Grand Theft Auto V: A Flawed Masterpiece that Redefines Gaming

I recently finished a fifty-five-hour playthrough of Grand Theft Auto V. It’s a ridiculously fun game. It’s also can be a very disappointing game.

Unlike Grand Theft Auto IV, Grand Theft Auto V is a flawed masterpiece worth playing, thinking, and talking about whose good will never erase its bad and whose bad doesn’t, for me, overwhelm its good—it just cheapens it.

 

The Table of Contents

The Gameplay Experience in GTA 5

About ten hours into my Grand Theft Auto 5 gameplay, my wife said, "I don't think I've heard you laugh this much since you started playing." And she was right.

• So many of the things that Grand Theft Auto IV almost got right were beautifully executed in Grand Theft Auto 5. The immersive game mechanics create an engaging experience that draws players into the heart of Los Santos, making it feel like a living, breathing city.

• Driving (and piloting) was fun in its own right, and the different handling based on vehicle and terrain kept it exciting and strategically interesting.

• The quantity and quality of random things to be done, discovered, and experienced was staggering and, more often than not, fun and even clever (like the No Country for Old Men random encounter).

• The grand theft auto gameplay mechanics truly shine within this sandbox environment, allowing players to immerse themselves in a richly detailed world filled with diverse missions and activities.

• Expert’s Insight
  “Rockstar has built a world that's not only technically astonishing but also filled with countless opportunities for the player to shape their own story.”
  — TechRadar

Open-World Exploration: A Major Draw

• The world itself was the most detailed and rewarding open-world gaming experience I've ever seen, and the variety was amazing (especially compared to the much more similar environments of IV).

• The action-adventure gameplay of GTA V not only enhances player immersion but also introduces innovative mechanics that set it apart from its predecessors.

From different gaming perspectives, Grand Theft Auto V combines storytelling, character growth, and open-world exploration in a way that keeps players talking about it.

Engaging Missions and Side Activities

• I spent hours just exploring, or doing GTA V missions that let me explore (like cleaning up nuclear waste in a submarine and exploring all the underwater wrecks).

• The game narrative unfolds organically, engaging players at every turn as they interact with the vibrant world. I loved the animations when the characters failed awkwardly at things like jumping over a ledge.

Exploring the Characters of Grand Theft Auto V

• Also, for the first time I was really interested in the characters in a Grand Theft Auto game. Niko in Grand Theft Auto IV was okay, but inconsistently interesting and rarely fun.

• Franklin and Lamar’s initial couple encounters (the ‘get a haircut’ rant and Employee of the Month controversy) had me laughing out loud at points because—finally—the humor was not based on junior high sexuality but the quirky attitudes and characteristics of two grown, flawed men.

Expert’s Insight
“GTA V is not just a preposterously enjoyable video game, but also an intelligent and sharp-tongued satire of contemporary America.”
— The Verge

The Trio of Characters in GTA 5: Michael, Trevor, and Franklin

Character Complexity in Trevor

• Trevor and Michael are similar. It is clear, from the very beginning, that in grand theft auto v Trevor is not a good man.

• He is interesting to watch and listen to. He is not only a psychopath but also very smart, unpredictable, and complex.

• Trevor is openly comfortable with his sexuality. He balances being understated and very direct in what he says.

• He has his own unique set of morals, which he sometimes chooses to ignore. This makes his character feel interesting and believable.

Michael's Duality: The Good and The Bad

• I loved watching the protagonists interact, because while Trevor was clearly the most dangerous of the three.

• Michael’s treatment of Trevor and Brad was a terrible betrayal, and his constant lies about it made him less sympathetic than Trevor for me at many points in the game.

• Which was unsettling, because Trevor is an ultraviolent monster. He is a complicated person who has a steady relationship with Patricia Madrazo.

• I always found it interesting to see their story develop. His view on events is often both funny and insightful.

Michael's Betrayal of Trevor

• I enjoyed the moment in the game when Trevor starts to suspect something about Michael's grave. He immediately leaves to check it out, and you get to play as Trevor to help him reach a plane for his investigation.

• You don’t do much – just drive him to the airstrip while he and Michael talk on the phone – but this was perfect, because I found my mind racing.

• I was playing as Michael during the cutscene. I knew Trevor might lose control. I felt for Michael and hoped Trevor wouldn't discover what was going on. But there I was driving, helping Trevor find out.

• And, when I thought about it, Michael was the asshole in this situation, so really Trevor should know the truth.

• But he was a monster and the discovery would likely lead to no good. Was Michael really better, even if he causes less trouble? I had a lot to think about on the way to the airstrip, and I was loving it.

Franklin: The Underutilized Character

• Franklin's viewpoint is both funny and interesting. However, my main issue with his character is that after the first part of the game, he does not get enough attention.

• He continues to appear in the missions, but his character doesn't receive much intriguing development when the story focuses on Michael and Trevor's relationship.

The Flaws in the Plot

The Contrast Between Franklin and Trevor

• The plot itself was good enough in Grand Theft Auto V, but the way the Michael-Trevor storyline resolves is so-so.

• Franklin is underdeveloped, and Devin Weston and Steve Haines are often implausible, as are most of the heist logistics. Even though I liked the characters and found the gameplay enjoyable, I didn’t mind that the story was just average.

The Flaws and Criticism of Grand Theft Auto V

• And then there are the flaws. The terrible, terrible flaws. I find myself fixated on trying to figure out why, when Rockstar North are so clearly good at so many things—including, in Grand Theft Auto V, making interesting characters out of generally unsympathetic men.

• The Grand Theft Auto games remain so stupidly sexist and cynical, the key word being “stupidly.” Sexism and cynicism can be interesting in a game. They can show character flaws or present strong viewpoints that I may not agree with.

