Grand Theft Auto V (Part 5)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 – Part 6

And it burns, burns, burns...
Building on fire, building on fire..

Time to raid the FIB! I picked the “subtle” approach, so Michael goes in as a janitor, mops the floors a bit, sets bombs and leaves, just as Franklin arrives with the crew in the fire truck. Kabooms soon follow. The crew dresses up as firemen and goes into the highest floors of the building again, and manages to steal a hard drive containing Michael’s Witness Protection information. However, the fire gets a lot worse as they flee, and they have to make their way through the burning offices. An explosion knocks out Franklin shortly, and when he gets up, he has to hurry towards the others – with FIB agents getting in his way, because they seem to have figured out the ruse. The crew manages to leave (whether one of the extra shooters dies or not depends on which people you picked for the heist), gets in the firetruck, heads over to the getaway car and leaves to Lester’s place.

"Time for hugs!"
"Don't hug me, I'm handicapped!"
"Too late! Huuugs!"

That's entirely too many guns being pointed in every
goddamn direction here.

Phew! That was some scary stuff right there. The surviving guys celebrate at Lester’s, but Michael knew this heist was supposed to be his ticket to freedom, so he prefers to hurry and go find Dave instead of partying. As it turns out, freeing Michael from his situation won’t be so easy. Steve Haines and his assistant show up, and in the altercation, each one draws their gun. Then guys of the FIB show up. Then guy from the IAA show up. Then Merryweather helicopters show up. God’s sake, even “Mexican Standoff” is not enough to describe this! In the ensuing shootout, Michael tries to escape, but thankfully gets help from Trevor who showed up, seeing there an opportunity to shoot at every authority he hates. Michael manages to flee, and meets Trevor later. The psycho says that he doesn’t want to kill his ex-friend now… nah, there’s something they have to do first: The Big Score at the Union Depository!

Trevor's sniping for once. And it's almost a miracle that he
doesn't take that opportunity to kill Michael. Guess he
does hate the FIB, the IAA and Merryweather even more.

Past this point, Michael can also go see Dr. Friedlander for the last time, and during that session the doctor reveals that he has obtained a TV show in which he might talk about some of his patients – including Michael. Using cheap, poor, obvious aliases for said patients. Bad idea, man, bad idea. Michael is obviously angry at this, and we have the option to either kill Friedlander or let him go. (If you let him go, he gets hit by a bus and dies anyway.)

These three actually form one Hell of an awesome team.
That is, when Michael and Trevor aren't jumping at
each other's throats.

As we come closer to the finale, more loose ends get tied up. First is Franklin, whose ex Tanisha visits at his fancy home, saying that Lamar is in trouble. He’s about to walk right into a trap set by Stretch – hm, we haven’t heard of that guy in a while, but it’s the same shithead who kept putting Lamar and Franklin in ambushes, to try and get them killed. I can’t wait to make that asshole pay. But first, gotta save Lamar’s sorry ass again. And this is an awesome mission in which Michael snipes while Trevor and Franklin are on the field, killing every other gang member coming at them. After Lamar is driven home, Franklin meets Dave Norton and Steve Haines, who tell him someone needs to get rid of Trevor – and Franklin is the only possible candidate.

Is it normal that I love to use explosives this much while
playing GTA V? Sticky bombs, grenades...
It's almost more fun than guns!

Later, Michael is heading to the premiere of the movie he helped create, Meltdown. However, Devin Weston arrives at the premiere and remarks that Michael’s wife and daughter aren’t here yet… then he strongly implies that he has sent Merryweather soldiers to attack them. So Michael leaves the premiere to rescue his family. And of course, we all know what that means: A shootout between one guy and at least a dozen enemies. Thinking he dealt with all the soldiers, Michael returns to his family upstairs, but is struck by a hiding guard. No worries, though! Jimmy comes to save him by turning off the lights and conking the guy on the head with his bong. And then decides to teabag his victim IRL… but then it turns out he’s teabagging his own dad instead.

"I miss the premiere of my film, I have to save my family
from a bunch of mercenaries, I kill people under my own
roof, and then I get my son's nuts in my face. Clearly, this
has been the best day of my life."

