What is there to say about Grand Theft Auto series? It is one of the biggest franchises in the gaming world and has put the sandbox genre and Rockstar on the map.

With the disappointment that was GTAIV I had big reservations on the sequel. Seeing the multiplayer trailer showing what could be done changed my mind. The pre-order went and as did standing in line at the local GAME store at midnight for the GTAV Launch. Got the game. Got home. Game installed. Went to bed. Up at 8am next day and played constantly over 12hours.

First of I want to just say graphical and sound wise this game pushes everything the current gen consoles can do to their fullest. How Rockstar were able to fit in the shear scale of the map with it being the size of GTA4, GTA: San Andreas and Red Dead Redemption combined as well as the amount of attention to detail and amount of NPC on screen at the same time is no doubt amazing.

With regards to the story, that in itself is amazing. The differences between are huge and being able to switch between each of them any time you see fit makes you feel more involved with the game. Plus it has 3 endings so that can't be that bad can it? But the story arc from beginning to end feels more like a huge hollywood blockbuster rather than a video game.

I found myself hugely addicted to playing the game and after the first 12hours still did not want to put the game down.  My thoughts are that this game is likely to be game of the year for 2013 and a must play for anyone over the age of 18.  Has I wouldn't let anyone under that age play it even if they were 17 1/2 years old due to the nature of certain very graphical scenes in it.



When it works GTA Online is fantastic and it cannot be faulted. But at launch it suffered. Massively. People unable to connect or connecting and not able to do the first tutorial mission. Characters/money/cars disappearing as well as high hospital bills that are in the free roam and the Teamdeath match (TDM). Partly due to the cloud servers not being able to cope and or glitches with the programming. What I will say is though that Rockstar have been fast on reacting to the problems and issues considering what happened. Although they could of prevented this by stress testing the servers properly given that GTAV made $800 million overnight which should of been a good idea how many would be online.

Final thoughts:

GTAV is fun there is no doubt about it. The online part is amitions a project as ever and once it is patched and working 100% perfectly will be another feather in Rockstar's cap. With arcade feeling mechanics the game is easily picked up and played. It is a Big contender for the Game of the Year trophy.  In my opinion this is one of those games that are a must buy.