My Usual Spiel: Natural Selection 2, a superb example of the Hybrid-Genre

Release Date: October 31st 2012
Genre: First Person Shooter/Real Time Strategy
Developer: Unknown Worlds Entertainment
Publisher: Unknown Worlds Entertainment
Platform: Microsoft Windows, Linux
Players:Online Multiplayer
Classification: T (Teen)

I’ve decided it’s time to actually try to review some of the  various games I play at LAN parties, most of which are fairly simple and have no singleplayer mode and so only get played at LANs themselves these games include the likes of Insurgency, Rocket League, Flatout 2, Screencheat, Armagetronad, Gang Beasts and many others. I’ve realised that I haven’t considered reviewing these games as I play them so sparingly and will also have to slot them in between my other reviews of games that I have been playing in an orderly fashion at home. I was at the Bluewire Lan in Diamond Creek a while ago and we went back to an old favourite Natural Selection 2 which we played quite a few sessions of during the course of the LAN so I thought it was sufficient enough to warrant writing a review, so here it is.

The introductory video that appears at the start of the game.

Natural Selection 2 (NS2) is a multiplayer team-based shooter that combines the shooter/fps style with a strategy (RTS) game. The first time I played was a while ago (as the game did come out in 2012) At first I was a bit confused about what was going on but then got the hang of it as the game is a bit different from your usual FPS (first-person-shooter). Before we get into it though I will go through a bit of backstory which I’ve only found out recently. The first Natural Selection (NS) was a mod for Half-Life along with the likes of Team Fortress and Counter-strike and although it didn’t quite reach the levels of fame that those two have it was still very popular in its own right and popular enough to spawn (heh) a sequel. I’ve never played the original but it looked amazing especially for a mod though the sequel is obviously much better as it was built from the ground up as a full game.

The original natural selection mod for Half-Life

I was able to piece together a brief storyline for the game from the Frontiersman and Kharaa race overview pages on the Natural Selection 2 Wiki. Basically the Frontiersman are a cross between Starcraft’s Terrans and the Alien series Marines created by the current Government of Earth to destroy the Kharaa which are quite similar to Starcraft’s Zerg race as they have the similar traits including the use of the green creep-like infestation that spreads as the Kharaa infest more areas and the practice of assimilating other races. Though the storyline pretty much ends there as there is no singleplayer aspect to the game it is basically wholly multiplayer which was it all the mod was and all it needed to be really. At first glance the game is basically Marines vs Aliens in fairly futuristic space installations including abandoned mines, troop outposts, laboratories, biodomes and space stations, featuring fairly condensed spaces of tunnels and corridors with limited large open areas though there is much more to it than this.

Loading screen with map of the "Veil" zone, the bits in organge are shortcuts only the smaller Kharaa races can use.

 It’s interesting how the game forces you to do the tutorial before actually going online and playing, whether this is a good or bad option I’ll let you decide. I had no qualm with it as whenever I went back to playing I always needed a refresher course, and also it at least stops people coming on to play who have absolutely no idea what they are doing though it is a bit annoying when you’re at a LAN party and everyone has already played it before but has to go through the damn thing again. Once I started playing I was actually glad I did the tutorial as the game itself is much more complicated than most FPS games, at the start you have the classic “ready room” where you choose whether to go on the Marine or Kharaa sides or choose one at random often by running through doors or jumping down holes.

The Marine tutorial, very annoying to some, fine by me

The Veil level ready room

Each team starts on (relatively) opposite sides of the map with just the basic structures and resources, the early game usually focuses on securing resources, while the late game focuses on advancement of technology for the marines and higher lifeforms for the aliens. This Marine and Alien Commanders are probably the most pivotal point of a side and having a good or bad commander can make or break the game contest The commanders are the lifeblood of the side and team cannot function properly without one as they are responsible for the building of structures, collecting of resources and researching of upgrades. To explain the way it works I’ll use the marines as an example as they are a bit easier to relate to, to start off with one player has to jump into the Commander station to become the commander, this often involves people either fighting for the position or no-one wanting to do it so someone gets in and does it poorly, I’ll admit I played on an “newbie” NS2 server so that may be why, though I can’t talk really.

"Let's go team! hut hut hut...."

Once the commander is inside it becomes similar to the Battlefield series Commander feature, they can see the whole map in a top-down perspective and are able to place ‘blueprints’ onto the map for stuctures like extractors for gaining resources, Sentry guns for defence and power nodes for powering structures which marines can use their Build Tool to create, thus expanding their territory and gaining more resources to use for upgrades. The upgrades are provided by structures like the Armory and Prototype Lab, all marines start with a basic Assault Rifle, Pistol and Switch-Axe but can upgrade to things like Shotguns and Flamethrowers and the prototype lab gives access to fun and powerful tech like the Jetpack and Exosuit. Marines can request healing and ammo from the commander who can place it on the map, they can also repair structures and exosuits with the Welder. As a marine you generally follow your commanders order of what to do and where to go, you help secure resource nodes throughout the map (for extractors) build and expand and defend against the attacking Kharaa eventually working your way to destroying the hive, if the command station is destroyed then the Marines lose. 

A shortish match I played on the Frontiersman side on the newbie server, we didn't do very well unfortunately.

With the alien Kharaa race things are slightly different, the Kharaa main structure is the Hive and they differ in the fact that while the marines are basically the same apart from the gear that they have the Kharaa units are drastically different from each other. For example the Skulk is a basic lifeform and can run along walls and ceilings and through certain parts of the map where only the smaller Kharaa can crawl through such as air vents and large pipes which gives the weaker Kharaa units a chance to ambush. The Gorge on the other hand is a support unit and can heal other Kharaa and create barricades and summon smaller Babbler aliens to assist it in battle, the most powerful Kharaa unit the tank-like Onos which can demolish structures and take on marines in Exosuits with ease. Instead of upgrading their hardware like the marines the Kharaa units can Evolve with things like improved armor (carapace) and regeneration, they also have stealth abilities for ambush and surprise attacks and can use parasites and the Aura ability to detect nearby marines and exosuits on the map. The Kharaa main base and expanded areas are covered in Infestation which is a green/brown ooze in which the Kharaa commander spreads to different areas using Cysts in order to reach resource nodes and create Harvesters. The Skulk and Gorge units also have a unique trait, as they both attack by biting or spitting with their jaws so the first person camera is actually inside their mouth making biting and spitting much easier and also being so close to the ground gave you a more stealthy feel.

