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| GTA 5 Review |
The
long wait has been worth it. If you’re a PC gamer who’s spent the last eighteen
months envying the console crowd while they all got stuck into the latest,
greatest GTA, then rest assured that you can now play the definitive version.
Sure, the Xbox One and PS4 versions were amazing, delivering GTA 5 at higher
resolutions with more detailed textures, smoother surfaces, better lighting and
cool depth of field effects (see our full review below), but the PC version
offers even more enhancements plus a couple of additional features that play to
the PC’s strengths. In doing so, it adds a few more metres to one of gaming’s
towering achievements.
Having
covered the game twice already, we won’t go too far into the detail of what
makes GTA 5 so good. Partly, it’s a question of experience. With four previous
3D GTAs under its belt plus Red Dead Redemption, Bully and assorted DLC packs,
Rockstar has had time to refine its vision for open world gameplay and its
systems, and GTA 5 has the best driving, the best shooting and some of the best
mission design of the series.
It’s
also a question of structure. Dividing the action amongst three protagonists
with three interlocking storylines and three distinctive flavours means you
nearly always have the option to flick from Michael’s ageing career criminal
saga to Franklin’s ambitious hoodlum story to Trevor’s crazed, amoral brand of
mayhem, where the dumb, cathartic slapstick violence we all – deep down – love
GTA for finds its natural home. With repeated play, it only becomes clearer how
well all three tales mesh thematically with Rockstar’s savage satirical take on
the Californian dream.
And the budget definitely helps. The more time you put into
GTA 5, the more you come to appreciate what a large and intensely detailed
creation Los Santos is, and just how much is packed into the surrounding Blaine
County. That’s because Rockstar had the ambition and the money to put in all
the golf and tennis mini-games, all the stunt challenges, all the bizarre side
missions and all the weird, hidden stuff that probably 90% of players will
never see. The amazing thing about GTA 5 is that you can spend hour after hour
playing it yet still be struck by all the stuff you haven’t done yet. No other
open world feels this coherent. No other open world has so much to do.
So, what does playing on PC bring to the experience? Well,
for a start there’s the most visually impressive and immersive version yet.
Those lucky enough to have a 1440p or 4K monitor and the rig to run it will
have ample cause for amazement, and the rest of us who have to struggle along
at 1080p won’t go short. GTA 5 PC benefits from the new lighting model,
post-processing effects, day-to-night cycle and added vegetation of the
next-gen console versions, but also additional levels for textures, shader
effects, reflections and shadow detail that affect everything from the way
characters’ faces look close-up to depth-of-field effects, water and grass.
It’s
open to a huge amount of tinkering, but then it needs to be. Basic gaming
systems, like a budget Core i3 with an old GTX 660, will struggle to run GTA 5
at a decent frame rate unless you reduce the resolution and start pulling
settings down from high. Our test system, with a Core i5 and a Radeon R9 285,
still wouldn’t run smoothly with settings above high at 1080p.
What’s
more, GTA 5 is really tough on video memory. Try to set Texture Quality to High
with a 2GB graphics card and you’ll be warned that you’re exceeding the limits.
Ignore the warnings, and you may be gobsmacked by the detail on skin,
background textures and – particularly clothing – but the frame rate will
stutter all the time. It might just about be bearable when you’re walking
around, but get in a car and try a driving-heavy mission and you’re in for a
nasty shock.
GTA
5 scales up beautifully if you’re rocking a Core i7/GTX 970 or Radeon R9 290,
but if you have a lesser system then you’re going to have to make some
compromises. It’s also worth noting that we’ve experienced the odd
collision-detection bug and some weird texture drop-outs, occasionally
affecting whole scenes at a time. It’s early days with early GPU drivers,
though, so we suspect these issues will be nailed down with time.
Beyond
this, we get support for mouse and keyboard gameplay – a definite plus if you
play in first-person view – and some new options for background music. Not only
is there a new radio station to listen to – The Lab FM – but a rather ingenious
way of adding custom soundtracks to the game. Drag your own music files into a
subfolder called User Music, and they’ll play through a new Self Radio station
while you’re in the game. It’s a shame that Rockstar didn’t make this a little
more obvious or accessible, but playing GTA 5 with your own background tunes is
a blast.
GTA
Online comes bundled in, of course, bringing Rockstar’s online multiplayer
crime sim to the PC for the first time. It’s due a reappraisal now that the new
Heist missions have been dropped in, but it’s still a slightly odd combination
of open-world exploration and ad-hoc PvP larceny and murder (all good) and more
straightforward shooter and racer events, which don’t really play to GTA’s
strengths. It’s fun, but not Battlefield: Hardline.
