Done with your morning callisthenics? Then get on the job! You’ll quickly find that missions, like the characters, are more interesting than those that have come in GTAs of yore. A broader set of skills is one factor, and the mix of characters is of course another.
However, it’s the chain of events that raises the bar. While you’ll still find the basic “Find & Retrieve” or “race and eliminate” missions, there are now a set of large scale mission. Super missions, if you will. These all require planning. I’m not suggesting a free-form planning session, but rather a set of options that will alter the way the objective is tackled, the team and their skills, and also the “tools” required.
Do you go in “Shock and Awe” or “Softly, Softly”? How you choose will affect the rest of the plan and your team and tools “load out”. Picking your team is a balance between cheap (asks a low cut, but carries questionable reliability) or good (wants a bigger cut, but with less risk).
The tools depend entirely on the job; it could be uniforms, cars, vans, knockout gas, custom weapons, helicopters, submarines - you name it. Your team will locate the tools, and then you have to take the player characters to collect them before the mission can begin. As a result of all these options, how the missions unfurl could vary from one person’s plan to the next.
Did you rappel and go in through the window or come in from the roof? Was the getaway driver on time and able to get you away? Didn’t like how they mission went? You can always return - to any mission, planned or simple - to play it different and aim to get a tick against all the achievement checkboxes.
You can opt for regular GTA auto-targeting, which means you can simply pop-up and let off a shot, or go balls-out for manual targeting. Either way, the reticule now indicates whether you’re on-target, if you made a hit and if that hit was a kill.
To add to that, when an enemy dies, the vision goes blank and white, which is useful when an injured enemy that could still cause harm is now, well, harmless. If things get really messy, and the mission allows, you can always switch to another character, offering not only renewed health but also a fresh angle on the battle.
Driving also has a more solid feel to it. GTA was never shy about giving you a fun, seat-of-the-pants driving experience, and it’s more so here. As I’ve already mentioned amount of traffic is, at the outset, a real hindrance. However, with a few hours at the wheel, getting to know not only the streets but also the handling of each vehicle, you’ll be “breathing-in” as the cars fly between lanes of standing traffic - an essential skill in the busy downtown intersections and the nose-to-tail trucks on the overpasses of the industrial district.
Let’s take this baby out of the city, and see what else this world has to offer. Truth be told, it was the first thing I had on my list; “1. see how big this place is.”, and in GTA V you no longer have to wade through missions before the rest of the world is opened up - it’s there for you from the start.
One of my lasting memories of San Andreas was getting to the summit of Mount Chiliad. Well, with GTA V within an half an hour of putting the disc in (actually, strike that, make it 90 minutes - the install was a bitch) I’d blazed north along the freeway to Blaine County, along the shore of the Alamo Sea and made the ascent to the mountain-top viewing platform. The vista to the south is a shimmering sea Los Santos’ lights (it was getting late, you know), while the full moon lent the high clouds a silvery iridescence.
By morning, the mountains were shrouded in mist and the distant downtown spires erupted from a low smog. Yup, the environmental effects are sublime. Remember, in Red Dead Redemption (Didn’t play it? Do so. Now!), that first ride from the station, with the low sun dancing through the dust and cacti? Or the view from the snowy peaks of Tall Trees, looking over the plains of Hannigan’s Stead?
Well hold that in your mind and imagine that in a modern setting. Go pop a dollar in the telescope and zoom in on the traffic far off in Los Santos. It. Is. Breathtaking. Maybe I need to get out more, but moments like this make me very happy that I’m a gamer.
Plus, I can grab the parachute from the cable car station and jump the fuck off the top of the mountain, with only the flap of the canopy to disturb the serenity. And then I thought to myself, “Imagine this on PS4 or Xbox One.” I had to take a moment.