GTA IV had an excellent story and focused in on the atmosphere, satire and overall impression it wanted to create. But it was also very restrained and restricted especially for a GTA game. GTA V was tasked with adding back the chaos and hilarity, which it did, but I also felt it was too unfocused and spread itself thin.
GTA V is a very good game, but with the resources it had, plus the promises it made, it's somewhat disappointing that largest game ever created has evoked no more "yeah, it's fun" out of people.
GTA V is unfocused in its story and themes. It's not sure whether it wants to be South Park or Scarface. It wants to be satirical, but unlike IV and San Andreas, it attacks so many targets so frivolously, it lacks a resonating message. Like Errant Signal said, the game wants to express genuine emotion and then muddle itself in to prevent the player from experience a genuine heartfelt moment.
As San Andreas and IV did, good fantasy writing involves believable characters involved in unbelievable situations. V doesn't have believable characters. It's possible to mix comedy and drama, but GTA V has those elements contradict each other rather than complement. With the story, the involvement of three lead characters results in so many plot threads, that none got the focus they deserved. It would have been better if Michael's story had the most focus, and Trevor/Franklin were ancillary.
From a gameplay perspective, it tries to do hundreds of different things. It does most of them competently but very few of them exceptionally. The driving and auto-customization were great though. The draw of the story mode was the heists, but there's only 6 of them and the majority of them don't give nearly the amount of strategy, complexity and depth as was advertised. The overworld is massive, but a large chunk of it is just barren hills. I would have cut the size of the overworld in half in exchange for each area having more things to do in them.
GTA Online tried to be a part-time MMO, but good MMO's can't be made in one's spare time. All in all, I think GTA V's gameplay has focused on what it isn't rather than what it is. The core of GTA is causing loads of chaos. That's always been the goal. Being a spiritual sequel to San Andreas, I was surprised that there were only a handful of cheat codes that let you disrupt the game. The game hedges its bets with things like mini-games, businesses you can manage, and doing weird by-the-numbers missions for strangers. I wish Rockstar more effort giving the player reasons to have fun in their world rather than trying to take them away from it with games of tennis and such.
GTA V is a very good game, but with the resources it had, plus the promises it made, it's somewhat disappointing that largest game ever created has evoked no more "yeah, it's fun" out of people.
GTA V is unfocused in its story and themes. It's not sure whether it wants to be South Park or Scarface. It wants to be satirical, but unlike IV and San Andreas, it attacks so many targets so frivolously, it lacks a resonating message. Like Errant Signal said, the game wants to express genuine emotion and then muddle itself in to prevent the player from experience a genuine heartfelt moment.
As San Andreas and IV did, good fantasy writing involves believable characters involved in unbelievable situations. V doesn't have believable characters. It's possible to mix comedy and drama, but GTA V has those elements contradict each other rather than complement. With the story, the involvement of three lead characters results in so many plot threads, that none got the focus they deserved. It would have been better if Michael's story had the most focus, and Trevor/Franklin were ancillary.
From a gameplay perspective, it tries to do hundreds of different things. It does most of them competently but very few of them exceptionally. The driving and auto-customization were great though. The draw of the story mode was the heists, but there's only 6 of them and the majority of them don't give nearly the amount of strategy, complexity and depth as was advertised. The overworld is massive, but a large chunk of it is just barren hills. I would have cut the size of the overworld in half in exchange for each area having more things to do in them.
GTA Online tried to be a part-time MMO, but good MMO's can't be made in one's spare time. All in all, I think GTA V's gameplay has focused on what it isn't rather than what it is. The core of GTA is causing loads of chaos. That's always been the goal. Being a spiritual sequel to San Andreas, I was surprised that there were only a handful of cheat codes that let you disrupt the game. The game hedges its bets with things like mini-games, businesses you can manage, and doing weird by-the-numbers missions for strangers. I wish Rockstar more effort giving the player reasons to have fun in their world rather than trying to take them away from it with games of tennis and such.
