/businesses and make money once again, take control of the city with you're crew, runs very smooth and loading screens have been reduced dramatically.....etc..CONS: enemies and cops have a habit of appearing round corners just when i'm reloading or think i'm safe (my problem not the game), some ridiculously hard and time consuming achievements most of which aren't linked to the main storyline. I would have liked to see full storyline co-op...and my advice: DO NOT INSTALL THE SECOND "PLAY" DISK ON YOUR CONSOLE AS THE GAME SUFFERS FROM TERRIBLE LAG, Rockstar Games themselves have confirmed this!VERDICT: Everyone on my friends list has already got a copy of this game and for good reason, i myself pre-ordered it from a high street store. GTA games only come around every 5+ years or so and although they cost a lot of money they hold more gaming content than any other game you will come across. It has an epic storyline among many other things and everyone should own a copy, if you like shooting, driving, tactical play, or just fantastic looking games then this is for you and the hundreds of hours of playable content available and indeed beyond mean you will struggle to find a better value for money game. Multi-player will only take you're gaming experience to the next level when online launches in October!HIGHLY RECOMMENDED BLOCKBUSTER GAME!!!UPDATE 10th October 2013: I want to talk about the online side of the game and the problems that many people including myself have experienced. First off for the first two weeks since the ONLINE section of the game launched it was virtually unplayable online, some people couldn't even gain access to the online section and many including myself lost characters and all their online progress. In short it was a total mess and in truth Rockstar screwed it up especially in the customer relation department. Finally i can report that the online is working perfectly as of today, characters don't get lost and all data is saved automatically. Rockstar have said in response to all the problems that each player who has played in the month of October will receive $500,000 of in game money (which is nice but lets be frank that's about enough for 1 apartment and a good car) so in the grand scheme of things is relatively small GTA wise.So what is there to do online? There are races, missions, parachute jumps, (team)death-matches and survival mode. Besides all these you can roam the whole map and buy property, garages and cars. You can get insurance for your car so if it is damaged or destroyed you can call the insurance company and for a fee they will get you an identical car. Just like story mode you can buy weapons and ammo (for missions and free roam). Speaking of free roam you will be amazed the amount of other players in your lobby that will try and kill you for fun especially if someone puts a bounty on your head, you can enter "passive mode" for $100 but you can only do this before a bounty is placed. Passive mode protects you from getting killed by other players but as a consequence you can't use weapons either! A bounty exists for a 24 hours period of in game time so even if you leave and come back the next day the bounty will remain until you have survived a 24 hour period of roaming the island (taking part in missions or hiding out in a safe-house pauses the timer, if you get killed then the killer collects the bounty but if you survive the 24 hour period then the bounty is lifted. You can team up with friends in a crew and stroll around the map together and indeed help each other rob stores and do missions and races BUT (and this is where i have to be critical) the online is nowhere near as developed as i thought it would be, if you take all the missions, death matches and races out of the equation all of which can be played from the beginning then there is little to do besides killing other players and buying property. After you have a property, garage and car the only thing you need money for is weapons and ammo so huge sums of money are pointless online in my opinion. For those that want to know the police are extremely aggressive online, even more than story mode so be prepared!Personally i have always thought that GTA games are best for their single player experience, yet Rockstar stated that with GTA5 the online will be key. Sadly online isn't as good or as involving as i hoped it would be.Overall this game is well worth the money and gets 4 stars, but be in no doubt that the online isn't as good as what Rockstar themselves said it would be!!-----------------------------UPDATE December 2013: There have been updates and new DLC released, by and large the experience online has remained the same although they have cut the XP you got for winning races making it harder to level up. The Storyline is as good as it was before and indeed i would say is the only attraction to this game as online it has become very dull unless you play with a group of friends (just my opinion)

