Best GTA installment yet

User Rating: 10 | Grand Theft Auto V XONE

With the diversity that is humanity, there will never be a game the entire gaming community will agree on as being the best game ever made, ever played, ever to grace the electronosphere. I gave this game a 10 because it is the best game I ever played on the X360, and it is, currently, the best game I've ever played on XBone. It just is.

The game isn't perfect- irritatingly long load times (thankfully only at the beginning in SP, but for online, between matches, between instances, loadloadload - this was on the 360 mind you, haven't played online for the XBone yet), minor glitches and balancing issues (like the alien parts series of fetchit missions- the reward is DECIDEDLY lackluster) detract from the awesomeness that is Rockstar's latest installment of the Grand Theft Auto universe. It is a great game, make no mistake. I've heard and read gripes about the storyline and shallow character development (this from RPG oriented players who love the process of the progress), how switching between three protags is hardly innovative or clever (but definitely useful, especially under bullet driven duress), how Trevor is soooo disturbing and disturbed... Yes, yes to all of it. But you know what? Still a great game.

The list of why its so great is long, longer than I feel like typing because lets face it, I'd rather be playing but here's a few things to consider: Rockstar may not have pioneered the concept of open-world gameplay, they have certainly refined and improved on it. Sure there were a number of issues and bugs that needed to be dealt with but considering the sheer size and scope of this game, I'm just happy there weren't more of'm. The visuals are slick and clean, the mechanics the best they've ever been, be it driving, flying, shooting or just walking around. The voice acting is top notch- which is the usual for GTA but still noteworthy; how many games have we played where this wasn't the case? Even the background chatter's worth listening to and thankfully, you'll not hear the same ten phrases repeated ad nauseum- something the casual gamer probably never realizes but for those of us who like to dig in to a game it happens more often than not. There's a huge, huge selection of all types of means of conveyance, be it by sea, air or land. There's so much to do in the offline SP campaign side of San Andreas- I spent a lot of time in it and on it for the 360 version that I haven't even gotten to the online aspect for this latest version yet. It'll steal hours, lots of hours- but it won't need to, you'd give them gladly, it just happens and you're largely unaware until an alarm goes off or a voice calls out and reminds you that you need to return to life and recharge your own batteries. Don't worry, it'll be waiting for you to return, it's always there.