Grand Theft Auto V is an open world action-adventure game released in 2013 that follows three protagonists in the fictional city of Los Santos. The three main characters are Michael, a retired bank robber; Trevor, Michael's former criminal partner living in a desert area; and Franklin, a young criminal who gets involved with the others. The game focuses on heists and features both a story mode with missions and an online multiplayer mode where players can engage in additional activities. Grand Theft Auto V received critical acclaim for its detailed open world, storytelling, and amount of gameplay content.

1. Grand Theft Auto V
Overview of the Game
Grand Theft auto V or GTA V is a third person action-adventure game
released in 2013 and developed by Rockstar. It is part of the hugely
successful Grand Theft Auto series and the follow up to Grand Theft Auto IV
released in 2009. The game is set in a fictional city called Los Santos based
on the real life city of Los Angles, the game follows three main characters.
Michael a middle aged retired bank robber, Trevor an eccentric criminal who
lives off the grid in the desert behind Los Santos, called Blaine County, and
Franklin a young criminal, who wants to move into bigger things.
In the game you follow the story of each of the characters and their lives and
pasts intertwine to bring them together. The games main focus is heists from
banks, jewelry stores and a variety of other robberies.
Aside from the story mode of the game, GTA V also offers an online mode
which is very popular. In the online mode you create your own character that
you use to do missions, races and heists while doing these activities your
character levels up and gains money with the money you gain you can buy
weapons, vehicles and safe houses.
GTA V since its release has received a lot of new updates, including new
online missions new cars for single and multiplayer and a new arsenal of
weapons. There is a new DLC coming out for the online mode of the game
which will include heists much like the ones you play in the regular game.
From left to right Michael, Franklin and Trevor (Image Link)

2. Gameplay
The game was released for
Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3; it
was met with huge praise
because of the amount of detail
and content in the game. The
graphics are very well done
and realistic, the game has a
weather system and cycles
through day and night. It has
since been announced that the
game will be re-released for
Xbox one and Playstation4 in
late 2014 because of these
consoles superior
specifications. The game has
had some extra content added
as well as an improved weather
system and updated traffic
density to take advantage of
the amount of processing
power the new consoles have.
Overall the game controls very smooth, this is a staple of the Grand Theft
Auto games as a whole, which have always been known for their driving and
gun fighting mechanics. While playing the game you encounter many people,
some friendly, some enemies, and because of this you have to do a lot of fire
fights in the game. The enemies are very intelligent and take cover behind
near by walls and cars making it a challenge to take them down. Because of
the games nature of being focused on criminal activities most of the enemies
you encounter during the game are police, this is done in a way traditional of
the series when you first commit a crime a normal police car and police
officers will arrive, if they can’t contain the situation they will call in different
levels of backup such as S.W.A.T teams, the FBI and even sometimes the
military each of these branches of resistance have their own weapons and
vehicles, making it a challenge to get away.
In Grand Theft Auto V, you can improve each characters attributes in things
such as stamina for running, shooting skill to get better aim or driving so that
you can keep control of the car at high speeds easier.
Apart from the games mechanics and content, one of the biggest talking
points on release was the size of the in game world, which is much bigger
than any of the previous games in the series. The huge world offers a diverse
array of things to do such as flight school, street races or even sky diving,
because of all the content in the game it keeps it fresh and adds a lot of replay
ability to it.
Pictured in the top left, the map for Grand Theft Auto V (Image link)

3. The Story
As mentioned in the first paragraph the story follows three characters, the
main one being Michael De Santa, a retired bank robber once known as
Michael Townley an infamous stick-up man. Now though Michael lives in Los
Santos with his wife and two kids, all of which have a strained relationship
with each other. Michael is in an informal form of witness protection mainly to
hide himself from another character Trevor who was once his partner in crime
but is now hunting him down after a heist went wrong.
Moving onto Trevor Phillips, Michaels former partner, who is now living in the
desert behind Los Santos called Blaine Country. Trevor is very eccentric and
a little bit insane; he makes his money through drugs and various other
criminal activities. Although he has been hunting Michael for years he doesn’t
know the he lives just a few hours away in Los Santos, this is revealed to
Trevor during the story
The third and final character is Franklin “Frank” Clinton a young criminal who
is getting involved in gangs and works repossessing cars in a less than legal
way, during one of his repossession jobs he meets Michael who takes him
under his wing as a criminal protégé.
As their story’s progress the truth of what happened between Michael and
Trevor is revealed as their stories start to cross paths.
Multiplayer
As mentioned in the over view of the game, aside from a story Grand Theft
Auto V also has a multiplayer mode, this was a huge selling point for a lot of
people due to the hugely successful multiplayer of GTA V’s predecessor
Grand Theft Auto IV, in V’s multiplayer the developer stated that it would be
more in depth and deeper than any multiplayer they had made before.
The multiplayer was almost as content packed as the story mode game, with
vehicles made just for the multiplayer, character customization ranging from
hairstyles to full body tattoos. Apart from this players have the ability to buy
property of different levels, some apartments costing $5000 and some closer
to 1 million.
The online part of the game wasn’t without its flaws and fair share of criticism,
upon its first few days of release the online multiplayer was close to
unplayable, due to the games servers not being able to handle the amount of
people who were trying to get online.

4. Overall
I personally enjoy the Grand Theft Auto series and I thought that this release
was the best in the series’ history with the amount of detail, content and
endless side activities to do it offers something for everyone. The main story
it’s self has 69 individual missions, this isn’t including all the side activities and
mini games on offer.
The game can be replayed multiple times, as I have done, and each time you
find something new that you didn’t encounter on the previous play through.
The smooth driving, aiming mechanics and overall fluidity of the controls and
the blockbuster movie level story telling make Grand Theft Auto V a must play
game.