Cynicism could be nuanced and sympathetic

• As Trevor is sometimes nuanced and sympathetic, despite being a psychopath.

• But the cynicism and sexism in Grand Theft Auto V stay stupid. They’re not well thought out, they’re not clever, they’re not amusing, like so much of the rest of the game is.

• (I know, humor is subjective. But I feel pretty confident saying that the sexism and cynicism in Grand Theft Auto V are almost always lazily one-dimensional).

The Stereotype Projected in this Game

• Many others have discussed how this game treats women poorly and refers to them as sexual objects. This shows the problems that exist in sexist video games and harmful portrayals.

• The female characters, all secondary, don’t help much. The two most prominent are Michael’s wife, Amanda, whose plotline revolves primarily around her sleeping with lots of other men, leaving Michael, and coming back to him.

• We know practically nothing else about her – certainly nothing that’s developed or particularly interesting.

Secondary Characters and Their Roles

• Then there’s Michael’s daughter, Tracey. She is involved in risky behavior and often finds herself in trouble, needing help frequently.

• There’s also Franklin’s aunt, a source of derision for her empty feminist new-age empowerment (a counterpart to Amanda’s rich wife hobbies) and sexual promiscuity.

Unresolved Storylines and Character Arcs

• And, at the end, there’s Trevor’s mom A former prostitute and stripper who makes him feel worthless to manipulate him into doing what she wants (though the manipulation could be simply a hallucination of Trevor’s, depending on how one interprets that mission).

Addressing the Game's Misogyny and Cynicism

• None of these women are characterized as sympathetic or intelligent Or involved in anything worthwhile or even interesting.

• There are a few interesting female characters in Grand Theft Auto V (Maude, Patricia, Tanisha, Taliana, Tonya) but their roles are miniscule, even more so when compared to the volume of material in the game, the overwhelming amount of misogynistic depictions of women, and the bigger roles, which all go to male characters.

• There’s no defense of the misogyny in the game. It lacks cleverness, thoughtfulness, accuracy, originality, and it doesn’t offer an interesting perspective on the characters or the world. It’s just an unfortunate, slimy undercurrent to a game where so much else is worth praising.

The Impact of Stereotypes on Gameplay Experience

• Grand Theft Auto V’s cynicism is the same way Everything it points its lens at is “stupid.”

• There’s little need to update the list I made in my Grand Theft Auto IV post, because the game has little new to say here. Liberals, rednecks, women, the government, the middle-aged, corporations: they’re stupid and bad.

• I suppose we can add millennials, social media, celebrities, beachgoers, psychiatrists, gamers, conspiracy theorists, etc.

• The list could go on and on, but the point is that the game’s attacks on these stereotypes are overwhelmingly dull—because it attacks empty stereotypes.

• They’re easy, uninteresting targets. Middle-aged men can be sexually insecure. Millennials can be lazy. Women can be superficial and either slutty or prudish. Wake me up when you get interesting again, GTA 5, please.

• Even more baffling is that occasionally, this Grand Theft Auto game actually does make interesting social critique, like when Franklin pushes back against a quip of Trevor’s about lazy millennials to say something like, “Actually, that whole entitled millennials is more a middle-class thing. Where I’m from hustling still hustling.”

• It’s clear from Franklin, Trevor, and Michael’s dialogue. That Rockstar North is capable of writing interesting, funny, characters and social commentary. Why do they include so much crude humor and negative attitudes toward women that feel like they are taken from an old game or a high school locker room?

• Player Engagement and Future of the Franchise

I’m not saying the series needs to be politically correct, but when nearly everything about the gameplay, characters, and world of GTA V is so much more sophisticated than previous entries, I don’t understand why they stick with such dull, stupid, unimaginative bigotry and lazy cynicism.

Why pander to a perceived lowest common denominator in such a boring, mindless way?

Conclusion: The Legacy of Grand Theft Auto V

We rate Grand Theft Auto V an ambitious but uneven 8.8/10 — a strong ★★★★½ on our retro-modern scale.

• I believe that if the entire game had characters like the main ones, it would still be very successful. The game doesn't need to have negative portrayals of women or anyone else to be enjoyable.

• They can express themselves in a clever and articulate way, often showing misogyny and cynicism. What was the reason for not doing that this time?

• You can argue that easy, unthinking woman bashing and cynicism is what makes Grand Theft Auto, and maybe that's what it is.

• It seems that Rockstar Games might be developing a game that uses negative stereotypes and basic humor. This could be for creative reasons or to make money.

• But when they've proven, as they keep doing by making increasingly worthwhile games, that they are intelligent, creative people capable of building the most alive game-world ever, I can't help but be massively disappointed that I still have to slog through so much stupidity to enjoy the rest of their amazing achievement.

• The gameplay and stories in single-player mode and Grand Theft Auto Online show that the series can capture players' interest. It does this without using old stereotypes or shallow jokes.

As players explore the detailed world of Los Santos, they look for gameplay that connects with the changing views of the gaming community.

Achievements

What do you think – does the background humor need to change? Is it pandering or sincere? Is it justifiable? Is it enough to ruin the game?

Frequently Asked Questions

How many Grand Theft Auto games are there?

What is GTA 5 about?

Where is Grand Theft Auto V located?

• GTA V is set in the fictional state of San Andreas, modeled after Southern California.
• The main city, Los Santos, is inspired by Los Angeles and includes a mix of urban environments, mountains, deserts, and coastline.

How many GTA 5 missions are there?

• GTA 5 features a total of 69 main story missions. These missions revolve around the three protagonists and involve major heists, character-driven events, and narrative progression.
• In addition, there are numerous side missions, "Strangers and Freaks" encounters, and optional objectives.

Is Grand Theft Auto available on PS5?

When did Grand Theft Auto V come out?

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