Grand Theft Auto V (Part 6)

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

Finally, this is the last part! Not much left to do here: Just some words about additional side-quests, and then my final thoughts.

I bought that bar two weeks ago, and I already have to save it
from a gang! Where's the police in this city?

For the second half of Part 5, I spoke at length about all the strangers and freaks you can help around the map, with each protagonist. This time around, I’m discussing every other hobby or pastime you can access, almost anytime, all over the map. If you’re looking for new stuff to do, you’re not going to be looking for very long. Unlike a proper 100% completion where everything absolutely has to be done, only a fraction of these have to be done to get full completion of the game. The hobbies and pastimes, as well as other noteworthy stuff on the map, can be accessed usually all the time.

This heliport is mine now!

Properties: There are many properties scattered around the map. These can be bought by the protagonists, although some are limited to one or two of the three (as an example, only Franklin can buy the taxicab company). Many properties will then pay back the protagonist that bought them, although not all of them are profitable. For the record, Trevor “buying” the Vanilla Unicorn (by killing the owner) counts, as he gets 5000$ per week every Monday afterwards. Other companies will require the player to fulfill some conditions, however (as an example, the LSPD auto impound costs 150,000$ and only pays 500$ when you impound a car, meaning that to make a profit, you must tow over 300 cars – not too profitable, is it?). On top of that, properties will sometimes get in trouble and give their buyer a mission to help them, and you have to complete some of those to get 100% completion (speaking of which, you need to buy 5 properties at least, split among the characters, for completion as well – and the Vanilla Unicorn doesn’t count since you get it from a story mission).

Combo breaker...?

-Ammu-Nation: You can buy and customize any gun in Ammu-Nation. Some stores also have a shooting range, in which you can train yourself at shooting with various weapons. In fact, those (and most things on this list) count towards completion.

-Garages all over the place, allowing you to customize your cars. You can also buy a few garages to park your favorite cars, or order some new cars through in-game websites. (Can I repeat how impressive it is that this game has a fully functional miniature Internet?)

-And of course, if you’re the fashionable kind, you have a lot of clothing stores all over the city: Two Binco, three Ponsonbys, four Suburbans and five Discount clothing stores. And hey, you’ve got millions, you can probably afford to buy everything they sell. Go on a clothing shopping spree! Make sure to buy Trevor a dress!

What's wrong? Can't a murderer be in touch with his
feminine side? Does the name "Norman Bates" ring any bells?

I mean, Trevor owns this place now, I guess that makes
it easy to hang out here, watching the female charms.

-Have the three protagonists hang together from time to time. Have Franklin call either, or have Michael call Trevor (now that they’re getting along). They can call a few other characters as well, such as Jimmy de Santa or Lamar. Characters hanging out can go for a golf or tennis game, go to a bar... There’s the Vanilla Unicorn... You can even make them play darts in Sandy Shores! It’s actually required for completion. Not every guest will go everywhere, though; Trevor may be a sociopath, he still won’t bring the 20yo Jimmy de Santa to a bar, nor to the Vanilla Unicorn, as an example. The best part may be the chit-chat in the car before and after the activity, as it reveals plenty of info on the characters interacting, and sometimes we even get to hear some of their secrets! It’s fun.

-Racing! Your character can take part in various racing events, whether they’re street races, sea races, or squad races in Paleto Bay. Franklin’s ability to slow down time while driving is the best (if not the only) way to win any of these. These are all mandatory for game completion, by the way; not so much getting Gold on each race, but participating to the races.

It's like "Race Anything: The Video Game, Oh, And There's Crimes Too".

Here, Trevor is parachuting onto a boat.
With a perfect, pretty, adorable rainbow parachute.

-Parachute jumping. As a part of the full side-quest involving Dom the adrenaline junkie, there are 13 spots from which you can let yourself parachute down. Some places already have helicopters on standby (which you cannot steal, unfortunately), while there are other places you must reach by yourself (and sometimes it’s not simple – you might have to climb a mountain, or call the blimp and land it on top of a building). As for the jumps, there’s a few versions. Sometimes you just have to land in the designated area at the bottom, sometimes you have to land on a moving target. Usually, you have to follow the path downwards, passing through hoops on the way. Oh, and while that mission is given to Franklin, both Michael and Trevor can do these as well.

One of the few elements of classiness in GTA V is that
you can't Hindenburg the blimp.

Triathlons are pretty great. The third one, however, feels like
a fucking marathon of swimming, cycling and running.
Keep these fingers on your Run keys.

-You eventually unlock all matters of vehicles for your personal use. Cars, you can steal some or buy your own, there are also bikes, quads, everything on wheels all over the place. The blimp can always be called, but you can get more flying vehicles as soon as you buy the Heliport. And if you want to go underwater, you can also buy a submarine. In other words, you can visit the entirety of the underwater and sky areas. There are some secrets underwater, too!

