GTA V announced [2011] , [2021-11-11]

The reason you can't is memory. Notice how you can see inside those few shops and buildings you can enter? Well the game then needs all those assets in memory for rendering even when your outside and can see in.

Now imagine that for all of the stores and buildings. Then the memory needed for interaction (broken windows etc). This sounds impossible on current gen consoles. I'm curious if Watch Dogs is better in this regard but I'm not expecting all, or even most, buildings to be available to enter.

 

Spoiler

Got this last week. Finally finished the main storyline yesterday. I have to say it's essentially worse than I feared. The driving is good (though very similar to the last game), shooting is better (though difficulty is tweaked for autoaim which makes playing on free aim frustrating at times), fighting is better, having weather is so cool. Nice wide variety of cars (though most are familiar, they pop up in greater variation which is sweet). Terrible writing, the worst of any GTA game since 2. Very surprising. I thought they were going back to SA to reclaim the goofy fun of The Truth and OG LOC. Sadly, they just went back to SA to have... hills but no san fran..? boats, I guess. Bizarre. If they wanted another shit nigga talking gangsta why not set it in chicago or something?

Ironically, Franklin is the most likable character of the three. He's boring, but he's a decent dude, relatively speaking. Michael is a douchebag who has the added benefit of also being boring -- and the one good thing about his character (that he goes to therapy) -- my wife tells me is just ripped off from some HBO show. The therapist going to sell out Michael's story is another classic GTA plot, along with the FIB using you endlessly, and most of the game. The "liberal" tycoon being in bed with Blackwater was a nice touch. But it's all very dark and you have very little reason to ever proceed. Trevor starts terrible and steadioly gets worse as time goes on -- but at least has the benefit of being amusing. The bit where he falls in love with Patricia (and also with MaryAnn) was really great. The only cut scenes I really looked forward to seeng were when Franklin wold be leaving Denise's house. Her voicemail message is great, too.

Interactivity is still sort of a step backward as well. Shopping is back with a vengeance and I loved dressing up the characters but the strip club was disappointing and the fact that they had such a lousy B team on the side missions was pretty shocking. Biking is prob my favorite thing to do in the game, but not as fun as in SA. Overall though a lot of the gameplay is very good. Fun to drive (esp w Franklin), fun to shoot w Trevor, fun to try and steal fighter jets and use the Rhino and fun even to go swimming. The jet ski races were not as good as before but the waves are pretty nice. Minigames are fucking awesome. They really showed up Yakuza 4 on this one. I don't know if either team thinks of the other as competition, but in my mind, they are.

Surprisingly, the weak point was the writing. The misogyny doesn't bother me by itself -- but this time most of it was terribly unfunny. Like the first ep of the Fernando Show -- a true gem from SA, the first ep has a "reformed" Fernando making stupid sideways comments -- it doesn't work. The second show is more in the old "keep it funny stupid" mold and a lot better. Laszlo also not funny in ti one, and he was possibly my favorite radio segment in all of SA. No Andy Dick is sad, Chakra Attack is good though. It gets old, but it's a pretty damn funny joke the first time. Perhaps worst of all, no Catalina!! Again, it's not just that she was the lone counterpoint to all the women are worthless crybabies jokes -- she was just unpredictable. It helped, a lot When the best writing in the plot is Michael's son explaining to him that his daughter is wannabe porn star... well it's ok, for a video game, I guess... but compare that to SA. Even some of the stuff from IV was better than this. But The Truth? Wow. This game hada lot to live up to, andin most respects, it failed.

All that said, yes, I will deifnitely be going back to finish all the stunt jumps!

 

speaking of next gen, do you think that, without changing anything graphics wise, the new consoles are powerful enough to render the game at 1080p/60fps and good AA ?

 

Yes absolutely.

 

The story is pretty underwhelming...
It's definitely better than 4 in pretty much every other aspects tho.
The map is huge, but the fact that it only has one city makes it feel kinda smaller if that makes any sense.

 

THe matchmaking keeps crew tags together. I guess they want people forming crews.

GTA Online is actually very good. As you play you unlock new game modes and activities. There are a lot of awesome races, and some pretty fun co-op missions. I haven't touched any of the deathmatch or competitive team modes yet. Survival mode is pretty good. Honestly, the Online is ambitious and despite the technical difficulties, they've succeeded fairly well, I think.