Playing as the Kharaa, didn't do to well that time either XD

Playing as the two races requires different thinking, the Marines have the firepower advantage especially early in the game and are best at frontal assault while the Kharaa excel at stealth and ambushes as they have abilities that make them less visible and silent and can use shortcuts in the level where the marines cannot. The Kharaa have more units and structures but ultimately each side does not have an advantage over the other, after playing the game for a while you realise both sides have their own version of an ability or feature for example some are the same thing for each side such as the Phase Gate and the Gorge Tunnel though some are slightly different as the Observatory detects enemies for the Marines and the Sentry gun is for defence. But with the Kharaa the Hydra is a detector and also acts as a turrent shooting spines at enemies and additionally they have the Whip for more close-range defence. 

A gang of Skulks near a resource harvester

This mirrors most modern RTS games with each army being the same but slightly different somehow balancing out so no side has an unfair advantage. I’ll say it now teamwork and communication with a bit of leadership is the key to victory, though this is true with almost any type of team competition it is especially true with Natural Selection as one player cannot carry the team (such as in DOTA 2) and the team cannot rely on points and kills for the win (Battlefield series). Venturing out alone is a sure fire way to be quickly killed, I found myself following at least one other person in order to have strength in numbers and enjoyed following the orders of the commander and responding to teammate alerts as when the match was over, win or lose I could tell myself that I had done the right thing.

Always travel with a friend

The controls in the game are basically the same as your standard FPS, usual controls to move, interact shoot and use abilities and a button for the map. The only difference for the Marines is when you are in an exosuit but for the Kharaa, choosing a different lifeform makes drastic changes in movement, for example Skulks are very agile and run and jump much faster than the Marines, the Lerk is a flying unit that can zoom at great speeds and excels at hit-and run and damage over time and the Fade is a stealthy ground unit that can kill very quickly then stealthily escape, though both of these lifeforms are low on health and must avoid attacking directly. It’s difficult at first to work out which button is for upgrading and evolving etc but gets easier over time.

A great piece of artwork with a marine in an exosuit taking on an Onos

Having come out in 2012, Natural selection 2 does not have the best graphics to offer but looks good enough for what it is, the locations looks pretty damn good and I like the fact that they are non-mirrored and all of the spawn points are not so obvious. The detail on the locations is pretty good, I love the way the infestation (I had to resist saying ‘creep’ there) spreads through the level, the design has a very Aliens mixed with Dead Space feel although not quite as tense obviously as the action is quite fast paced, on looking at the map list for the first time I had no idea there were so many of them but I like the theme to each level. The detail on the aliens and marines is pretty good the marines are all starship troopers style and the aliens are both ugly and fearsome looking and are multitude of colours. The sound and music in the game is on par with the scene with tense music playing over gun blasts, explosions, screeches, munches and roars, one of the most memorable sounds was the screeching of the Hive when it is being attacked, made my damn skin crawl.

The alien hive with the signature Skulk mouth-cam

Although it works perfectly well online, my favourite place to play Natural Selection 2 is at a LAN party if you have enough people to can be heaps of fun, yes everyone hears your communication but that’s the way it goes, I’m proud to say it’s one of my favourite games to play at LANs, the first-person shooter mixed with real-time strategy works really well, the only drawback is the learning curve with the Commander mode which I admit the forced tutorial gave you a general idea of what to do I was still a bit overwhelmed when in the seat myself, it just cements the fact that to be effective you need a commander who at least has an idea of what he/she is doing.

Me as the Kharaa Commander, this was shortly before we were overrun XD

Whether it’s good or bad I enjoy playing Natural Selection 2 and hope I play it far into the future as it is a unique game and I salute Unknown Worlds Entertainment for their effort and willingness to create something different, I enjoy the fact that I can finally be a pawn in a bigger army and still make a difference as if I was in an RTS though the army in NS2 not quite the scope of Starcraft II for example but the principle is the same. I just hope that FPS in the future follow this sort of innovation and this isn’t the last we have seen FPS and RTS hybrid.

JD

8/10

Things I liked:

Great mix of FPS and RTS elements.

Heaps of fun to play at LAN parties.

Greatly rewards teamwork.

Good balance of similarities and differences between races/sides.

Things I didn’t like:

Steep Learning curve for Commander mode.

Need at least 8 a side to make things interesting.

Requires good teamwork.

If you don’t have a good commander you’re gonna have a bad time.

 

Natural Selection 2 Launch Trailer

Hey kid we heard you like RTS, so we put some RTS in your FPS

My Usual Spiel - Grand Theft Auto 5 PC Online, let's get dangerously communal

Release Date: October 1st 2013(PS3/XBOX360)
November 18 2014 (PS4-XBONE)
April 14 2016 (PC)
Genre: Third/First-person shooter, Action adventure
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Developer: Rockstar North
Platform: Windows, Playstation 3 & 4, Xbox 360 & One
Players: 1 and Multiplayer
Classification: R (Restricted)

Multiplayer Grand Theft Auto… who wouldn’t jump at the chance? I remember back in the days of the first GTA in the late 90’s playing at school and at friends’ houses where LAN gaming was a very new thing, until GTA became available on consoles and multiplayer was largely forgotten about. When the PC versions of GTA3, Vice City and San Andreas came out and there were many player-created mods that allowed for “Multi Theft Auto” as it was called though I didn’t get involved as I thought it would be much too complicated to set up. It wasn’t until GTA4 came around that after finally finishing the singleplayer I decided to delve into the multiplayer, and despite some issues with that awful games-for-windows-live system it worked out ok. Free-for-all was fun where you just drove around the city and shot each other though you always just ended up going to the airport anyway, I loved doing races especially boat and helicopter races, one of my favourite activities was the “Team Mafiya Work” which involved doing ludicrous things for a Mafia gang boss like blowing up vans around the city or finding disembodied heads and throwing them into a body of water. Then of course all that died down and there were less and less people playing in anticipation of course, of GTA5.

