GTA V Review – A Benchmark In Gaming

Grand Theft Auto IV wasn’t that ground breaking despite every attempt to make it look like it was one stealer game. I haven’t had any terrible experience with any iteration of the highly rated Sandbox franchise. GTA IV gave enough reason not to get carried away by the hype train of GTA V.

I will not try to waste time ranting about GTA IV, I really don’t think that’s important any more but what I do know is that GT A V is worth every hype and worth every penny. I tried not to fall for this game but then again, I realized how long it took the team to get a sequel to GTA IV. I thought Rockstar would be cooking something really fantastic hence the delay in production. My thoughts were accurate as playing GTA V for the first time was simply amazing.

Grand Theft Auto V is arguably the biggest game this generation, I am not exaggerating but I just can’t help but confess that GTA V is the ultimate benchmark in current-gen gaming. The scale of the game is jaw-breaking and attention to details is simply unbelievable.  I really can’t explain what feeling I had playing GTA V, the unparallel vastness and depth of this game will make a lot of Hollywood blockbuster movies hide in shame.

Sandbox games normally do not have incredible graphics like FPS or TPS reason being that graphics is sacrificed to make the game run smoothly. All Grand Theft games usually have ridiculous graphics but the fun factor makes us forget all about graphics. What is graphics without a resplendent gamplay to make it enjoyable? That’s the case of Grand Theft Auto series but this time around, the Graphics on GTA V isn’t entirely ridiculous considering the unconvincing size of Los Santos and its environment. Although zooming at the some areas of the city can reveal some minor flaws but the way the game is crafted will make you forget that such a thing exists. The guys at Rockstar deserve a lot and I am truly impressed from what I have seen.

The visuals of GTA V are emotionally seductive.  It brings to the question of whether next-gen is needed in 2013. GTA V clearly and remarkably pushed the ageing hardware to the very last limits. It is just astonishing to see lofty skyscrapers, rolling grasslands, Eagles shadows, alleys, desert stretches and lots more.  There is nothing more to do than to get involved in exploration and sightseeing. This game has the ability to drag you into her world because it is clear that GTA V was developed in a gamer’s mindset. We love to explore things in a game and when this becomes a pain in the back-side, it won’t take long before such a game in dumped in the shelves where it would keep collecting dust. GTA V redefined the sandbox genre; it makes you feel every metric linear unit of the landscape.

The audio is superb, excellent voice acting and a remarkable improvement from older GTA games. Rockstar made the soundtrack bigger and you won’t get tired asking for more. Everything just took a bigger scale and I’m loving this approach, it is fantastic and rewarding because you are convinced that your wallet has not been ripped-off. GTA V represents total value for money. What is truly impressive is that street conversations are not overly repetitive, so you won’t hear same conversation every time. If nothing else marvels you, this singular achievement should make you take a second stance on your thought.

The most striking feat about GTA V evolution is the distinct storyline which spans across three characters; Michael, Franklin and Trevor. This has never happened in the history of GTA and can explain what the guys at Rockstar where doing for five years after the first current-gen GTA IV hit the store-shelve.

All of these characters are distinctively created, Michael lives in luxury but engulfed by pain as his kids dislike him great intensity and his wife a real pain in the back-side. The story explains how Michael cut a deal to save his life and that of his family.

Franklin is a thug but set his sights on actualizing more of life’s accomplishment rather than relapsing to being a mere ghetto hoodlum.

Trevor is honest, unforgiving, brutal and deadly. He’s got a very quick temper; he’s a drug addict and looks to fit into the game perfectly.

Starting the game for the first time kind-of follows the traditional approach of older versions of GTA V but this one is particularly suspense filled.  Right from the gate you are involved in a robbery at gunpoint, which takes you to the streets and then you start to learn the game’s basic control like aiming, movement, taking cover and switching between available members. The control system is tight, well-crafted and overall very smooth. Once that formality is completed, you get to feel how truly impressive Los Santos is for the first time. You and your friend get a car and you race along the streets of Los Santos which is evenly populated with crowd.

Moving on with the story, you get to see how Rockstar made this game a complete masterpiece. You can switch between the three characters at any time. What’s amazing is how this gaming sequence is implemented and works like a charm. You could switch to a sleeping Trevor who has a drug habit and when he awakes, he would wonder why he awoke wearing a shirt. It’s that fun, and this represent the incredible evolvement of the GTA  series. Switching between characters is a very intuitive process and can be performed anytime and where. You get to the pure brilliance of Rockstar’s switching idea when are engaged in a gun battle. Switching between characters makes the fun factor really great.

GTA V does everything right, the driving puts you in the center of the game and it is implemented rightly. I kind of like the way things have turned out in GTA V, the more you drive, the better you get at it. The more you engage in sports, the more fit you become. The more you fire a weapon, the more chances of becoming a professional marksman. The more you invest in real estate, the more money you earn. Unlike previous GTA games where the environment was pretty much predictable, GTA V is dynamic.

When you are being chased by the police, each car has its searching limit and then they lose sight of you. You really don’t have to be a stunt driver to escape from a police hunt, once you have lost them you could hide behind buildings and all that. This is realism in gaming and very much improved over what was ridiculous in GTA IV. You have waypoints, GPS, and maps to make your exploration of GTA V more intuitive. They are not compulsory though, as you can turn them off whenever you feel like.

There is more to the game; it would be out-of-place to think that any amount words would fit a review for a game with so much vast qualities and epic scale. It looks as though Rockstar outdid themselves in the production of GTA V. GTA V is an over-the-top technological marvel and an incredible piece of entertainment. It is the unmitigated benchmark in game quality and a slap in the face of lazy developers who keep flooding the industry with the same old boring sh*t year after year. GTA V is the definition of gaming for current-gen gaming, it eclipses every boundaries of limitation and releases at a perfect point where we can only hope for better things to come with next-gen.

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