GTA 5 is a work of art

Personally, I would have liked to see more made of Michael's story. Essentially, he is my preferred character because I feel that he has the most relatable brand of dysfunction between the three; I can identify to an extent without feeling as though I have lived through the story before

Coming up with the next individual protagonist is tricky though (unless you dip back to reprise a previous character). 'Black vs white' and 'immigrant vs native' are two fairly easy stories to get across but they've been done now

I'm a huge fan of the Wire, the Sopranos, Six Feet Under, X Files, Game of Thrones, Stanley Kubrick movies like A Clockwork Orange, The Shining. Francis Ford Coppola movies.

I enjoy Shakespeare, I read Dostoyevsky. And from all of this, from all of this artistic sensibility, I say

GTA 5 is a work of art! What an exceptional work. It's a master parody of the times in which we live, it's an incredible satire of social media, the film industry, video games and pop culture. I rate GTA 5 very highly

What do you think?

The satire is 10/10. Every corner there is a parody and it's beautifully done, whether it's a cocaine parody of 420 or a reference to Magnum P.I.

My favourite (or one of them) is Gruppe Sechs, a piss-take of G4 security, and obvious reference to group sex.

Also, did you not appreciate the splendid graphics in terms of depicting cities, and water (the water graphics were exceptional), and so on? Of realistically depicting Southern California?

X

"Splendid" graphics is a bit of a push, ok, for such a weak platform they weren't bad, but even when considering it being open world they were still nothing to boast about really.

I'd like to see a woman protagonist

Rdr> gta 5

Agree with both of these. It's a technical masterpiece on the 360 and PS3, but it is a boring game with dull characters.

You want a gaming piece of art with incredible writing, go play The Last of Us. By far the most compelling game I've ever played.

I often wonder whether the finer details like the satirical elements of the game, or the stunning graphics (which still amaze me even now) or even the attention to detail in the city and the countryside have always been a bit lost on many gamers who still just see GTA as a game to 'kill people and blow **** up', which is a shame cause there is just so much more to the game.

That would be a really interesting direction to take - that said, presenting a female protagonist to a predominantly male audience would take a lot of bravery on Rockstar's part. You'd then need to work out how you're going to model it (cf. probably the most famous female lead of all time, Lara Croft, and the ensuing controversy). And then it would need to be written well - establishment of strong character would be critical, but writers shouldn't allow it to go so far as to become a parody of women in society.

It sounds very difficult but would make for a hell of a game if Rockstar could pull it off.

I've heard really good things about it, I'll check it out. Thanks for the heads up

You're most welcome. It's the best game of the last generation by a long way in my book and is quite possibly the best game I've ever played. I don't say that lightly either having been a gamer for just over 2 decades now!

I'm a huge fan of the Wire, the Sopranos, Six Feet Under, X Files, Game of Thrones, Stanley Kubrick movies like A Clockwork Orange, The Shining. Francis Ford Coppola movies.

I enjoy Shakespeare, I read Dostoyevsky. And from all of this, from all of this artistic sensibility, I say

GTA 5 is a work of art! What an exceptional work. It's a master parody of the times in which we live, it's an incredible satire of social media, the film industry, video games and pop culture. I rate GTA 5 very highly

What do you think?

It's a work of genius, summed up perfectly by one line of yours: "It's a master parody of the times in which we live."

I'm not a huge gamer (I own an Xbox, I buy games like GTA, Red Dead Redemption, I don't really do multiplayer or Call of Duty, etc). But I have been around for a while, and personally I've never seen the ocean depicted so beautifully and realistically.

The buildings weren't always state of the art graphics, animals looked a bit dinky, but the cars were very good. Perhaps you can point to a game where the graphics are as good across such a wide range of scenarios (cars, planes, landscape, roads, ocean, etc).

And you can't detach any single element, one must look at it as a whole. And as a whole, the writing, the graphics, the gameplay, the depth, were excellent.

Enter CryEngine (all of them really, obviously taking into account their times) and Frostbote engines for a start. Give it a couple of years and you can throw in a load of stuff running on UnrealEngine 4 too.

A failing in any of them brings down the whole though, graphics may be decent, but aren't excellent, gamplay seems to be improved from IV, as does the writing, but that's not exactly difficult