The online mode even had an intro similar to the story mode except it was at night and with different camera shots. I especially like this shot of spaghetti junction at night

In this case GTA Online and the GTA 5 Story mode were almost two separate games altogether as such I decided to review them separately as well, as the review would have been much too large if I included both of them. Having finished the story mode and also my review of that part, I was eager to see what the multiplayer had to offer and indeed it looked good. When starting up GTA5 you basically choose whether you want to play online or story mode then still sign in to your Rockstar social club account. I had an interesting time creating my character as it seems as well as the usual array of options and sliders to change your appearance you have an option your parents between a male and a female character and use slider bars to switch the resemblance (some of which I recognised namely GTA3’s Claude, Nico Bellic and Red Dead Redemption’s John Marston). I chose Claude as my father and some other woman as my mother and ended up with a reasonably skinny pasty looking dude, but meh he kinds looked like me and that was fine.

Creating a new character.

Starting the game I actually found that it had a semi-storyline in itself as there was an intro and everything, you’re apparently a friend of Lamar Davis who you’ll recognise from the story mode and he starts you off on a tutorial where you learn the basics of online play, I almost thought there was going to be a story which you could play by yourself if you couldn’t find anyone to play with but this was unfortunately not the case. It turns out that the events of GTA online actually occur before the events of GTA5 as the GTA Online Protagonist is actually referred to in the main story, so you meet some characters like Gerald who you haven’t seen before in the story mode, and Simeon Yetarian who you have seen before. Simeon guides you through the process of fitting a stolen car with a GPS tracker and insuring it which is really helpful as if your car gets blown up or stolen you can get it again, and also being able to find your vehicle on the map is invaluable when you lose it. The last thing you need to do is take part in a ‘last team standing’ style activity which is called a “job” which I’ll explain more about later, where you face off with a friend or random player against another team of two in a shooting match around a particular area.

Gerald and Lamar from the game's intro

After that you are free to roam around the city, which is covered in icons of different things you can do, there are also some very fun random events that you compete with other people in the session, things like a player becomes the most wanted and you have to kill them, or vehicle challenges like how far you can drive without hitting something or who can make the biggest air time. There was even this weird one where everyone had to stay in a circle which got smaller and smaller though I had no idea how you won. As I walked around I found you had most of things you did in the story mode, there was still clothes shops and garages where you could customise your car and tattoo parlours and fairground rides and car washes and barbers etc all the usual amenities stuff, though there was some notable differences like the streets seeming more sparse with cars and people probably because of the overload that players would cause. I noticed that you have character stats similar to story mode like stamina and skill with certain vehicles, I’m glad to say that now my driving stat is up to pro-racer, was probably all those races haha.

The Job setup screen in the middle of searching for players, you can see my stats on the right

 As I spent a bit of time walking and driving around, going to stores and purchasing some new clothes getting used to the controls and options etc, one of the things I had to get used to in this new GTA that I may not have mentioned before was the interaction menu which is separate from the pause menu that has been there since GTA3. The interaction menu was introduced in GTA online and is accessed by pressing the M key, it’s basically a menu to customise your GTA online character and your vehicles. You can do things like change the armor you’re wearing, put on a saved outfit, set your motorcycle helmet and set it so you automatically put on a helmet when you get one a bike (this took me a while to work out) looking it up on the wiki I had no idea you could do that much in the game, it’s also got options for parachutes, fireworks, eating snacks, your character actions when winning/losing, your current facial expression, even your walk which I had fun looking at as they have styles like posh and feminine. Your car options include having it delivered by your mechanic and things like ejecting people from your car or remote controlling the doors/lights plus a whole host of other things from voice chat to killing yourself, truly a powerful tool which I had almost no idea about cause you didn’t use it much in the story mode as it only had a small amount of options including quick GPS, inventory, objectives and mission briefing.

The interaction menu on the top left

You can freely run around the city killing pedestrians or other players, robbing stores and doing random events as all of this gives you both money and reputation points aka “RP” RP is what makes you gain level or rank up and basically allows you to buy more things by unlocking them in stores and also allows you purchase higher end houses and start more jobs. Jobs are the main source of money and RP in the game, you could call these equivalent to the game modes in GTA4 whereas Race is still my favourite kind of “Job” in GTA5, as well as this include your usual simple modes such as Deathmatch, Last Team Standing as like in the intro tutorial. You also have Missions which to make things even more complicated are part of the jobs category, they are basically like the singleplayer missions you do in GTA5 but with other players (maximum 4). They are started by characters such as Lamar, Gerald and Simeon as well as Ron Jakowski , Trevor, Lester and Martin Madrazo, so basically mostly characters from the main story many of which have their own personal introduction to you.

A mission for the new Lowrider series with Lamar

 The missions generally have an ongoing story to them unique to each mission giver and I’d love to be able to do them all in a row but it’s require a lot of time gathering friends or trying to do it with people online though I did manage to do at least some. When not playing with friends I spent most of my time joining jobs that other players had set up and advertised via my job list on my phone , this is a great feature as you can set up a job and invite everyone in the session to join, from the main job menu you could purchase ammo for your weapons and also purchase more body armor. You also had Versus missions which were basically PvP and pits teams of players against each other, these were similar to the Adversary modes added later in the Heists update which has different scenarios, two of which Come Out to Play and Siege Mentality I had a go of.

