World-First Hands-On With Grand Theft Auto V

Millimetres. That’s all it could’ve been.

I was chasing a stricken business jet across the countryside on the outskirts of Los Santos. I was controlling Trevor below on a dirt bike, bombing over the lumpy ground full throttle, one eye on the terrain and one eye on the plane above as the pilot weaved about searching for somewhere to put his smoking bird down. A road suddenly revealed itself ahead; it wasn’t especially busy but there was a truck ambling along it. I needed to blast across this road to continue keeping tabs on the plane, so I was left with a split-second decision: dart in front of the moving truck or ease off the gas and let it pass.

“

Trevor and the bike sprang out from in front of the encroaching truck like a stabbed cat.

I chose the former, gave the bike the beans, and aimed for the other side of the street. The truck loomed large on my right. I nudged the left stick forward, hunkering Trevor down over the handlebars. At that moment the truck was practically on top of him, but the collision never came. Trevor and the bike sprang out from in front of the encroaching truck like a stabbed cat. There couldn’t have been more than millimetres between the bike’s rear tyre and the truck’s fender, but we’d made it.

It was pure Hollywood. A random, breathtaking moment of awesome directly stemming from a decision I made. A purely emergent, life-and-death dance more exciting than every pre-constructed, quick-time event I’ve ever half-heartedly button-bashed my way through.

Make no mistake; Grand Theft Auto V is made of moments just like this.

And it feels incredible.

My hands-on with Grand Theft Auto V begins just outside of Los Santos, in a small parking lot just off a winding freeway wrapping itself along the San Andreas coastline. There’s a waypoint in the middle of Vinewood and several vacant performance cars available to get me there.

I take the one with scissor doors.

“

The low-slung supercar feels more sure-footed and grippy than similar models in GTA IV.

I gingerly thread my way into the traffic bustling down the freeway towards the city. The road is thick with semi-trailers rumbling into Los Santos. The distinction between GTA V and GTA IV’s vehicle handling is immediately clear; carving my way through the throngs of 18-wheelers the low-slung supercar feels more sure-footed and grippy than similar models in GTA IV. It’s more responsive, but without erring towards feeling too superficial or light.

To the right, over the ocean, the sun is setting. The sky glows orange as I near the first turn-off. Pulling into a more built-up area of town I’m reminded of the obsessive, incidental detail that amazed me during our first, hands-off demonstration. The cracked roads. The bespoke graffiti lining the walls. The unique shopfronts and billboards littering your line of sight. The city is colourful yet weathered. Living but lived-in. Like Liberty City before it, Los Santos is already making me feel as much like a tourist as a player.

Los Santos looks absolutely stunning at night.

I cruise past an Up-n-Atom Burger on my left. It’s night now and the neon lights of Vinewood are bathing the whole environment in a soft glow. It’s suggested, at this stage, I cause a little mayhem and get a feel for the on-foot controls.

I ditch the car just down from the Cathay Theater and bring up the weapon wheel. For the purposes of the hands-on it’s fully stocked. The wheel itself functions in a similar way to the weapon wheel in Max Payne 3, only in GTA V you can carry a great deal more hardware. The main wheel itself is broken down into a series of subcategories; after scrolling with the stick to the weapon type you want, left and right on the D-pad will cycle between additional individual weapons. I select the heavy machine guns and flick between the ones on offer until I find a minigun. It’s an elegant system. Impressively, the weapon wheel will store all of the weapons you collect and you’ll never lose them, even if they run out of ammo or you get busted.

Somewhere, somehow, Michael Mann just got a tingle in his gentlemen's area.

The minigun makes short work of vehicles, but the response from the local constabulary is swift and severe and my anti-social experiment doesn’t last long. The police, who appear to be giving me a much wider berth than their brothers-in-blue from Liberty City, are quite content to pick me off from afar – and they successfully do so before I wreak too much havoc.

“

The harsh, San Andreas sunshine... gives the whole environment a brilliant, suitably over-exposed summertime feel.

Respawning at the nearest hospital, it’s daylight and I’m struck at just how much brighter GTA V is than GTA IV. The harsh, San Andreas sunshine lends vehicles a dazzling gleam, casts sharp shadows, and gives the whole environment a brilliant, suitably over-exposed summertime feel. Aesthetically, Los Santos stands in stark contrast to the somewhat washed-out bleakness of Liberty City.

I jog out onto the road and train a pistol at the first driver I obstruct, assuming he’ll abandon his car. He does not; he slinks down behind the steering wheel and floors it, running me down in the process. Civilian responses to carjacking seem more varied here in GTA V. In a few cases simply wrenching the door open is enough for the occupant to get out of his or her car in fear, without you raising a further finger. I appropriate a shiny red, El Camino-style pick-up and proceed to hurl it around the streets. It handles noticeably differently from the high-powered supercar; potent but heftier. The pick-up doesn’t stick to the road quite as tenaciously but it’s simple to tame and throw about.

I loose a few rounds into a passing bus to stir up the fuzz and trade my pick-up for a large beverage truck. The truck’s bulk makes for some satisfyingly crunching collisions with the pursuing police cruisers but, again, I’m chopped down minutes into my rampage.

It’s no matter because it’s time for some missions.

Source : ign[dot]com