By: Buddy Jackson
Assignments are in, homework is done and now it is time to strap on my driving gloves and get right down to business with Grand Theft Auto 5.
The Xbox 360 version of the game comes as a two-disc set, which is a little disappointing. One is for installing the game, which requires at least 8 GB of available space on the system hard drive. The content takes about 20 minutes to download. Then I was ready to play.
The game starts in the past doing a job for some extra money and things seem to be like the other GTA games, but not all is as it seems. Now I do not want to give anything away about the storyline, but there isn’t much of it until Trevor appears.
The graphics are seamless and there is not much in the way of loading time. The storyline could have been a bit more in-depth, but the gameplay was pretty amazing.
It shouldn’t be played in front of children or anyone who could be offended by the graphic content. The game is VERY adult in nature with nudity, violence and heavy sexual content. The game is rightfully rated R.
This is not a game for children under the age of 18. I was surprised to find out that some parents were allowing their elementary school-aged children to rent and play this game. Being a parent of two boys under the age of 10, I would not allow them to play or watch it.
As for the game itself, I enjoyed playing for 12 hours over the week and being left with a sense of accomplishing absolutely nothing; however, I enjoyed being the bad boy for a change. There were a few aspects of the game that were surprising and different from the GTA franchise past. The array of different weapons that can be used and purchased at different locations on the map was very nice to see.
Rockstar has taken out the random muggings and “breaking” the game by getting exorbitant amounts of money from beating down random pedestrians. You actually have to go and do missions to gain the money needed to buy upgrades for your car, new weapons, and new weapon accessories.
I would also like to mention that there are several different characters in play this time around. Michael, Franklin, Trevor, and even a Rottweiler named Chops are all playable, and each has their own storyline. The fact that you can actually switch between these characters is an amazing addition to the GTA franchise.
Vehicles can be customized and improved with engine upgrades, wheel upgrades for performance driving, and changing the color scheme on cars remains available and the same. Another awesome addition was the amount of accessories available to customize weapons.
You can get anything from a flashlight attachment to an extended clip for your weapon of choice. There was a moment of glee when I bought a gas can and the thoughts of chaos ran rampant. The graphics were well done and the controls were not terribly hard to learn.
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