With a world record revenue of $1 billion in the first three days of its release, it’s fair to say that most console gamers across the world already own the entertainment juggernaut that is Grand Theft Auto V.
Perfect (10/10 or equivalent) reviews from the most influential games review websites and magazines such as IGN, Edge and Famitsu demonstrates that an enviable critical response has matched the game’s staggering consumer response. UK publisher Rockstar Games seem to pull off this feat time and time again.
GTA’s success lies in its scope. Whereas its biggest sales rival Call of Duty is released on an annual basis, satisfying gamers just enough until next year, Rockstar aims to overwhelm players in the amount of content a single game provides, even if that means taking intervals of up to five years.
The playable area one can explore is bigger than the past three installments in the franchise combined. There are over 70 missions to complete, and for the first time there are three playable main characters. Not forgetting the multiplayer component, which is a whole game in which you can create your own fourth character, rob jewellery stores and street race with your friends online.
One of the main attractions of the game is the ability to immerse yourself in a new world, and few do it better than GTA. Players can delight in the detail, whether it’s guessing which in-game cars are based on their real-life counterparts, exploring every inch of the map or matching the landmarks of the fictional city of Los Santos with those of Los Angeles (which gametrailers.com actually did in a 3 minute video entitled ‘GTA V – Virtual Tour’).
You could perhaps argue that the game is critique on the ‘Californication’ of pop culture that has developed over the past two decades, as evident in the bikini-clad women and South Central gangstas that adorned advertisement posters in the run up to the release date. Few people, however, could help enjoy riding a jet ski like an idiot along the waters of ‘Vespucci’ Beach (Real-life Venice Beach), or even rolling down the street conducting drive-by shootings to such West Coast classics as N.W.A.’s ‘Appetite for Destruction’ and Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg’s ‘Still D.R.E.’
Despite being set in the US, the game still retains a British idiosyncratic and self-referential sense of humour as you would expect. For example Trevor, one of the trio, has a side-mission to collect grisly souvenirs from celebrities for an eccentric British couple and Michael has to blow up an arrogant Mark Zuckerberg-type character in the middle of his keynote speech, using his own smartphone to do so. This is truly a game for the social media generation.
GTA V is an essential purchase for anybody with an Xbox 360 or Playstation 3. It is simply the crowning achievement of what arguably has been the most fruitful of console generations in the past 15 years.