-Oh, and if you prefer physical exercise, there’s a triathlon. When it comes to sports, Michael and Trevor can play on every of the seven tennis courts around the map, and there are also two areas in which Michael can practice yoga.

-You can replay any Carnage mission with Trevor. He’s also the only one with an access to the hunting grounds. If you bought some properties, Trevor can also participate in arms trafficking.

Then again, you don't need a hunting license to KILL A
DEER WITH YOUR CAR AND TAKE A SELFIE
WITH THE CORPSE!

-Each character can join the piloting school, located at the airport. Perfect your flight abilities!

-Last but not least, every single mission, whether it’s the story-important ones, the side-quests, the Strangers and Freaks, or any of the missions linked to any hobbies on the map, can be accessed again if you try to get a gold medal on it. Officially, you don’t need a gold medal on every mission, but it’s probably the last thing to do for those who want to achieve absolutely everything. The game will create a save space to remember where your character was, and will then load the past mission. My only issue with this mode is that the loading times are incredibly long, especially after the mission has been completed again.

Well, this might not be covering everything (as I am fairly certain that I’ve missed a few things), but it’s about as close as I can get. Time for my final thoughts!

Holy shit, I LOVE this game. At first I was afraid that it would not be my cup of tea, or that it would be too complex keyboard-wise (since I’m still a noob at using a full keyboard to play games). I don’t know why I was so fearful. I can see why this is hailed as one of the best video games of all time. It’s the best example I have ever seen of a wide-open sandbox, with a long and complex story that makes you want to play through it, with dozens and dozens of side-activities.

The first few hours astonished me.
Then again, coming from a Nintendo gamer...

It may just be that I’m not used to such high quality, but I found the graphics to be outstanding. Every character is different, every building is unique, every area is interesting – and most importantly, while the game might have run a little slower from time to time on my computer, very rarely did I end up in areas that were still rendering. It happened, two or three times, but never anything major. In fact, through most of the game, you can see an ensemble view of the city from certain points, and notice all the glorious detail. And of course, that’s not counting the fact that we have such a gigantic map to visit, with areas that you pretty much won’t ever go to unless you want to see everything. That’s not even getting into the hundreds and hundreds of cutscenes.

What, the universe never renders when you're on your way
to someplace? It happened to me again this morning.
Or maybe it was fog, I don't know.

You could make many epic albums with all the tracks
in this game.

On the side of music, I’ve got nothing to say either: GTA has made a reputation for itself on that aspect, making multiple radio stations available for players in their freshly-stolen cars, and each station has its selection of tracks – so you can go with what’s playing, or change the channel to your favorite. I’m partial to the Rock and Pop channels, mostly because the first one has classic ‘80s rock (give me some Queen and Yes, baby!) and the second one has many good pop songs of the early Tens. They even had Mike Posner’s Cooler Than Me. I’m fully expecting GTA VI to have the Pill in Ibiza song. Though, there are so many channels to choose from, after some time you will find one that you constantly tune on to as you drive around the map. So, when it comes to music, there’s definitely more than enough for you to enjoy.

Of all the things in the game, piloting planes is what
took me the most time to get right. And even today,
I rival Launchpad McQuack in how often I crash.

The gameplay is pretty great. Everything works perfectly, the glitches are rare (I haven’t run into any, as far as I know). With a map so large and so many ways to move around, you’d expect some things to be wonky. And yet, everything’ s good! Obviously, some things need some time getting used to, which is probably why the piloting classes for aircrafts is so easily accessible. Unlike other GTA or other wide-open sandbox games, you’re not limited whatsoever; as soon as you start playing, you have access to the full map. Though, obviously, more options open as you play through the story.

Yes, that yoga mission advanced the plot, but ultimately it
was only used to explain the mechanics of the yoga
classes available on Michael's map.

Speaking of the story missions, I noticed something similar to Chinatown Wars in that many missions introduced a new gameplay element that you could then have a greater access to later. The first mission was a heist, the second mission was a drive around town (and how to escape the cops). Later missions place you at the commands of an aircraft, others give you special weapons, yet some others have special requirements… Really, most missions pave the way to things you can later do on your own. The one sad thing is that not every usable element in the Story Mode can be obtained again, like the machine that scans the town and brings out each person’s criminal record. Also note that, while we do gain access to most things on the map as the Story Mode goes, some things still remain difficult to find. As far as I know, there isn’t a way to annotate the in-game map so that you can easily find some particular places that aren’t otherwise needed for any mission or side-quest. Need a helicopter? One spawns on the hospital roof. Need to find the hospital? Get yourself killed, that’s your best option!