18.7.2015

After spending over 100 hours playing Grand Theft Auto 5 and completing everything story and multiplayer wise I feel that it is time to evaluate this commercially huge game. As one of the highest selling entertainment products ever, there are thousands of kids and adults playing this game right now. It goes without saying that Grand Theft Auto titles have become something of a household name due to both notoriety and the fact that they are great games boosted by critics and seasoned gamers alike. As an experienced gamer I have played most of the Grand Theft Auto titles that have been released and I know that my opinion counts in terms of what makes a good GTA game.I want to evaluate Grand Theft Auto 5 as a title and as a stand up to its predecessors, most importantly 2008’s Grand Theft Auto 4, which I and most critics and gamers worldwide agree to be a landmark in gaming (for its time). Also I would like to share some ideas I have for the future of the franchise and what could be possible in another GTA title.Grand Theft Auto games entail sex, drugs, guns, cars, planes, money, robbery, overly flamboyant characters, great humor, good music, I could go on. These are big, ambitious games and Grand Theft Auto 5 is no doubt the most ambitious GTA game yet in terms of almost all of these topics. That is not to say that it doesn’t have its faults, however. I want to start with the negatives of the game and end this assessment on the positives. Grand Theft Auto 5’s biggest flaws in my opinion lie in its graphics, size, story (somewhat) and lack of efficiency in terms of its online features. I want to start with the graphics by saying that they could have been so much better. I’m not one to pick apart a game for not having great graphics, but GTA 5’s graphics are weak compared to a lot of games released for the 360/ps3 generations (the ps4/ xbox one versions as well, although they are certainly better). I understand that it can be hard to maintain good graphics when there is so much to be done and seen in terms of the open world, but I still feel that the games visuals could have been polished a good bit more. Grand Theft Auto 4’s graphics were pretty groundbreaking in 2008 for an open world game, and I don’t feel that 5 has the graphics that it should as a follow up. Also, I don’t feel that the game world is entirely big enough either. Los Santos and Blaine County together is by no means small, and there is plenty to fill the spaces and to be seen and done in these parts of San Andreas, but I can’t help but wonder why they didn’t do the whole state. San Fierro and Las Venturas? If the ps2 could hold the whole state of San Andreas then these consoles could have done so as well. I would have appreciated a bigger map. The story in Grand Theft Auto 5 is definitely a lot of fun and I don’t want to dog on it too much, but I will say that it trifles in comparison the fantastic story told in GTA 4, which is on a dramatic and creative level so much better. The story is so important to me as a gamer. The missions that I’m doing and the characters I meet and do them for have to be appealing. While the single player campaign in GTA 5 is fun, and hilarious throughout, it lacks the dramatic punch that 4 had.There could have been more to the development of the three playable characters. I’m not saying it had to be as serious and heavy handed as GTA 4 was, and the heists do make up for most of these problems, but there could have been more to the story. Last of my complaints (but certainly not least) revolves around the online which has quite a few technical problems starting with its horrid loading times. Whether it be going from free mode to a death match or coming out of a game and back in to free mode the loading times are terrible. It takes away from all of the great features and game modes available via Grand Theft Auto online when the loading is so bad. Not to mention the bugs that I encountered regularly while getting to rank 100 online, from glitches to getting kicked out of games and missions before they were over to lobbies being poorly backed up. I know that Rockstar is constantly releasing updates for consoles to fix online issues and it has gotten better but there is still much to do in terms of polishing the online.Despite my complaints for the game, I did and do love Grand Theft Auto 5. I would not have spent the time on it that I did if I didn’t, and now I’m excited to focus on the positives. It was probably the funniest game I have ever played. Throughout the story missions and the strangers and freaks side quests (which are all excellent) I was laughing and most of the characters that you meet in the game are great. One of the side missions in particular surrounding a religious cult called the Epsilon program has probably become my favorite Grand Theft Auto mission of all time, possibly the most creative and hilarious thing Rockstar has ever come up with and that’s saying something. I admired the games ability to keep me entertained from mission to mission classic Grand Theft Auto style by staying so funny and entertaining. This humor a lot of people missed in GTA 4, which I can understand. The three playable characters themselves are interesting and different in their own ways. I liked all three of them, but I will say that psychotic Trevor brought the most life to the game for me. Michael and Franklin are much more sensible and most will find to be the better characters, but Trevor brought originality to the game with his dysfunctional personality that separates him to me as the most important character and the center of most of GTA 5’s best moments. The three character switching was something I was worried about when I found out about it during the development of the game, but it is really well done and interesting to switch back and forth between the three guys. I found myself laughing at what they had gotten into while I was away with another character. The game also does a good job of dispersing missions between them, I never felt forced on one character or that one was being neglected. Cars, guns, and planes make a big return in Grand Theft Auto 5 as well, as many people had missed from GTA 4, which had a lack of variety in these (no planes at all). Weapons and cars are fully customizable with some pretty cool perks. The heists, which are the centerpiece of the game and hold it together wonderfully with well-crafted vehicle (land, sea, and air) bits are all cool and original in their own way. I like the way that Rockstar uses them to draw the characters and stories together, and the setups and finales of the heists are the highlights of the single player game. The online heists that have been included as dlc are a lot of fun as well, especially if you have a good team to do them with. In terms of side quests and things to do in single player and online, Grand Theft Auto 5 is ripe with possibilities. All of the side missions from hunting, racing, rampages, parachuting and miscellaneous encounters are entertaining and appropriately challenging. I had fun reaching 100 percent completion of the game and even the collectible missions didn’t feel like a chore. Getting to rank 100 in multiplayer however I won’t say the same for because it was certainly a grind and with the online annoyances I mentioned earlier a lot was taken away from that experience. There is so much to do and appreciate with the online but Rockstar definitely needs to get to polishing it and making it reach its full potential. Even though I’m now technically done with Grand Theft Auto 5 single player and multiplayer wise, I still find myself playing it regularly. There is so much to be seen in the game that I still feel the need to revisit it. And I think that is what makes it a solid GTA. I think Grand Theft Auto 5 is a great game, and it succeeded in what it wanted to be.Do I think it is the swan song for the console generation and sent off the ps3 and xbox 360 as the best title, however? No, I do not. Do I think Grand Theft Auto 4 was a better representation of the power of these consoles for the time (in 2008) and in turn a better game? Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. It’s hard to compare the two. But, I think fans are pleased because it is a return to form for “Grand” Theft Auto, with so much to do and so much silliness that could never have been found in GTA 4. The fact is that it is amazing that Rockstar was able to create such great games that are so different and succeed with both of them. What direction the series takes next is going to be very interesting, and I can only hope that they find a somewhere in between with the success of these two titles now in the past. I wish for a game with the dramatic punch and technical prowess of GTA 4, with the size, fun, humor and possibilities of GTA 5. Perhaps this could be easier with only one character, and a totally new environment rather than visiting one from a past Grand Theft Auto game. I hope to see the next GTA game have a focused story and characters, with lots to see and do, good graphics, better designed online with less glitches and annoyances, and something new and original. That could be anything from vehicles to characters to missions, which are always great and entertaining in Grand Theft Auto games. But there are still so many possibilities and so much that hasn’t yet been done. I hope to see the next Grand Theft Auto fully realize this and seize its potential and hopefully not only meet the successes of these past two titles but surpass them.