I play a game of team deathmatch and do ok

Throughout GTA Online’s run since its inception on PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2013 it’s had quite a bit of downloadable content which introduced various new content into the game such as, weapons, vehicles, clothes, tattoos and with some such as the High Life Update introducing new jobs and contact missions. So when I finally got into GTA online in 2015 there was already quite a bit there including one of the biggest updates which was the Heists Update which as you’d guess introduced Heists and Adversary modes into the game, something that I actually didn’t realise wasn’t in the online mode from the start. There are actually only 5 heists, but each include a number of missions as part of them so they do take quite a bit of time, especially the later ones. I have done three of them in my time playing and they were all with friends, which is the best way to do it really, as heists require a lot of communication and doing this with people over the internet who you often don’t have voice communication which really doesn’t work. These heists bring out the best experiences in GTA as they are a huge amount of fun when you were with friends or just people who were organised and knew what they were doing. Heists are introduced by Lester Crest who sets you up with The Fleeca Job heist which is basically just robbing a small bank similar to the intro mission for GTA though it only needs two people, after viewing the intro you choose your role of who is going to do what for each . In this heist I was the driver and designated to keeping the hostages in line, in the end we pulled of the job and it felt awesome.
 

Preparing in the lobby for a heist setup, I was a lookout. You can usual see more people in the picture though we were in different setup groups.

 The other two heists I’ve done were much bigger and involved more setup missions, but were ultimately more rewarding and gave me immense satisfaction to actually finish after playing online and failing most of the time with other online players. Of the Heists I’ve done the Humane Raid which led to the The Humane Labs Raid was quite fun as I was in the ground team and had to skydive and parachute into the Humane labs building and “raid the lab” then get out while the air team held off the reinforcements though probably the most memorable part of that whole heist was the Humane Raid - EMP setup which had us sneak onto an aircraft carrier and steal a Hydra jump jet so one of us got in the Hydra and the rest of us got into P-996 Lazer fighters and then we had to defend ourselves from the other fighter jets and man, when Kenny Loggins ‘Danger Zone’ came on while that was happening I didn’t think the game could get any better, it was one of those golden gaming moments and I just wish I knew what I was doing as it took me ages to get to grips with the controls. The other heist, the Prison Break I had a very specific role as the pilot, I just basically had to go to the airport and grab the plane then fly to Sandy Shores airfield and await the ground team as they break the prisoner out, I also had to avoid enemy jets that came to shoot me down but that was done easily by flying behind them though after reading the wiki I noticed all I had to do was not leave Los Santos and the fighter jets wouldn’t come, derp oh well. The mission was pretty hectic as I had to land and take off several times in order to get enough of a window to pick up the ground team while the demolitionist held off the cops in their helicopter. We ended up making it but it was pretty tight, both of these heists were done at the Bluewire LAN party which is the only way to do it I reckon though you do need internet which is a bummer, perhaps with friends on skype would be best.

Stealing the Jumpjet and other with the EMP in one of the setups for the Humane Labs Raid Heist. Fly into the Danger Zoooooooone!

Missions and Heists in particular had a difficulty rating which the session host could change. The difficulty of the job was obviously the biggest game changer of how many attempts at the mission you’d have you’d have as when doing a missions you’d have a set amount of “lives” shared by everyone in the group and when they ran out and someone died then you’d need to start the mission again. on easy you had two lives but got no extra RP or cash for the mission, on normal you get 1 life and a 25% bonus and on Hard it’s a 50% bonus but no lives so if someone dies it means a restart from the last checkpoint, I swear one mission I did we ended up doing it about 10 times before giving up. It really depends on the difficulty and how good you and your teammates are but to be honest I think I’d think I’d rather have unlimited lives to be able to finish the damn mission, sorta like playing Guitar Hero on easy just to listen to the song. There are still ways you can fail the mission apart from being killed, destroying a vehicle or killing an npc that was vital to a mission etc but 8/10 mission restarts were because someone had died. I swear on the hardest difficulty the enemies have much more health and take a large amount of bullets to go down, I can’t remember how many times I was shooting an enemy NPC from afar and hit them in the shoulder etc then they fall down get back up and I’d go for their head again then miss then have to wait for them to fall down and get back up yet again. I mentioned this in my story mode review as well as I swear that blue flash telling you they are dead is a godsend as how many times have you shot an npc then wasn’t sure if he was really dead?

I like this shot of me waiting on the roof above a deal which is going down, ready to ambush

Throughout most of the start of when I was playing I had basically only the weakest type of body armor and a pistol to my name but as I gathered up my money and more levels I found (through the helpful messages you receive) I unlocked more items and I purchased more as I went on, lots of clothes were already available though most were quite expensive so I didn’t really bother I just went with some normal streetwear though I do need to think about buying some gear that’s more suited to dangerous combat in the future. With the weapons as I said before I started off with only a pistol and not even able to purchase the upgrades for it, but now I am up to level 25 and now have access to the SMG, Pump Action Shotgun and Assault Rifle making me a bit more of a force though sometimes the pistol is all you need if you can get headshots well enough. I also got myself some upgraded body Armor which helps a lot though it seems you have to purchase it for each mission which is weird maybe it wears over time. I must also mention that there was quite a bit of DLC weapons available as well but they could all be purchased at once, I wanted to level up before I got access to stuff like that so I just bought the regular weapons which were unlocked over time, I did indulge myself to the Vintage Pistol and a Hatchet though. Having more weapons available does help in missions but if you need something specific it is usually always given to you.\

Err that wasn't me, really!

 I also thought that I’d need somewhere to park my car, so by this time I had made up enough cash to purchase a safehouse through that Dynasty 8 site. I had the idea that my character like me was middle-class so I got a pretty good mid-range house at 4 Hangman Ave in the Vinewood Hills for $175,000 which was a pretty good price, a goddamn bargain by today’s standards. Even though the actual advert says it was astronomically overpriced and it was the most expensive mid-range house, it was an actual house not an apartment and was in a prime location close to one of the high-end apartment buildings where a lot of people lived. My character also preferred classic vehicles inc muscle cars like the Sabre Turbo, street racers like the Ruiner and motorcycles like the Daemon. I also got the Futo as it’s a crazy drifty little compact and also one of my favourite cars from GTA4, I even painted it in the same kind of colour that I always saw it in in that game, and I got the latest version of that classic car the Injection for some off-road madness. So looking at the property on the GTA wiki it lists as having space for 6 cars and two bikes so woo I got two more car and one more bike option available. All my cars I’ve come across by accident and have stolen them myself, I might try and find a Hexer and Sandking XL for my next two.

