Synyster Graves

Take it to the edges, nowhere to hide, call up the boys, lets go for the joyride

by on Mar.02, 2012, under In The Gaming Pipeline

I know this title is a long way off for now, but I would like to briefly share my thoughts on what is probably going to be this year’s must have game, that is Grand Theft Auto 5. Not many detailed have been released from the usually tight-lipped Rockstar North team apart from it’s release will be sometime this year (as long as it doesn’t coincide with Resident Evil 6 I’ll be happy). It will also be set in the Los Santos suburb of San Andreas and it’s surrounding areas, fans of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas will understandbly be pleased. There are rumours that it could also include the face animation software which was used in L.A. Noire, considering that game had three discs, a city the size of a GTA location could easily reach five! But this is unconfirmed. I’d easily swap playability for moving faces, even after playing L.A.Noire, due to my anticipated size of the playable city.

Now for my wishlist about the new game, which since the details are very limited, I have liberty to reel off a list of wants:

  • Probably nothing more than a shot in the dark me saying this but the GTA4 was way too serious. While I’m not expecting the over-the-top madness which Saints Row 3 had, I’d prefer it to be in good humour like GTA3 was throughout that series, certainly with the radio stations and other subtle nuances scattered throughout the city. A plot which isn’t so gritty would be great, and since Red Dead Redemption had it just right (albeit it bordering on being similar to Young Guns 2), Rockstart have shown that they are capable.

 

  • Niko Bellic was a terrible protagonist. I have no empathy with him and certainly not an ounce of sympathy on either possible ending because his character development was gash. Ok so most people use GTA games as an excuse to run around stealing cars and creating havoc, that’s fine in the free roam multiplayer, but for the campaign I need characters who aren’t total dicks, and I haven’t even got started on his fat cousin. So I’m going out on a limb here and asking for a tiny bit of flexibility regarding choice of protagonist, dare I say, like the Saints Row series. The storyline is the same regardless of how you look, but you have the flexibility to give it your own slant. Until that happens, Saints Row will always be a better game.

 

  • The car handling must improve drastically. Controlling the cars which feel like shopping trolleys on frozen oil is just frustrating, let alone unplayable in some parts. Is it too much to ask to be able to handbrake turn around a corner without spinning out, having more revolutions than France?

 

  • The multiplayer needs drastic improvement. Red Dead Redemption’s one was ace. GTA4’s multiplayer by comparison was pants. There were far too many cheats in GTA for it to be enjoyable. However cheap playfire gamers aside, the massvie gaping hole in GTA4’s multiplayer was the lack of co-op missions. The three missions they had were ok I suppose, but got really old really quickly. With the DLC packs that came, would it have been too hard to implement some new co-op multiplayer? Again with Red Dead Redemption, the Undead Nightmare DLC had a new co-op multiplayer mode, which was excellent.

 

  • The extra mission add on packs for GTA were rubbish. Lost & The Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony were just crap I thought, and in comparison to other sandbox titles out there, really lacked in depth and, well, fun. L&TD was a painful slog forcing you to be a biker, of which have worse handling than the cars and TBoGT had more emphasis on helicopters, which are even worse to control.

Red Dead Redemption and L.A.Noire have been released since GTA4 and with other titles like the Saints Row series continuing to be awesome and very playable, Rockstar really have a mission to make GTA5 awesome. But listening to the fans instead of being bloody minded will help. RDR was easily one of the best games I have ever played so my expectations for GTA5 are sky high. Don’t let us down Rockstar.

:, , , , ,

2 Comments for this entry

  • Maryann

    Hi! Fine post, I’m a hardcore PC gamer but my system is too slow for today’s games like GTA 5. It sounds great, but I’m still unsure so what would you advise? thanks Maryann

  • Synyster Graves

    Thanks for the message Maryann, to be honest, you’d better off getting an Xbox as they’ve really come down in price now and the whole GTA5 experience would be much better enjoyed on Xbox Live rather than on PC, certainly in terms of multiplayer because people tend to cheat and create mods on PC versions. Hope this helps.

Leave a Reply

*