Well, if the internet is the source of anything, it's source of the fact that Grand Theft Auto V is the best selling thing ever, apparently. Earning one billion dollars in three days was a surprise to everyone, even the developers. However, seeing as developers and publishers refrain from giving us such important infomation as to how much triple A games cost to make these days, we don't know how much Rockstar actually made. Probably shitloads, but all the one billion dollar figure serves to tell us is that everyone played this game. Hell, my best friend bought a PS3 just to play it. So what was the final verdict? Well critics seem impressed with the lighting effects. Players like the return of colour and the funny, satirical nature. I know quite a few people who haven't finished the game though. This shouldn't be surprising considering statistics say that less than half of the people who start a game will finish it. So the story hasn't gotten quite as much criticism as it should have. People can say that the story doesn't matter, though we can doubt they would say that if the story had been again good. Don't get me wrong, I'm have fun doing side missions and everything so I get a new cut scene to be entertained by. The dialougue in some moments are top notch, the talkback stations are as good as ever and for the majority of the story it's a pretty funny game. I just found it a shame that given all the build up the story and game world offer, taking shots at Facebook, Hollywood and TV shows like Cops, but in the end... the game really had nothing important, insightful or even funny to say for itself. Maybe that's the joke.
I'd put a spoiler warning in here somewhere but come on. Everyone knows this game. It's record breaking. Plenty of Let's Plays online highlighting certain things. Hell, you probably get high and play this with your friends still. It's Grand Theft freakin' Auto. Everyone remembers first playing Grand Theft Auto III. The fact you could shoot down pedestrians, steal a car to escape the cops and then fly off a ramp and land on an old lady. It spawned the phrase "Grand Theft Auto clone" to any other game that offered what we now call "sandbox" gameplay. And sandbox is a perfect word to describe the genre. Do anything you want, your imagination is the limit. Then comes Vice City, Liberty City Stories and San Andreas. San Andreas had Samuel L. Jackson in it. Games were evolving and Rockstar was there to take us on the grand tour. Then the seventh generation comes along and we all hold our breath for Grand Theft Auto IV. Waiting to be shown how games should be done in this exciting new time. The original games were aging badly and are nearly hideous to look at today. Then Niko sales into port and we go with him to explore a fully realised Liberty City.
And it was marvellous. No longer did people go flying into the air as you plowed through them - they would crumple crunchingly over your bonnet. Cars now had more realistic handling styles, reinvigorating to gamer mindset of "easy to learn, difficult to master". No more clones of Elvis walking down the street together - a new engine could randomly generate millions of unique NPCs. You could even get drunk and go bowling! People can bemoan today that the city is just made up of different shades of brown and the mission structure was always, drive here, shoot/deliver this, drive there. But we didn't care. Just sit back, rip a cone and crank up John Murphy's Adagio in D Minor from Sunshine and let the fun happen. Instead of the slew of games that would take us back to Miami or San Fransisco, we got two extra Liberty City stories in The Ballad of Gay Tony and The Lost and Damned. While not as popular, when IV and the next two were released in a pack that EB Games sold for thirty bucks, well, noone had to tell you what a bargain looked like.
But what was going to happen to Grand Theft Auto V? Were we going to have to wait for the next generation of consoles like before? As the current gen dragged into a ground breaking eight years it felt like we were betting off trying one of those games that would've been called a clone five years ago. Pop in Sleeping Dogs and... Well this is most definitely a clone. Well worth checking out if you haven't but you can't deny what it is. Maybe Saints Row: the Third. Well this isn't quite a clone. It's more like developer Volition, Inc saw all the complaints about GTA four and decided it was up to them to return to the colour and ludicrousness of the old Grand Theft Autos. And they more or less delivered, but my thoughts were more along the lines of, "Funny... for a bit. The jokes can get a bit old if we never get to see anything other than jokes. I do like that it counts how long I've been driving in the wrong lane though."
So we waited.
BREAKING NEWS FROM ROCKSTAR: Rockstar makes website that counts down to the release of the Grand Theft Auto V trailer. Holy shit, I think I just shat myself. I couldn't believe it was happening. Finally, it was coming. Though in retrospect I think I was being stupid. To clarify again: this was a countdown for a trailer. Then we get the trailer. Then a slew of screenshots. Introductions to the three main protagonists. We gobbled down everything, even those of us not into videogames. Websites like IGN and the Escapist had to be the first to break news for the highest amount of traffic. Rockstar was essentially telling us that if you weren't up to date you probably didn't deserve to play the game. The introductions of having three playable characters, animals in game and new heist missions gave everyone something to speculate on.
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(Oh shit, I'm in hospital I'm going to miss out! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!)
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Ok, so I was sick when the game came out so I missed all the news stories talking about how GTAV was the best selling entertainment product ever. I didn't even care. I got two hours leave and got my friends to take me to a Playstation so I could play the damn thing. Controller in hand, I move my avatar toward an old lady and punch her right in the face. Sweet. Ok, I don't need to go into detail about all the new details in the game, because, again, everyone has played this. EVERYONE.
So what I want to talk about is the ending, so heres a nice little SPOILER WARNING.
So you're at the end of the game. You start a mission as Franklin and you are faced with three choices. Kill Michael, kill Trevor or "Deathwish" (assumably kill neither). Maybe it's a satirical statement about the Mass Effect 3 ending. Obviously I decided on deathwish because one would think that if I killed a protagonist I wouldn't be able to play as him again. So the choice is now the players and any descision that Franklin could have made is thrown to the wind. Deathwish has you kill all the enemies you've made in the game. Even that Asian dude, which I thought was weird, but ok. Finally you end up with Fraklin, Michael and Trevor on a cliffside with the last baddie in the trunk of the car. They kill the baddie, end of game. End of game? I thought, But how does this tie into any of the themes? What did anyone learn? What is Rockstar trying to say here? And that's when I realised that nothing was trying to be said. And if you've been keeping up with my blogs, this is my explanation as to why Grand Theft Auto V isn't in my game of the year list. It may have smart things to say about anything but it's own story, but the game really doesn't offer anything to the form of interactive art that is videogames.
END SPOILERS
Of course, I'm just a gamer with a personality disorder that doesn't even proof read his own blogs. Want to rage at me? Leave a comment. Mucho loverinos for everyone who's been reading.
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