My "modest" house

My (not yet full) garage of old school classic

I saw huge potential in GTA online, and it’s true I loved creating my own character and buying clothes and weapons and cars and having a house and doing races and missions and heists and riding around with other players. But there was a major issue that encompassed everything about playing with other people, it’s just there was so much waiting and failing, I sometimes had to play for hours before I felt I had achieved anything. There was a few reasons for this the first was that unlike story mode where you usually just loading the game at the start then that was it, the game did a lot more connecting and loading in between, for example when joining a job from a random person you had to first connect then wait for them to get enough people to join and often this took awhile and then if you did eventually get to the job continued failure (i.e. someone dying, especially on hard mode) could break the group and then you didn’t really end up finishing it. It wasn’t all bad of course you still got money and RP even for a half-finished mission or heist but it just had no closure, I’d feel like I had done nothing compared to story mode where if I played for the same two hours I could get a crapload done.

"Please don't let me die, please don't let me die, please don't....." etc

 It didn’t help that the autokick for being idle is pretty damn short and often during playing sessions my game had trouble connecting and I was booted out to story mode though it seems to be better during the last few sessions. Of course you could argue that If I played with friends where we were all communicating with each other the majority of issues wouldn’t happen, though you still have to be good enough to finish the damn thing, also organising friends all the time is quite time consuming these days. I seem to not play that many games with friends these days as you have so little time to play and it’s just not convenient, to be honest I only really get going with friendly multiplayer at LANs as it’s super easy and organised and fun enough, at home it’s an issue of time and whether people want to play the same games.

This is the view you get when GTA is connecting to another session or job, it's like your hanging above the city, pretty, but I I've been waitin here for far too long most of the time.

I won’t deny it, GTA5 online is great fun and I love being able to make my own character in the GTA world, and have my own house and buy my own guns and cars and clothes though to be perfectly honest in a perfect world you could do all the missions and stories on your own and had the option to do it with friends, I would be more than happy to have npc’s with me on the team as long as they couldn’t die or it didn’t matter if they did as there is a huge amount of cutscenes and dialogue and mission content that that is very similar to story mode missions and you don’t have to put up with playing an annoying character. I’ll admit doing the heists with NPC’s would be a bit weird and would require a lot scripting so I guess that wouldn’t be possible it’s just that I want to see more and do more without being hampered by the availability of other players. That said though the PVP and race events/jobs in the game are great as they don’t require you to be staying alive or needing to restart all the time and are great once they get going apart from all of those freakin annoying custom race maps and obstacle courses that I see everyone playing now, so I guess I can always go back to the likes of GTA4 style multiplayer modes if ever I’m feeling frustrated.

Races with this many people were pretty damn epic

 So I concede my qualms with the game are few and could possibly be fixed and my suggestions relatively unrealistic in the long run, I’ve still got a long way to go with the game and I’m sure it has a long way to go in itself but rest assured I will still be playing it well into the future, whether online with strangers, friends, or at LANs and I recommend anyone who had GTA5 to give it a go, you might just have a ton of fun.

9/10

Things I liked:

Creating my own GTA character

Purchasing and owning things such as clothes, houses cars and weapons

Collaborating with others players (when it worked)

Fun and exciting PvP and race modes

Things I didn’t like:

Unforgiving idle disconnecting

Connection dropouts booting you to Story mode

Lots of waiting in general for loading/connected and other players to join

No Solo mode option for most modes of play

JD

Till now I always got by on my own.

My Usual Spiel: Grand Theft Auto 5 PC (Story)

Release Date: April 14th 2015
Genre: Action-Adventure
Publisher: Rockstar North
Developer: Rockstar Games
Platform: Windows/PS4/PS3/Xbox one & 360
Players: 1
Classification: R (Restricted)

Well you’ve all been waiting for this haven’t you? Yes I’ve now finally played through GTA5, as you’ve probably guessed what took me so long is that I was waiting for the PC version to come out, I did actually try playing the game on PS3 but got frustrated with the stick aiming and decided just to wait for the PC version. Of course as you all know this did take roughly two and a half years to become available on Steam on the 14^th of April 2015, but was it worth the wait? Well I guess. It feels weird to say this but after GTA: San Andreas came out I never felt as much hype for a GTA game since. Maybe I was so awash in the world of MMORPGs (I was playing WoW heavily at the time) that It didn’t really matter to me anymore. Nevertheless I got right into GTA4 when I heard about it and that I could use it on PC (even though it did use that awful Games for Windows Live thing) and as you’ve probably read in my review of it. I was very impressed by the greatly updated new look and ragdoll physics. I didn’t care at all about the gripes with the car handling and the limited amount of flight and extreme sports options though this was brought back mostly in the Ballad of Gay Tony expansion.

This is one of my favourite shots of the game, in the park with Chop

 As I said I was not at all fussed about waiting for the PC version to come out, I was excited but honestly I had enough games to play and could endure since I would have to compete with my brother to play it on the PS3 and I’d have to put up with awful stick aiming. So I waited, and waited for a damn long time at that but I suppose it was worth it. Before the game came out it was listed as being just over 65gb! damn talk about blowing your hard drive space, looks like I wouldn’t be putting it on my solid state any time soon though this will all change once I get my new solid state drive of course. I managed to download it at Lanslide Lan as they had a steam server dedicated to it so I bought and downloaded it in no time, I decided to purchase it on Steam just to make sure playing multiplayer went as smooth as possible. I still had my credentials from the Rockstar social club so was able to log in to that ok and thankfully that was the only thing that was needed then you just went straight into the game.