22.7.2014

If I had gotten round to writing this review just as I started playing the game I would have gone nuts and given 10 stars if possible. However having completed the game and seen everything it had to offer I can't quite bring myself to give it the full 5 stars despite having some great times playing it.I will save the negatives for the end but when I first got this game I was beyond excited!1.That long loading menu with changing promo artworks with its Michael Mann inspired score music.2. Unlike previous games I had pretty much obsessed about this one knowing who the characters were and the basis of what the plot would be. So it was surprising that the ever awaiting start to the game was playing through a prologue set 9 years ago,in a different city to set the characters up well for the present. I have to say this was fantastic and a different way to start a GTA game compared to previous editions. In Vice City imagine if you got to play out Tommy Vercetti's prologue where he killed multiple assassins during his ambush before doing 15 years in prison back in Liberty City?3. All characters are great and the way their introduced suits them. Michael was probably just about my favorite because i felt I related to him a little.4. That first heist where you had to decide the method (quiet or loud) and the right crew which felt like make or break (i gambled on a cheap hacker in hope he would develop). Then the rush of actually completing the heist! Oh my there haven't been many moments where it felt so good.5. Then being re introduced to Trevor in the present and his shocking behavior and being isolated away from Los Santos temporarily and seeing Trevor's world in the backward world of Sandy Shores.6. Taking Trevor to Los Santos for his tense reunion with Michael whilst finally having access to the money made from the first heist.From then on it was pretty exciting stuff as the game progressed but this does eventually bring me to the negatives. Most of these negatives come from a lot of expectation after countless obsession over every trailer and background information as well as comparisons good and bad to previous GTA games.1. When I first saw an actual dog in a GTA trailer I was so happy. Franklin has a pet dog that I thought would be a big part of the story and be really cool. Instead Chop the rottweiler is central in one mission where he helps Franklin chase down a rival gang member but after that he rarely plays a big part and away from missions there isn't much use for him until his happy meter is higher which brings me to the frustration of the ridiculous "IFruit app". When I heard you actually have to download an app on your own phone, then play a mini game on that which trains Chop just to get his happy meter up, well I thought 'what a joke'! Why the hell couldn't it be done through offline gameplay and simply train Chop in the actual game instead? Which brings me to next point which connects a bit to Chop.2. There are 3 playable characters in this game! In San Andreas with just one playable character; the game reportedly had over 100 story missions and I know for fact that GTA IV was reasonably long enough. So being naive I fully expected that with 3 playable characters the story missions would be tripled if you will and make the game long and fulfilling. The first time I started to lose excitement for this game was when I realized that I wasn't that far off completing the story and the game just felt shorter than its predecessors. Why the hell were there less missions? Why wasn't there more depth into Franklin's gang life background including mini gang wars (where Chop the Dog would play more of a part)? Why wasn't there more depth into Trevor's gun running and crystal meth business? Oh of course Rockstar have lost their way and focused way too much on the lame and overrated online world instead to satisfy the sad pathetic Call Of Duty online loser fans!3. I strongly feel that the 3 different endings could have been better. Frankly I knew it was likely that Michael or/and Trevor could die because of what's happened in their past but not at the hands of Franklin in two very tame optional endings. Therefore of course you go with option C for the big happy ending. Realistically though there could have been another explosive ending where Michael or Trevor die because one or the other kills the other. There could have even been an ending where Franklin somehow dies and Michael feels real remorse at bringing a young kid like him into their world and paying the price.4. Stretch and the Triads have to be the most ineffective villains in GTA history because we simply don't see them enough on screen. The most screen time villains are probably Devin Weston (multi-millionaire tycoon) and Steve Haines. Unlike Officer Frank Tennpenny (played by Samuel L Jackson) in San Andreas, the two mentioned above prove to be more annoying pests than intimidating villains. Even GTA IV did better in this department when it came to menacing antagonists (Dimitri Rasalov, Mikail Faustin, Jimmy Pegerino, Vlad etc) and so did previous games. There just wasn't enough exploration of the criminal underworld like before. Simeon (Franklin's former boss) is associated with the Armenian mob (unseen) according to GTA database, so why the hell isn't he and that mob a big part of the game in making the three characters' lives a living hell at some point later in the story. Because of these problems, the ending is somewhat not perfect to a very short game. Not really having Stretch or the Triads getting the screen time needed to make the impact on the audience and the fact that each one is not killed by the right protagonists that actually want them dead really makes it a tame confrontation.5. After you have done the heists and for fun you decide to replay them again, its frustrating that certain crew members that you didn't pick initially are now no longer available as an option for replays.6. Oh yeah there's no NIGHTLIFE in the game! GTA IV may not have been a terrific game but its expansion spin-off; Ballad of Gay Tony, was a really fun game because of its nightclub culture. So it frustrates me further that even with all that money you can barely enjoy nightclubs in the game (except for strip club). Even when you buy a bar or nightclub you can't even access it! For heaven sake even in GTA: Vice City which came out 12 years ago, once you bought it even then you could enter the Malibu club but in this game the creators have gone backwards and taken that fun away.Which finally brings me to the little things I think should have been in the game that may or may not have been in previous game:-- Gambling and Mini games! There's a race track in the city but it's never open for public or you the player to go down and gamble. If betting shops are still legal in California why aren't they in the game too like they were in San Andreas. People moaned too much about the mini games and I'm worried these same clowns are the reason Rockstar got rid of the old ones which I liked such as bowling or playing pool. Especially being able to gamble while playing pool which wasn't in GTA IV but was in San Andreas.- More access to buildings! This includes access to properties you buy including nightclubs. Bahama Mamas West is inaccessible which really infuriates me! The game needs way more available business properties to choose from such as nightclubs, restaurants, car dealerships, a film studio etc. Also wish the like Vice City certain properties you buy have actual story missions to them (including cut scenes) instead of the generic annoying small jobs with current properties you can buy.- Gangland wars for Franklin & Lemar & Chop as well as a better drug distribution background for Trevor's character.- There could have been more heists. Not major ones and don't have to involve all 3 major characters. I'm thinking more to do with Franklin along with Lamar. You can plan liquor store hold ups (including safe) or even restaurants and maybe a pawnshop robbery that doesn't go completely to plan because Franklin was a getaway driver for Lamar and Stretch was a major cause for why it was bad (you know like in the film DRIVE). Also was disappointed they still having brought back burglary missions since they were introduced in San Andreas. Can you imagine Franklin and Lamar doing a mission like that? It be like CJ and Ryder bickering all over again.- Although I understand that they wanted to stick to one city, I also feel that becasue Rockstar abandoned the unlock reward system it makes it less fun that youcan explore most of the city and San Andreas quite quickly. I still can't help but think what it be like to have San Fierro and Las Venturus with better graphics than what San Andreas ever achieved. If Las Venturas had been included you could include a casino robbery like in the film 3000 Miles to Graceland.So GTA V is being re released for PS4! Well maybe I be dumb enough to buy it but I doubt they added anything to story mode s