With all the remaining villains slowly creeping onto the trio, I say it’s time to move on to the Big Score. Once again, Lester offers two options: Subtle or Obvious. Because the past subtle ways worked so well, I’m going with subtle. This particular plan involves stealing three cars of a special brand and upgrading them for the escape, then taking away a police van so that the team can use the spike strips in it. We also get uniforms, courtesy of Lester.

More gold than we'll ever need to live comfortably
for the rest of our lives!

What is this tech wizardry?

The guys use the spike strips to stop two vans of the Union Depository, and sneak into the bank as guards. They help in dragging four tons of gold from the vault into the trucks, and manage to get away. However, Merryweather men have found out and are now chasing the two trucks, though Franklin and the hacker use a program to switch the traffic lights so that the UD trucks make it safely near the strip club, the Vanilla Unicorn. They start unloading the gold bricks – totaling over 200 million dollars – when they’re attacked by Merryweather troops. The next part is probably one of the toughest shootouts in the game, mostly because it’s under a highway and the pillars block everyone’s vision and both sides can use them for cover.

It's like a miniature warzone under a highway.

Once all the Merryweather men are dead, the guys load up the stock in their modified cars and have to avoid the cops as their altercation gave them a five-star wanted rating. They make it into the highway tunnels and hide the cars in big trucks, and bring the trucks to a remote location. Good golly, they actually pulled it off! After Lester and the other heist crew members take their cut, our three protagonists split over 100 million dollars between themselves. Unfortunately, no matter how well the Big Score went, we end the scene on Franklin, Michael and Trevor getting into a massive argument and each going their separate ways.

I know it's not a big opening, but insert yourself carefully,
nobody will get hurt, and it'll be a major success.
First who goes "That's what she says" gets slapped.

A tough choice delivered by a man who makes you
wish there was an Option D: Punch the mission-giver
in the face.

After this, when Franklin goes home, he is visited by Devin Weston. The billionnaire has a mission for him: Kill Michael. Franklin says the FIB already wants him to kill Trevor, so he’s stuck between a rock and a hard place. Weston raises an interesting  option: Spare them both… and get in deep trouble against every major "peacekeeping" organization in Los Santos. You choose as soon as Devin leaves. If you pick “Option A: Kill Trevor” or “Option B: Kill Michael”, you get a particular mission to complete, though it means you won’t be able to complete every mission in the game since one of the three major protagonists will be dead. For good. And that's saying nothing of the additional effects it has on relationships between Franklin and other major and secondary characters in the game. Since Franklin is the one who has to do the job, he’ll survive no matter which of the three options you pick, so only his side-quests count towards proper completion of the game. Obviously, the best is Option C, but if you're the type who wants to see everything, nothing stops you from making three save files in which you pick different options.

"At least, if either Michael or Trevor dies, it's gonna
stop them from arguing endlessly..."
Okay, that was really mean-spirited, especially from me.

It's pretty hot in here... but I am not allowed to complain,
this is our millions being melted into new cash!

Franklin meets Lester at his place, discussing his situation. Lester doesn’t know what to do at first, but he eventually comes up with a plan that involves attracting the FIB and Merryweather into the foundry in which they’re melting the gold bricks stolen from the Union Depository. Franklin picks up Lamar, then heads inside where he manages to stop Michael and Trevor from arguing, at least until the opponents have been dealt with. They fight and kill the guards inside, then help Lamar outside deal with the waves of attackers. After this, the trio decides they need to get rid of each and every one of their opponents. They call Lester to find out where each opponent is, then go their separate ways.

The Ballas? Clearly they didn' have enough balls.

The way it’s done is very smart: Each protagonist goes after another protagonist’s main villain. Franklin goes out to murder Wei Cheng, Michael kills Stretch, Trevor snipes Steve Haines. None of them are too difficult, unless you're aiming for the Gold requirements. With these three out of the picture, we can move on to Devin Weston. Kidnapping him from his mansion isn’t too easy as he has Merryweather guards with him, but Trevor kills them all, then stuffs Weston in the trunk of a car.

"Hey, Weston. Not only are you a shitty human, a cheap
bastard, an asshole and a fake philanthropist...
But also, you car drives like shit."