Michael and Lester plan a heist

When I heard that GTA5 would be set entirely in Los Santos I wasn’t too surprised, I didn’t think they were going to do the whole map of San Andreas again with the three cities, as you know the entire map of the region was suitably huge, when looking at the GTA5 map in comparison to San Andreas, GTA 4 and Red Dead Redemption. GTA4 is pretty much the size of the city area, the San Andreas map takes up about half and the Red Dead Redemption one takes up just more than half, which as I suspected doesn’t add up to all of them meshed together like I’ve heard some people saying. Red Dead Redemption was pretty damn big but was mostly desert and rock, which is true enough being set in the early 19^th century. The “Island” of Los Santos is similar as the majority of the landscape is wilderness with just under a third being the Los Santos City itself and there’s a whole host of people and activities out there, some random some not and I feel even though I’ve finished the game I haven’t explored out there to the fullest degree.

A Map size comparison with that of GTA4, San Andreas and Red Dead Redemption

Indeed I enjoyed GTA4 as a simple gritty realistic experience with semi-believable characters though GTA5 was a very different story. The first images I saw of GTA5 were pretty damn impressive, the picturesque views and awesome graphics looked great but I wasn’t too pleased by the introduction of the three-protagonist feature. GTA had always been about you being a single guy, yes guy I actually would have preferred a female protagonist rather than 3 guys or maybe just one playable female character to make things interesting at least. I always liked the fact that most of the time you had come to a new city and were relatively unknown and had to work your way up but with the descriptions and the history of the three new protagonists only Franklin seems to fit this which I believe was the intent, Michael was the retired criminal who has beat the game, Trevor is the crazy player who just likes killing and carnage and Franklin is the similar protagonist to the previous games. Don’t get me wrong I liked Niko and I liked CJ and I I liked Tommy Vercetti, but for some weird reason I think I liked GTA 3’s Claude the best cause he was the most unknown and the most small time and also that he didn’t talk, I don’t mind silent protagonists, I was very much a fan of Gordon Freeman and found it funny when lots of people are talking to you but you say nothing which is exactly what happens with the GTA Online Protagonist. In my view the GTA5 Protagonists had too much going on and talked way too much but then again I guess people like action and drama and few hold my view as Claude being one of their favourite protagonists.

Now that's quite a view

 GTA tells the story of the three protagonists Michael De Santa, Franklin Clinton and Trevor Philips with Michael and Trevor being playable in the intro and Franklin being the first played in the main game, the introduction sequence shows some history of Micheal and Trevor as you actually play out the intro as you get to grips with the controls and are introduced to swapping characters while they attempt to rob a bank some place called North Yankton which is an actual town called just “Yankton” in South Dakota. In short the heist doesn’t go so well and then we are treated to GTA 5’s opening sequence.


Part of the Prologue set in North Yankton, I showcase the screen flashing when an enemy is killed and first person shooting and driving.

After starting story mode and watching GTA5’s impressive intro you are then treated to a cutscene of Michael having a conversation with his psychologist which tells us a bit of background for him and then we switch to Franklin who is walking with his friend Lamar before they both steal some high end cars from the back of a house then have a high speed race then are chased by the cops then drive them back to the Premium Deluxe Motorsport business of the shady Simeon Yetarian then after that we finally drive with Lamar back to Franklin’s Aunt’s house where he lives. Starting with Franklin would seem the right choice though the other problem was I had pre-ordered the game so it gave Franklin (and Franklin only) $500,000 to start off with, which doesn’t really make sense and I couldn’t even distribute the money in between the characters. Oh well not that it mattered too much, I was soon doing more missions that involved more money. The missions with Franklin start out fairly low key and introduce you to the game, Franklin is from eastern Los Santos and is part of the “The Families” which I did look up and it appears that The Grove Street Families from San Andreas were actually a “set” of this gang not the whole gang as it was implied or so I thought. I also read that apparently there was something said by Lamar in the game that the Grove street OG’s eventually got out of the Gang bangin lifestyle and moved on with their lives possibly to be rich CEO’s lol which given the events of San Andreas made sense.

Franklin, Lamar, Jimmy de Santa and Simeon in Repossession

Playing a few missions with Franklin, Lamar and Chop were pretty fun to start with, the control scheme of things is basically the same as before so I had no problem with driving moving and shooting,  you are soon introduced to Michael via Franklin sneaking into his house and trying to repossess his son’s car. I must admit I was looking forward to playing as Michael as no GTA character had ever really had a wife and children in the game before and boy were they dysfunctional hah. Michael is by far the most well off having a mansion in the Vinewood Hills but apparently he is in debt. Trevor’s introduction to the game was one of the most horrifying scenes I’ve seen in a GTA game basically he is seen screwing a woman from behind then getting angry and stomping a man to death, I won’t go into detail who it was but man was it confronting and funny to think that young kids may be playing the game and watching this.

Trevor's first appearance was quite violent indeed.

 I have to admit I didn’t feel right swapping between characters just plonking yourself down in the shoes of one, plus it made things even more difficult with the fact that you had to remember who had what weapons though it only really bought weapons with Franklin cause he did most of the assassinations, you didn’t need to bother though cause most of the time you were given what you needed for the mission you were doing. The other thing was, as fun as doing heists and missions were, switching between the three characters at once just didn’t feel right, one minute I’m flying the chopper then the next I’m inside the building, though It works I guess, I just much prefer the way it’s done online with each person doing a certain job. Also each character has their own special ability. Franklin has the ability to slow down time when driving to make quick manoeuvres, Trevor’s ability is basically Invulnerability so useless to me haha and Michaels is the best in my book as it’s basically bullet time a la Max Payne and makes those headshots much easier.

The game's three protagonists along with Lester Crest planning a heist, Michael was in his underwear from a previous  mission but I just decided to leave him in it.

 Other changes to the game are evident as the Weapon Wheel is now used to select your weapons a la Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3, and there is now much a larger weapon pool, made even larger by the addition of DLC weapons and boy was there a lot by the time I got to the game. Apparently the card handling had also been fixed though as I said I had no problem with the previous games car handling, maybe they just suited my style though it seems they were now a bit lighter and twitchier whereas the GTA4 physics were a bit heavier.

