Grand Theft Auto V
Xbox 360 version
Exploring the city, 1% at a time
The Good
+ When you die, you do not lose any of your weapons and ammunition. You only lose some cash. If you invest most of your money in the stock market, the amount of money lost is minimal.
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Police wanted levels can be easily cleared. I once got four stars, and I simply hid in an alley for two minutes, and the four stars immediately vanished.
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Police doesn't scare you ONE BIT. The only thing they can do is kill you, but then you will just respawn in a hospital, and you will still have all of your weapons and ammunition.
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You will never be stuck on a mission. Every mission can be skipped.
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Vehicles are MUCH easier to drive than in previous GTA games. For the first time ever you have COMPLETE control over your cars. Driving is just effortless.
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Helicopters and planes are moderately difficult to fly, but still fun.
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Swimming underwater is atmospheric, and increases your lung capacity. I like doing this a lot.
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The LT button (auto-aim) is amazing. You can kill 95% of the enemies just by auto-aiming.
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Parachuting missions are tremendously fun. You get to see the city from a godlike perspective. It's just huge and beautiful.
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The sniper rifle is a lot of fun to use. You can kill targets and pop tires from miles away. (The bullets travel extremely fast.)
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For the price of $34 USD, I purchased a strategy guide called Grand Theft Auto V Signature Series Strategy Guide. The book is fun to read and greatly helps in my quest towards 90% completion. (I don't have the patience to get 100%, so my goal is 90%.)
The Bad
- Melee combat is lame. When you punch somebody, you lose control of your character for about two seconds. -
Jumping is extremely cumbersome. The game designer who designed this "jumping" move should be arrested. When you press "X", you will perform a move that looks like jumping, but not quite. This move is completely useless. If you try to climb over an obstacle (wall, stair, slope, etc.), you will frequently perform the "jumping" move instead, and crash into this obstacle and fall to the ground, and you actually take damage for this. It's amazing that an action game in 2013 still doesn't know how to execute a simple "jumping" move.
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The licensed music is TERRIBLE. The game was released in 2013, the story takes place in 2013, but you keep hearing hits from the 90s and early 2000s. You will hear many of these songs over and over again. It's like there are only 20 songs.
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There is a screen that shows your progress. For example, it says you have completed "1/42 of Hobbies and Pasttimes". But it doesn't tell you which ones you have or have not completed. The only way I can think of is to find a notebook. Everytime you completed one of the 42 hobbies, you have to write it down. That's just ridiculous.
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The cellphone is tedious to use. You have to press about 10 buttons to call a taxi. In a video game, if you have to press 10 buttons to perform a common task, it's almost certainly bad game design.
The Bottom Line
You have to know what you're playing for here.
As mentioned above, dying incurs very little penalty. You almost never worry about dying, getting arrested, or failing a mission. If you find a mission too hard or boring, you can just skip it, and never need to play it again.
There is no difficulty setting in GTAV. Everyone is playing on the same difficulty. If your goal is to "beat the game", like in other shooters, you will not find GTAV satisfying at all. You will certainly beat it without any kind of skills.
The missions are fun only when they are replayed.
In 70% of the missions, you don't even know what you're supposed to do. When you're in a mission, the gameplay becomes EXTREMELY linear. You have to do EXACTLY what the designers expected you to. Any small mistake can cause your mission to fail. It gets really annoying.
But, here comes the fun part. When you REPLAY a mission, you can try to get a gold or silver medal. This is where the missions really become interesting, and the gameplay starts to shine. Since you're replaying them, you already know what you're supposed to do. Everytime you replay a mission, you have a clear goal in mind: fulfill one of the gold medal requirements. This time, you'll need to employ real skill and strategic planning. You will be rewarded for your use of skill and strategy. Getting a silver or gold medal is the most satisfying thing to do in GTAV.
by Pagen HD (145) on May 27th, 2016