No,
if we had to say that the PC version had a killer feature, it would be the new
Rockstar Editor and its accompanying Director Mode. At any point, you can start
recording the action, the game recording clips of up to 90 seconds in length.
You can also use an instant replay function to grab footage from an always-on
buffer after you do something cool or crazy. You can then use the Rockstar
Editor to edit and montage these clips, trimming them down, adding markers and
changing camera angles, so that you can switch from a behind the character view
to a front view, then a custom view and back again within one clip. On top of
this you can add a range of colour, vintage movie and TV effects, and also add
and edit soundtracks, with a solid selection of songs from all the radio
stations available for use.
Credit
to Rockstar here; it has created an editing tool that’s both fairly
sophisticated and surprisingly easy-to-use. Sure, serious video editors will
bemoan the lack of multiple video and audio tracks and the limitations on
transitions, but this isn’t that kind of tool. We can see a lot of players
using the Rockstar Editor to create their own cool scenes – and that’s good
enough for us.
With
Director Mode you can take this one stage further. Switch out of Story Mode to
Director Mode and a caravan appears, from which you can summon one of a range
of weirdos, freaks and background extras, plus any principal story characters
and heist recruits that you’ve unlocked. You can then teleport your start to a
range of locations, kit them out with any vehicles you’ve unlocked, then get up
to whatever you fancy in Los Santos, Blaine County and their environs. You can
even throw in dialogue, if your star has any, and a range of actions. Most
importantly, you can record what happens, edit it, and turn it into your own
mini movie, which you can then upload to YouTube if you fancy.
It’s
a whole new way to enjoy GTA. Want to see Michael’s wife, Amanda, going loco
stealing golf carts in the sticks? Now’s your chance. Want to see LiveInvader’s
Rickie Luken pulling outrageous stunts in the mountains? Be our guest. You
could even create multiple clips starring multiple characters and stitch them
all together into one weird little drama.
Since
GTA 3,
Rockstar has created games which feel like movies, and worlds where players can
play out their own slapstick scenes or blockbuster set-pieces. Now it’s given
us a way to record, refine and share our funniest, stupidest, boldest, most
spectacular moments, and a way to make new ones that Rockstar might never have
conceived. This isn’t just another clip editor. It’s closer in spirit to
Lionhead’s The Movies or the old LucasArts classic, Stunt Island. In-game
movie-makers should rejoice.
Maybe
Rockstar Editor and Director’s Mode won’t be for everyone, but they and the
other enhancements are enough to elevate GTAV on PC above its console brethren.
We’d still hesitate to recommend a double or triple-dip if you’ve already
played the existing versions to death, but if any game would make such a thing
worthwhile, this is it.
Reworked
and enhanced for next-gen consoles, GTA 5 might have been our game of the year
this year if it hadn’t been last year’s already. After twelve months in which
so many games have settled for slightly better or almost great,
this PS4 and Xbox One remaster is a welcome reminder that
giants still walk the Earth, producing games as bold and ambitious as this.
Playing GTA 5 again after Watch Dogs, it isn’t Ubisoft’s mildly disappointing
Chicago hack-a-thon that feels like the future of open-world games, but
Rockstar’s masterpiece. Watch Dogs promised to change the gaming world, but GTA
5 did more with last-gen hardware and half the fuss.
The
enhancements for Xbox One and PS4 are mostly cosmetic, and might initially seem
not as profound as you would hope. Everything looks that bit crisper and
clearer in full 1080p HD, with higher-resolution textures, improved
tessellation to provide smoother surfaces with more detail, a more complex,
realistic lighting system and a fantastic depth-of-field blur. It looks
fantastic, but perhaps not as startling as what we’ve seen in the latest
next-gen landmarks; the likes of Assassin’s
Creed: Unity, Forza Horizon 2, Destiny and Far Cry 4.
Luckily,
it isn’t long before you appreciate what Rockstar has done here. The
combination of the enhanced lighting engine and a tweaked night/daylight cycle
radically improves how Los Santos looks at different times of day or night. New
weather systems leave the streets slick with waterm while the sea has never
looked so good, either above it or below. Head out into the hills or drive up
into Blaine County, and there’s denser vegetation and a lot more wildlife.
Meanwhile the city gets more people, more traffic and more wandering cats and
dogs.
Most
importantly, the whole shebang now updates at a steady, locked 30fps, and while
we’ve had one or two brief moments of barely noticeable judder in the PS4
version, the action rarely skips a beat. Draw distances are unbelievable,
particularly from a high vantage point or from the air, while texture pop-in is
barely noticeable in all but the flying sequences – and even then not much. The
result of all this isn’t so much tastier eye candy as an even more convincing,
detailed and solid-feeling virtual world.