Franklin using his special ability hence the green tinge, from what I can remember Franklin was green tingle, Michael was blue and Trevor was red.

Probably the most notable change was the first person mode which was a (pardon the pun) first for a GTA game, I initially felt like I should play the game through like this as it was a whole new way of playing, but after a bit of playing around including running and punching people across the footpath, having a fistfight, having a gunfight, standing on top of trucks and getting whacked in the head then ragdolling off the truck onto the ground all while in first person felt a bit nauseating. I will note here that you can actually turn first person ragdoll off and I did a small few missions in this mode where it worked rather well this was one point where I was running from the cops and climbing over walls and fences to escape then hiding behind a wall, another time where I was hiding from the cops while inside a car and I could see some cops around still looking as I sat inside. Using first person mode in both of these situations made the game feel more tense and realistic as it’s more personal though part of this feeling is the fact that you can’t see around corners etc and this does make things harder as you don’t generally have the “third person cheat vision” to see around walls and when in cover.

First person view from inside the car

Another reason I couldn’t play the game in the third person is though when driving there is now detailed interiors, similar to Test Drive Unlimited 2 and most driving games now I still want to see my damn car lol, driving with the mouse and keyboard makes this even better as it’s easy to place the camera all the way around when driving to get some different angles.

Oh yehh, wiiiiiiiide angle shots, the mouse swooparound helps a lot when being attacked from all sides especially in large vehicles.

 The game’s controls as I’ve said before are relatively the same though this time I have utilized my Logitech PS3 style controller to the fullest, the game allows for seamless use of keyboard and gamepad even changes the on-screen button prompts with you so much as move the stick of the controller which is a great help when changing all of a sudden to gamepad control before a street race starts or when you’re flying though no matter how I tried I still couldn’t stop spinning the tires when taking off though the controller made it much easier to turn and brake more fluently rather than the full on or off that you get with the keyboard. I only use the controller when flying and in races most of time, the first time I flew a plane in the game I had no idea what I was doing as there were no planes in GTA4 but now I even use the controller for helicopters as it just works so much better, I sometimes using it when driving but not when I’m going to be constantly getting in or out of a car of I’m going to need to at a certain point.


Got the gamepad contols for this jet down pat now.

On the ground I mainly used the keyboard and mouse due to the ease of the mouse aiming but even then I still went for headshots as there is this great new feature that when you kill a person the screen flashes blue or something showing that they are now dead, this was awesome for letting me know that I got a head shot. Annoyingly  if you missed their head they would flail around then fall over and appear dead then they just got back up again and I don’t know how many times I can’t remember whether I had killed an enemy and was sitting there waiting for them to get up before shooting a few more bullets into them. As with Niko in GTA4 you’re restricted for the most part by human physics and endurance you have to time your sprints so you don’t run out of stamina and also I noticed when doing things like running and pivoting it’s much more realistic as you can’t change direction rapidly you have to actually twist around as you would in real life.

The 'Repossession' mission with Franklin and Lamar, I try to do half the mission in third person and the rest in first person, this also shows the gun combat dynamics.

I will add in here that I was using a trainer throughout the game, the Script Hook V + Native Trainer to be precise as this was the most similar to the Simple trainer for GTA4 though with less options though I’m sure more will be added, there’s also the usuals there though inc invincibility, teleporting, never wanted, fast running, vehicle spawning etc and also a model changer which is quite hilarious as it has animals available such as monkeys and even cows though some obviously can’t drive cars and you unfortunately you cannot do missions with non-humanoid models. The vehicle spawner is great as always as I always like to try out unique vehicles in ridiculous places like driving a golf cart through the backwoods and being able to spawn anything at any time is a huge time saver. And yes I did use invincibility but not the infinite special ability and I also I tried to use the thing minimally for cheating but that damn health and stamina interface is so goddamn minimalistic and tiny that it’s hard to notice how fast it goes down plus if you’ve seen the mod you would know how awesome it is. On other thing I’ll add is that I no longer needed to use the “progress time forward” or back option as now if you attempt to start a mission that requires it to be night time it progresses time forward so it’s correct, so thank god for that no more goddamn freakin “come back between this time and that time” message.

Well that didn't exactly work out the way I planned

Other features that have been implemented are yoga, triathlons, jet skiing, parachute jumps, tennis, golf, hunting and scuba diving. Random events are also there too such as like Red Dead Redemption. These activities were great additions and I did all except the scuba diving which I now remember I saw my brother doing that with Michael though I will have to go back and do that though the things that I did were pretty damn awesome.  Your phone can now be used for internet as well as calling so you can effectively access the internet (and have it on full screen) all of the time, so no hunting for an internet café (or using the trainer in my case) anymore it’s always there. Speaking of your phone, everyone was glad to know the random friends randomly ringing you up wanting to go to things feature has been taken out, man that was as annoying as the whole hunger thing in San Andreas. You can still hang out with people though if you do miss that part from GTA4 though it’s entirely optional, though I didn’t do this much I noticed that they did keep up with current events if you have previously done a mission with the person you are “hanging out” with they actually talk about the last mission which is pretty cool. There are plenty of side missions to do with each character, and a nice part of the new system means that once you have finished all of the missions and side missions and activities for the one character you can move on to the next. 

A few other GTA games included golf courses but you could never truly play golf or just use a driving range this time it's it's fully fledged golf with a course and golf carts.

Probably the biggest new feature of missions is the heists which form a lot of the main missions of the game, this basically sees you planning a heist with Michael’s friend and former affiliate from his old life Lester Crest who organises and sets them up. Lester plans the heist and at the meeting offers two ways of doing things which are usually some as aspect of “quiet” or “loud” approach, you also have to choose what crew you are going to take on the heist and you can see their skill and what percentage of cut they want, the more skilled they are the more of a cut they will take though the lesser skilled crew members will gain more skill with each heist they do. With the infamous first jewelery store heist I made the mistake of taking some lesser skill individuals and paid for it, I tried this mission more recently doing everything right and it worked well, I’m going to try it again at some point doing the bustin-in loud option with all of the worst crew I can and see what happens. These heists which you do a few of throughout the story game form a basis for GTA Online which is actually shipped as a different game altogether where basically most of the time you are doing heists or setups for heists but I’ll get into that another time.  

