Ladies and Gentlemen! I think it’s time I reveal to you my favourite game at the moment… Grand Theft Auto 5! Honestly, if you didn’t figure that out from the title of this post then… you need to pay more attention 🙂
Anyway! I’ve been tasked with ripping my favourite game apart, much to my dismay, so lets get into it.
To start, a quick overview of GTA V. Grand Theft Auto is a franchise set in open-world fictional environments based on real-world locations; GTA V is set in Los Santos, based on the real world Los Angeles, California. In the game, you get to do whatever you want… that’s basically it.
Now for the dissection of this amazingly wonderful, almost flawless game.
Firstly, I’ll talk about graphical problems with the game. Throughout my countless hours within the sunny state of San Andreas I have noticed many imperfections with its world. One such imperfection is missing polygons on certain building models and parts of the terrain; it’s not a game breaking issue, just a small annoyance that once seen cannot be unseen. Another somewhat minor annoyance is the shadows; shadows that are cast by buildings and other big objects in the world cast huge shadows that only move when the player moves! Not when the sun moves in the sky! This is something that defies the laws of physics and the universe and annoys me to no end! The game’s draw distance on console versions is noticeably small; so much so that if the player is travelling too fast through the world things will pop-in at last minute and the player will just smash straight into it; speaking of draw distance and graphic fidelity, the PS4 version of the game (the one that I am using to write this) when it first came out looked absolutely incredible, and it still does, just less so. See, over the course of its life the PS4 version has had a lot of updates, most of which added new content, and a few of which have downgraded the graphic-quality of the game. To see what I mean please watch the following video:
It has since been fixed, but the fact that it happened really did annoy me. Below is another video showing the fixed graphics:
Gameplay wise the game is near flawless, however I have noticed a few issues which pop-up very rarely and mostly in the online portion of the game. For those of us in the know, there was a very famous little glitch in GTA IV which gave everyone who found it hours of enjoyment, it was referred to as the “swingset” glitch. It became so famous, and fun, that Rockstar decided not to fix it. However, now in GTA V (mostly GTA Online) there are similar glitches that take the forms of doorways, gates, and other moving objects that are attached to a static mesh. Example Below:
Unfortunately, the majority of these glitches have been fixed.
Another aspect that annoyed me when I first picked up the game back in 2013 was the AI behaviour. After playing GTA IV for so long and being used to stealing cars by pointing my gun at the driver and waiting for them to get out and run away screaming, jumping into GTA V and trying the same thing resulted in my teeth being knocked in by the grill of the car that I was trying to steal; obviously a problem when you’re mid-mission and have to get away in a hurry only to find your face making friends with the asphalt.
One of the last things that I can possibly think of that is somewhat annoying with the game, is the added First Person mode for next-gen versions. It’s a fun and interesting addition, however, it just feels like it was shoehorned in as the game is built for 3rd person; so a lot of elements to it just don’t feel refined.
Finally, the last thing that I can possibly think of… The loading times. No matter the version you play on, the initial loading time for the game takes ages.
It easily takes a good 5 minutes, at least, for the game to load from start-up; but that’s to be expected considering there are no load times when you are actually in the game.
And that’s it, everything that I could find that was wrong with GTA V. Undoubtedly other people will find more things wrong with it, but personally I think it’s almost flawless.
RETS96 Creative Development 