Grand Theft Auto V

[Molly]

I saw on Facebook, someone was giving Morphine Jim such shit, because he had the balls to give such a paragon of gaming a 9/10.

When they've not even touched the game.

[Guest]

If Jaws II was a video game, there would have been distributor pressure to give it a high score and fans would have been outraged when people said it wasn't as good as the original.

[JackFetch]

My main gripes are how easy it is to be killed and how the cars are almost invulnerable and almost always land on their wheels so you can keep driving.

It does however have the best looking ocean I've ever seen in any game. The waves are perfect when boating.

[slothian]

I saw on Facebook, someone was giving Morphine Jim such shit, because he had the balls to give such a paragon of gaming a 9/10.

When they've not even touched the game.

And probably not read the content. Jim's review was incredibly well-written.

[JackFetch]

I don't know how the Hot Coffee mod got a AO, and this game is only rated M. There is some stuff that goes way beyond anything I've seen before in a mainstream console game. I actually had to apologize to my sister for a scene that happened while my niece was in the room. Of course I was laughing hysterically the whole time reminding her that it is rated M and she shouldn't be watching me play in the first place.

[Stavros]

Agreed. I mean, you haven't actually had a hot coffee style game yet but in terms of nudity, torture and all around seriously grim storylines it's far in excess of the stuff they banned previously.

This is especially true of Trevor, who is the most unpredictable protagonist I've seen in a video game. He can be really sweet to some people and then turn around and do the most brutal things. I mean, you think it's bad when the torture comes around but man, he only gets worse in some ways.

I love how I'm playing the characters in the manner of their storylines as well. I'm always more violent with Trevor and drive more as Franklin. For a long period Trevor and Michael's storylines dictated the look I gave them too, whilst Franklin was buying gold earrings and track suits the other two great out their hair and beards. Now that I'm past that I've got Trevor shaved aside from a big moustache and wearing a suit whenever possible, to try and fit with how his situation is changing. It's an awesome minor aspect of the game, that the story drives my own choices so much.

[JackFetch]

My Trevor looks like Ice Cube.

[Gareth]

So is it awesome?

[Stavros]

Yeah, pretty much. I mean, the sense of sprawl is phenomenal, and unlike most of these sorts of games there's not much in the "collect 250 things" to motivate your exploration. Instead you'll find that almost every location has a mission at some point or a property to buy and make money from. The constant switch between characters mean you're adapting how you play, you're far less likely to encounter the character fatigue that Niko suffered in GTA IV. Instead by ditch all that minigame relationship/image/heath nonsense they've been able to streamline it down to these characters and the stories they've designed. It's still huge, but it's manageable and constantly entertaining.

On top of that the police chases are redesigned to be superb. If you've ever seen Drive then it's just like that really, pick your spots, avoid detection and strike a balance between maniac speed and intelligent avoidance. If you've got the pigs directly behind you then jamming the accelerator to the floor to get some visual separation and then pulling into a car park is far more effective than just picking the biggest main road and going on a 5 mile chase.

My only issue is that when you're at one end of the map and you need to get to the other you basically have to fly up there or face a very long drive that's always interrupted by random tasks being thrown at you.

[JackFetch]

It's the best video game I've ever played. It has flaws, but the overall presentation and amount of things to do makes up for them.