![]() This is one of GTA V’s most noteworthy masterstrokes: No matter how thoroughly insane the spiraling action becomes, or how erratically certain characters behave, everything comes off as bizarrely true to life, authentic, and utterly believable. I knew where I was, and it felt as if I had been there all along. Within only a few hours of diligent play, the immediate need to glance at the mini-map for handicapped direction began to subside. Set in the state of San Andreas (a fictionalization of Southern California) in the Los Angeles-inspired city of Los Santos (where the upper class freely meets the criminal underground), the game is explicitly designed to make the player feel totally and seamlessly integrated into its kaleidoscopic perspective of the good ‘ol U.S. ![]() Whereas the alienated tale of Niko Bellic allowed players to view and take in the treacheries of Liberty City via the perspective of an outsider coming in, GTA V essentially offers the complete inverse. All aspects of control have been refined for the better, but that’s a given. Grand Theft Auto IV was a momentous achievement, no doubt, but GTA V eclipses it in nearly every way imaginable. Not only is it the best game of the landmark series, but one of the greatest games ever made. This is virtually unrestricted, extremist escapism at its finest, a secondary form of our planet that you can visit whenever you want, letting loose both your buried wild side and the fervent desire to pursue a unique manifestation of American aspirations and skewed social justice through the eyes of three very different, oddly sympathetic individuals. ![]() ![]() The town you inhabit, the room you’re in, the piece of furniture you’re playing on, they all disappear as soon as you load a save file. Every time you venture into its massive, fully realized universe, a searing, often hilarious satirization of everything that’s senseless and broken with the Western world, you can’t help but lose touch with your own current reality. Grand Theft Auto V is, without question, the most involving, top-to-bottom, start-to-finish, out-of-body experience ever presented in a video game. ![]()
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