 

I bought a heliport with Franklin, but I cannot get a helicopter to be there when I came back. What is the best way to get one permanently? I tired stealing Trevor's, but no go. I also stole the one that takes off there, but that didn't work. You also can't jack the parachute guy's copter either.

 

Buy one from the internet - it takes up to 24hrs to be delivered. The armed Buzzard is around $2m.

 

Ouch! I didn't even know you could buy stuff from the net, lol. So no stealing stuff and keeping it for free? bummer.

Edit: Is that the in game internet or the real one?


When trying to steal Trevor's copter, I landed him and swapped to Franklin and hopped in. Then Trevor threw me out and start taking off. I thought "I am Trevor!" and swapped to him, landed and then jumped into the water. Then swapped back to Franklin and took off. The whole thing was surreal. The comments they make to each other when off mission is pretty funny too.

 

I stole the one that takes off from there for both Franklin and Michael and have had no issues with it staying there. Even after parking it on top of the Maze building for the last Skydiving mission.

 

Yeah, there is an online army surplus store - helis, tanks, big rigs. I've not found a way to steal and keep a helipcopter

 

Mine disappear after a while. I'm not sure if that's intentional or a bug like the garage glitch.

 

The text when you buy it says any copter you land there will be added to your available list when your return. Seems like a bug.

 

I've not had a bought heli vanish, it's the ones I steal that I can't get to stick around

 

Completely agree...

I also seem to be the only one missing the "make your own character" like in San Andreas. Honestly, I would wish that the Elder Scroll and GTA series just loose the main plot and give us complete access to every from the first second.

And every time I play GTA I remember how I really, really suck at flying...

 

Yeah the properties were a bit frustrating. Constantly go to them to find out can only be bought by Franklin or Michael etc. Imo the only really "good" property is the

Spoiler

LS Customs Shop

. It's fairly inconvenient but you'll definitely make good use of it. The others all have their uses but are not exactly exciting. Helicopters and planes, I've had the same experience as Dsoup. Steal them, they disappear. Buy them, they're awesome. But I usually just steal them from

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Dom's jump sites

because it makes getting around more fun. It really doesn't speed things up lol but it's more fun.

 

I can't believe anybody is bashing what is essentially three different stories woven into one. I'm wondering if the conclusion sucks or falls on its face or something because right now it's damn enthralling.

As far as not having complete access to everything from the first second, what don't you have access to? Sure, a couple weapons are locked, but the whole map is accessible.

Besides, if you want to screw around and play a game with a lame story but fun chaos, they do make Saints Row for that.

I guess I don't understand people 1) Complaining about the quality of the story and then 2) Simultaneously wishing there was no story at all and it was just a sandbox.

Seems counter intuitive to me.

 

Story telling, including the relative appreciation of the way a story is told, is subjective. As much as you're enjoying it, others may feel the polar opposite, or somewhere inbetween.

Having played every GTA (including the PSP 'Stories' games and Chinatown Wars on the DS) since GTA III, I expect very little from GTA stories. They are predictably cliched and you can anticipate certain story elements playing out in every game

Spoiler

betrayals, friction between the protagonist's faction, etc.

. It's not bad, it's just not doing anything new.

I loved the game but felt the story was middling at best. It was certainly no Red Dead Redemption.

 

I think the variety and personality of the story and characters makes it much better than RDR. RDR had a gripping personal story, but it was not as fun to play and all but the end of the story was forgettable (what happened in Mexico again?).

 

I agree, but also what I think was a large part of what made RDR so enjoyable was setting. GTA V clearly doesn't have a unique setting for the story to take place in, it's pretty much the same stage as any other modern day sandbox game. (Although the stage might be larger and set pieces might be prettier.)

But when you get right down to the straight story, I don't think RDR is nearly as well written as GTA V, certainly isn't as complicated: telling the same story through three different interactive character's viewpoints.

Saying GTA V is cliche, predictable, and not doing anything new is like saying the same things about the Sopranos. None of those things precludes great, interesting or captivating storytelling.

I really wonder, outside of playable movies like JRPGs, which games those of you who feel this story is lackluster hold up as examples of superior storytelling?