20.11.2014

Grand Theft Auto VPlayStation 4Rated 18Stats:HD 1080pFrame Rate: 24-30fps1 Player (Offline)2-30 Network Players (Online) [PlayStation Plus subscription required to play online]Compatible with PlayStation VitaRequires 55GB minimum of free hard drive space.Long installation (approx 30-45 mins).Features GTA Online ModePlayers returning must have a Rockstar Social Club account in order to access exclusive loyalty bonuses.Developed by Rockstar NorthPublished by Take-Two Interactive SoftwareStory: How did things get so bad?Michael Townley; a crook teams up with Brad and Trevor for a bank heist in Luddendorf, North Yankton; but things go out of hand, with Brad and Michael being shot by a sniper.Micheal is presumed dead and Brad is presumed to be incarcerated. Michael However is actually living another life as Michael De Santa in Los Santos after he and the Sniper (Dave Norton) struck a deal. Micheal's life seems to go swimmingly... or at least it would have, if Michael didn't catch his wife Amanda in bed with a tennis coach, not happy with his wifes betrayel, he then chases after the tennis coach who leads them back to an hill top mansion; with Michael not thinking it through, he tears down the house and then drives off. This mansion turns out to be owned by the Cartel, headed by Martin Madrazo. Madrazo turns up at Michael's house seeking compensation for the damages caused to his hill top mansion, however Michael doesn't have that kind of money Madrazo is asking for, so he meets up with an old aquaintance Lester. Michael leads a team of people with their own expertise into robbing the Vangelico Jewellery store, the plan was devised by Lester and executed by Michael, but soon after successfully completing the heist; Trevor, an uninvited guest enters Michael's house with unanswered questions: What's Michael been doing and where's Brad? The latter is worked out over the course of the whole game. Dave Norton also struggles to stop the FIB from digging deeper into his and Michael's deal, so Dave enlists certain requests for Michael which are a bit extreme and somewhat dangerous; Soon it becomes apparent that things would soon spiral out of control for Michael and Dave; what with the Merryweather, IAA and the FIB down Daves throat and Trevor down Micheal's, but poor young Franklin is caught in the middle of it all.Story Review:The funniest thing I've seen, heard and played from start to finish, Trevor is just a mess of a guy, but likeable in every heap of the word, with his griminess, foul language and horniness coupled with the fact he hates just about everything society throws at him. Trevor is a force to be reckoned with. Michael just wants to please everybody, even if it means alienating the people he's trying to please. He has a nice house, a nice car and a family that he dotes on so much, even if they are over-ecentric and greedy people. Michael wants peace, but he has to fight for it. Franklin is a character that just wants a better life for himself, but hanging out with Michael and Trevor is not going to give him that, Franklin loses the respect from close family and friends because of his sudden craze for the high life, leaving behind the neighbourhood he grew up in.Gameplay:The game centres around Los Santos and Blaine County and offers different ways to move across the landscape, from driving high powered sports cars, flying various aircraft to swimming underwater. The mission's themselves centre around heists and the overall planning of them, from getting various equipment for the heists, selecting crew, to placing a getaway vehicle. Some of these hiests pay off but others are thwarted by last minute decisions which effect the overall value of them. The character's are also blackmailed to take part in dangerous missions outside of heists by merryweather, FIB and so on. The player is able to switch character's at will by pressing down on the d-pad. As soon as you switch, the character's would be doing some other non player interactions, ie. appearing out of shops or getting chased by the cops. these characters can partake in some activities; be it recreational or just random encounters with other pedestrians; with the recreational activities ranging from tennis, darts, golf, strip clubs, fair ground and movie theatres. The player is able to customise the 3 characters clothing, tattoo's and hairstyle's with the addition to customising guns and cars as well. There are numerous of businesses up for sale too and these would have you doing some errands like driving VIP's across town or saving the business from hooligans; saving the business would ultimately give your selected character their expected weekly allowance.PlayStation 4 Specific Gameplay Enhancements:Grand Theft Auto V features a new first person perspective mode which freshens the game up for returning players, but also adds a new level of fun in the process; you can switch modes by pressing on the Touch Pad. The modes can be used at any time apart from during the cutscenes, as it cuts away to third person mode. Other than this brilliant mode, which is the highlight of this next gen counterpart, the game also utilises the Dualshock 4's light bar to identify which character your playing and flashes blue and red if you're wanted by the police. The Dualshock 4 speaker is used for listening to emergency broadcasts and to receive phone calls.A new Director's Mode has been added which allows you control of any character and record them doing some crazy stuff at your leisure and then edit your masterpiece to showcase to rest of the world via YouTube. This is done by pressing on the touchpad until the pop up appears which allows you to jump into this mode as well as change your character's clothing on the fly.Visuals:The PlayStation 4 version has more texture, ambient lighting and dynamic reflections which make the game more believable. The interiors in the vehicles have the best visuals because they feature rounded objects and various texturing detail that was missing in the PS3 version. There is also a high level of foliage, not just grass, but weeds and flowers too. Los Santos and Blaine County though are teeming with life from birds, cougars, deers, cats, cows/bulls, dolphins, sharks to various dogs. The underwater areas are fully detailed, same as the city and urban areas. The draw distance and weather have been overhauled for Grand Theft Auto V on PS4 with the fact Rockstar have added puddles and surface flooding, where you can actually see water droplets in it, but all this just adds to the immersion of the game and this time around Rockstar North have added more colour to the cities without it looking bland compared to GTA V on PS3. The environment in which you play in, is diverse in the sense of having a countryside, desert region and a mountaineous region drawn together in a photo realistic setting, which is both tranquil and highly detailed.Sound:The radio stations are littered with top tunes from the 80's, 90's with my favourite one coming from Supernatural itself; ya know the one; the one that gets played in "The road so far" recap trailer on the very last episode of the season. Yeap... that song. The fact of the matter is, I won't be surprised if everyone has their favourite song being played out at some stage; they're good driving tunes, whether you're cruising down the highway or rolling down a hill, there's a tune for every occasion. If only they did this in real life, I think music would be more interesting. The individual music scores on missions just adds to the awesome music as well and even brings about a certain level of danger and adventure. So what's not to like?GTA Online:Create your character, purchase apartments and engage in a new level of story which is seperate from the main or take part in fun activities with your friends; with Rockstar continously adding updates, you can rest assure that you'll never get bored, with each time you enter GTA Online would be like a new experience. Returning players can transfer their character to PS4 from GTA Online on PS3.Conclusion:GTA V for Xbox One, PS4 and PC is really fantastic and really shows just how commited Rockstar Games are at providing new content for online in addition to improving elements of the whole game which in turn keeps GTA V fresh, new & exciting when you come back to it. just when I put the game in a cupboard to rot, Rockstar present some new excuse for me to get the game out again which is great. I love GTA and I hope you'll love it too, It's the go to game, if you want to have some laid back fun.

