For me, Grand Theft Auto V’s extraordinary scope is summed up in two favourite moments. One is from a mid-game mission in which I flew a plane into another plane, fought the crew, hijacked the thing, and then parachuted out and watched it crash into the sea to escape death at the hands of incoming military fighter jets. Another time, whilst driving around in an off-road buggy, I got distracted by something that looked like a path up one of the San Andreas mountains. Turns out it was a path, and I spent 15 minutes following to the summit, where I nearly ran over a group of hikers. “Typical!” one of them yelled at me, as if he nearly gets run over by a rogue ATV on top of a mountain every time he goes on a hike.
I could go on like this for ages. GTA V has an abundance of such moments, big and small, that make San Andreas – the city of Los Santos and its surrounding areas – feel like a living world where anything can happen. It both gives you tremendous freedom to explore an astonishingly well-realised world and tells a story that’s gripping, thrilling, and darkly comic. It is a leap forward in narrative sophistication for the series, and there’s no mechanical element of the gameplay that hasn’t been improved over Grand Theft Auto IV. It’s immediately noticeable that the cover system is more reliable and the auto-aim less touchy. The cars handle less like their tires are made of butter and stick better to the road, though their exaggerated handling still leaves plenty of room for spectacular wipeouts. And at long last, Rockstar has finally slain one of its most persistent demons, mission checkpointing, ensuring that you never have to do a long, tedious drive six times when you repeatedly fail a mission ever again.
Grand Theft Auto V is also an intelligent, wickedly comic, and bitingly relevant commentary on contemporary, post-economic crisis America. Everything about it drips satire: it rips into the Millennial generation, celebrities, the far right, the far left, the middle class, the media... Nothing is safe from Rockstar’s sharp tongue, including modern video games. One prominent supporting character spends most of his time in his room shouting sexual threats at people on a headset whilst playing a first-person shooter called Righteous Slaughter (“Rated PG – pretty much the same as the last game.”) It’s not exactly subtle – he literally has the word “Entitled” tattooed on his neck, and the in-game radio and TV’s outright piss-takes don’t leave much to the imagination – but it is often extremely funny, and sometimes provocative with it. Grand Theft Auto’s San Andreas is a fantasy, but the things it satirises – greed, corruption, hypocrisy, the abuse of power – are all very real. If GTA IV was a targeted assassination of the American dream, GTA V takes aim at the modern American reality. The attention to detail that goes into making its world feel alive and believable is also what makes its satire so biting.
Grand Theft Auto V’s plot happily operates at the boundaries of plausibility, sending you out to ride dirt bikes along the top of trains, hijack military aircraft, and engage in absurd shootouts with scores of policemen, but its three main characters are what keep it relatable even at its most extreme. The well-written and acted interplay between them provides the biggest laughs and most affecting moments, and the way that their relationships with one another developed and my opinion of them changed throughout the story gave the narrative its power. They feel like people – albeit extraordinarily f***ed-up people.
Michael is a retired con man in his 40s, filling out around the middle as he drinks beside the pool in his Vinewood mansion with a layabout son, air-headed daughter, serially unfaithful wife, and very expensive therapist – all of whom hate him. Franklin is a young man from downtown Los Santos who laments the gang-banger stereotype even as he’s reluctantly seduced by the prospect of a bigger score. And then there’s Trevor, a volatile career criminal who lives in the desert selling drugs and murdering rednecks; a psychopath whose bloodthirsty lunacy is fuelled by a combination of methamphetamine and a seriously messed-up childhood.
The missions alternate between their individual stories and an overarching plotline involving all three, and it's a testament to GTA V's versatility and universality that each character has his own set of standout missions. As their arcs progressed, I felt very differently about each of them at various points – they're not quite the archetypes that they appear to be.
