Grand Theft Auto 5 - Game Review

Grand Theft Auto V Review

This game is everywhere. I waited for it to come out for PlayStation 4 because I thought I would have enjoyed it more. Now that I have played it, I honestly don't think that there is that big of a difference. But nonetheless, I understand now why this game is everywhere. It fits so many genres into one and nails it. For the most part, it will feel like you're playing as characters in a movie, one with a lot of dark and humorous dialogue that makes it all the more fun to play.

I have never come across a game that does storytelling like this one. You know, I imagine that it would be pretty hard to make someone care about three characters that take up theft and indiscriminate killing as a hobby/career, but somehow, Rockstar pulls it off. You learn the motivations and reasoning behind Michael, Franklin, and Trevor, the three main characters you get to play as. Michael is your fat American who loves watching movies and being rich. Franklin is your high school dropout gangster who just can't seem to be happy. And Trevor is your psychopathic killer with mommy issues. I love how Rockstar can take a psychotic person like Trevor and make him so likable and enjoyable. There are a handful of characters in this game, but you can separate each one apart easily, because they all feel distinct and different from each other, with their own story and personality.

I really don't like when characters in games feel all rinse and repeat like you've seen them before and Grand Theft Auto 5 suffers from none of that. The script in this game is hilarious, but also very, very dark at times. The script combined with all three of the wacky personalities you get to play as make up for some pretty awesome moments. To aid the story telling, you will get to see some of the most seamless transitions to cutscenes, with all of the cutscenes making you feel more involved in the story. The graphics in and out of the cutscenes are top notch, and the life-like movements of the character take motion capture to a whole new level.

To accompany the amazing story, you have a massive open world to get lost in, with a city, desert, forest and mountain range all in one just for your amusement. The giant city of Los Santos feels like your own personal playground to wreak havoc in, and I love that. I also love how Los Santos clearly parodies Los Angeles with its layout and angry pedestrians everywhere, just looking for a fight. You can do pretty much anything in this world, from friendly tennis games to murderous rampages. You can even flip out your own phone and surf the game's internet parody. While you are exploring the map, dying can occur often, and your only respawn points will be at hospitals. There aren't many hospitals at all, only around three to four, so it's kind of a pain to get back to where you were previously.

To add to the traffic packed city, you will have a lot of pedestrians roaming around the place, and they all have very realistic AI. citizens will run away screaming if you aim a gun at them. Cars will speed up if they hear shots fired. The AI helps to immerse you even more into the already realistic world, and I like that. The physics in this game are perfectly tweaked so that they're not too unrealistic but are perfect for driving and flying. With that being said GTA 5 has an enormous range of cars and vehicles, with hundreds of different variations and ways to customize it. To make driving more difficult and still fun, there will always be cars on the road to slow you down, but it kind of thins out the amount of cars you see the farther you get away from the city. There is also a nice range of weather effects that look very crisp.

One thing that is noticeable, but not too annoying, is the load time when you start up the game. When you immediately start up the game, you will be presented with logos and disclaimers plus the loading screen, which will take you about 2 minutes to sit through. It's not too bad for a game of its size and is totally forgivable since there are no load times between missions or cutscenes.

Since there are so many things to do in this world, It seems like it would be hard to learn all the controls for everything. This isn't the case, as the controls for non-specific minigames like tennis or golf will always be displayed in the corner of the screen, and they come very naturally. The on-foot controls are pretty basic, you'll even have a button specifically for jacking vehicles. Some of the controls are not as well designed as the others, for instance, constantly tapping A/X to sprint is aggravating. Another thing that I didn't like were the helicopter controls. They just felt a bit too sloppy to have a lot of control over, and at times was really frustrating. Also shooting while driving is extremely tedious, as it requires the multitasking of driving and shooting, and there is no auto aim to help, and it can be quite difficult with shooting and driving both being a trigger and a shoulder button.

Probably one of the biggest highlights of this game is the combat, which is pretty much cover and shoot. You will have loads of guns to choose from in this game, and they all have a different feel to it, so it doesn't just play as though it's copy and paste. The best missions in GTA 5 are the heist missions, which see you and your crew preparing for a heist on a jewelry store or bank and many others. These are very long missions and brilliantly designed. The cover and shoot mechanics are really good, and the auto-assist aim does exactly that, it assists you without it feeling too easy and forgiving. To add to the frenzy, you will have cool sound effects from the guns, and explosions. The background soundtrack is pretty decent, but the majority of the music you will hear will come from the in-game radio when you enter a car. The radio doesn't have that many songs for each station and can get a little too repetitive.