18.9.2013

First impressions. Straight from the install screen you can tell this game is going to be a masterpiece. Maybe it's was the music or the fact that it had a countdown in MB, of which there are 8486, at 9MB a second, that's a long wait...but well worth it.Then suddenly you're thrust into the action...not saying how though, no spoilers...but it's far superior to getting off a boat or plane. Here you get your first taste of the new gunplay, which was overwhelmingly great after playing GTAIV recently. Later on, after the title sequence, you get your first real go at driving...it's incredible, much improved over GTAIV (and I loved the driving in that).More on those later.This time around we have three characters to play with...and you can switch between them mid-mission. This adds another level to how the player can complete a mission, without being tied down to the exact same mission structure, as with previous games. Simply hold down on the D-pad, select a character that's available and it switches instantly to that character and you take control. This isn't confined to inside the mission, though. When outside of a mission you can drop in (with a camera movement that zooms into the sky and back down on your character...basically, the coolest loading screen you've ever seen) on a character while he goes about his day...and he could be doing anything. The first time I tried it, I found Michael sitting in a car, clearly bored with his life.These three characters are classic GTA. Michael, the retired criminal with a family bleeding him dry. Franklin, gangster from the hood trying to make a bigger name for himself. And last - but definitely not least - Trevor, a complete psycho living outside of the city in Blaine County.That's all the stuff you probably know already, and obviously I haven't come close to completing this, and I wouldn't spoil it anyway. This is a day one assessment of how the game runs and controls. Do I really need to tell you how to play GTA? :DAnyone expecting The Last of Us level of graphics will be disappointed, GTA has never - and will never - matched the highest a generation has to offer. You can't compare a linear non open world game to GTA, they are made differently. TLOU uses a smaller stage and can fit more polygons and greater quality textures. GTA has to load huge amounts of polygons and textures on the fly, so they can't be the highest quality, just the most efficient. This is why GTAV requires an 8 GB install, to maximise the games ability to stream those polygons and textures. GTAIV used a 3.3 GB install, so you can see why this game would need 8 GB of data to play with, because this game is HUGE. Los Santos and the surrounding area of Blaine County...and the rest, are said to be bigger than San Andreas, GTAIV and Red Dead Redemption put together.While it isn't as good visually as TLOU, it's most definitely a better technical achievement. Naughty Dog have had a whole generation of success on one system. Rockstar have had major trouble with their PS3 versions of GTAIV and Red Dead Redemption. But this time both versions run almost identical (both at 720p native resolution...no sub-HD for PS3 this time), with Digital Foundry even recommending the PS3 over the 360 - the minor difference being better ground textures (not that you should spend much time looking at the ground). In terms of framerate, these consoles are being pushed, but typically keep a pretty good rate around 25-30fps (even pushing above 30 on occasion), PC gamers will roll their eyes at that, but most console gamers won't notice a thing. It is still a vast improvement over previous titles. It seems the power of the Cell has final paid off in multiplatform gaming...better late than never.One thing that surprised me is the lack of pop in. Even in TLOU there was a fair amount of it (Firefly pendants were particularly bad), but here you are driving around at speed with mountains and bridges seemingly always there. One mission - the one from a trailer with a man jumping out of Michael's second floor window (seen here from Franklin's perspective) - sees Michael and Franklin driving up to some posh Vinewood hills location. And mid-mission I had to stop, because the view just didn't seem real..."I'm playing on a PS3, THAT shouldn't be possible", but it is.What Rockstar have done is nothing short of a miracle. The draw distance is incredible. The words "Scope", "Sprawling", and any others reviewer's tend to give, don't do it justice. Light Source, it's an amazing feat to pull. I went to the top of a mountain and in the far distance I could see lights of cars and lights of buildings...all of which aren't just there for decoration, they are from the cars and the buildings. It makes for beautiful night time vistas. Lighting in general is superb, a great improvement over San Andreas' over saturated orange.A lot of people have questioned how this game can run on current generation systems? The answer is simple; 5 years development and $265 million! Only one other film in history cost that much (Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End cost $300 million), so it goes without saying...this is the most expensive video game ever produced, and you can see why. There just isn't another open world game that looks as good as this...for me it's up there with MGS2 on the PS2, with both punching well above their weight.Franklin's first mission (with San Andreas funny Lamar) gives you the chance to test the new driving system. And it's as expected. Halfway between GTAIV's realism and SA's arcade. You can now pull off power slides, but with the chance of messing it up. It's the perfect system. Holding (or tapping to cycle) Left on the D-pad brings up the new radio wheel (with the game effectively paused) you choose your station using the the Right stick. Far simpler than cycling through loads of stations. This system is also used to select weapons.The combat has had a dramatic improvement. The camera is now a lot tighter, before it was a battle with a strange system that seemed intent on moving the camera in the direction of movement. You can now shoot while running, a definite benefit, because the cops are now super aggressive.Before GTAIV, the cops would basically just all charge towards you brainlessly...now they all charge towards you using their brains. Just a three star wanted level is a pretty tasty challenge, with even police helicopters shooting at you. They now use a cone of view to search for you, meaning you can cleverly out fox them by hiding in a back alley. They are super smart and super tough, don't even think about standing out in the open, you're dead. Don't worry though, because a nice helping of mid-mission checkpoints and the ability to save your game at any point using your phone, mean you will be straight back into the action. There is no more bringing up your phone to restart the whole mission...there is no bringing up your phone, you die, you hit one button and you're back to the last checkpoint. You keep all you guns, there is no need to keep going back and forth for more. The guns themselves can now be upgraded, right down to the colour of the weapon. Then there's the customisation of the cars...and more...in fact...why am I wasting my time even writing this!?One last thing. If you're live on TV, whatever you do, don't answer your phone! :DThis generation goes out with a bang. The best game of the series...by the distance from one end of the map to the other...and I've only had it a day...it's quite possibly the best game ever made...apart from LittleBigPlanet 2 ;)

