Grand Theft Auto V Online Review

This is a complementary review for GTA V due to the strong appeal of being able to play, for the very first time, this famous and long franchise with your friends! The online mode uses the same map from the single player, the weapons, cars and skills systems (except the special skills) also remains the same, but the online mode has some remarkable differences that makes it a very different experience.

In the online mode you will have the whole world map to hang out and wreck havoc with your friends: you can steal and sell most cars for money, you can rob convenience stores for some fast cash, you can kill other players and steal their money, or even join people in all kinds of customized instantiated matches such as team death match, wave survival, car race and heists (just to mention the most common ones). Also, thanks to Rockstar Content Creator, you will find some amazing fan made content that will provide you with many and many hours of additional game play. A quick search online will award you some very popular modes.

Unfortunately weapons are limited by your level (and cash), and despite been able to find the best cars in the streets, you won't be able to store or modify them until you make an actual honest purchase of the vehicle, which is also limited by how much cash you have. This is one of the biggest differences in how the money system has a strong presence in the online mode compared to the single player. But the system itself is not the issue, how it was balanced is what makes it quite disappointing. Everything you do will have

some sort of effect in your bank account. And believe us, it goes down way faster than it goes up! With the exception of heists, all matches reward you cash based on your level and how many players you defeated, which means that in the very beginning, when you need cash the most, it will be the hardest to make. We recommend going straight for the first heist, as it is fairly easy and can give you enough money to at least buy some weapons and a reasonable car (not super though).

Wandering around and just having fun in the world will take you financially nowhere in a reasonable time. Actually, this kind of play will involve a lot of ammunition, armor, repair and death tolls that will rapidly reduce your available cash while providing you with none in return. It feels like Rockstar did not want you to do these kind of things while being able to progress through the online experience. The only viable way to make enough money in order to afford the best items in the game is to complete heists repeatedly or to win matches against other players. If you can't consistently win matches, have no friends to play with, or if you are just having a bad connection, you can use our tested and approved solo-boring-semi-AFK-farm to make some cash in a private match by yourself. You can find it on the very end of this post, after the final score.

You will need to know this: The game takes an awful long time to load the map. That happens because the game is downloading a lot of information about all the players in the match, i.e. the more players in the map, the more it takes to load. This has serious implications when you are trying to get yourself into matchmaking, as any problem/alteration/disconnect will force you to load the main map again. This is extremely problematic in heists, as if someone leaves the match (either by quitting or disconnecting) all players will be forced to load the main map before being able to start a matchmaking from scratch. And that also means that all the time you just spent getting those people together will be lost. One way we found to avoid this intense loading (and time wasting) is to create a private online session, this way every time you get thrown out of a match you won't have to download other people's information and will be able to quickly join another matchmaking queue.

We definitely got disappointed with the fact that most game modes happen in a instantiated version of the map instead of being in the actual game lobby, that makes the online world feel like a hub where people are just hanging out before been matchmaked for a custom game. If you have a couple of friends to play with you will be able to reduce most of the down sides of GTA V online mode while fully enjoying the game as it was meant. Unfortunately that is not the reality for most people, but with some sacrifice, and hopefully by making some companions online, you will be able to enjoy the game more than staring at the loading screen.

Final Score (online only): 8 out of 10.

Tested and approved Solo-Boring-Semi-AFK-Farm:

First thing is to change your settings so no one will get in your match and ruin your farm.

Step 1) Go into the Menu > Online tab > settings > change Matchmaking to "Closed".

Now let's create our own match.

Step 2) Go into the Menu > Online tab > Job > Play Job > Rockstar Created > Races > select Criminal Records race.

Step 3) Change the number of laps to 2 and you are ready to start.

Feel free to change any other setting you'd like, this is a great opportunity to try the most different vehicles in the game.

Step 4) Once the race starts, make the 1 lap and stop just before completing the second, and final, lap. Just leave your character waiting (make sure you move every 4~5 min so you don't get kicked out for inactivity).

Step 5) Wait until your clock hits 08:00.00 minutes and then just complete the final lap.

Once the match ends hit the "Repplay" option and you'll go straight to step 3, except the laps will be already set to 2, so you will be good to go.

Pro tip: You can wander around the map and explore the world while you wait for the 8min gate, we recommend Criminal Records race because it takes no more than 1 min to complete both laps, which minimizes your driving time while still giving a decent profit. If you find a better race, please let us know and we will update and credit you for the findings.