Aside from the brilliant single-player mode, there is also an Online feature. I haven't played much of GTA online, but it is very well made. It's biggest issues are it's loading times, which can take from 15 seconds, up to 5 minutes, much more substantial than singleplayer. I don't think that you can make a private lobby, or I at least couldn't figure out how to make on, so I found that annoying if I just wanted to play with friends and not have some random person breathing heavily into his microphone. Which was also another issue, there wasn't that quick of a way to mute an annoying person in the lobby, which was a frequent issue. I do like how easy it is to play with friends, think of everything amplified from singleplayer now that you can play with friends. GTA online also limits which guns you can buy, so that you will play it more to unlock some guns. I found that pretty ok with some guns, but just annoying with others. The newest heists update is amazing, each heist is around 1 hour and 30 minutes, and they play out just as well as singleplayer, except with real people.

It is impossible to pinpoint the exact best features of this game because they are all blended so well. Driving, flying and combat combined with the non-stop humorous dialogue are thrown out for you in almost every mission. GTA 5 doesn't lean on any one of the gameplay aspects because they are all just as fun as the next. This game can put you in some pretty intense situations, that make you want to step off to the side and say "That was pretty freaking awesome." And I love when games do that too, it's why Tomb Raider (2013) was such an amazing game. The length of the story is very long, but it keeps you hooked the entire time. Grand Theft Auto 5 combines the best elements of storytelling with the best elements of gameplay, alongside great character development throughout the entire story. I've never played an Action-Adventure game quite like this, and it actually stands to be one of the best Action-Adventure games I've ever played. I only have minimal complaints, and there is no complaint which can not be squashed by everything else this game does right. That's why I'm giving Grand Theft Auto 5 a...

+ Every gameplay aspect used correctly and nailed

+ Huge open world with so much life to it

+ Storytelling that is not sacrificed with open world

+ Funny Dialogue

+ Memorable characters and story

10/10

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor - Game Review

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor Review

What can I say about this game that has not already been said? Almost every aspect of this game adds up to make it one of my favorite games ever, combining elements from all games I love. Shadow of Mordor sets itself up to be dark and grim themed, set in the lord of the rings universe. The graphics are great, and the character design and Orc design make the world so much more believable. There will plenty of inhabitants to find and kill if you wish. The attention to detail in this game is incredible, and there is plenty of Easter eggs and secrets for those big Lord of the Rings fans to enjoy.

Shadow of Mordor tells the story of Talion, a ranger from Gondolin who, along with his family, have been slain by the black hand in a pretty gruesome cutscene. The Black hand uses them for sacrificial purposes, thinking that an ancient elf spirit, once summoned, will possess him and make him more powerful, except that the elf spirit has other ideas and decides to merge with Talion to prevent him from ever dying, to avenge his family. This gives Talion some sick wraith-like powers to help you seek revenge upon the black hand and kill anybody who opposes him relentlessly. For the entirety of the game the people that oppose you will only be a few different types of creatures and Uruks. When you're fighting Uruks though, you'll be fighting them in what is the most fluent combat system I've ever played in a game before. The story, though, is a different matter.

Starting strong with an intro that says to you "How much more interesting can this get?", it kind of falls apart at the end of the game. Right before the end of the game is when the story gets very captivating with all of its characters keeping you listening intently. There's no boss battle or anything with the antagonist, which is kind of disappointing. The final battle before the concluding cutscenes is kind of a bleak and brief stealth mission with one of the black hand's minions. It isn't as satisfying as I hoped and in all honesty it did disappoint me greatly. Instead, you are left with a quick time event which is as follows: x, x, x, move right stick into circle and press random face button, repeat last step three times, mash square approximately seven times and you win, game over. A concise cutscene plays and then the game ends. Just a warning for anybody, you will be underwhelmed by the ending.

