You’re first introduced to Franklin, "the kid from the ‘hood". He’s trying to make some honest coin working as a repo driver while his friends ( I’ll refrain from using the character’s parlance for “my Afro-American friend”, as there’s more than plenty of that in the dialogue) all talk of “poppin” this and “ho-ing” that. He crosses paths with Michael, ex-heistmeister living under witness protection with his wife and two kids in up-market Vinewood.
Finally, there’s Trevor, a total nutcase and Michael’s old heist buddy who, after their last job went south, relocated to Blaine County - redneck country - to sell Meth, to murder bikers and to run his “enterprise”. A little bit of media attention brings the two old friends back together, along with new boy Franklin, for japes, giggles and water boarding.
These blokes are F.U.N. There’s no droll tale of escaping a sinister past and, “Oh, but really, I’m actually not a bad guy” like was served in GTA IV. The people are colourful, their lives and their dialogue are entertaining and they each have their own entourage and familials who are just as enjoyable to be around as they are.
Discovering what Michael’s kids will get up to next, only to be browbeaten into doing some Yoga with his estranged wife (Yes, you get to do Yoga. In a game. A GTA game. That’s right) is so compelling I’d just forget about Franklin and go straight back to Michael’s story.
Trevor is a whole package of entertainment in himself, but Ron and Wade, his spineless yes-men, constantly grappling with their boss’s unpredictability rounds his story out perfectly.
Perhaps I’ll go back and re-do the early missions with the subtitles on - playing a game of this nature, at 4am, with the volume high enough to pick out all the dialogue, is not really appropriate when you have young children trying to sleep.
Menage a trois
Having three characters to play truly mixes the game up. Unless you’re locked into a mission, you can pretty much skip between them at will.
You can choose how much time to want to spend with each outside of the primary missions. There’s not so much freedom in-mission, as you’ll be locked in to a particular character and forcibly switched to take on the role of another, but often you can again elect to take control of the characters and situations how you prefer; flying a chopper evading pursuit vs taking the 50cal and gunning down your foes.
Special Care
Each of the characters’ special abilities might sway you on this. Say you’re racing from a job, pursued by several gun-slinging SUVs, with Franklin at the wheel and Michael returning fire. Franklin’s ability allows him to slow time while driving, giving you a better chance of out-running your assailants, where as Michael can slow time during a firefight, providing a better chance of taking out the driver or the car’s tyres.
Trevor’s ability, on the other hand, is less about finesse - marvellous complementing his character. The best description is probably “rage”, during which his firepower is greatly increased and loses less health when hit.
These special abilities form just one aspect of each of the character’s overall abilities, making for an almost RPG-like approach to levelling-up during play. Each character has his own base-level of strength, stamina, shooting, driving, flying & lung capacity, and carry any activity that draws on those abilities leads to increased experience and, ultimately, increase capacity.
Outside of missions, it’s certainly worth spending time working on those abilities. In fact, your peers will gently suggest you work on you weaker aspects in prep for a coming mission; perhaps a visit to the airfield to put in some flying hours?
