Review: Grand Theft Auto V (PS3, Xbox 360)

It’s hard to refer to it as a ‘new’ game because it feels as though it’s been around for ages after such extensive and long-running build-up in gaming journals.

But new it is, and its release has been laced with just the right level of controversy to get certain people’s hands wringing and ensure plenty of coverage in mainstream media.

The end result of all the hysteria has been a proper old-school blockbuster – with people literally queuing around the block to buy a copy.

This alone is a remarkable feat by Rockstar, which has generated the kind of attention musicians and movie makers can only dream of these days. It’s a landmark moment in modern culture which shows just how powerful games have become as an entertainment medium.

Of course this would be a shallow achievement if the game didn’t live up to expectations. Luckily it does, as Rockstar’s developers as well as marketing people have excelled themselves. Grand Theft Auto V doesn’t just show what a force gaming has become but also how far games can be taken.

Is GTAV the best video game ever? This depends on what your favourite genre is. If it's open-world crime adventures then GTAV will be your new favourite game of all time because it's the best GTA game and the best game there's ever been in that field.

If you usually prefer other types of games you may still have a different personal preference but I'll be amazed if you're not still hugely impressed by GTAV because it's an exceptional game in many ways.

This is something I would recommend every gamer tries, because even if the gameplay isn't your cup of tea there is still much to admire.

There has been a lot of time (five years) and a huge amount of money (reportedly around £170m, making it the most expensive game ever made) thrown at it and these luxuries mean some very talented people have been able to carefully craft something special.

The game delivers on some lofty ambitions by providing a virtual world on a scale rarely, possibly never, seen before.

Los Santos, modelled on Los Angeles, is the main location and is a sight to behold both in terms of its size and scenery.

It isn’t a static illustrated backdrop for the game, it’s a properly living, breathing city full of people going about their business, roads filled with vehicles and constant hustle and bustle everywhere you go.

Fantastic lighting and texture effects combined with superb attention to detail give Los Santos an extra sheen of authenticity as a believable modern urban sprawl.

Of course, you visit to play the game but sometimes stopping on a street corner and watching the city is a fascinating activity in itself. It’s difficult to ignore what a visual treat GTA provides when you pause to admire the night-time lights or gaze at the skyline.

With the surrounding countryside and desert areas in addition to the metro centre, GTAV’s game world is big, very big, in every sense - and made all the more real by the overall quality of the graphics being a distinct step up from earlier GTA games.

The theme of expansion and enhancement is prevalent throughout the game, with Rockstar pulling out all the stops to make this the GTA experience of players' dreams.

At its core the broad structure of the game follows the same pattern as earlier editions in the series.

As the player you're plunged into a criminal underworld then challenged to make the best of your grotty situation and rise as high as possible by completing a series of missions throughout the story. The game is a mix of action, third-person shooter and driving set within a world which you can explore at your leisure when not embroiled in a mission. During these free-roam times you can steal vehicles, beat up innocent strangers or generally run amok and create as much as carnage as your character's health and ability to evade the police can take.

GTAV contains all these key ingredients, peppered with the usual gratuitous violence, outrageous characters, scathing satire of modern society, bad language and immoral content such as drug taking and prostitution.

As I alluded to in my praise of the game world, the main difference in GTAV is that everything is bigger, bolder and in almost all cases better than ever before.

This certainly applies to the inclusion of three playable central characters instead of the usual one, an ambitious and adventurous direction for the series to take. Being able, and sometimes required, to switch between the three adds variety to the game and a heap of new dynamics. The trio of troubled family man and ruthless middle-aged criminal Michael, ambitious Franklin and psychopathic Trevor all have distinctive and layered personalities, and all bring something a little different to the party.

Their separate story threads which soon become inter-connected are engaging for the most part with a few blips here and there, but for me personally the GTA series has always been less about the narrative and more about what I can do inside the game world.

Tasks and activities in the series have perennially been a quirky mix and that’s ramped up even more here in the amount and scope of things you can get up to around Los Santos and beyond.

I covered some of the varied things I found myself doing in my first few hours, and it’s continued in similarly diverse fashion as I’ve got further in, from the mundane (playing tennis against Michael’s wife) to the action-packed (riding a jetski as I rescued Michael’s daughter from a bunch of thuggish porn merchants) to the grisly (blowing up a tech firm’s CEO with an explosive mobile phone).

This barely scratches the surface of the mind-boggling array of crazy antics in the game and other, often bizarre, distractions to discover.

Missions are more complex than before, including six multi-faceted heists which involve the three protagonists working together to pull off big scores.

Each raid involves careful planning, including the (usually illegal) acquisition of items you’ll need, the recruitment of specialists to your crew and recon of your high-value target. You also have to decide whether to carry out the heist tactically, such as by pumping sleeping gas through air vents in a jewellery store to knock out customer and staff before going in, or loudly by relying on force.

Organising each heist is an absorbing process and there is great satisfaction when it comes off.

There are two other improvements to mention, which I’ve left late but which are very important to the overall enjoyment of GTAV.

The first is the much tighter shooting mechanics, including the fluid and responsive cover system. Secondly, vehicle handling has been upgraded so driving around is much more pleasing especially at high speeds.

Grand Theft Auto has come on in massive leaps and bounds in this fifth full instalment but there are still a few small areas where it doesn’t quite achieve perfection.

For one thing, hand-to-hand melee combat remains clunky and ungainly.

Also, for me, it’s too easy to attract the close attention of the police and it often takes a frustratingly long time to shake them off.

Additionally, the world Rockstar has created might be hugely impressive but it’s difficult to escape how its apparent openness and realism are often just illusions. Large parts of it remain out of bounds with many buildings inaccessible, while human interactions outside of cutscenes can be jarringly illogical. A few graphical glitches here and there don’t help.

The more menial side quests in the game, such as driving a paparazzo around town and repossessing vehicles using a tow truck, may grate on some people after a while.

Overall, GTAV does many more things right than wrong and these minor shortcomings pale into insignificance in the overall picture.

The culmination of Rockstar’s finest work to date, this is a remarkable game for so many reasons. It’s an incredible technical accomplishment for what it squeezes out of current-gen consoles as well as a creative triumph for the way it takes sandbox gaming to another level. For once, you can believe at least most, but not quite all, of the hype surrounding a game.

There have been some amazing games in 2013 and at any other time Bioshock Infinite and The Last of Us would by vying for the game of the year, but I think GTAV now has that title wrapped up.

There may be some gems to come when PS4 and Xbox One launch, but GTAV is good enough that some people may question why they need to upgrade their hardware.

Verdict: 9.5 out of 10

Out now for PS3 and Xbox 360 – PS3 version played