Grand Theft Auto V

[Jay 2K Winger]

As sorry as I feel for this guy, I can't help but feel a certain sense of irony... x_x

http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/man-sta...elease-5586479

Yeeeah, knew something like that was coming.

Last week, I was musing to myself on something my friends and I had thought about after the original San Andreas was released-- that they should do a GTA game in "Capital City" and its surroundings.

Then the Navy Yard shooting happened and I think I can see immediately why they wouldn't. There'd be a major uproar about the potential of having your character go on a violent rampage in front of a mock White House or some other governmental building.

[Kagato]

Yeeeah, knew something like that was coming.

Last week, I was musing to myself on something my friends and I had thought about after the original San Andreas was released-- that they should do a GTA game in "Capital City" and its surroundings.

Then the Navy Yard shooting happened and I think I can see immediately why they wouldn't. There'd be a major uproar about the potential of having your character go on a violent rampage in front of a mock White House or some other governmental building.

yeaaah, that would not be happening any time soon, you can only carry suspension of disbelief so far.

[Jay 2K Winger]

yeaaah, that would not be happening any time soon, you can only carry suspension of disbelief so far.

Yeah, I think my friends and I all realized that, especially since it was post-9/11, but we still had fun thinking of possible characters, mission strings, and landmarks. (The return of Congressman Shrub, Ammu-Nation HQ (a la the NRA HQ), the Septagon (a la the Pentagon), etc.)

[Jay 2K Winger]

Welp, there's already been two references to GTA IV in 5.

First is to "some Eastern European guy in Liberty City, but he's gone quiet."

The other is a brief cameo by Johnny from "The Lost and the Damned."

[Seraph]

Gotta be straight - some of my friends are saying that there's a looot of stuff going on with this one that makes them uncomfortable. One guy even said there was a scene that made him queasy. All of them have played the other games through plenty of times...kinda surprised they were like "I'm not sure what to think of this one".

Is it *that* much more ramped up than the others?

[Victory Sabre]

There is nudity in the game at the strip clubs. Beyond that, (and I'm not far at all in the game) there's nothing more over the top than previous games.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Yeah I'm not entirely sure what your friends are on about. If you played GTA IV and some of its DLC, there's not really anything more "ramped up" than in those.

I've only just unlocked Trevor-- the psychotic hillbilly-- as playable, but in his first mission, he curb-stomps a guy, drives over and tells his friends, then follows said friends to MORE of their friends and murders them all.

Just from that, I'd say Trevor's going to be responsible for some of the more violent scenes in the game, given that Franklin (the black guy) is just trying to make money, and Michael is a former bank robber getting back into his old ways.

Of course, this is Rockstar, and they may prove me wrong in future story missions.

[Seraph]

I know two of them were bothered by a torture scene. And another guy said something about filming something in the strip club and being "borderline abusive towards the women".

I don't know much about the game series, admittedly I've never played them. Always been kind of interested though, but one of my friends literally told me to not buy this one. <_<

[Jay 2K Winger]

I know two of them were bothered by a torture scene. And another guy said something about filming something in the strip club and being "borderline abusive towards the women".

I don't know much about the game series, admittedly I've never played them. Always been kind of interested though, but one of my friends literally told me to not buy this one. <_<

I haven't gotten to any "torture" scenes yet, but judging by the character trailer for Trevor, he hooks someone up to a car battery, I think. So I'm guessing that's what they're talking about. And thus far my only experience with the strip club was encountering Franklin there after one of the missions, where I had him spend a little time tossing money at one of the dancers.

I haven't gotten too far into GTA V yet, but if you're interested in the series, you definitely want to check out Vice City and San Andreas. Vice City is set in 1980s Vice City (Miami), and follows Mob guy Tommy Vercetti as he has to earn money back to appease his bosses back in Liberty City (NYC), and ends up becoming something of a kingpin himself.

San Andreas-- still the high point of the series, to me-- is set in mid-90s San Andreas (California), in which small-time gang member Carl "CJ" Johnson returns home after one of his brothers dies, and gets back into the gang scene in Los Santos (Los Angeles), and ends up going into the countryside, then up to San Fierro (San Francisco), where he starts to build up some significant criminal cred, and eventually moves onto the desert and Las Venturas (Las Vegas) where he really starts to become a big-time player, before returning home to Los Santos to confront the men who got him in so deep and the men who betrayed him.

GTA IV kind of hits a reset on the series, with virtually no reference to the original games, and it's set back in Liberty City. It follows Serbian (or Eastern European, at least) immigrant Niko Bellic as he gets off the boat and gets into trouble with the Russian Mafiya, and eventually the Mob proper, in between frequent calls from his friends to go grab food, and especially from his cousin Roman ("NIKO! MY COUSIN!") who likes to visit the strip clubs.

The two DLC expansions, "The Lost and Damned" and "The Ballad of Gay Tony," follow different protagonists. TLaD follows Johnny Klebitz, VP of the Alderney (New Jersey) chapter of The Lost motorcycle club, as he has to deal with the fallout of the chapter's president Billy Grey getting out of court-ordered rehab. Johnny had managed to secure truces with rival gangs and clubs to allow them to operate more freely, but Billy's return means the return of his poor leadership and leads to friction (and eventual schism) within the club.