This three-character structure allows Rockstar to compartmentalise different aspects of Grand Theft Auto's personality. It also allows for excellent pacing and storyline variety. It avoids some of the troubling disconnect that occurred when Niko Bellic abruptly alternated between anti-violent philosophising and sociopathic killing sprees in GTA IV. Many of Michael's missions revolve around his family and his past, Franklin is usually on call for vehicular mayhem, and Trevor is usually on call for extreme murderous rampages. Each has a special ability suited to his skills – Franklin, for example, can slow time while driving – which gives them a distinct touch. Narratively, it works – even off-mission. I found myself acting in character, as Michael, a mid-life crisis guy with anger issues, Franklin, a thrill-seeker, and Trevor, a maniac. When Franklin finally made some good money, the first thing I did was buy him an awesome car, because I assumed that's what he'd want.
Trevor serves as a sort of get-out-of-jail-free card for Rockstar, providing an outlet for all the ridiculous antics and murderous behaviour that would otherwise clash with GTA V's narrative ambitions. At first, I found his violent insanity to be a little exaggerated and tiresome. However, as far as get-out clauses go, it's pretty effective, and Trevor's outrageous missions are some of GTA V's action-packed highlights. It's a successful solution to a common problem in open-world games: the tension between the story the writers are attempting to tell and the story you create for yourself within its systems and world. Grand Theft Auto V masterfully accommodates both, allowing neither to undermine the other.
The act of switching between them also provides a glimpse into their personal lives and habits, fleshing out their personalities in a natural and novel way. When you select a character, the camera zooms out over the San Andreas map before zooming back in on them. When you drop in on Michael, he could be at home watching TV, speeding down the highway blasting '80s hits, or having a cigarette at the golf club; Franklin could be walking out of a strip club, munching on a bag of snacks at home, or arguing with his ex-girlfriend; and Trevor could be passed out half naked on a beach surrounded by dead bodies or, on one memorable occasion, drunk in a stolen police helicopter.
Tennis, yoga, hiking, racing on land and sea, flying planes, golfing, cycling, diving, hunting, and other activities are all available in the new San Andreas. The missions are an excellent introduction to San Andreas' locations and activities, taking you around the map and whetting your appetite for independent exploration. The way we're introduced to San Andreas never feels forced – the map, for example, is completely open from the start – which adds to the impression that it's a real place worth getting to know. If Liberty City in Grand Theft Auto IV feels like a living city, San Andreas feels like a living world. As I jet-skied by, I saw people walking their dogs along the beach in the country, arguing on the street outside a cinema in Los Santos, and camping – tents and all – overnight on Mount Chiliad before packing up and continuing a hike in the morning. It's incredible.
The atmosphere varies greatly depending on where you are. Trevor's dusty trailer in Blaine County feels like it's in a different world than downtown Los Santos or Vespucci Beach. It wasn't until I flew a plane out of the city and over the mountains I'd been cycling around for a few hours before that the full scope of it became clear. It pushes the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 further than they should be, and it looks amazing. The character animation is the most improved since Grand Theft Auto IV, but the world is also much larger, more detailed, and populous. The cost is occasional framerate dips and texture pop-in, which I found became more noticeable the longer I played but never detracted significantly from my experience. It's also remarkably bug-free for such a massive and adaptable world – I encountered only three minor issues in the 35 hours I spent on my first playthrough, none of which caused me to fail a mission.
The fact that so much of San Andreas isn't on a map adds to the city's extraordinary sense of place. There's so much going on that it's easy to find things on your own rather than spending your life following a mission marker. For fun, I once stole a passenger jet from the airport and parachuted to the top of Los Santos' tallest building. (I then fell to my death after accidentally jumping off the top, forgetting I'd already used the parachute, but I usually leave that out.) I came across a man tied to a telephone pole in women's underwear while driving through the countryside. I chased down criminals who randomly swiped purses on the street and came across gunbattles between cops and other miscreants, events that add a sense that this world isn't completely boring if I wasn't here to disrupt normalcy. I purchased an expensive mountain bike and cycled around the hills, taking in the scenery. These fleeting moments can be captured on your phone's camera, which also takes selfies. On top of a mountain, I have several photos of Trevor doing his unhinged version of a smile in his underwear.
