Confessions of GTA: Gamer Style

As a massive player of Grand Theft Auto 4, suprisingly I was not that excited for the new Grand Theft game. I felt that 4 would forever be my Grand Theft Auto game of choice and that 5 would just be more of the same in a disappointing way. The adverts showcasing the three new characters for this game and the way you could switch between them just seemed like a gimmick to me, and the city it takes place in, really a copy of Los Angeles, seemed samey. On Christmas day of 2013 Santa showed me just how wrong I was by giving me a copy of this game. Here follows everything about Grand Theft Auto 5 that managed to change my mind!

GTA 5 is only available on XBOX 360 and PS3, and as much as I wanted it on the Wii U I was quite glad to revisit my XBOX for perhaps the last time. The game looks beautiful, Los Santos is beautiful, and the game itself handles beautifully. The first time I drove a car in the game I crashed it straight into oncoming traffic on a motorway because I wasn’t used to cars handling in games as well as this one.

Perhaps the biggest element of this game is the story. The story mode is long! Really long! The missions don’t get boring though, they are fun and varied and quite often hilarious. You start as Franklin, a Ghetto kinda guy with a vision, tired of being in Gangs. Franklin wants to start making big money. You then seamlessly unlock Michael, a retired professional criminal who lives in a beautiful house in the hills. The last addition is Trevor who enters in a memorable way which I won’t ruin here. The range of characters which I had originally thought would get annoying is actually one of the best things about this game. They keep the story mode fresh as you do missions with each character and also keep the long heist missions varied as you complete different tasks with different characters. Each character has their own personality and plays differently. Franklin swears like a beast and can drive cars in slow motion, Michael is a good all round character, and Trevor is a crazy maniac who can take a beating and also dish it out. The heist missions are like the bank robbery mission in GTA4 but longer and there are many of them. Each heist requires you to complete preparation missions and training such as learning to fly a plane. There is so much customisation such as choosing how to complete the heists and who to hire to do various jobs. You can go for pros but they will take more of a cut or you can go for quirky amateurs who will maybe mess up but you can pay them less, and the more heists you do with them the better they get. This level of changing things provides replay value, not that you’ll need it as I have left the best feature of GTA5 for last.

GTA5 includes GTA onlne. Here you create your own character with tonnes of customisation options that enable you to create your perfect crime lord. My online character is a sleek Heisenberg inspired character (not original I know) who cruises around in his purple 4x4 truck emblazoned with my gang logo. The gang I am in I created myself, together with the hierarchy of the gang members (based on Top Gun call signs with the top members of the crew earning the rank of Maverick) and is called Danger Chicken. In my gang we race together, do missions together and basically just enjoy the magic of the world.

GTA5 offers a tonne of stuff I haven’t even mentioned from strip clubs to getting some fried chicken at Cluckin’ Bell. This game can be played seriously for hours or just picked up to do a mission from time to time. It combines the realism of GTA4 and the fun of the earlier games in the series. Wether you are new to GTA or an old fan this game will not disappoint.