Where do you even start with reviewing something like Grand Theft Auto V? Much like the opening of the game proper, when you’re pretty much deposited in downtown Los Santos with the keys to the city jangling in the pocket of your low slung jeans, there’s so much ground to cover you fear you’ll never fit everything in.
Ostensibly this is the story of three contrasting career criminals drawn together by a convoluted chain of events. Franklin is a young gangbanger with a talent for driving; marksman Michael is a master strategist skilled at planning and pulling off heists; and Trevor is a psychopathic pilot with a penchant for starting - and finishing - fights.
You’ll directly control them all, switching freely between them between missions and at opportune moments while on the job.
Each has their own special skill, starting stats and side missions but crucially, given how much time you’ll be spending with them, they’re also cracking company and the perfect antidotes to GTA IV’s more sombre storyline.
Plus, being able to dip in and out of Michael’s dysfunctional family life, Franklin’s turf wars and Trevor’s trailer park empire eliminates the element of grind that occasionally prolonged progression in past GTAs.