As for the gameplay, whoa. You just need a moment to soak it all in, it's that good. It's pretty hard to get tired of. The thing that makes it so good is that it wins you over by giving satisfaction from everything you do. Even for the small things, like the screechy sucking noise that is played from the controller when you perform a drain on an Uruk. The most satisfying out of all is the swordplay. It takes the freeflow combat from the Batman Arkham games and Assassin's creed games while putting unique twists on it. When you first start out the Uruks will be pretty easy to beat and you will have just enough abilities to put to good use in combat. As you progress along with the game, the Uruks will begin to gain their own new abilities as you do. In one case the Uruks started attacking me two at a time, forcing me to counter twice. New types of Uruk will even show up, like Berserkers, these specially trained bulky Uruks who need to be stunned before you can attack them, Or Defenders, larger Uruks who carry shields and need to be attacked from the rear. All these things and more shake up the combat nicely, making every fight entertaining while being different from the last.

Then you begin to unlock new abilities which can make all the difference in combat, like a stun vault which allows you to vault over an Uruk while simultaneously stunning him, saving you the extra press of a button. And the combat is suited to everyone's needs, it can be as plain or as sophisticated as you like. You can easily win fights by vaulting, striking and countering only. There are, though, abilities which help win fights faster and essentially become a requirement later on in the game, the main ones being executions, drains, and wraith flashes.

Before I go any further, let me just say that the executions are the best part of the free-flowing combat, if not the best part of the game itself. The executions are 'executed' when your hit streak is charged, and a brief yet oh so satisfying animation plays where Talion brutally kills an Uruk in many creative ways. These range from around 10-15 gory animations, differing from Talion decapitating an Uruk, or slicing an Uruk halfway through the neck then slitting his leg joints. You get the point. All of these animations are played smoothly and in a fast paced motion, extending to around 1-2 seconds of jaw-dropping gore. You can easily lose track of time in the combat, it sucks you in like a vacuum.

Besides the sword, you'll also be granted a dagger and a bow. When you aim with the bow it goes into a slow motion mode, called Focus mode. The bow lets you see enemies highlighted in blue in the elf spirit's point of view. The bow mechanics are well designed and the bow is especially useful for making quick kills. You'll automatically switch to a dagger while in stealth, and you when you stealth kill an Uruk, and stealth kills are quick and gory, making stealth missions almost as fun as swordplay.

But the one thing that will keep people coming back to this game, again and again, is it's hierarchy system of Uruk Captains and Warchiefs called 'Sauron's army'. The hierarchy system shows a group of captains and 5 Warchiefs. All of these Captains and Warchiefs are randomly generated, each having their own unique strengths, weaknesses, and fears. All of this is found out by interrogating another captain or warchief, or by interrogating an Uruk marked green.  Captains/Warchiefs are plenty of fun to fight, as they add a lot of diversity to the combat and are pretty much like a randomly generated boss battle. The captain could be just strolling along before you pounce on him and gives the atmosphere a very eerie feel because they are everywhere and could catch you off guard.

For the first half of the game you will be stuck in a semi-medium sized map, and just when you want somewhere new to explore besides the ruined and dystopian Gondor, they give you a green and lush new map to explore, with even more hills and verticality. When you get the second map, you will almost instantly unlock the 'brand' ability, which allows you to mind control other Uruks whenever you drain them. This is an extremely helpful ability and was so useful for combat since the Uruks were getting harder. So much so that I was annoyed that the ability wasn't introduced sooner in the game.

One thing I didn't like about Shadow of Mordor is that there aren't many story missions, so the story is really short and I was really craving a few more side missions. The main thing that gives this game replay value is the randomly generated captains which never end. The thing I did like about these missions though is that they are never repetitive, and give you something new every time. I feel like most Action RPG's or open world games struggle with repetition, so that's something I was very glad about. Also, at the final boss battle, there's a cool looking area with red sand, and dust blowing everywhere. In the new small area, there's also a fort that looks all jagged and the sky is red, and it looked all hell-like. I really would have loved to see the new area expanded upon because it is very small and you can't revisit it once you finish the game. Which is a shame because it looked like it would make a good third map to explore. Overall,  Shadow of Mordor is a fanatical, fantastic game, taking the success and failure from similar games in the genre and learning from them.

+ Amazing combat/stealth              - unexplorable new area
+ Great attention to detail               - 'Brand' ability introduced late
+ Non-repetitive gameplay             - No boss battle with antagonist
+ Gory execution animations
+  Ridiculously helpful upgrades/abilities
9.6/10