

The two tie the truck’s tow line to beams holding the coach’s house up on the cliff. He informs Franklin about the situation, and the pair head over to a Malibu-esque cliffside house in a pickup truck.

Enraged, Michael decides to get revenge on the coach. For example, as Michael, I walked in on my wife sleeping with her tennis coach. Grand Theft Auto V also has some impressively smart writing. It’s impressive how much Rockstar was able to cram into this city and the surrounding desert a decade ago, and my brain hurts to think about just how big Grand Theft Auto VI is going to be. I’ve played past GTA games, and I adore both Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption II, but I figured a 2013 Rockstar game wouldn’t deliver an open world designed as well as the latter one, and yet, I’m in love with Los Santos. Every corner I turn, I find something else in Los Santos that catches my attention, be it a new Strangers and Freaks mission, a billboard with an advertisement that makes me cackle, or a street reminiscent of my trip to Los Angeles in 2019. Another minute, I’m playing as Michael listening to a salesman pitch me a new strain of weed that gets Michael so high he goes on a machine-gun fueled rampage to murder dozens of aliens. One minute, I’m having a real conversation as Franklin while talking to Jimmy about the faults of his dad.

It varies from real and well-written to absolutely off-the-wall, but not in a bad way – the more zany dialogue feels right at home in this glamorized, centralized version of Hollywood. I’ve already turned down the in-game music’s volume a touch to ensure I hear every interaction when driving through Los Santos and I love hearing phone calls come out of my DualSense controller’s speaker.įor me, the dialogue is the driving force of this game. Fast forward to meeting Franklin and his friends, and I find myself constantly laughing out loud at their conversations. Michael, Trevor, and Brad all react and speak to each other how I imagine they would if they were real humans in a world robbing a bank in some remote snowy town.

One thing I found particularly striking in Grand Theft Auto V is how immediately authentic these characters feel. After shaking off the feeling that this enhanced edition should have been free, though, I was able to play a game I can already feel shaping up to be a new favorite. Despite improved textures and lighting, Grand Theft Auto V still very much looks like a game from 2013. It should have been an update because, at best, it’s simply a 4K/60 FPS patch that makes things look a little better. In no way should Rockstar Games be charging for this new-gen version of the game. When I booted up the story mode for the first time and saw the visuals, I chuckled.
