I've never been very good at playing GTA. I died pretty easily in the 3D era games and couldn't aim worth shit. I was an unstoppable killing machine in a car, but once a mission took me to a park filled with trees that were for some reason immune to vehicular collisions, I was less of a threat than M'Quve in his Gyan. A prime example was in GTA3 when I had to kill Chunky Lee Chong and it took me three tries to realize that "Holy shit, I can lock on to people".
This game brings you back to San Andreas 21 years after CJ brought the GSF back into power, broke Sweet out of prison, and beat the system. It's set in the year 2013, and boy did a lot of things change between then and now. San Andreas isn't a big solid chunk of state anymore, but rather is composed of an island in which the game is set, and a piece that's in the mainland proper which you don't get to explore. Los Santos and Vinewood are in Southern San Andreas, but Las Venturas and San Fierro are back in the mainland. CJ isn't seen or mentioned thanks to the HD universe being a parallel dimension or something, GSF is now just called the Families apparently, and the Ballas own Grove Street now which is fucking tragic.
In this game you play as three main characters and can switch between them at any time when you're not on a mission, provided they're in San Andreas and aren't lying low after robbing a bank or something. Franklin Clinton is the first character you control; a young low level gangbanger who recently distanced himself from the Families to go to a more legitimate and less life threatening line of work in vehicle repossession. He comes across as the exasperated straight man of the trio of protagonists, and he's often really frustrated with the ridiculous arguments and demands other people heap on him, which is the case in the majority of side quests you get in this game when you're playing as him. With his childhood friend and fellow gangbanger Lamar, he steals back cars that owners haven't paid up for. One of these cars belongs to the son of the second main character, Michael.
Michael De Santa is the second main character. Michael is a depressed semi-functional alcoholic and retired bank robber living in the witness protection program after having cut a deal with the GTA equivalent of the FBI called the FIB. Alternate dimensions aren't that great with imaginative acronyms. He lives in a mansion in Vinewood Hills with his pothead son, dumbass daughter, and bitch wife. He spends his retired life moping and trying to contain his barely bottled-up rage and self-loathing with visits to an asshole therapist, watching old action movies, and replying to everything with sarcasm. His lack of control over his anger is the driving force in the story that gets the ball rolling, when he ends up pissing off a criminal underworld legend by accidentally destroying his house in a blind frenzy. Needless to say, Michael ends up having to pay him a staggering 2 million bucks in reparations.
[color=blue][i]The third protagonist and easily the most memorable is Trevor Philips. He's the kind of dude who makes drifters and hitchhikers disappear for funsies; being friends and business partners with a cannibalistic mountain cult of baby boomers that pay him for hitchhikers he can bring to them as sustenance. Y'know, new age alternative religion shit. He is also the most emotionally unhinged out of the three characters, needing very little stimulus to provoke him into a violent rampage across the city streets. Make fun of his thin as fuck Canadian accent? Rampage. Ask him not to fuck your girlfriend? He stomps on your head so damn hard, part of your brain gets stuck under his boot. Exist at all as a hipster? Better hope you're shotgun-proof.
Seriously. He beat Johnny K from GTA4 to death in his first cutscene.
The dialogue in the game all flowed pretty naturally. I don't think there was ever a moment where I felt that the acting felt stiff or artificial or forced. Everybody talked as if they were there and not in some green screen mo-capping. It felt real, and I liked that. It made me feel like I should be there.
Landscapes in this game are fucking breathtaking. Before I stop playing, I always input the skydiving code and fall to my death just to look at the beautifully sculpted mountains. And then I die cratering into the side of it. I have a good friend who can't handle FPS's and stuff and gets motion sickness very easily to the point of gagging violently during the baptism scene in Bioshock Infinite. He's able to play this game for hours on end without ill effects whatsoever, stating that this game tricked his brain into thinking he was watching a movie. The game is that pretty.
I also had way too much fun finding ways to fuck up my car out of spite. And climbing to the top of one of the mountains and using a dirtbike to ride back down and killing myself in the process by ramming into a tree or getting crushed by a rock that rolled over my mangled body thanks to my momentum from crashing into it. I laughed for hours.
So far, my favorite character is Michael. I love sarcasm and he's got it in brutal spades. We may be looking at the next Nolan North or Troy Baker in the making with how good his actor is. I gave him a stubble and grown out hair to drive his depression home, and he looked great.
This game had unlikeable characters, and I got to kill 'em all. Spoiler alert and examples. I beat Stretch to death with a nightstick then set him on fire with my jerrycan of gasoline. I shot Steve Haines in the throat with a sniper rifle on live television, which I thought was even more hilarious since children most definitely watched that show. I like to think that he lived for a minute or two before bleeding out in utter agony. Devin I won't spoil, but he died wonderfully and I saluted him as the credits rolled. Lets hear you say Namaste now, you ignorant fuck.
I enjoyed the music so much that I downloaded the cinematic score of the game for myself. Sound effects and shit were top notch, too.
My favorite gun had to have been the Pump Action Shotgun. Reloading wasn't a pain, it had surprisingly long range even though I always rush in full retard and shoot point blank, and adding the silencer to it made me feel like Anton fucking Chigurh. Least favorites were the Grenade Launcher and Fireworks Launcher. One had a stupid delay and the other did no damage to cars. Moving on foot was also a piece of shit, just like in every GTA game. No matter how fast you tap the sprint button you always ran slower than Chris Farley's metabolism, so you had to be in a car to get anywhere at any reasonable time frame.
I'm glad that they mentioned that Carcer City still exists in this universe, because that means that we can one day get an HD Manhunt game. I know I'm not the only one looking forward to that. San Andreas felt kind of small, even though you're exploring half a state. I think it's because of the lack of cities other than Los Santos in it. 3D era San Andreas felt big because there was more than one city to explore, no matter how small they were. Los Santos felt teeny as fuck, too; but the what was there was definitely worth exploring.