TBoGT, meanwhile, follows Luis Fernando Lopez, a Dominican drug dealer and personal bodyguard to Gay Tony, a socialite and night club owner, and deals with Luis' struggles to balance his loyalty to his job and his family/friends, with much more over-the-top missions than TLaD or GTAIV proper.

While GTA IV was visually very awesome and hit a lot of high points, I found myself frustrated by the driving controls and depressed by the ending, which felt like something of a downer to me. That Rockstar's next several big games (Red Dead Redemption and LA Noire, for instance) had similarly downer endings, in my opinion, is making me hope that GTA V will have a less downer climax.

[fireheart]

This made me giggle.

My boyfriend is currently studying an IT degree via online university (if anyone cares it's RMIT) and as a result, has to participate in online tutes. His tutor has a tendency topost up the agenda. Item #1 was the tutor getting a cup of tea (in progress). At the bottom, the message looked like this:

"Remember to pray to the collaborate that so we don't get kicked out again-also no discussion about GTA V"

[Jay 2K Winger]

I love switching back to Trevor after having done things for a while as Michael or Franklin. The shit Trevor gets into.

First time it happened, he had tied up some schlub to the posts under a dock, shoved his tie in his mouth, and was saying, "And THAT is why trickle-down economics is a bunch of bullshit!"

The second time, he was in an outdoor gym, yelling at one of the bodybuilders, saying something like "And I say that's just a sock you got in there, so whip it out!" and then he was in a fist-fight.

[RayvenQ]

I decided to give Michael an ingame weekend off, started with a round of golf at 6am, a day at the beach sailing and swimming, complete with bright red hawaiian shirt and ugly blue bermuda shorts, then a all night drinking session with Franklin, followed by a hangover game of golf with Franklin....then I switched to trevor who woke up in the middle of nowhere, asleep against a rock wearing a dress, which did nothing for his colours.

So I became Trevor, the Masked Fireman, cruising around fighting crime in my firetruck and giving out free car washes to any passing cars.

[Jay 2K Winger]

I decided to give Michael an ingame weekend off, started with a round of golf at 6am, a day at the beach sailing and swimming, complete with bright red hawaiian shirt and ugly blue bermuda shorts, then a all night drinking session with Franklin, followed by a hangover game of golf with Franklin....then I switched to trevor who woke up in the middle of nowhere, asleep against a rock wearing a dress, which did nothing for his colours.

So I became Trevor, the Masked Fireman, cruising around fighting crime in my firetruck and giving out free car washes to any passing cars.

Switching to Trevor and finding him in the middle of some bizarre circumstance is always great.

Switched to him last night and he woke up in his underwear, having been sleeping on the side of a bridge, commenting "Coulda sworn that was a motel."

[Jay 2K Winger]

I played the "torture" mission this weekend. It really is pretty uncomfortable to watch, and you do feel sorry for the poor guy being tortured.

One of the side mission strands that I like involves the Epsilon Program ("Kifflom!"), the GTA-verse's thinly veiled parody of the Church of Scientology. To kick off the missions, have Michael go to the Epsilon Program's website on his phone, and complete the evaluation survey. That will make one of those ? mission markers appear up in the mountains.

Spoilers: [Michael finds a red pickup with a dented fender, where he-- apparently on a whim-- recites an oath to the open air. He's then approached by two Epsilon members, who promptly kick him in the balls, then punch him out. Michael wakes up in the desert by some big satellite dishes in his underwear, and is told to donate $500 to the Program if he wishes to further seek the truth.]

I've only done the first two missions in Epsilon's strand, but apparently each one will require a larger and larger donation to the Program to continue.

Something else that's fun to do:
(NOTE: These are the Xbox 360 controls)
- Take a running start (hold down A and move forward)
- Press X
- Press B

What happens is you apparently can't perform a strike (B) while jumping (X), so you basically ragdoll and flop on your face. Getting a running start just means it looks like you trip and fall.

I had fun last night running around Michael's pool and deck, ragdolling myself down steps and into railings. Then I did a running start and managed to pitch myself off a balcony.

[EricKei]

I don't know much about the game series, admittedly I've never played them. Always been kind of interested though, but one of my friends literally told me to not buy this one. <_<

Same here, tho I've seen enough from friends who love the series -- One caveat, tho... At least one review (Escapist) raised a few hackles. Their description, in summary: "Looks great, sounds great, friggin' HUGE, plays great, it's fun...But all three main characters are unsympathetic, unlikable scumbags (as opposed to people who "ended up" doing what they were doing for one reason or another)." Just one guy's opinion, of course

If you want a game to never never ever buy, "Call of Juarez: The Cartel" should fit that bill nicely. Search for the name and "Extra Credits" on youtube if you wanna know why (perhaps not if yer squeamish, and deffo not if yer not old enough to buy M-rated games...)