Beyond driving and shooting, the story that GTA V tells through its missions makes full use of all of this variety (though the driving and shooting is still supremely enjoyable). It has a lot of great moments. There are so many memorable moments in this film. It had me racing Michael's lazy blob of a son across Vespucci Beach in one of many misguided attempts at father-son bonding, using a thermal scope to search for someone from a helicopter before chasing them across the city on the ground, torching a meth lab, towing cars for Franklin's crack-addicted cousin to keep him from losing his job, infiltrating a facility from the sea in a wetsuit and flippers, piloting It just goes on and on. The days of a monotonous "drive here, find this guy, shoot this guy" routine are over. Even missions that would otherwise be formulaic are given new life and excitement by the ability to play them from three different perspectives – for example, in a shootout, Trevor could be firing RPGs from a rooftop while Michael and Franklin flank the enemy on the ground.
The heists – multi-stage, massive-scale events that serve as the story's climactic peaks – are where Grand Theft Auto V shines brightest. Typically, you have a choice between a more involved, stealthier option that will (hopefully) attract less heat and an all-out option that will be less tense but more explosively chaotic – and who to bring along with you on the job. All missions in GTA V can be replayed at any time, allowing you to relive favourite moments or try out a different approach. They also have optional objectives, similar to Assassin's Creed's synchronisation challenges, but these are invisible the first time you play a mission, so they don't distract you from doing things your way.
Sometimes your own way isn't the way the designers expected you to do something, and while Grand Theft Auto V is usually very good at bending around you when that happens, there were a couple of times when it wasn't ready for my personal brand of chaos. Overtake a car you're not supposed to overtake, and it'll zip through traffic like it's magic. Despite the addition of new stealth mechanics, enemies will miraculously see you when the mission requires it. When you kill someone before you're supposed to, it's called Mission Failed. Most of the time, the scripting is good enough to be invisible, but when it isn't, you notice it – if only because most of the time, the scripting is good enough to be invisible.
As usual, some of the wittiest writing can be found on the in-game radio that plays in the background while you explore and mayhem. "There's nothing more successful, masculine, or American than a big wad of cash," one of the in-game ads proclaims. "We understand that times are difficult, but they don't have to be difficult for you." Do you still have some cash in your house? "Are you crazy?" The music selection is also consistently excellent, resulting in many of those serendipitous moments when you're driving and the perfect song comes on. When the radio isn't blasting in the background during a heist, a dynamic soundtrack helps to build tension.
The incorporation of modern life into the game world aids the satire. Every character revolves around their smartphone, which is used to trade stocks, call friends to arrange a meet-up, and send emails. On the in-game Interne, there's a great Facebook spoof, Life Invader, with the slogan "Where Your Personal Information Becomes A Marketing Profile (That We Can Sell)." You'll hear commercials for ridiculous parodic TV shows that you can watch at home, optionally while smoking a joint. It may not be realistic, but it certainly feels genuine.
It's worth noting that GTA V pushes the boundaries of sex, drugs, and violence much further than ever before. If the morality police were concerned about Hot Coffee, there's plenty here to cause moral panic. It's deliciously subversive and firmly tongue-in-cheek... but it also pushes the boundaries of taste once or twice. There's one scene in particular, a torture scene in which you have no choice but to actively participate, that I found so upsetting that I couldn't play it; even though it's couched in obvious criticism of the US government's use of torture after 9/11, it's a shocking moment that will elicit justified controversy. It's similar to the No Russian mission in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, only worse and without the option to skip over it. Other elements, such as the ever-present prostitution and extensive strip-club minigames, appear to be there simply because they can be, rather than because they have anything to say.
But there's nothing in San Andreas that doesn't serve Rockstar's purpose of creating an exaggerated version of America rife with crime, violence, and sleaze. In GTA V, there are no good guys. Everyone you meet is a sociopath, a narcissist, a criminal, a lunatic, a sadist, a cheat, a liar, a slacker, or some combination of these. Even a man who pays good money to assassinate Los Santos' worst examples of corporate greed is profiting from the stock market while doing so. In a world like this, it's easy to see why violence is often the first option. All of the pieces fit together.
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