Grand Theft Auto 5 Review - People Suck

[Googoo24]

Strange that some people just want to see this game get a bad review. LOL. But meh.................

All the previous GTAs from 3 on

All the previous GTA's from 3 on? How so? Tommy Vercetti committed murderous acts in his bid to take over Vice City. He didn't do it to avenge any friends or to appease the Forellis. He even treated Lance Vance, one of the few characters who sought revenge for personal reasons, like crap later on.

Over the course of the game, he: Initiates a riot for Avery at a delivery company (because Avery wanted the land), likely resulting in many deaths/injuries. Murders a man who refuses to sell land to Avery. Blows up a construction site full of workers for Avery. Starts a gang war for Avery. Murder's Candy's manager for refusing to allow her to work for him. Forces local businesses to pay him protection money. Blows up a store in the mall. Murders competing cab drivers to make his own cab business successful. Sells drugs from an Ice Cream truck.

BTW, these are all story missions. Forced on the player. You are also forced to engage in some of the asset missions in order to progress the story.

In the ending cut-scene, he even brags/jokes about his reputation as a psychotic killer and drug dealer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGVShT_GFgA

How is he redeemable again? How is he "emphatic"? How is he different from the so called "psychos" in this game? I'm not seeing it.

Prior to his brother getting arrested, CJ murdered for his gang and even helped OG Loc by breaking into Madd Dogg's manor and killing his manager (an innocent civilian) and stealing his rhyme book. He also goes on a crime spree to help his brother, a gang-leader, get out of prison. He helped Tenpenny to protect his own neck.

As far as Claude, I can't really speak on his motivations since he never talked. Form the perspective of the player, it's assumed he wants to kill Catalina....But he's a emotionless killer, so who knows what he wants; also, since he's ruthless and brutal; he's surely not sympathetic. He strikes me as someone who would kill his own mother if the price were right.

 

[Titanium Dragon]

I have only ever played one GTA game - GTA III - and I didn't think much of it. I played Saint's Row 2 for a couple hours and got bored.

The heists in this game sound interesting, but I'm not sure if having a trillion things to do which aren't especially fun is actually a good thing - filler is bad.

I did find it interesting that the reviewer found the protagonists to be so reprehensible that it damaged their enjoyment of the game. This is certainly a possibility - there is crossing the line, and then there is crossing the line twice. And sometimes you can cross it three times. Whether it doesn't go far enough, or it manages to go so far that it goes beyond too far and into way too far, I don't know.

I dunno. The heists sound fun, but the rest of the game doesn't appeal to me at all. Beating prostitutes is hardly entertainment to me.

 

[grandhammer]

Thank you for giving an honest review. I'm so tired of cookie cutter its awesome or horrible reviews of games or movies. Whether or not I agree or not with your view (I do), I appreciate the fact that its honest well thought out and articulate. Thank you again and keep up the good work ---End of line---

 

[rynak]

Given that the OP article is a bit ambigious, and many of the response posts (as was predictable) are nothing more than fanboy rants based on fantasy land (my favorite one went like this: Rockstar have just removed any false justifications. Now you can be a bad guy, or you can choose to not be. It's a new dimension of "Player Choice (tm)"). Haha, since when does the player have ANY CHOICE WHATSOEVER in a GTA game, over the plot? The player never, even since the very first GTA (which most of you "hardcore fans" probably never played, and thus do not understand where most of current mainstay gamemechanics come from - like i.e. the outdated wanted stars system, and the fragile "throwaway"-cars)... the player never in any GTA game had a choice over how the plot develops. It's not even a tree-plot (meaning, subsequent missions changing significantly because of choices in past missions). Now does the player have ever had much choice in HOW to do a mission. Heck, for most GTA games, you couldn't even friggin decide with which VEHICLE to do a given mission - or in SA, sometimes couldn't even choose your weapon, but instead got the weapons you bought with hard cold cash, DELETED, replaced with what the mission designers wanted you to have at an arbitrary point in the game).

So yeah, *censored* *censored* *censored* please stop talking about player choice and freedom in GTA games already, mkay? As much as GTA is hyped as the king of sandbox game, it doesn't deserve most of the hype. That's because, even though GTA is VERY advanced technically, about streaming a massive environment that is gigabytes big, over slow ram-bus and video-pipeline.... while it is capable of streaming graphics and stuff of a giant world really fast, and yes, does have a - quantitatively - giant world.... none of this got anything to do with PLAYER FREEDOM. Well, okay, if you consider running around in a giant gameworld, shooting up stuff, with your actions someway having no longterm consequences at all freedom (did anyone ever figure out, where the cop-factory is and how it manages to produce cops so fast?), if you call that "player-freedom", then yes, GTA has it mastered.