The Liberty City National website and the BAWSAQ
(not making that up) are the best ways to make money.
Triple your cash!

As a final gameplay issue tying into the Story Mode and its greater themes… Money. Yes, making money is difficult in this game. Most story missions don’t give out any money, so you’re forced to complete some side-quests to get any. Even then, it’s not like you’ll make much. You also quickly come to realize just how expensive everything is. If you want your pimped-out dream car, it’s gonna be a few tens of thousands. And that’s saying nothing of most guns at Ammu-Nation and their customization options. Thankfully, you can steal most cars without any problem, and the Story Mode will hand out enough weapons that you might almost never have to buy any for yourself anyway. It just sucks whenever you get scammed out of payment by any of the bosses you have in the game. (Which is why it’s also important to learn how to invest in the game’s stock market – that’s where you’ll make most of your money.) Even the heists, which are supposed to pay off, are ultimately deceptive. Yes, you make a decent amount of cash from two or three of those, but at least two end with the stolen goods given back or taken by someone else… Not to mention that you can’t re-earn that money by re-playing the heist mission. (In fact, having the option to heist again any place you’ve robbed would have been amazing in post-game. Unfortunately, that’s not an option, though the Online Mode compensates for that. If you don't mind the griefing, that is...)

I should also mention the big controversy around GTA V last year, when Take-Two Interactive tried to force players to pay so they could mod the game using the modding tool OpenIV. Even though modding was only possible in the Single-player campaign already, and the staff at Rockstar Games was cool with mods. The resulting fan outrage was huge, and this game (and a few others affected by that decision) were massively downvoted. GTA V's overall score decreased heavily. Take-Two eventually conceded and cancelled their project, making OpenIV modding free again, but the game’s overall score had not entirely recovered. I mean, I am not a modder, but I get why many gamers like modding PC games, and it sucks that a company would try to take that away just to make more money. Just goes to ashow how much the modding community loves to have this freedom of creating and changing up a game however they like, and why they aren't a force to be messed with.

Also a tiny issue in the game, you don’t know the gold requirements for a mission until after it’s been beaten once, so unless you keep a game manual handy, you will need to replay missions – and you.ll then have to endure the long loading times as a result.

Splitting the game between three characters was a genius
move. Not everything's perfect about the idea, but Rockstar
Games came damn close to perfection.

Okay, on to the story. What’s good about it, what isn’t. This might be long. First, having three protagonists meant having just as many points of view to see the game from. It means having a much more dynamic game as you’re free to switch at will between the main three characters (once they’re available, since Trevor is playable only a little later into the plot). Much of the interest in the game comes from the interactions between these three characters – and, of course, their interactions with every secondary character in the story. This usually leads to a lot of great exchanges and discussions. However, it's not all positive. Much of the second half of the plot involves Michael and Trevor arguing loudly, stemming from Michael’s decision to fake his death ten years prior, and it gets grating and annoying after a while (even Franklin gets fed up of it).

P.S. No matter how amazing Trevor Philips is during the Story Mode, let's never forget that he's a mass murderer, a rapist, a drug and weapons dealer. Oh, and he robs banks too, I guess. He's technically worse than the actual villains of the game. I mean, yes, he is awesome and helps rid San Ansdreas of multiple major assholes. But he's still a horrible person. Let's never forget that. Maybe that's why he's so enjoyable, in a twisted kind of way.

Maybe it's because he has the best missions and
side-quests? I mean, Michael and Franklin are also horrible
people when you think about it, but I guess they don't
seem as bad when the thirs protagonist is Trevor Philips.

So... them Ballas guys are pretty traitorous, aren't they?
We gonna kill them all anyway.

Obviously, since this is a Grand Theft Auto game, a lot of murder goes on, a lot of shooting mostly, but you are free to harm just about anyone in any way, and the missions frequently rely on shooting and killing all the enemies on the way to an objective. That goes with the universe, obviously, but I can say I, as a result, much preferred missions in which you could avoid killing people. It’s a nice change of pace. The shootouts between the protagonists and large groups of attackers are fun too, but they're so common they eventually lose their edge, once again making other missions much more interesting, whether it's the ones about sniping from afar or the ones where you must kill as few as possible.

Chose the subtle way? You can't ever go back to play
the obvious way. Make a new save file.

I, of course, love the various ways you can go in completing missions, much like I love the various ways in which you can fail a mission (as some failure messages can be funny). I also love the missions in which you can “win” in different ways. The preparations for every heist take the cake since they are very different missions based on how you choose to approach each score. GTA V is one of those games that you need to play through multiple times in order to see everything, as you sadly can’t go back on your choices once you’ve picked which missions to do in preparation of a heist. (I think you also can’t go back once you picked which finale to do – kill Michael, kill Trevor, or save both. Unfortunately, the first two make 100% completion a lot harder to achieve.)