FINISH HIM

Trevor, Franklin and Michael join at a remote location, give Weston a speech about how much he sucks, then they close the trunk and send the car down a cliff into the water below. And so, the three remain friends. Perhaps vitriolic friends, but still friends. Also, Michael and Trevor’s relationship seems to have improved! And so, after Franklin leaves on his bike and Michael in his car, Trevor heads home… by foot. The car he took is down the cliff after all. Cue over 40 minutes of ending credits.

It's odd how the most satisfying explosion in
the entire game is one you probably wouldn't
be able to replicate in-game.

However, as I said multiple times through this review, the Story Mode is one thing. This is a wide-open sandbox, after all. You’ve got dozens of activities on the side. Once in a while I would talk about the strangers and freaks that either protagonist can meet throughout the game, and that’s not even counting every other activity that can be done by any character! Here’s a quick rundown of the side-missions.

Returning people's stolen wallets sometimes feels like the
best thing I get to do in this game.

-Random events: These can happen all over the map and involve pickpockets, police shootouts, ambushes by criminals, or anything else that has no impact on our protagonists’ lives. These pop up anywhere on the map at random times, close to where a protagonist is at the moment. They’re usually pretty easy, and sometimes give money rewards. The best one I’ve done involved rescuing a mafiosi’s daughter and bringing her home, receiving many thousand dollars as a result. Since you must complete 14 of those to get 100% completion, I suggest doing those whenever they pop up on the map.

-Michael has three extra missions that each involve a different member of his family: Rescuing his wife Amanda from the cops after she was caught trying to steal a purse, teach a lesson to a creepy fan of Tracy’s, and save Jimmy from people he was trolling online and who had the resources to hunt him down and kidnap him.

-Train Chop. There isn’t much there and it’s not required for 100% completion. Also, it’s mostly done through a phone app. Not in the game; on your real-life phone. If you actually go through that effort, Chop will become very useful as he can find the collectibles around the map. And there are LOTS of collectibles.

Yes, you literally have to play mini-games...
on an app on your real-life smartphone...
connected to your Rockstar Social Club account...
in order to train Chop properly so that he becomes
slightly more useful in-game.
Props for creativity I guess.

Showing you the building, because most of what's inside
would be too NSFW for this blog or would require
a lot of censoring. Especially the "mini-games".

-Get lap dances at the Vanilla Unicorn. That’s not important, you think? Oh, but it is! Paying for a lap dance takes the current protagonist to a private booth and the stripper dances for them, and you can caress and compliment the girl. If you fill that lap dancer’s attraction bar, she might invite the protagonist at her place for more direct fun. After which, you get that girl’s phone number and can contact her sometimes for booty calls. You might think that’s just another element to justify this game’s M rating, but the sex isn’t shown on-screen. However, it does increase that character’s stamina, so I guess it’s good for something.

Killing targets from a taxi, from a car, from a bus.
Doesn't matter, as long as the target dies.
I should worry about all the witnesses in the bus...
...................Nah.

-Lester is the brains behind most heists, but he also has a few assassination missions to offer to Franklin around Los Santos. Each kill accomplished by Franklin durng those missions (or the first, story mode-related one involving LifeInvader, done by Michael) will have a serious impact on the in-game economy, reflected by the changes on the stock market. It’s in your best interests to learn how that system works, and always invest in a company opposing the one you’re about to affect as that opposing company’s stocks will rise like crazy as a result (as an example, you can invest all your money in Betta Pharmaceuticals before heading out to kill Brett Lowrey, the head of opposing pharma company Bilkinton Research). It’s advised to do most of Lester’s assassination missions after the ending of the game, as all three protagonists will have obtained the money from the Big Score, and thus can invest millions of dollars and get many more millions in return. In fact, thanks to this, you could reach the maximum possible amount of money every protagonist can have in this game: Over two billion dollars!

Mary-Ann is an unlikable, angry, psychopathic, asshole
of a person.
She's practically Trevor's soul sister.
Not that she'd ever accept it.

-There are two quest-givers that are met by every protagonist. First is Mary-Ann, who will challenge each of them. She gets into a footrace against Michael, takes Franklin on a triathlon, and brings Trevor in a bicycle race. Next is Barry, the marijuana legalization advocate, who gives some particularly strong weed to all three. Michael and Trevor get hallucinations and fight Xenomorphs and clowns respectively, while Franklin is unaffected by it. Thus, Barry will send Franklin on missions to prepare a smoke-in at the city hall, to help his cause. Unfortunately, he’s too stoned out of his mind on the day of the smoke-in to remember to actually make the event happen.