But that's not what this article was about. This article was about the overly HARDCODED and RAILROADED LINEAR PLOT, that is part of GTA since it's third installment (GTA1 and GTA2 had those missions too, but there wasn't really any significant overarching plot - just a bunch of random missions to take in sequence. And the progagonist neither had a voice, nor words - he didn't talk at all, had no background, no nothing. There was no "character", just the "player"). Slightly drifting off, so getting back to the topic: What the article basically said was:

- GTAV makes me play characters i dont like
- (implicitely) i have no choice to play differently. The railroaded plot does not let me advance, unless i do what it commands (no player freedom AT ALL regarding the plot!!!)
- Since it makes me do things i personally do not like, and does not let me act differently, i'm forced to do things i do not want to do.

Being forced to do things one personally does not want to do, is about the worst thing you can do to a player.... or any person in a given situation.

Now, to be fair: Not any medium or game or whatever, can care to the taste of EVERY possible player on the planet. That's just ridiculous. You don't go into a shop and buy some consumer good, with the expectation that it will be "just right" for EVERYONE no matter what, unless you're beyond retarded (though, marketing departments certainly wish for you to become this retarded).

So where does that leave GTAV? Basically:

- If you like being a "bad sadistic cruel guy, with relatives and friends that betray you", so an all out no-holds "evil side" character, then GTAV will be just right for you, and you'll have a lot of fun.

- Everyone else will either ignore the game alltogether, complain about being forced to do things he/she hates to do (ZERO PLAYER FREEDOM HERE!), or admire it for the tech (then again, i DO have some embarassing things to say about the tech, if anyone wants to know. Yeah, the graphics are all nice - unfortunally, actual gameplay consequences (physics!) totally conflict with what you see, which is really irritating, and worse than GTASA)

So yeah, if you enjoy fancy graphics, or being a bad guy for no reason, buy this game. If not, you might want to rent it before buying, to help you decide if it's worth your money.

 

[DawnofBlizzard]

I mostly lurk on these boards and watch reviews without saying anything.

I understand this is the reviewers opinion and they are entitled to it.

But I have to disagree with the amount of points are deducted from the game because you disliked the characters. I could understand if the characters where written poorly to deduct points for that, but they are written well. And that torture scene you're forced to do, really is pretty tame. I don't see the controversy people are trying to make with it. It really didn't seem that bad when I did it in my play through, and I'm still confused at the counter point about killing people doesn't feel gamey enough. Felt pretty gamey to me, I've yet to do a mission where I felt bad/conflicted with what I was doing (aside from the torture scene, but it didn't make me hesitate). It felt at all times like I was playing a game. So as I said confused at what you mean with this point maybe list an example?

As for the dialogue complaints I also find this confusing. I felt it was authentic, yes people say the N-word that much. yes people curse a ton when they are frustrated and or doing illegal activities. Cliche? sure but Cliches come from truth.

Overall I felt you wrote a good review but I still feel you deducted way more points than you should've from the game, I'm not saying it's perfect but having played Saints row 4 compared to this, I'm enjoying this game WAY more. I've logged about 22 hours into Saints row 4 to get 100% completion, so far I'm at 16 hours in GTA 5 with 30% completion. But once again these are just our opinions and we're all free to have one.

 

[TheMoD1234]

Wow didn't think I'd find a review like this one on the internet .. This is basically what I've been thinking most of the time while playing it ! It's just so sinister . I mean GTA 4 wasn't very lighthearted either, but GTA 5 is different .. I guess soulless is the word I'm looking for . Noone really has any believable emotional bonds to anyone else . Come to think of it Max Payne 3 had a very bleak and depressing feel to it aswell . Almost makes me think Dan Houser might be going through some rough times and it influences his writing or something

 

[AngelBlackChaos]

Just one thing I forgot to add: So "killing not being fun but actually unpleasant" is NOT pushing the boundaries of video-games?

Are you saying that we should STRIVE for mindless run-and-gun violence in video-games instead of an immersive experience with a narrative that actually gives killing some wheight?

The game doesn't give killing any weight, unfortunately. I wish it did. I wish there was any remorse displayed by the characters. Instead you get mindless screaming and lame quips.