In
a way, this simply adds to all the good work Rockstar had already put in. What
elevates Los Santos above gaming’s other cities isn’t so much how it looks as
the whole experience; the snippets of chatter you hear as you pass by, the way
drivers react when you prang their vehicle, or your fellow citizens seem to be
doing something, going somewhere. Sure, we know it’s all just smoke and
mirrors, but Los Santos feels alive in ways that Watch Dog’s Chicago or even
the superb Sleeping Dog’s Hong Kong can’t match.
The
new first-person view is an interesting addition, and you can switch to it at
almost any time with just a few clicks of the Dual Shock 4’s touchpad. It’s a
more direct, immersive way to play the game – and sometimes a little too
immersive when Trevor’s indulging his more violent tendencies – but it’s
impressive that Rockstar has implemented it to the extent that it’s perfectly
possible to play the whole game from a first-person view.
We
wouldn’t necessarily recommend it for two reasons. Firstly, while it’s
beneficial in gunfights, which now play out much like a conventional FPS, it’s
not so beneficial when trying to drive around the city, nor much cop in
missions where you need to be aware of everything that’s going on around you.
Secondly, the first-person view creates a weird disconnect between the action
and the cinematics, as you flick from ‘being’ Franklin, Michael or Trevor to
watching them. Personally, I think GTA 5 works better from the old third-person
view, but if you don’t agree, Rockstar has you covered. There are enough
options here for movement and auto-aim that you can easily customize the game
to match your preferences.
Playing
GTA 5 again, it becomes clearer how smart its narrative structure is. Each of
the three protagonists brings a different feel to the action, with the stories
of retired career criminal Michael and the young, ambitious Franklin showing
different sides of a corrupt capitalist dream, while Trevor brings the mayhem
that is – if we’re honest – the twisted, comic heart of GTA.
Our
heroes aren’t always likable or sympathetic, with Trevor possibly the most
deeply unpleasant, vile individual to ever take a central role in a video game.
Yet the meshing of the three storylines works brilliantly to keep you hooked,
and it’s not hard to see the themes building up. Meanwhile, Rockstar’s brutal,
black-hearted satire hits more often than it misses, with something to offend,
well, just about everyone, no matter what your politics or personal creed.
Play
lesser open-world games, and you’re often left thinking that there’s a lot to
do, but most of it feels the same. Play GTA 5 and you’re hit with a bewildering
range of choices, not just in terms of the three characters’ story missions,
but in terms of all the side-content out there to explore. From assassinations
to paparazzo capers to Trevor’s rampage and arms trafficking, there’s no end to
the ways to explore Los Santos and Blaine County, while simply getting in a car
or on a bike and roaming around can feel like an activity in itself.
The
Xbox One and PS4 versions only add a handful of side-missions, including wildlife
photography and a murder mystery to solve. Still, it’s unlikely that you played
all the existing ones on your first run-through, which means there’s plenty to
get your teeth stuck into if you’re playing for the second time around.
GTA
Online also benefits from enhancements, the biggest being a rise of the player
cap from 16 players to 30. This makes it much, much easier to get multiplayer
jobs going – we’ve consistently had better turnouts than we did last year – but
also means there’s more chance of getting involved in some ad-hoc mayhem on the
streets of Los Santos. What’s more, the PS4 and Xbox One versions benefit from
all the improvements Rockstar has made to GTA Online over the last twelve
months or so. Sure, the basic deathmatch and team deathmatch jobs remain a
little underwhelming, but there’s more variety in the jobs, more to do out on
the streets and who knows? We might eventually get multiplayer heists.
It’s
possible to pick holes in Rockstar’s handywork, or to argue that San Andreas
had more activities, or that Vice City and GTA 4 had stronger protagonists.
You could say that the characters and situations are crime movie cliches, or
that the writing is too indebted to the movies of Quentin Tarantino, Michael
Mann and Martin Scorcese. Yet the more I play GTA 5, the less these things seem
to matter. It’s not a product defined by checkbox features or competition with
other games, but a work made by people trying to push the frontiers of gaming.
Their reach sometimes outstrips their grasp, but at least they’re reaching for
something.
Remasters
are always an awkward thing to review. Even with the best – Legend of Zelda:
The Wind Waker HD or The Last of Us:Remastered – there’s a real question whether you can recommend
them to people who’ve already played the original, or just those who are new to
the game.
This
still holds true for GTA 5 to some degree, but it’s an easier choice. There was
so much packed into Los Santos and Blaine County – a real smorgasbord of people
to see, places to visit and violence and depravity to (almost) shamelessly
indulge in – that a double dip feels like its worth the cash, particularly when
it looks and feels even better now. The result? One of the defining games of
the last generation is now a defining game on this one too.
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