Story The story starts in North Yankton, based off a small town in North Dakota. M, T, B and an unknown acquaintance are pulling a heist. Very quickly the heist starts to go wrong. After shooting through the police, the four attempt to escape in a vehicle. Very quickly, the aquaintance gets shot and killed by the police, and M takes over driving. After barely scraping past a train, the car is practically totalled. The police show up again, and start a shootout. B quickly gets shot and is downed, and M then gets shot soon after. T, being loyal, attempts to protect B and M for as long as possible from the police. Eventually, the resistance is too great, and he has to flee. Fast forward to the present, and Michael is miserable. He now lives in Los Santos with his wife and two kids. I don't want to spoil anything more, so i'll leave that there. The story, from the get go, is explosive, fun, and really gets you into the groove of the new combat and movement controls and mechanics, really showing off how far GTA, and Rockstar, have come since the days of III, Vice City and San Andreas. The story may seem quite generic overall, however, Rockstar has really managed to put their special touch on everything, making you laugh a fair bit. At times, parts of the story missions may disappoint, but it is no reason to call the game bad at all, because the rest of the game, and the storytelling, really makes up for it. I give the story 9/10. Gameplay There is so much to talk about here, i'm only going to cover a small amount in this review. Now, Rockstar really have managed to outdo themselves once again. Everything in this game has had the best bits of IV, Red Dead and Max Payne taken together, and put into this. Into GTA V. The combat for one, is extremely good, and much more fluent than any GTA before it. For the first time in any GTA game, i've had fun, and felt challenged from the combat in this. Take note though, that you have much less health than GTA IV, however your health will recharge back up to 50%. This can make gun fights extremely thrilling, and sometimes a little scary when you're outnumbered. Skills. A new inclusion in GTA V, that was also in GTA San Andreas, albeit slightly different. There are a few different skills, which overall do not feel like they affect much, but they most likely do help a lot. Shooting can be improved by, well, shooting, and using the gun range at Ammunation. Driving can be improved just by driving. Flying improved by flying and the flight school, and lung capacity improved by swimming underwater. Special improved by doing certain things related to each characters special ability. Stamina by running and swimming. Strength by getting hits during melee combat, and practicing sports. And Stealth by just being sneaky. Driving has had a massive overhaul since IV. On one hand, it's much better, especially since cars actually stick to the ground now, however, sometimes it feels like the cars stick a little too well. Overall, i feel the driving in GTA V is much better than GTA IV's once you get used to it, which may take a bit of time. Planes are also back in V, and boy. Are they fun. All flying vehicles now get turbulence and "wind" affecting your flight. The higher your flight skill it, the less it will affect you. There are also a large variety of side missions, Strangers and Freaks, and lots of other things to do on the side which i won't touch on. The gameplay in this game is really great. I give gameplay a 9/10. GTA Online I thought this needed to be included. Though, this is extremely particular to the person due to the issues thats been happening with it recently, but most of those are fixed as of now. GTA Online is a massive addition to GTA V, and is extremely addictive. Currently there are only a "small" handful of things to do. I say "small", due to there only being races, deathmatches, different co-op missions, co-op verses missions, parachuting, and a couple other things like tennis and robbing stores, however, in this small variety, there are loads of different ones to do. Rockstar have been working around the clock patching all the errors, and there is still another patch coming very soon that will fix even more issues. After this next patch, it shouldn't be long until heists, the content creator, and the Beach Bum DLC pack are released. While GTA Online is fun normally, it gets much better when played with a group of friends. Especially when doing silly things such as picking up a HVY Dump with a Cargobob, and putting on top of Mount Chiliad, then driving off it with all your friends on the back. Things like this are what really makes GTA Online so fun. GTA Online gets an 9/10. In the end, GTA V was a much needed refresher from the grey jungle of GTA IV. It added in many new things, fixed many old things, and just brings so much more fun to the table. GTA V gets a grand 9/10. I loved it, and have already played more of it than I played GTA IV in five years, and once it comes to PC, much more fun will be had.
I have only just seen this, however great review! I totally agree with your very last sentence too " I loved it, and have already played more of it than I played GTA IV in five years, and once it comes to PC, much more fun will be had." I think i played GTA V more in the first day of owning it than i did with the previous game! Great review, i have shared this on the Digiex Facebook so hopefully will be read by many others too.