The Jewelery store heist planning board

The world of GTA5 is incredibly varied and full of life as the three characters you interact with everyone including friends and family members even in free roam mode, for example as Michael I once got up saw my wife and son on the breakfast table then when I walked out of the house I saw my daughter drive past out the gate quite fast actually almost running me over. It feels really weird to see people you know just walking around, it certainly wasn’t like that in GTA4 where seeing someone when not on a mission was incredibly formalized. People around the game world are more reactive as well, the screams gasps and reactions to what you do are slightly more realistic now. Once of the more prominent things I noticed is that people are now doing more things, their lying on the beach, their doing gardening, their driving in and out of their driveways, their running and cycling and working out and doing everything that you see when you walk around (and not see as well in some parts) their even diddling on their phones and taking selfies! Dang lol this is getting way too real. The internet makes a return in the game which is now accessible via your phone to make things a bit easier and yes it’s never been funnier, the entire “GTA internet” is a satirical haven with everything from facebook “aka Lifeinvader” to the stock market to real estate websites. The internet also has lots more functionality this time around with forward and back buttons and more interactivity for each website. The flight school made a return and you can also use the ammunition gun range though there was no car, bike or boat school that I could see.

Angry Trevor tries to enjoy the beach but is still plagued by mobile phones.

 One of the biggest things that fans were looking forward to with GTA5 was the updated graphics though after the major update to HD and the introduction of ragdoll with GTA4 I wasn’t really sure how much better they could do as modern games are just getting better and it’s hard to expect anything more. Case in point, the graphics were pretty damn phenomenal as with the PC and Console next gen releases they received more than a tweaking. I’ve got my system set for speed rather then graphics but it still looked pretty damn great, there’s so much detail in there it’s crazy, grass, weeds, roads in disrepair, papers blowing past, random trash cans and traffic cones all the little things add up. The scenery and HD weather elements such as fog and sunset are great  are the best they have ever been as most of my screenshots were out in the country on dirt roads and forests where you could really appreciate the sights though I must admit the city at night looked amazing especially during the mission Did Somebody Say Yoga? which is one of my favourite missions in the game.

Another great shot of the graphics, you can see the details everywhere

 The character models have never looked more realistic though still aren’t quite up to the photorealistic quality though this is also due to my machine limits though the 4K resolution modding is already happening as far as I know.   As for the technicalities of my machine I recently upgraded my monitors part way through playing so I went from 1680x1050 resolution to finally being at least 1980x1080 also I had a bit of a play around with the colour settings, I was unimpressed with the gaming setting due the dark parts coming up much lighter though I suppose it would help with visibility but I didn’t like the look, I also tried the “scenery” mode but it made the game just saturated with colour so I just decided to do the normal view which worked fine. There’s not much more I can say but the characters, the vehicles, the scenery, the water the sunsets all looked amazing and absolutely up to standard.

Ahh the end of a hard day's killing, on to a long night's killing.

The soundtrack in GTA5 is quite huge but the best feature in my book is the addition of an original score which was mainly used during missions but was played throughout both the singleplayer and multiplayer modes. Most of the time I actually didn’t turn on the radio much as I was just enjoying the soundtrack and tense music that played during the missions and suited them perfectly I might add. Regarding the Radio stations there is now a huge amount, roughly 17 stations were available in the original release now an extra one has been added making it 18 and damn it is a lot of music with some new and returning celebrity DJ’s including Kenny Loggins, Pam Grier and Cara Delvinge. Though I didn’t exactly spend much time listening to the radio the in game soundtrack suited just fine or maybe just what the characters had on at the time, I did at one point load some MP3’s on and listen to the self radio but though there really wasn’t much point as you have to copy a whole bunch of MP3’s into a folder to be able to listen instead of linking to your music folder and also there was more than enough music on the many radio stations not to mention the soundtrack. I never have that much to say about the sound effects and general speech though it’s top notch, I’m not exactly a big audiophile when it comes to sound, so everything sounded fine to me.

Push it to the limit! Crash the gaaaaaaates!

So in conclusion the story between Franklin, Michael and Trevor can be finalised in several different ways of which I have yet to try but even so it finished so quickly, I was always waiting for some big thing to happen but after several big things that I thought weren’t the big thing the game just ended though I should have known from the last game that it ends with a “choice” similar to GTA4 but I don’t know I’m not really that fussed. Having now played through the story I really don’t much of an urge to go back through it, this goes back to the whole three unlikable protagonists and the way it seems to just go from one big shooty action sequence to another. Frankly I’d rather just go back to being an anonymous hood  like in GTA3 and this is technically what you are in multiplayer. I’m not going to talk too much about it yet as I’m going to do a separate review but technically what I really want is a way to play the singleplayer as a random hood, but even after you’ve finished the main story this just isn’t possible the whole game would have to be redone.

Franklin, Michael and Trevor gear up for  Heist

I suppose I can say I enjoyed GTA5 not for the story but for the presentation, there was so much to see and do and I feel like there’s still a bit more to do and much more to explore and that’s what I want to do for next playthrough or maybe even next time I boot it up, after all most of the fun you get out of this game was what you made yourself. My qualms with the game were minimal though and was the only thing keeping me from a perfect score.

JD

8/10

Things I liked:

• Improved on just about everything from previous GTA

• Immaculate presentation

• Heists and planning them are great fun

• First person view is a great addition

• Seamless keyboard to gamepad transition

• No more time of day requirements for missions

Things I didn’t like:

• Unlikable characters, no female protagonist

• Switching between characters during a mission

• Didn’t enjoy story too well, too spontaneous and action orientated

The Grand Theft Auto V: PlayStation 4, Xbox One & PC Announcement Trailer


Crazy enough not to be real