[CaptainCrunch]

I just finished Grand Theft Auto V. I remember buying it years ago. probably when it was released in 2013. I also remember that I quite on the game fairly early, after getting frustrated with a mission that I couldn't complete early on (rescuing Michael's son from the stolen boat).

I've played most GTA games. 1, 2, 3, San Andreas Vice City, 4 and 5. While San Andreas still remains my favourite, due to a story that borrowed generously from Las Angeles and the Rodney King trial, a huge map that featured 3 cities and a huge country area, and some really great mission types. V came close to surpassing it, but didn't quite do it.

Don't get me wrong, GTA V is an incredibly polished and well rounded game, its beautiful to look at and the story line was amazing. As well you had three really likeable hero's that were killers and thugs and in the case of trevor a meth drive psychopath with severe mommy issues. We got some well designed heists, some intriguing villains, and some interesting backstory.

However from an open world perspective, it just didn't feel as deep or developed as San Andreas or even Vice City. In a lot of way it did have a mrore movie feel then a video game feel as you went through the story, and there's nothing wrong with that, but it felt the missions were on rails where you could apply really creative solutions to the problems like you could in other games.

I think that the ending was a bit of a disappointment in that the final 2 missions, the Union Depository heist and the final mission were just incredibly easy compared to missions earlier in the game. Maybe my characters got too over powered, but the final part of the last mission where you kidnapped Devon Weston was a literal walk in the park. It should have been a really tough mission that felt rewarding when you finished it.

In terms of presentation, the graphics even for a 2013 game looks incredible especially the vehicle presentation. The driving is a blast, and I will say that the battles with the use of cover was a lot of fun. The humour really shines through on the game when you listen to the NPC whether they're having conversations or talking on their phone or yelling insults when you wreck their cars.

The sound tracks are great as is the selection of radio stations, but I found I was disappointment by the talk radio station which was pretty repetitive.

This was also a game that went away from using celebrity voice overs, San Andreas was the king with actors like Samuel Jackson, and James Woods. This was voiced by mostly non descript actors, however the work done by the actors on Michael and Trevor were great, Franklin though I thought was a pretty poor performance.

Outside of the driving the flying was hit or miss. I found that flying planes was great, however they continually forced you to fly low because of radar, and the controls were fine tuned enough on that side even when you had max flying skills. I thought the helicopter controls were terrible, it missed a strong ability to hover, and when you hit the gas on the helicopter it tended to drop fairly quickly. In one mission where you had to intimidate your passengers by flying recklessly under bridges I passed it accidentally because I crashed into the tower on takeoff.

The thing that I missed was a the little details that made San Andreas, the dating part of it wasn't bought across, except you could date strippers. In San Andreas you could literally eat your self to morbid obesity and zero stamina, and an inability to climb walls, but then you could go to a gym to learn a fighting skill and get into shape.

I also noticed that the game went quickly, it had about 69 main missions and about another 15 to 20 non main missions, but I played through the game in about 5 days.

Also at the end of the game though you can still rumble around the city, there's nothing to do except grind to buy some of the higher end properties. I know that you can go and play online and I might try it, it would have been nice to have some kind of end game content, where you can gather your characters to rob banks or casinos. Again I know they have that in online, but it would have been nice to have that here.

Overall though, this is a very polished, beautiful game to look at and play. Its a lot of fun, has a great story line that's over way too soon. But in the end it might be quibbling, but it felt like it was missing that truly polished detail that turns a game into a piece of gaming art.