GTA V: Where It Went Wrong

…A more innocent time

“You know Ken, this could be the beginning of a beautiful business relationship. I mean you’re a conniving, backstabbing, two-bit thief; and I’m a convicted, psychotic killer and drug dealer!”

“I know. Ain’t it just beautiful?”

-Tommy Vercetti and Ken Rosenburg. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, 2002

I love the Grand Theft Auto franchise.. I love the gameplay, the characters, the action, the different decades each game takes place in, the freedom to explore each games urban sprawl or desert wasteland. But my favourite aspect of each game without any doubt; is the climb. I absolutely relish chasing the goal in those games and when it finally comes to a head at the conclusion is one of the best feelings of accomplishment I’ve ever had, in regards to a video game.

Because that trilogy of games, Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City and San Andreas were all set to the tune of a respective Hollywood movie archetype. III was The Godfather/Goodfellas, Vice City was Scarface and San Andreas was Boyz in the Hood. So right there you’ve got three very different backdrops for your story of how you clawed your way up the ladder of criminality to the very top, to where the city (or even the State) is your oyster and you own everything in it.

Grand Theft Auto V is sadly lacking in that department. Because the writers of that particular game seem to have excised that little piece of the previous games for the sake of satire. Don’t get me wrong I like Grand Theft Auto V, it’s probably one of the best sandboxes to play in that’s come out of the franchise. I could just drive all the way up to the top of the map and back down again for the sheer enjoyment of it.

But the events that I play through in order to see all of the world through the eyes of the three protagonists simply don’t satisfy from a gameplay standpoint or provide feeling of accomplishment as the end credits roll. There are little bite sized chunks of that feeling sprinkled throughout the game, but nothing on the scale of the ending of Grand Theft Autos III, Vice City or San Andreas. By the end of the single player campaign in Grand Theft Auto V, the three protagonists are left in better situations than they started but it really feels like the game has ended halfway through.

Micheal has now reconnected with his horrible and utterly dysfunctional family, Trevor has forgiven Micheal for lying to him and Franklin has moved away from his beginnings in his Aunts bungalow. So it seems that I should be deriving my sense of satisfaction that these characters I have been playing as have gone through something resembling an arc. Which does make sense, but whilst the characters go through change, the world around them doesn’t, at all. By the time the credits roll on Grand Theft Auto V, the characters just go back to their lives.

I recently completed Grand Theft Auto V for the third time and throughout the story mode I had this niggling feeling that I’d rather be playing something where it felt like I was getting somewhere. So I decided to boot up Vice City on my original Xbox to compare the two. I ended up losing track of time I was having so much fun in Vice City. I went back to GTA V and just found it lacking. After clocking in a few more hours I figured it out. I had no desire to do anything in GTA V other than the story missions. In Vice City, I couldn’t wait to take on the Taxi side missions, the Emergency Services side missions, the Asset Missions, the hidden packages, robbing the various shops, the pay phone missions and everything in between. In GTA V, I didn’t feel the want/need to play any of those. Because the Story Missions just didn’t give me as much enjoyment as they did in previous games, after taking over Ricardo Diaz’ empire in Vice City I felt like I needed a cigarette, in GTA V after stealing a submersible vehicle, I went straight to the next story mission, not out of anticipation but out of obligation.

Let’s compare GTA V to another wonderful sandbox; Skyrim. Now that’s a sandbox that I have absolutely no problem just being in and I feel literally no obligation to partake in the story quest line until I feel like it. Which I usually don’t. Because when you’re presented with a sandbox as enormous and varied as Skyrim, it is literally impossible to not get sucked all the way in and seek out everything.

GTA III to San Andreas give me that exact same feeling. Grand Theft Auto V does not. It actually makes me sad, because as I stated earlier I like GTA V. But given that I don’t get that want to go out and see the world itself, unless I want to look at how pretty and big it is, so I just fall back on the main story. Which doesn’t satisfy me by the time I finish it. That isn’t to say there aren’t things in the story I don’t enjoy. The characters are well thought out and interesting, the action/gameplay is perfectly smooth, the heists that were such a large part of the games marketing were easily the highlight of the game as well.

But at the end of it all I was just left feeling empty, I didn’t feel like I had accomplished anything, because all I had done in this masterfully crafted playpen was robbed a few places and, watched some horrible people deal with their issues in the worst possible way and drove around a lot. At least that’s what it felt like.

If I were to give GTA V a rating it would be a 7.5/10. It’s a very good game overall. But when all was said and done I just didn’t feel like I had accomplished anything. Maybe that was the point somehow, or something about free will.

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