Michael is such a happier man by the end of the game...
You almost frget that he killed thousands of people, just
like Trevor and Franklin.

Outside of the dilemma around Michael and Trevor, we do have a very large storyline, with a lot of characters involved. There are many villains in this game, and multiple twists and turns in the plot. On one hand it's interesting and complex, on the other hand it gets messy and tough to follow as so many plot threads happen at any moment. It’s also good in that the game is programmed with plenty of scenes for when we go from a character to another. I particularly love to see Michael’s situation go from okay to bad, then worse as the story goes, then progressively better, and by the end of the game he’s hanging out with his family, coming back from a bicycle ride with his son, getting up from bed with his wife still by his side… And meanwhile, Trevor’s situation also improves from selling meth and guns to owning a strip club, but he’s still regularly seen waking up drunk in his underwear, or on the beach surrounded by corpses, or randomly tying up people to wooden dock poles.

I am a bit sad that so many missions feel like filler. Like I said, many of them are meant to show the player some of the things they can access in-game. Still, they have to be included in the story, which is an attempt at justifying their existence, but you can’t shake off the “filler” feel of these missions.

I might also add that the game actually feels rather easy. Eventually, with the money you make, you have enough to carry around a full arsenal of weapons of all kinds. You can easily restart at key points of any major mission, which helps greatly, but as a result death is a slap on the wrist during Story Mode events. You can get into any shooting and come out unharmed, if you've got enough bullets. Once you've got the controls down, the game isn't too difficult.

As a final point, I should probably point out something that bugs me about the game, though it’s fully understandable: The world depicted is a dump. GTA V tries to be South Park in tone, but doesn’t have the wit to back it up, mostly because every critique of society is presented in bits and pieces scattered around the game, heard on the radio or seen on the very crappy TV. Outside of the main story, we’re surrounded by satire of American society, but we rarely have time to see much of it and the commentary, as a result, feels empty. Everything is mocked relentlessly:

-Social media (LifeInvader, Bleeter);

-Politics (Reps are warmongering assholes, while Dems are sanctimonious);

-Paparazzi (Hi again, Beverly);

-Racism, and anti-immigration jerks in general;

-Hillbillies (From the implied inbred O’Neil brothers to the various redneck morons in Trevor’s town);

-Cults (Children of the Mountain, Altruists, and biggest of all, the Epsilon Program);

-Millenials (constantly mocked as useless shits who sit around and play games all day while dreaming of fame);

-Baby boomers (who complain about millennials despite being the cause of millennials being how they are now);

-Reality TV (Fame or Shame, which does get a lot of screen time, though it opens its own set of topics that are mocked as well);

-Psychiatrists (Isiah Friedlander, who turned out to be a scammer);

-Feminists (Franklin’s aunt and every other feminist in the game is busier spouting ‘strong female’ rhetoric and doing exercises wth words like "vagina" and "estrogen" in the names, than actually advancing the cause of women in society);

-Conspiracy theorists (who can be both idiots and geniuses, but only the idiots will focus on them);

-Marijuana smokers (Unreliable, too busy getting high to be trusted);

-Adrenaline junkies (Dom, who kills himself on his last attempt at an adrenaline high);

-Celebrities (their opinions matter way too much in society, also we’re too lenient on them when they’re actually doing bad things, just because they’re famous);

-Crazy fans (they’re just fucking insane);

-And oh so much more.

That’s not even a complete list. Each of these topics could be a full episode in any satirical TV show. Here, each topic gets a few missions at best; sometimes, there are no missions and the topic is kept to tidbits heard here and there. By punching at everything, the writers don’t do much damage to anything. I mean, kudos for making a game that allows such a humongous selection of topics to be discussed and mocked, but none of them really stand out unless they’re directly related to the main story (crime bosses and backwards beliefs get their share of the mockery when shown through the villainous gangs of the plot, after all). In the end, I can say GTA V succeeds in bringing many good points about the “life of crime” and how it’s not as great as it seems to be, but poorly addresses just about everything else.

I mean, Planned All Along was always a blog made to review the story of a game, it makes sense that I’d end on that. But yeah. This closes my review of GTA V. Great game! Mostly good story, excellent gameplay, outstanding graphics and music, loads of things to do... Go play it, absolutely! And if you feel like trying it, there's of course GTA Online, which I didn't discuss (this review is already long enough, goddammit!) but if you feel like you're up for it, give it a go.

As for me, I would gladly take a break after this six-part review, but…. Unfortunately, I try to have something published every Friday. (And when I fail, it’s usually because I am working on something so big, I need an extra week, as what happened before this review was posted.) Thankfully, I have three short reviews lined up. Pretty much a themed month!