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.