This is part VI of my GTA V review. You can read part I, part II, part III, part IV and part V to get my thoughts on the game's early stages.
I've spent 18 hours getting to know GTA V and, in some ways, it's not nearly enough time. There's still plenty of side missions and heists to be had, lots of property to buy and plenty of grinding there for the taking. My time spent playing GTA V has felt more like a guided tour than full-on immersion; there is plenty I haven't done because I don't have the time. And what I have done has been some of the craziest, most entertaining gaming I've experienced in a long while.
GTA V is its own special class of game. Everyone knows going in that GTA V has a lot to live up to and expectations are high. The longer you play, the higher those expectations get. Aside from some flawed combat here and there the execution of GTA V is flawless. I saw that on my second major heist. There was plenty of action and plenty of things that went wrong, but the twist at the end was completely unexpected.
It's nice to see how the story influences the gameplay on the larger missions, and when I walked away from the cargo freighter heist I had to wonder what I may have missed by choosing the path I did. Every major heist has two paths of completion which, when combined with the scoring for side missions, adds a lot of replay factor and a lot of "what if" potential.
I continue to be impressed with the variety of vehicles in GTA V. Being forced to use heavy machinery as well as air and sea vessels shows the scope of the drive physics in the game. Big cumbersome trucks FEEL big and cumbersome. Every vehicle rides different but none are undrivable or so complex you can't get to where you're going.
You'd think that after 18 hours some of jokes or humor would wear thin, but Rockstar does a superb job of continuing to introduce bizarre characters that the dialogue rarely feels forced or mundane. Only the bro-fight vibe between Michael and Trevor gets repetitive. Every other spoken word and character in the game feels like they belong there. And getting to see the personalities of each main character as they interact with their own deranged contacts keeps things feeling fresh even after hours-long gaming sessions.
The joy of the side missions and distractions in GTA V is that they are rarely of the "go here and kill stuff" variety. Instead, you'll be taking dirty pictures or stealing celebrity mementos or racing all over town marveling over how gigantic the world is.
What have I learned after 18 hours with GTA V? That there is likely another 18 hours ahead of me. And I couldn't be happier about it.
