Grand Theft Auto V (PC)

A Technical programming feat! ******************************************************************************************************************** OK, first things first, Dear Viewers, some people don`t like it when drm or installing procedeures are mentioned. I believe that every reviewer has a duty to review ALL aspects concerning a game if he can, this includes any troublesome (or easy) aspects of installing and DRMs. Scroll to after the asterix line if you want the main review. The package. Well as some have said, you get a nice, if you order a physical game , you get a nice well put together pack. There`s a huge double-sided map of the city you`re in showing a lot of detail, a wafer thin install manual (that`s all it is). I also got a `pre-order` bonus leaflet that gave added cash and stuff... er, I never preordered, but I`ll keep it it, thanks. On install, this game appeared to be Steamed (it came up with the Steam logo), but it installed without. Weird, but I don`t like Steam, so I was pleased. however, you have to be online with the Rockstar Social Group and the game is your forever (this never happened with GTAIV), so it`s like a mini version of Steam and is a DRM. 7, yes, SEVEN discs comes in the pack. Be prepared to spend at least up to TWO hours installing. Then goes online where you have to sign up to the Rockstar social club. then it installs another 6 (SIX) gig! This took TWO HOURS and I have fast net. It must be their servers. You cannot play without this. I started at around 4pm and the game was not ready till after 8pm. This must be the longest installation in the history of gaming! However, I had prepared my PC and myself before hand, defragging and cleaning up my files, uninstalling crap I didn`t need, so it was relatively painless. I just did my artwork during the wait. Thanks to the previous reviewers who warned of this wait. :) By the way, I was little concerned about some of the clauses it wants you to accept (I didn`t bother reading the back until I was well into downloading the 60 gig) and it concerned me when it mentioned `periodic entitlement verification`, I doubt I would have bought the game had i known that from the start. I have not seen this `periodic entitlement verification`in action yet, but it is a worry as I play almost exclusively Offline. The game loses half a star for this crap, normally, it would be one, but I`ll explain later. Just be aware. ******************************************************************************************************************** THE GAME..... You start off during a bank heist... I won`t say any more, but it`s pretty cool the way it drags you in there. It`s a little like Heat, the movie and it doesn`t spare the swearing or the killing when the cops descend on you. Just before it got going I hit `esc` to get into the Options and you are greeted with a raft of them. I love lots of options and it is all here. I was able to set my game up almost exactly as I like it. I had everything set for 1st person view mouse and keyboard and it worked perfectly. The only thing I haven`t been able to do is set up my controller for car driving, there doesn`t seem to be a custome mode for that, so i just stuck all that on the keyboard. It worked perfectly- the buttons have been very well thought out so you can use the same buttons for different modes without confusion. Well, done Rockstar! I had a big smile on my face as I went through the intro in First Person. I have always wanted this in a GTA game and at last it was here. My only gripe is that sometimes you are thrown into 3rd for some quick scenes and weapon ironsights are not TRUE. You don`t look right down the sights in aim. I don`t know what its like for sniper rifles, but I`ll bet you do get to look down the sites for those as you did in previous games. The game then introduces you through the three main characters until you finally settle on the black guy. You are introduced to more controls and options to set you. Then you can start swapping between guys. For now though I`m just on the black guy and have completed a few simple missions ranging from vehicke pickups to upsetting gang members. Graphics are extremely good and I almost maxed everything and still had smooth gameplay. I am somewhat awed by the technical feat of this game. You can simply grab a car or walk and just explore the city- And there`s a LOT of city to explore. It is really a simulation of reality, I have to say. Pretty much everything is there: People, cars, aircraft, animals, the whole thing moves and works together so realistically. Except children, there are no children. I suppose the only way to express how expansive this game is, is by an example: I took a car from the garage and decided to just have a drive around, listening to a track on the many radio stations. People of all types were walking, some on mobiles, others drunk, people doing their own thing. Driving among cars in 1st person is so much like the real thing. Obviously the car controls are simplified, but the rest is so `there`. Vehicles act like you`d expect. I sidled next to a car at a red light and looked (using mouse look-great!) and saw a pretty lady in it, she was bobbing her head to some music. A man crosses the road a bit late and gets hooted at by a cement-mixer truck driver. the man panics, drops his ice cream and runs to the other side. We all drive on. There hundreds of little details like this. I drove into a new area I didn`t know, certain people started looking at me. Some sounded downright angry at me. Why? I`m just driving. Then I realised I was black, and these guys were Hispanic? And they didn`t like me in their neighbourhood. I`m English, so I`m not sure, but it was such an amazing amout of realism- as well as sad to see. I didn`t get out. I drove on. It`s getting dark, someone shouts! Their bike has been stolen. The game tells me that random stuff like this will happen and its up to me if I do anything. I chased after the cyclist thief in my car and knocked him over! he said "F**K this!" and ran off. I got the bike and brought it back to the owner, who was happy to get it. He never paid me anything though. This is just a tiny bit to the depth of this game, I`ve been to stripper dance joints, gun shops, hair shops and watched a completely random non-scripted dynamic gun shoot out between cops and a driver who crashed into a wall. There`s also a heluva lot of satirical content regarding society, even one satirising `The Cloud` which I hate because it is not privacy and the game seems to recognise that. Maybe I`m the person being satired! LOL. I have been at this game for about 5 hours and barely scratched the surface and totally offline (physically disconnected from the net). It`s an astonishingly ambitious and huge game and it works so far. Issues? Microtransactions: the game will sometimes try to get you to pay cash for extra stuff online. I`ve ignored it. It seems to happen only in shops so far, so i treat it like reality and just don`t buy. Hate microtransactions. This kind of thing and the DRM means it loses a whole Star altogether. *Edit: Well it did, but it has made up for it by its excellence in gameplay, so i`ve changed my rating. Very brilliant game, an incredible work by who knows how many programmers. There are like a dozen game modes done better than many games that do almost ONE of these things well. Pity about the DRMs and the `periodic Entitlement verification`, and micro transactions otherwise it would have all 5. I might update later if this is not as bad as it sounds. Apart from that, I would actually recommend this game. just make sure you have a decent internet connection for the install and give yourself the best part of a day before even playing it. P.S Before I said the weapons in the game had no true ironsights. I was wrong, it does. All weapons have proven look along the barrel view. EXCELLENT! P.P.S I have played this game solidly over the weekend and you know what? I`m giving it 5 Stars. Not only is this an amazing sandbox game, but the story and characters and the whole way this thing works is very impressive. There are dozens of things you can do like hunting, playing darts, helping people or not, customise with clothing and hairstyles (although they are bit low for some characters). There are dozens of things and places to find. Plus that you can have proper ironsights after all on weapons. It`s also a pretty bold Man`s game which I like a lot, few are brave enough to be so these days, apart from the Witcher. Respect. Also, I am still amazed at how it all flows and works seamlessly. It`s not just about the graphics, but the Technical genius behind it. Yes, I said genius, a word I almost never use for anyone. Despite my concerns about the DRM (which have not troubled me while I`ve been Oflline), I am ridiculously impressed. 5 STARS.