Since Franklin is the only character guaranteed to survive, he has the biggest number of missions from strangers and freaks. These all count towards 100% completion, unlike Michael’s or Trevor’s.

-First is Tonya Wiggins, who drags Franklin into a few towing missions for her boyfriend, who is a crackhead and too high to do his damn job;

-Beverly Felton, a paparazzi who keeps dragging Franklin into his crazy attempts at snapping controversial pictures of celebrities. As I explained in a previous part, in the final mission he doesn’t pay Franklin, so you can kill him;

And the latest Darwin Award goes to... Dom Beasley!

-Dom Beasley, an eccentric millionaire who keeps getting into increasingly dangerous stunts. His missions open the parachuting side-quests;

-Omega, a weird hippie met in Blaine County, who claims he has seen a UFO crash near Los Santos, and he asks Franklin to collect the 50 pieces of the UFO scattered around. Chop can help for this task. Getting all 50 pieces doesn’t lead to the creation of a UFO, but it does give a pretty cool buggy.

-Peter Dreyfuss, an old film director who is strongly implied to have murdered his girlfriend Leonora Johnson back in the Seventies. To find the truth, you must collect 50 letter scraps around the entire map. Turns out, he did murder Leonora. So Franklin will confront him, and has the option of killing him.

-Then there’s the quick quest about the Children of the Mountain… which just gives you a T-shirt.

But of course, Michael and Trevor have side-quests of their own. In Michael’s case:

-There’s Abigail Mathers, wife of the late TV host Frank Mathers. She asks Michael to grab a submarine and seek the 30 parts of the submarine her husband died in, to prove it was an accident, as that would give her his life insurance. Only problem being, when Michael gathers all the pieces, he finds out the airlocks were sabotaged (by her), so we have the option to (of course) kill her. Sheesh, I’m starting to feel like we’re killing a few too many characters around here;

-Then there’s the Epsilon program, which keeps asking for a bigger amount of money from Michael with every mission, and makes the missions increasingly complicated. The scariest part is that their brainwashing seems to work on Michael over time. Thankfully, after the final mission, you can snap back and kill most cultists, and gain about two millions dollars as well.

"This is starting to sound like scientology..."
"What? We aren't Scientologists! We're a lot more...
money-grubbing/I mean, more legitimate!"

Now, Trevor:

-Cletus Ewing, a hunting enthusiast who teaches Trevor some tricks with weapons, and later shows him how to hunt. Trevor can then send photos of his legal deer kills to Cletus;

-Maude Eccles, a woman who owns a bail bond office and sends Trevor on multiple quests where he has to capture bail bond dodgers. Of course, this being Trevor, he can also kill them, but the reward won’t be as good;

-The Civil Border Patrol, two rednecks who use this false “organization” as an excuse to harass and capture foreigners even if they can’t get them out of the country. As recounted in another part of this review, they eventually go too far, menace an entire family with their guns, and are promptly killed by Trevor;

It's not very clear in the screenshot, but Trevor has just
punched a sign and destroyed it.

-Josh Bernstein, a realtor who hires Trevor to cause trouble to his main rival, by destroying house sale signs and punching the guy. The reward? He lets Trevor bang his second wife. Big deal. Eventually he sends the cops in Trevor’s way, so we kill him, because we just don’t kill enough people in this game already;

-Nigel and Mrs. Thornhill, the two celebrity-obsessed weirdos that even Trevor thinks are crazier than him. They first ask him to steal items from celebrities, then ask him to kidnap a celebrity. And when they get in trouble, they ask him to kill that celebrity, but Trevor has the option to let him go instead. Just a shame we can’t kill those two freaks;

-A few quests involve the Altruists, a cult of implied cannibals. Bring 4 people to them, and a final mission will have them kidnap Trevor only to hilariously fuck up his sacrifice;

-Post-game, a mission opens at Trevor’s old trailer home. It’s Mrs. Philips, his mother, who asks him to steal a van containing painkillers. She turns out to have been a hallucination.

I’m gonna stop here for now. There’s more to do around this game, but this part has gone on long enough. In Part 6, every other possible side-quest (yes, there’s more!), then my final words (at last!) on the game.