Grand Theft Auto V – Review

Grand Theft Auto V is Rockstar Games latest released game in the incredibly popular in the GTA series. It was released 17th September in 2013 for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 and will also be released for the PC sometime in 2014. Instantly after its release, it became very popular and got a new sales record. I, myself, have just gotten the game and have played a couple of hours of the game, and is quite pleased with the game so far.

If you have played any Grand Theft Auto game before, you probably know that it’s not exactly a game for kids. It have some matured scenes and actions in it such as stip clubs, prostitutes and violence. Grand Theft Auto V is following that trend. But if you compare GTA V to GTA IV, there’s a difference between the matured scenes. In GTA IV, you never saw someone completely naked. Although in GTA V you can see that Rockstar have made the game more matured. In the strip clubs, you can fully see the strippers bare upper body (Yes, I’ve seen it myself.). I’m not exactly sure if this was a smart move by Rockstar. Many of the players probably likes it, but there are probably kids that have bought GTA V for fun too. GTA V is probably not a game for you if you don’t want any nudity and you are probably better of playing the earlier games in the series otherwise, if you still want to play a game in the series.

So far, I’ve gotten about 20% into the main campaign but I still haven’t tried GTA Online yet. The cars have been updated a lot since GTA IV. The car physics have been worked on as well, since there were many people that were whining about that the cars were too wobbly and heavy in GTA IV. Personally I really liked it in GTA IV, but I still prefer how it is like in GTA V. Los Santos is full of vehicles (many more than we have ever before seen in the GTA), and it is a pure delight to tune around, especially in the faster car models that you can find. I’ve already seen incredibly many of them the vehicles in the game and yet I still think there are many that I have yet to spot.

Graphically, I think it’s hard to not to be awfully impressed. It’s clear that Rockstar Games have gotten used to be working with games for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 and that they have learned a lot from making GTA IV, Midnight Club, Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3. There’s no doubt that Grand Theft Auto V is their absolute best looking game they have made so far. I can’t even imagine how their games would look like in a couple of years.

When it comes to the actual story of the campaign, I have no desire to spoil anything to the people that are still waiting to try GTA V. But as usual, Rockstar offers a rare accurate satire on Los Angeles and the U.S. anno 2013 including everything Facebook (now renamed “Life Invader”), Iphones, soap stars, snotty film directors, eccentric millionaires and corrupt government people’s names. The story and the game’s dialogue is, as usual full of curses with lovely dot secure pop culture references, waving to other games, and glances back toward the GTA series longstanding history.Financial crisis, excessive capitalism, social relevance, stock market manipulation, social media, storage of personal information, religious beliefs and the legalization of marijuana are some of the topics addressed during the 35+ hour adventure. There is of course no sense to do anything else than to applaud Rockstar for daring to go where few other developers even dare to look and it shows once again that the studio has an almost rudly accurate ability to put your finger on the pulse of the contemporary that we live in today.

It’s a bit hard to come up with negative parts about the game. But if I have to be pointy, I believe that Rockstar should have placed the game’s checkpoints a little smarter and a little tighter so that you won’t have to restart longer parts of some missions. It can be very frustrating when you suddenly die, and have to restart almost the whole mission, but it’s not something that decreses my view on Grand Theft Auto V.

To finish this, and to get back to Los Santos, I would, as you notice, advise you to play this game. For it is not only just good as we all hoped for: it is the best Grand Theft Auto game yet and a style study of ambitious game design, smart structure and perfect dynamics. Many of us are looking ahead  for the next generation and longs for the Playstations 4 or Xbox One to get  into your home, if you haven’t already got one. But with Grand Theft Auto 5, Rockstar has proven that “next gen” does not necessarily mean new consoles because this game shows us where the games are headed.  It shows us what games that entertain really can be.