I am absolutely obsessed with this game. I finished the main story line in roughly 30 hours, and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute. And although I do not like it when reviewers say things like this, but on a personal tangent, this might be my favorite game of all time, can't decided between this or Wind Waker. This is the first actual game review that I've written, and I hope that doing more of these will help me get better at it. I am going to structure this similarly to the GTA V: Thoughts So Far that I wrote last week.

Story

Like most other 3D Grand Theft Auto games, the story is told through completing missions that help the character reach their ultimate goal. GTA V, however, tells its story through 3 playable characters. Franklin Clinton, a young man from the inner city of Los Santos, who starts as a gang banger, and makes his way up through jobs given to him from various people throughout the game. Michael De Santa, or Michael Townley, a middle aged rich man planning on an early retirement when his old life of heists and crime comes back and puts his dreams on hold. Lastly, Trevor Phillips, a trailer trash drugs and guns dealer who wants to grow his business who goes to Los Santos to find Michael Townley, a former partner who he believed to be dead. The three men find themselves performing heists to pay back debts, for the federal government, and to fulfill their own personal dreams of "The Big One". The story is interesting, and explosive, with each mission being more intense and high stake than the last. The satire of modern contemporary America is comedic, yet still makes points of the hypocrisy of our community and even the government.

Graphics and Sound

As I said before, the graphics in the PC version of GTA V are stunning. With the amount of configuration provided, anyone can enjoy the game and still have a visually pleasing experience. The lighting is excellent, during every time of day, light from whatever major light source bounces off the cars and building beautifully, especially at sunrise and sunset. The pallet is bright, and colorful, which I feel is more suited for this kind of game rather than the realistic, flushed out look of GTA IV.

The sound design in this game, like pretty much every other GTA game I've played, is exceptional. The sound effects are realistic, and effective. I can feel every shot I fire I a sense of speed from the sound of my car engine, and the camera movement. The voice actors did a great job portraying each character in the game, even the people in the streets and radio ads are done very well. The original score in this game is phenomenal. They also included a wide variety of music for the radio stations, as most GTA games do. The PC version, as well as the PS4 and XBox One, include a larger music library than the XBox 360 and PS3 versions of the game.

Gameplay and Mechanics

As I said before, the controls are tight and well mapped out. With full controller support, people more used to consoles, such as myself, are still able to enjoy the game. Driving controls so much better in this game than in other GTA games. I can actually make turns at a reasonable speed without crossing my fingers that I wont completely total my car. Driving gets even better by driving more to improve the driving skill of each separate character. At first, I thought the game not including the lock on mechanic that GTA IV had when aiming a weapon was going to be a bad thing, but I realized as I played more that free aiming allows for more control over where the gun is being shot at. 

Each character has a unique set of skills and mechanics. The skills, I found a little arbitrary, expect for the driving skill, there was a very notable increase in control in driving as the skill grew higher. However, the other skills like aiming and flying seemed pointless and were not explored as much throughout through the game. I feel similarly to the special abilities. Each character has a special ability. Franklin can improve his driving by slowing down time and the car becoming more responsive. This skill is pretty much the only skill I found myself really relying on through out the game. Michael can slow down time on foot, which was supposed to be helpful during shootouts, which it was, but not enough. I am still unsure of what Trevor's skill even is, it is supposed to reduce damage that he takes, and deal more damage. I only found this skill useful during his rampage missions, other than that, I never really used it. 

World and Level Design

GTA V provides the largest sandbox open world in gaming. There is never a time where there is nothing to do, especially with three characters each knowing an array of characters that give them side missions, and passive missions. One part of the world I found interesting was the random event. Sometimes as you explore Los Santos, someone finds themselves in need of help, whether it is retrieving a stolen item or giving them a ride. Helping can give the character a cash bonus, or even a heist crew member. 

The missions are fun, and exciting. The bread and butter of this game are the heists. Heists require set up and planning. Most heists had multiple options, usually a subtle option versus an aggressive option. Set ups range from finding getaway cars to hijacking military equipment for the heist. Heists also allow choosing who is going to help the three main characters. Each crew member has a set of skills, and take varying cuts of the take. This game felt a lot easier than previous GTA games. I never had to use cheats, or felt that any of the missions were unfair. There were a couple missions that I had a pretty hard time with, but the difficulty felt fair, and rewarding when I finally got through the hard mission. 

In the end, I think GTA V is a brilliant game. I had a solid experience playing it this last week or so. If you don't have it already, I highly recommend you buy it, because I give this game a 9/10.

Grand Theft Auto V : 9/10

- José Rodriguez-Rivas