17.9.2013

pros:biggest GTA map / world ever. Los Santos is larger than all 3 original san andreas cities, liberty city from GTA4, all combined. I have played the game for 4 hours, and seen so much so far of los santos and i still have not covered the entire city from what the map shows on the pause menu. then, there's the counties, mountain ranges, and expansive countryside that is around 4 times the size of los santos itself. Absolutely huge, if you thought skyrim was big... think again.completely new game engine. Plenty would think that this game being the 5th in the series and looking on screenshots similar to GTA4, is using the same or comparable engine to gta4. Wrong.The new engine is totally different and virtually incomparable to gta4. smoother, sharper, the amount of detail in shadows, character's expressions and behaviour, other drivers and criminals in the world, cracks in the roads, sunshine and weather, day and night, everything, is as smooth as a crystal palace, improved, and pushes the PS3 to it's absolute limits without any lag, delay, tearing or bugs of environment - nothing. it's spotless and a rock solid engine, and best of all the car handling is the best yet in the series. Handbraking is now extremely comparable to real life and easily messed up, forcing you to hone your driving skills and the speed of fast cars in this game is exhilarating like no other.a seamless open sandbox world, finally. what i mean by this, is when you go to start a mission, there is no movies - no cutscenes, no walking to a marker and waiting for a loading screen - within the game world that you are already in, seamlessly the cutscene takes place there and then and is played through the actual game engine you are playing on. There is no sense of disconnect from los santos or san andreas itself - EVER, it's 100% seamless. even when you go to a safehouse and walk through the door as if you would expect in real life, it JUST happens - no loading screens, no freezing when quicksaving, it all happens in split seconds there and then. it's darn perfect.day and night cycles of weather, are more realistic than ever. during midday, the amount of light is sometimes blinding but not literally. during night, it actually feels like night, it really is that dark and without headlights working on your car down a dark street it can be almost too difficult to not know exactly where you are going, and in the countryside and mountain ranges this is far worse - but all of this is excellent realism of the world you play in.more activities and side content than ever before. you can now go watch movies, play golf, train your dog, go to the gym, take train rides on a complete fully accessible los santos underground subway system highly comparable to the same system in actual real life los angeles. as for the gym, yes, body stats are back like in the 1st san andreas game. you can improve your health, weight, muscle, or worsen yourself and be fat and unathletic and unhealthy - the choice is yours. eating bad foods all the time will affect this. we all loved this in san andreas and it is finally back. a welcome change.realism. rockstar north of united kingdom, have done a near perfect job of mimicking all of los angeles into a los santos in GTA5. I have actually checked on google maps and street view, and i have seen streets, flyovers, buildings, architecture which are nearly exact copies in the game itself. the city of los santos, is highly comparable to los angeles. for someone who lives in los angeles, this would be awesome, especially if you see places you are actually familiar with somewhere downtown - it makes the whole sense of realism, open world seamless sandbox and quality all come together.cons:this really pissed me off. no independence FM. sad but true. the game's radio station selection however is quite excellent and a very good listen however the option to just play my own music off my PS3 would have been a very nice touch, which is not here unfortunately. maybe it will get added in a patch, who knows?atomic blip download code does not work. I am not sure if this is for everyone, or just me, or if it's because nothing is available on the ps store in terms of DLC for the game yet - but my downloadable DLC code inside the game case is for an atomic blip, a like for like german zeppelin that allows me to take amazing flights all over san andreas and admire the views or parachute to the ground (i think) and the code does not work on the ps store when i try to redeem it. crap, should not be happening, but it did.virtually nothing in the game manual. no artwork, no city guide like in all the previous GTA games, no fun read through like before - just tells you what the controls are and that's it. does not even have a short dialogue about what the game is that you just bought. a silly con that some might say, about a game having a non existent game manual - but i am what you would call a bit old fashioned. ive grown up in an age where games came with manuals comparable to the size of an ikea catalogue. i like them, i like reading them and i am fed up of buying new games that have hundreds of in game tutorials instead of a manual. let ME PLAY the game without walking me through on my first steps, i am not stupid or a casual gamer and i dont need my hand held - if i get stuck, let me look inside a manual.no poster artwork on the back of the game's map. just an upscaled view of los santos, which is a bit useless considering you have a perfect minimap in game and a perfect map tool on the pause menu - why the need for another upscaled view of the city on the back of the map? some people love sticking that poster up on the wall, or even framing it - this time around there is nothing like that.summary:the game itself is 9.5/10, it would have been 10 if it had an independence FM. a very small pet peeve but hardly anything to hinder the overall score of the game.the packaging and presentation of the product, on the standard edition, feels a bit cheated. the lack of poster art on the back of the map, and no city guide or any artwork, feels like a slap in the face when standard editions of GTA in the past ALWAYS had these little pieces of fun, when this time around it does not HOWEVER the special edition version, does seem to have all of that.......... for an extra £15, inside an awkward box casing that would not fit well inside a blu ray disc rack or a narrow shelf tall enough for blu ray disc cases like every normal PS3 game. had the special edition been a standard size of a blu ray disc case i would have given up and gone for it, i just like placing my games among one another and i would not have liked having it sit on it's own lying around somewhere else not part of my games collection.a masterpiece of a game, and the best game out now on the PS3 - PERIOD. standard edition - cheating packaging. if it does not bother you, good for you. if it does and you don't mind the larger size of the case of the special edition - buy that one instead.

