Grand Theft Auto V Review

The franchise that always tends to amaze the masses returns. Grand Theft Auto 5 Launched last year for the Xbox 360 and PS3 at the end of both their life spans, rocking the industry and winning praises from critics all around.

This year it returned to the successors of the consoles it graced just a little over a year ago. I got the chance to review Grand Theft Auto 5 for the Xbox One, and I am not disappointed. Like looking through a brand new pair of glasses the game looks so much more clearer, you’ll want to read nearly every sign you come across. The land is now lush with the increased vegetation and the addition of more wildlife such as cats, different breeds of dogs and forest animals.

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Don’t even get me started when it comes down to the addition of the first person mode, if there was one thing that they could have done to put us further into the shoes of the characters in the GTA 5 storyline this is it. Playing the whole game from the beginning again was worth it because EVERYTHING felt different to me, instead of viewing intense moments at a distance I was now IN them.

You can now be looking through Franklins eyes as you’re speeding down the street with bullets flying through your windshield, Lamar yelling into you ear, and Ballas in pursuit. Everything is now up close and personal, your long gunfights with the police, taking a bullet to the hand and watching it bleed as you reload your gun, the intimate moments with the hookers and strippers of the city, and the drug Peyote which has been added to the game and are scattered across the map. When the character takes it, they get the chance to become a random animal in San Andreas, its pretty funny. The added quirks brings a little more refreshment to the game, and now its all so fresh and beautiful that you’ll want to see it all over again.

It doesn’t just stop there, you can take this new first person feature into Grand Theft Auto Online and see all of the crazy things that go down from a new perspective. Grand Theft Auto Online has also received an overhaul itself, and for those of us who have not played GTA Online since the release of the next gen consoles there are a plethora of new improvements. 30 Players are now able to play on GTA Online for Xbox One, PS4, and PC when it releases. Sadly, among my playtime I never really found full lobbies of players, I’m not sure if its because of some of the multiplayer issues plaguing the game at launch or if there really weren’t that many people on.

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Don’t think everyone is starting with a clean slate on this go around, the game has a character transfer system for those people who played on the Xbox 360 version and want to use their characters on the Xbox One version. This means you’re still going to see alot of really high leveled characters and with more players one can expect to see many wild things in the land of San Andreas way more often, may it be a player rolling down the street in a tank or a 15 car police chase. The only problem I have with this is the fact that I enjoyed the moments of peace and quiet while cruising through areas without any players, but with the larger amount of people with arsenals better than North Korea those times may be over. As expected, during my roam around the land in online I was confronted with numerous jet, helicopter, and tank attacks. On the game modes portion of online, all of the same game modes and even a couple of new ones have made it into the game.

The new mission creator is great and many people looking to try their hand at making a deathmatch or race, its pretty simple and they give you a tutorial to get the hang of it. The main challenge Rockstar faced releasing this game for next gen console was keeping it interesting and taking advantage of the new technology. That was the test and they aced it. They did a more than amazing job of putting this game on the next gen consoles, the next thing at hand for the team over at Rockstar to do is get those patiently waited on hiests done and out for the public to play before this new found hype dies down again.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Microsoft Xbox One code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.

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