But you spend the entire review telling us how non-gamey the death is and how horrible it is to bear witness to. But now it's mindless and zaney again. Now there's "no weight" to the killing. Every quote you offer is contrary to the last.

I don't think you actually know what you think of the game and simply wanted a review up.

If you focused on the context of his review, you would get it. Usually, characters can often reflect the feelings of a players about a certain subject, and usually, having a lot of alignment between the character and the player can forge a stronger immersion effect.

Its hard to feel immersed with a nonredeemable scumbag, if you don't align with their joys and sorrows, understand? In the situations that you can't exactly feel aligned, having a understandable motive for all plot points is helpful too. For example-If you are a good person, playing a man that does horrible deeds for the sake of his children. Some people can identify, or at least respect, family love and loyalty.

A generally good person watching evil things in plots happening due to "Just because" can wear on a person, particularly if the actions are a direct affront upon their moral code.

 

[SextusMaximus]

Why do characters need a set of principles or motives beyond money? This is a video game, an alternate reality, it shouldn't necessarily be an example of what people should do, we should have more games exploring characters who are simply evil by nature.

 

[[Kira Must Die]]

The three men you take control of throughout the game aren't even anti-heroes. They're just scumbags.

Um... isn't that the point of the game? Hell, hasn't that been the point of every GTA game? Throughout the series you play as guys who go around constantly killing people and performing terrible deeds. Really the characters here aren't any worse than the characters in the other games. If you're going into this game expecting the characters to be good people, then you seriously need to get your priorities straight. Not every protagonist has to necessarily be a good person, just like how not every antagonist has to be absolute evil. When it comes to storytelling there really isn't any boundaries on what can be told. I think characters like the ones in this game are worth exploring and looking into. I also found them all to be 3-dimensional, interesting characters.

 

[gyroscopeboy]

Having played both the missions that Greg took offence to, I can't say that I agree. From my play through, it's obvious that Michael is bound by things other than greed for why he does things. Also the torture scene was very difficult to play through, and I think thats WHY it was included...it backs up Trevor's exposition on the evils of torture later on.

So far, I'm loving the writing, and the dialog is some of the best i've seen in GTA.

 

[Tim Chuma]

Well, a lot comes down to the guts of the devs and publishers. Typically it's easier to capitulate than to fight to keep a vision the way you want it, so you rarely see video games taking on political groups in defense of objectionable content anymore. That said the 1990s were when you actually did see some fighting back (over games like Night Trap).

As far as movies being banned, tons of them got banned during the 1980s in the UK, the operating term at the time was "video nasties" there is an article on Wikipedia showing what titles got banned during this time, the whole thing was eventually overturned though, which also did away with most similar "follow the leader" bans you saw happening all over the world at the time.

To be honest I didn't much care for what they did with GTA after "San Andreas" (I am not a GTA IV fan) so I wasn't particularly looking forward to "V". To me it seems like someone decided that the idea of having unlikable psycopaths with no redeeming features was a great idea, just like the guys who did "Kane And Lynch" and well... you see how well that went. At least the game itself is apparently a lot better than the K&L ones though. To be honest from what little I've heard I don't think the issue is so much the characters being irredeemably bad (as opposed to good guys doing bad things) so much as they aren't likable.

I don't really watch "video nasties" myself, but do have friends who are fans and also of horror movies. I have been to couple of screenings of the local horror society including Jaws 2 and Slumber Party Massacre 2, but they were more of an event.

Not that I would watch "torture porn" movies like Saw/Hostel/Wolf Creek or a Serbian Film myself either.

If they made the torture parts of GTA V skippable I would consider playing it. I did not play the assassin missions in Skyrim as I did not want to and the game left the choice open to you.

 

[Nautical Honors Society]

So you'd rather have anti-hero's that give the player some false justification for their horrible acts?

Maybe Rockstar is making their characters pure evil so there is some more weight to your decision. Maybe they made the story this way so you couldn't run away from your violent actions by saying "but he is doing it for a good reason!".

Because honestly, there is not a single GTA game where the protagonist has a good enough reason for the mindless violence that you are allowed to commit.

This critique of Grand Theft Auto does not make any sense.

 

[Nautical Honors Society]

]

The three men you take control of throughout the game aren't even anti-heroes. They're just scumbags.