23.9.2013

Grand Theft Auto VPlayStation 3Rated 18HD 720p1 Player / 2-16 Network PlayersRequires 8.23GB minimum of free hard drive spaceCompatible with the iFruit app for smartphones and PSVitaFeatures GTA OnlineDeveloped by Rockstar NorthPublished by Take-Two Interactive SoftwareStory: How did things get so bad?Michael Townley; a crook teams up with Brad and Treveor for a bank heist in Luddendorf, North Yankton; but things go out of hand, with Brad and Michael being shot by a sniper. Micheal is presumed dead and Brad is presumed to be incarcerated. Michael However is actually living another life as Michael De Santa in Los Santos after he and the Sniper (Dave Norton) struck a deal. Micheal's life seems to go swimmingly...or at least it would have, if Michael didn't catch his wife Amanda in bed with a tennis coach, not happy with his wifes betrayel, he then chases after the tennis coach who leads them back to an hill top mansion; with Michael not thinking it through, he tears down the house and then drives off. This mansion turns out to be owned by the Cartel, headed by Martin Madrazo. Madrazo turns up at Michael's house seeking compensation for the damages caused to his hill top mansion, however Michael doesn't have that kind of money Madrazo is asking for, so he meets up with an old aquaintance Lester. Michael leads a team of people with their own expertise into robbing the Vangelico Jewellery store, the plan was devised by Lester and executed by Michael, but soon after successfully completing the heist; Trevor, an uninvited guest enters Michael's house with unanswered questions: What's Michael been doing and where's Brad? The latter is worked out over the course of the whole game. Dave Norton also struggles to stop the FIB from digging deeper into his and Michael's deal, so Dave enlists certain requests for Michael which are a bit extreme and somewhat dangerous; Soon it becomes apparent that things would soon spiral out of control for Michael and Dave; what with the Merryweather, IAA and the FIB down Daves throat and Trevor down Micheal's, but poor young Franklin is caught in the middle of it all.Story Review:The funniest thing I've seen, heard and played from start to finish, Trevor is just a mess of a guy, but likeable in every heap of the word, with his griminess, foul language and horniness coupled with the fact he hates just about everything society throws at him. Trevor is a force to be reckoned with. Michael just wants to please everybody, even if it means alienating the people he's trying to please. He has a nice house, a nice car and a family that he dotes on so much, even if they are over-ecentric and greedy people. Michael wants peace, but he has to fight for it. Franklin is a character that just wants a better life for himself, but hanging out with Michael and Trevor is not going to give him that, Franklin loses the respect from close family and friends because of his sudden craze for the high life, leaving behind the neighbourhood he grew up in. However Franklin's fashion sense far out exceeds that of Michael's and certainly Trevor's.Gameplay:The game centres around Los Santos and Blaine County and offers different ways to move across the landscape, from driving high powered sports cars, flying various aircraft to swimming underwater. The mission's themselves centre around heists and the overall planning of them, from getting various equipment for the heists, selecting crew, to placing a getaway vehicle. Some of these hiests pay off but others are thwarted by last minute decisions which effect the overall value of them. The character's are also blackmailed to take part in dangerous missions outside of heists by merryweather, FIB and so on. The player is able to switch character's at will by pressing down on the d-pad. As soon as you switch, the character's would be doing some other non player interactions, ie. appearing out of shops or getting chased by the cops. these characters can partake in some activities; be it recreational or just random encounters with other pedestrians; with the recreational activities ranging from tennis, darts, golf, strip clubs, fair ground and movie theatres. The player is able to customise the 3 characters clothing, tattoo's and hairstyle's with the addition to customising guns and cars as well. There numerous of businesses up for sale too and these would have you doing some errands like driving VIP's across town or saving the business from hooligans; saving the business would ultimately give your selected character their expected weekly allowance.Visuals:Los Santos and Blaine County are teeming with life from birds to cougars and Chop (Franklin's dog). The underwater areas are fully detailed, same as the city and urban areas. The draw distance, weather and lighting is a big leap forward for Grand Theft Auto with the fact they add to the immersion of the game and this time around Rockstar North have added colour to the cities without it looking like a washout compared to GTA IV. The environment in which you play in, is diverse in the sense of having a countryside, desert region and a mountaineous region drawn together from a beautiful landscape.GTA Online:Create your character, take part in heists, roam, set up heists, purchase apartments and engage in a new level of story which is seperate from the main or take part in fun activities with your friends; with Rockstar continously adding updates, you can rest assure that you'll never get bored, with each time you enter GTA Online would be like a new experince.Conclusion:Well there are 2 games that stood out for me in 2013: The Last of Us and Grand Theft Auto V because the quality and the diverse nature of the 2 games are up there with the major cinema blockbuster's. The character's in this game are funny adding to an exciting story, but with one character, the story would have dwindled, but the decision to add 3 character's was scary for Rockstar, but I can tell them this... it paid off in a hell of a good way. The music in particular is really good, a real good selection of songs that we know and love with an addition to their own unique soundtrack which bring increased intensity to the missions. One special mension to Steven Ogg's performance as Trevor Philips; briliantly crafted. We may have Sleeping Dogs, Mafia, Saints Row, the Getaway or some other open world game, but nothing comes close to a good GTA like this game; I just can't wait for the other sequel to come out; lets hope Ubisoft can surpass this with Watch_Dogs cos' Rockstar have left massive boots to fill. This game is awarded 5 stars for increased quality, innovation, gameplay and story.This title will also be released on the PlayStation 4 in the Autumn.

