Grand Theft Auto 5

It's not perfect. But as someone coming into the game fairly jaded about GTA (I thought IV was boring and generally don't finish GTA games), I've enjoyed my time with it.

Game mechanics are tight, the map is huge, and there is a level of freedom here that few games compare to.

Only downsides I found were the said torture scene (though it was fairly short and didn't make you go through all the "options" to complete), the morality of the characters (Trevor can be entertaining but generally you need to accept that he is an awful character who does despicable things).

It's probably the best executed game ever. Every aspect of it is fun, and it will do everything you expect it to do (lots of attention to detail).

I've never been into GTA beyond having fun in the sandbox. I don't really do missions and would rather install a 100% save file and just have fun messing around. But this one I'm hooked on.

It's 3 games in one. The main game is story driven. The multiplayer has 2 main modes and is just outstanding; it's a kind of MMO with 16 players per server and a whole world to play in. I've been having a lot of fun assassinating people until one of them puts a bounty on me, then driving out to the windfarm or up a mountain and wait there with a sniper rifle as other players flock to kill me. So the first multiplayer mode is a "do what you want" chaotic mode, and the second is organised challenges like races, parachute jumps, co-op arena battles.

The only faults I can find are minor. No classical music channel (would have been epic), no option to always mute everyone in multiplayer apart from friends. It's a vast, brilliant game that makes me wonder how they're going to top it.

Dr. McKay said:

If I told you that I absolutely loathe the movie Scarface (and other movies like it), do you think I will still like GTA V ?

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Dunno, I've never seen Scarface (or Godfather, Good Fellas). The intro sequence was very Fargo, though.

It's a lot less "gang-y" than the other GTAs. It's not about proving anything, or being the best. It's just 3 close individuals that want money. One who has seen too many movies, one who is a sociopath and one who wants to move away.

I kind of got bored with it quickly myself......

I appreciate everything is really well done, and yet the content / tone / action of it just felt to me like treading the same old drug running / prostitute beating of the genre in general. The heists were interesting idea, though the parts leading up to them became monotonous fetch quests verging on repetitious nausea.

on a technical level I marvelled. Watching characters interact in the car, it really was a fantastic realised environment and yeah as a show case for the potential of how far a developer can push ageing technology it is a miraculous accomplishment.

But for me it lacked the thing that hooks me ....

This has been the case with every GTA game and other open world spin offs such as Sleeping Dogs for me. And yet I do like games like CrackDown where the emphasis is more on exploration and super hero style escapism.

This uncanny valley of playing something realistic and then realistically violent has become a major turn off for me as I get older.

I can get lost for hours in Mario / Skylanders / Lego games etc, where I appreciate the creativity, innocence and simple 'joy' of being a video game / escapism.

Dr. McKay said:

I know what you mean, and although there's part of me that I don't like all those macho games, I've been wanting to try them out.
Assassins creed is another one of those hyped series. I've never played one of the AC games, but just like with GTA, want to try one.
I was going to buy a PS3 pack with Uncharted 3 and The Last of Us, but for the same price, there's the same pack but with Assassins Creed 4 instead of Uncharted 3.
So I might end up with Assassins Creed 4, The last of us and GTA V. Not forgetting Shift 2 and SF4 Arcade in the process

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Definitely try out any of the ACs if you are into history.

Dr. McKay said:

However, on the AC4 bundle it says 'PS3 Exclusive Edition - Includes 60 minutes of exclusive gameplay' which leads me to believe if you buy the retail version of AC4, you won't get this? Or is it available as (free) DLC ?

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No every PS3 & PS4 version comes with it. It's just exclusive to Sony platform, you don't have to buy a specific version