Um... isn't that the point of the game? Hell, hasn't that been the point of every GTA game? Throughout the series you play as guys who go around constantly killing people and performing terrible deeds. Really the characters here aren't any worse than the characters in the other games. If you're going into this game expecting the characters to be good people, then you seriously need to get your priorities straight. Not every protagonist has to necessarily be a good person, just like how not every antagonist has to be absolute evil. When it comes to storytelling there really isn't any boundaries on what can be told. I think characters like the ones in this game are worth exploring and looking into. I also found them all to be 3-dimensional, interesting characters.

Exactly! This is a false reality, a game. It is fiction. Sometimes stories are told about evil people that do bad things for bad reasons. If we don't allow stories to encapsulate both ends of the moral spectrum then we are doing a disservice to art and culture.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I don't mind the scoring at all. He has a point, and has thus illustrated it. I don't have to agree with him.

 

[cefm]

For those of you who remember back to 2010, the Escapist used to just do written/video reviews and did not give "scores". With no numeric score attached to this review I think some of the negative knee-jerk reactions wouldn't have been so bad, because Tito's main complaints are legitimate explanations of his perspective and experience and you can't tell him he's wrong about what his experience was like.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/7149-What-Our-Review-Scores-Mean

Based on the Escapist's review score scale, a 3.5 is between average and outstanding. I think that it would be untrue for Tito to have given GTAV a 5, because that would mean it was not just a great game but that "the experience you'll have will be exceptionally enjoyable". His beef with the story and characters is one that would preclude a 5. Maybe you could argue that he went overboard with the 3.5 rating and that a 4 would be more deserved. But if you actually listen to what he said, he pointed out all the good parts, and was specific about what he didn't like. If you're OK with all that stuff then to YOU it may be a 5, but it's not to him.

For me I'm not sure what's so ground-breaking about GTAV. It looks like more of the same thing we've had since Vice City - it looks more like a new coat of paint than a new construct.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

The only things i hated were:-
1. Franklin talking to his "homies", did we really need them to say "nigga" "dog" or "homie" every other word in a sentence?
2. Should have been more heists, even just a variety of jewel shops, bank robberies etc. There was only around 4 or 5 heists, and you only make money from the last one and the 1st job most of it goes to paying off another mafia guy.
3. A lot of the business are pointless to buy, most just give you more jobs to do like taxi driving or car crushing. Fact there isnt much money (until the end) it doesnt make it worth investing in them. Like with car crushing, you would have to crush over a hundred cars just to cover the cost of buying the place.
4. Police - why are the police so annoying in GTA games? They get psychotic at times. If you change cars and there are no police to see you, that should work. If you buy new clothes without the police seeing you walk into a shop - that should count in lessening the star count against you. You can be completly hidden and the police still find you just because you were caught in their cone of vision. Even if you are under the free way. How can they see you?

Would give the game a 4 out of 5. There are issues, but those dont stop it from being a brilliant game and a great experience. Maybe there will be DLC to add more heists. That in itself would make the game 5/5 for me.

 

[joulerusee]

You cited Godfather part 2 as a story in which the main character's actions are so far from the norm that they're unwatchable. Another example of this would be Breaking Bad.

I think you should consider the idea that as more and more anti-heroes have pushed the sociological boundaries of narratives, it's become less necessary for the audience to root for the character's, or to be able to root for them.

Just look at Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs. How about Citizen Kane? Being confused as to who to root for adds moral complexity to a story.

Where Gta V has a lot of narrative novelties you're overlooking. It may not have nailed it, satirically, but the way it goes about satirizing is really interesting.

 

[geizr]

I had been hearing about this review of GTA V. This is my first time going through it just to see what the fuss is about. If the review is to be believed (I've never played any of the GTA series and have no inclination to start), it sounds like GTA V is a well-executed from the point of view of just being a compilation of coded software. However, from the point of view of being a coherent, sensible creative work, it's a complete dismal failure with no real purpose to its existence. That's the impression that I'm getting.

Although, as I said, I've never played any of the GTA games and have no inclination; so, take my opinion with some significant salt.

 

[quantumsaint]

Seems like Rockstar were trying to address the dissonance people complained about in IV, how Nico would bemoan killing one minute then be laying waste to the city the next minute. By making the protagonists "scumbags," that issue evaporates. I think it was a smart choice on Rockstar's behalf. And yeah there's low brow humor, but that's always kind of been GTA's thing. I liken it to South Park, sharp satire of contemporary America interspersed with toilet humor.