31.12.2013

Grand Theft Auto V shows what open world gaming is all about - freedom. The environment is huge and highly detailed, you have three different characters to play in the main story as well as an online game and there are just so many things to see and do. If you like sandbox style games this game is a must buy, even if you didn't like the previous GTA games.I was not particularly impressed by GTA IV as the open environment was restricted by having to follow the story of just one character. In GTA V you are able to switch between three very different characters, dropping in on them in the middle of their lives and taking control. Although each has his own story to follow missions can be skipped if they are too difficult or frustrating.If you wish you can then revisit a particular mission later on to try and improve on a previous performance.The controls remain pretty much the same as in previous GTA games, with a third person perspective and a simple but enjoyable cover and shoot system for combat. A lot of attention has been paid to making the cars in the game unique and at least reasonably realistic to drive. To avoid licensing issues the makes of cars used are fictional but its obvious what real life cars they represent and each has a different balance of speed and handling to consider.The graphics in the game are simply stunning, once again showing what the PS3 is really capable of before everyone upgrades to a PS4. Considering the massive size and immense detail of the city of Los Santos there are no delays with loading different areas and the game moves effortlessly from being on foot to driving to flying. Every area is highly detailed with a lot of realistic environments and hundreds of people wandering around making the city come alive and breathe as a fully realised aritifical world.The gameplay as in previous GTA games focuses on criminal activity and there is plenty of nefarious activity to get up to. Each of the characters has main missions to complete as well as side missions, and on some jobs you swap between characters as they co-operate to complete a mission. In addition to this there are a whole host of activities you can engage in from playing golf, to competing in races, testing yourself on the shooting range or simply exploring in one of hundreds of different vehicles.Like the other GTA games GTA 5 could be questioned for a lack of morality in its content. During the game you are encouraged to engage in acitivies which regular involve murdering civilians and cops with little regard for what is right and wrong. This is partly offset by the dark but extremely funny sense of humour that pervades this game. Throughout the game the characters dialogue, the DJ's on the radio and the numerous nutcase characters you bump into had me laughing out loud at the craziness of it all. It doesn't take itself too seriously and suggests you shouldn't as a player either. I'm sure there are still some sad people who will consider the characters in GTA5 to be role models but considering the pathetic lives of most of them this will hopefully be a mninority.The other issue that counters any question of morality is the lack of consequences in the game. Unfortunately this is also the games weakest point in my opinion. You can do anything you like in the game and the cops will forget about you about five minutes after they lose sight of you. Committing multiple murder in broad daylight will have the cops chasing after you but return to the scene of the crime the next day and everyone has forgotten all about it. The only penalty for dying is the need to restart and being arrested or hospitalised only costs a small amount of money in bills. This is dissapointing in a way as it detracts from the realism of the environment although I'm not sure what the solution is as no one wants the game to end with a character on trial for murder. As a result its a world of no consequences and very few penalties.To add to the variety though the game does feature a well considered and enjoyable online mode. This allows you to create your own character and to explore the city of Los Santos on your own or with friends. Different instances of the same city exist on line and you can continue to explore the city and go on missions with other characters within the same environment as the single player game. In a similar way to the single player your character has certain skills which improve with practice and there are endless options to modify and upgrade your character with clothing, weapons, vehicles and even property. The multiplayer missions range from criminal jobs to numerous races and death match style combat. Again, the only drawback of this is the lack of consequences to anything you do so the multiplayer is full of people running riot, attacking you in the street and generally indulging in a bit of anarchy. You can set the game to passive mode which means you cannot be harmed but can't harm others in return, which does give begining players a chance to get the hang of the game without being shot every five minutes.Overall then GTA5 is pretty much as good as it gets for this genre and this generation of gaming. It's a fun and enjoyable game with an unbelievable amount of depth to it. The freedom allowed in the gameplay is matched only by the well written and entertaining story that unfolds as you play. At times it is morally questionable but only if you take it too seriously, and the lack of any consequences means the violence is often cartoon like. Even so this is a game designed for adults as its content is definitely 18 certificate. Even if you didn't think much of previous GTA games I reccomend giving this one a go and playing it how you want to. Few games give you as much freedom as this one, so make the most of it!

19.9.2013

This game is amazing. I'm not sure its exactly 5 star but its certainly closer to a 5 than a 4. Lets just say 98/100. I have played this game non stop since I received it on release day, its incredibly addictive.The characters are possibly the greatest characters of the franchise and lets be honest, we've seen a fair few of those. My favourite is probably Michael, the ex gangster who somehow ends up back in all the action again. Trevor is equally great, he seems to have a fixation with men taking off their pants but supposedly he's heterosexual. You'll certainly have fun figuring out what his game is. Franklin is possibly the most basic of the 3 characters, fitting your stereotypical gangster to a tee.He does have his own dog though, which certainly makes him unique and fun to control.You can alternate between the 3 freely majority of the time, however, there is occasions when you must control one person but this usually isn't for too long and I suppose it helps you get a feel of the characters and figure out their backgrounds a little bit. Each of the characters have their own set of contacts. It would be pretty lame if Michael didn't have his own wife's number until you started playing the game, for example. They all have the numbers of people closest to them at the start of the game but of course there are ways to add more contacts be it by doing missions or even popping to your local strip club, touching up one of the girls until she likes you enough, take her home and well.. You have a booty call.Its pretty much all here in GTA, albeit a little bit extreme at times. You can hunt, race (Not just cars but boats also), play tennis, hang out with your family, go golfing, cheat on your wife, rob convenience stores, walk and train your dog, or everyone's favourite activity, going around and just slaughtering people! There's so much variety that I have often found myself in the position where I don't know if I even want to do the missions. Its literally that large you can get hours of fun just by walking around. Buying businesses is also a possibility along with many other things. Another updated feature is the taxi missions, while only small, I feel its quite significant as you are no longer required to continuously pick up and drop off characters until you wish to quit. Its done one by one now simply by clicking L3 when inside a taxi.GTA's map is larger than all the maps I have seen in a GTA game before. It truly is enormous. I've barely left the city because its simply too big. Not that that is a bad thing.This game is everything GTA 4 should have been and more. I can almost guarantee that once you complete all the missions, you'll still never get bored of the roaming around. And that brings me to my next point..The missions are possibly the greatest missions that have ever been in a GTA game, due in part, to the fact that often, there are all 3 protagonists playable in the same mission. This shows you different things each character does during a mission. For example, (I'll use one early into the game as to not ruin it) Michael plans to rob a jewellery store but first you first have to scope out the store and find out information, then you'll have to collect (or steal) things that will help you in the robbery, then when the robbery actually takes place Franklin has to do something before Michael does his part. So basically you get to play the whole raid rather than just one characters POV. This really helps you understand the story easier because you're actually planning the whole thing out yourself.When you fail a mission you no longer have to do huge portions of the mission again as there are now checkpoints, so if you die you won't feel as daunted doing a small part of it again. This could be deemed as unfavourable however, as it does essentially make the game easier. You can also skip mission after a certain number of fails but that's entirely optional.Los Santos looks more beautiful than ever before. The graphics are truly stunning and stretch the PS3 to its limits. The game in itself plays smoothly and feels a lot more free in general. I haven't noticed many bugs. One bug I did notice was when I dived over a railing in the subway station and landed on the track but somehow seemingly fell under the world and also another bug when I attempted to skip a mission, the game simply wouldn't load. These things, particularly the second are very likely to be fixed by patches in the near future.All in all, the game is amazing and I would recommend it for any fan of the series, even if you didn't like 4 as this is truly magical and is miles ahead of it, which is what the hardcore fans want to hear as I see no logical reason why the series cannot continue. Hopefully next time we get a female protagonist (That may just be me but it would bring something totally different to GTA) as that was the only thing I was slightly disappointed about pre-release. However, I have absolutely no complaints about the game at all after playing it. Pick this up, I guarantee you won't be disappointed either!Its needless to say that this game is not for the faint-hearted, there is nudity (Both male and female), drug use, sex, violence (DUH!) and the odd torture scene. I know these are what you'd expect from a GTA game but I thought I would point it out as this time it pushes those limits further than it ever has before so be careful if you're planning on letting somebody under the age limit play it.Is the game perfect? No but its pretty damn close to perfection!

List All Products

Terms and Conditions Privacy Policy