I can't get past the Day-1 PC Patch to actually play the game. It's a 5GB download which is going to take forever on my less than average ADSL speed of 2.6mbps. That speed isn't because the Rockstar servers are rammed it's the actual speed of my ADSL I honestly thought that purchasing the physical disks (all 7 of them) would mean I could avoid this. I realise that game producers need to patch games but 5GB? I therefore have given this 1 star because of the huge and inappropriate download to get the game installed. Game Devs need to be more intelligent about their online patch delivery methods and not make the assumption that everyone has a fibre connection - detect links speeds and prioritise patches for those on poor internet connections OR list high speed internet as a minimum system requirement on the box. If someone here knows how to bypass the Rockstar Social Club Patch download so that I can actually play the game without having to wait weeks for it to download, I might give it another star. As I am still waiting for the download to complete (might be here a while), i'll review the packaging it came in instead.. Overall packaging rating - 4/5 Pros: Glossy black card outer case with cartoon images of characters from the game and the usual 18 certificate ratings A leaflet offering you $1,000,000 in-game 7-page manual providing photosensitive siezures warning, install instructions, tech support and the activation code Handy fold-out map of Blaine County 7 x DVDs housed in the best case seen since the Alien Quadrilogy 9 DVD box set More cartoon depictions of characters from the game - a looking glamorous, moody and either holding a baseball bat or a gun Cons: Because there are 7 DVD, the Amazon box might not fit through your letter box, so be warned you might have to open the door to the delivery driver Weirdly, the opening of the box is on the base rather than the top. Picking up the package without supporting it from the base will mean all 7 DVDs and handy map will fall out onto the floor.

incomplete product - worthless - waste of time