Grand Theft Auto V Review

One month on from its release, here's the only verdict you need on 2013's most audacious Game of the Year contender yet.
I know what you're thinking, and you're right. It's been an entire thirty days since Rockstar launched Grand Theft Auto V across the world, gaining their fair share of critical acclaim and subsequent controversy in the process. A month is a long time, though, and with hindsight it only leaves this reviewer better equipped to confirm all of the key aspects of the studio's latest product which elevates beyond each and every one of its recent open-world competitors.

First and foremost, the element which I believe to be of the most paramount importance in terms of Grand Theft Auto's ongoing success lives on brilliantly in its latest instalment- its world is alive. The player can truly find themselves lost in the highways, the interior environments and the vast rural areas which Los Santos has to offer them from the outset, the level of immersion present here unlike anything we've seen since, well, Grand Theft Auto IV. The series has moved with the times since 2008, of course- your 'iFruit' mobile device now utilises in-built internet browsers, 'selfie' camera functionality and the all-important Cab Service contact number- yet it is in the flexibility and depth of AI characters around the city and its outlying areas, the sense that Los Santos can transcend the traditional boundaries of its narrative to become a consistently developing sandbox which ensures its place amongst the all-time greats of the franchise, Liberty City and San Andreas' original guise included.

On an aesthetic level, Rockstar's insistence upon pushing the functionality of the game world itself has perhaps hindered the graphical prowess of the product somewhat. It's hardly a Pyrrhic sacrifice that doesn't justify the quality of the overall gameplay experience, and without a doubt the visual technology used to power the facial models rivals those utilised in L.A. Noire and Max Payne 3, only when placed in comparison to BioShock Infinite, Tomb Raider and The Last of Us, one might argue that this particular world doesn't push the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 hardware's limits quite so heavily as its competitors. Only Infinite can rival this for pure narrative excellence, however, a field in which the developers and writers have excelled in to an exhilarating extent come their fifth main entry.

If the rather depressing monotones of GTA IV's drab Liberty City and its borderline-soulless protagonist Niko Bellic left fans cold five years ago, then the three 'heroes' headlining its follow-up are the perfect antithesis to such overt melancholy. Michael Townley, Franklin Clinton and Trevor Phillips are each seemingly clearly defined in their initial appearances, yet their character arcs progress in unexpected and genuinely thrilling directions as the main campaign develops through its seventy missions. Those missions in themselves are similarly subversive in terms of the player's expectations, thanks to there being little in the way of 'excess fat', or rather patronising tutorial missions, these now shed in favour of a blockbuster style to the campaign that gradually cranks up the action to eleven. Six incredible heists await over the course of the core narrative, each bigger, bolder and more beautifully outrageous than the last, and each warranting at least another play-through in order to fully appreciate their open-ended nature.

Even the act of replaying a mission has become far less cumbersome here, with Rockstar rightly adopting the more streamlined approach of their The Ballad of Gay Tony DLC and Max Payne 3 by including a Mission Replay list in the pause menu. In order to approach heists in completely different manners to your initial tactic, it may be necessary for a full campaign replay to be instigated, and yet the unrelenting adrenaline one accumulates through the mere act of playing any section of this game more than warrants any extra time necessarily invested. This is in no small part due to Rockstar's deviously astounding implementation of endless parodies of modern pop culture, their satirical radar taking in everything from Apple to Facebook, Call of Duty to Saint's Row and naturally the integrity of federal agencies nationwide. The latter element finds itself manifested in the main campaign in a sequence which has garnered considerable controversy already- while I shan't be drawn on exactly what the mission entails, suffice to say that it may have the player questioning the morals of their flawed yet undoubtedly human protagonists, and thus the morals which influence the ideology of our society and its limits to date.

The elephant in the room at this particular point of time is, of course, the matter of Grand Theft Auto Online. Since Rockstar have portrayed that online experience to be essentially a standalone product (albeit one packaged within the GTA V framework), we'll review it as such at another stage when the situation of play isn't quite so tenuous and unstable. For now, the sheer level and range of content offered within the single-player mode of the overall product will have players busy for months upon months, and the immersion which Los Santos offers in its radios (anytime Radio GaGa commences, this reviewer succumbs to the urge of raising his TV monitor's volume considerably), film screenings, triathlons, races, physical and vehicular modification options, TV shows, online web-pages and so much more besides will have them coming back far beyond their initial playthrough. Not since Grand Theft Auto IV has such unrestrained immersion and player engagement with an open-world been possible in this reviewer's humble opinion, and the only real question is whether the wait will span another five years until Grand Theft Auto VI for another such accomplishment to take place.

When it comes down to it, the old cliched mantra that "it's not the destination, it's the journey" couldn't be less accurate here. Indeed, the incredible and painstaking journey which Rockstar have taken in order to bring their latest vision onto video games consoles is barely half the story, with the true credit of its accomplishments coming in the much-earned plaudits and accolades the fifth GTA received upon its release last month. A new generation of video games consoles is dawning, but if there's one fact which Grand Theft Auto V has confirmed to spectacular effect, it's that the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 have plenty of life left in them yet, especially should developers continue to utilise this technology in innovative forms. The only caveat? Our concept of what 'innovation' truly is has been raised to a higher level of esteem by Rockstar's efforts, leaving the rest of the industry to simply stand in awe and wonder quite where they can go next.
10/10