Grand Theft Auto V Review

GTA V is a 3D open world action game in which your goal is to make the one big criminal master hit... Or just screw around in this virtual world. What makes GTA franchise unique is that Rockstar give you an endless array of scenarios and opportunities to act upon, from fancy weapons to super sport cars, you can always find something to have fun with.

In this review we will focus entirely on the single player mode, but considering the huge appeal of playing such game in an online environment, we will be making a second, complementary, review focused on the online experience and how it differs from the single player.

Lets start by the basics, weapon system! You will have an enormous arsenal to lay waste on those who oppose your intentions. Knives, pistols, sub-machine guns, assault rifles, snipers, shotguns, grenades, mines... What about a machine gun? Fan of the old explosive bazuca? And you wont have to ever worry about carrying too much. As a hero(?) you will carry all weapons with a very considerable amount of ammunition at all times! That is what we call a true driving force. On top of that you will also be able to customize your weapons with gadgets and upgrades, like silencer, extended magazines, scopes, dyes, etc. You also don't need to waste your time trying to figure out what is the best weapon for a job, with a simple status bar you will be able to see every weapon attribute and chose what best suits your needs right there.

Vehicles! In GTA V vehicles are much more than just motorcycles and cars! You will have access to helicopters, airplanes, tanks, boats and the cool old bicycle. Each one is a "family", and the best cars are in the "Super" category, allowing for easy sorting. Any car you have can be further customized with a pretty much endless array of options in the nearest mechanic, wheels, spoilers, lights, neon, color, engine, just to mention a few... Some cars even have special features only available to them! The car system is pretty much a world in itself that you can enjoy many hours on, and if you are not into it, just get a "super car" and live the dream, baby!

Other mechanics include a phone! No, really, you have a smart phone in game to spend some time on! It has its own internet (with a lot of crap, funny and interesting stuff), camera (you CAN take selfies in game!), friends to call and hang out with. You have two stock market investing system, one affected by (or said to be) in game actions and the second by Rockstar, don't expect anything robust, but it is a nice feature to play with. Unfortunately we were not able to measure player impact in such markets, maybe it end up not been significant at all. Please let us know if you have devised a way of making millions by laying chaos and destruction (or any other mean).

Another very interesting mechanic in this game is the characters skills and special skills. They give a sense of improvement and "over power mode" without feeling like a chore to play the game. The more you run, shoot, punch people, etc, the more you will increase the skill (up to the limit), and the better you skill the better you perform at the specific task. For example, with a higher flying skill the more control of the aircraft we will have and the easier it will be to perform stunts. And how do we get better at it? Just fly around! Don't look at it with bad eyes, you do not have to have a high skill to perform something efficiently. Having a high shooting skill wont make a difference if you can't hit your target in the first place, the same is valid for controlling a car in high speed, if you are an experienced driver you can expect to have full control of your vehicle even with minimal in game skill. We like to look at this system as a nice measure for how much time we spend in each activity... As you can see, we have not done much more than driving with Franklin. Which reminds us of special skills! You will be able to slow down time while driving, on foot and - our favorite - go into a rampage mode, where you get increased damage, a massive damage reduction, and a crazy looking screen effect! Franklin have the driving skill, hence our preference to use him as designated driver.

On top of all that you can find plenty of side quests, real estate to buy and profit from, mini-games to play (like a shooting range, yoga class, tennis, golf), radio to listen (with a drag-and-drop customized music/radio if you'd like) and a plethora of challenges (car races, parachuting, deliveries, target assassinations, among others). You can also replay any previous mission without having to play all the game over. Despite the characters always been digging a way of making money, money itself doesn't play much in the single player experience. Yes, you can buy many things with it, but most of those things can be acquired (and kept) by other means. And that is consolidated by the fact that your main infinite income loop, as a player, is from real state you buy and perform missions to, or the stock market investments that you make, while getting some huge bonuses from missions. That is a different story in the online version and we will cover that when the time comes.
The game world is enormous with some really nice landmarks to enjoy, just like real life you will have a GPS to guide you through the winding streets of Los Santos and, just like real life, not always through the best path. A good final touch to the immersion is that your character will struck random dialogues with NPC's all around, which helps to give that livid feeling that you are actually part of the world.

Overall GTA V have a great plot, great experience, the more robust your computer the more realistic the graphics will look, the more people will be on the streets, the more cars will be around, but you don't need any of that to enjoy the game. And this game can provide you with many, many hours of entertainment.

Final score: 10 out of 10.