Grand Theft Auto Online
Game Play - 9
Presentation - 8
Story - 7
Life Span - 9
8.3
Going Online in Grand Theft Auto was a long and arduous experience. The launch day with riddled with constant server problems and millions of gamers were unable to experience the fun of exploring Los Santos with friends. I myself was unable to log in until Thursday out of luck, and still long loading times and connection issues were often. Once everything settled down I got to play the actual product and I have quite enjoyed myself. I expect the game to be even more fun when heists are unlocked and can see why players love causing mayhem with others.
Grand Theft Auto Online Community Page
Enter the world of Grand Theft Auto Online and you are greeted with an amazing open world to explore with fifteen other players to help you rob stores, blow things up, and in general have great fun in Los Santos. While the overall feel of the game is the same as campaign there are some aspects that are lacking in the product. The repetitive missions often drag down the game and the way matchmaking works feels weak, especially coming from a studio with pedigree such as Rock Star.
The game play of Grand Theft Auto Online is exactly the same as the campaign. Shooting, driving, and other hobbies all function the same, and fighting other players over money and bounties can be a lot of fun. However one thing that is really annoying and that I have also heard from other players about similar complaints is the forcing of Auto-aim on players. This function can be disabled in the settings while in campaign, but when in death match it huddles up players with both options and it doesn’t mesh.
The missions in the game vary from stealing drugs to taking out rival games and can be fun with playing with friends, but so many of the missions are repetitive after three or four times. As the player levels up more missions are unlocked for the player and more money is rewarded, but until Heists and other custom created content is released players can expect doing some of the same missions with different locales or objectives over and over again.
Free mode is still traditional fun and when the room is full expect a lot of chaos to ensue. Some of the best moments I have had in Grand Theft Auto Online has been in free mode. Doing simple things such as shopping, playing tennis, or robbing stores is a blast with a pal and joining crews can bring other players together.
The Presentation of Los Santos still looks beautiful in multiplayer, and the landscape seems majestic when atop mountains, but the only thing that takes a slight dip in visuals is the custom character. While this is expected and not much of an issue, it sometimes sticks out how wonderful everything around you seems and then contrasting it with your characters face. Cut scenes still play out smoothly and the frame rate almost never drops, an impressive feat in such a massive world.
The Story is almost nil online. The setting is set before the events of the campaign and players will see some familiar faces such as Lamar and Simeon, but other then “here’s a gun have some fun”, don’t expect some big thralling epic. The missions are usually helping out characters to make more money or do jobs, and while the aspect of heists hasn’t been introduced I doubt it will add much more story wise to the online feature. I didn’t expect much story to the online and it didn’t bother me to much that it wasn’t there.
The online component of Grand Theft Auto V will have a very healthy life span. With all the amount of content Rockstar has promised to roll out in the future I expect players to be roaming Los Santos for years. Grand Theft Auto IV was still popular online weeks before the release of GTA V and I expect the same for Grand Theft Auto Online.
