While there hasn’t been a lot of change in how I feel about the initial gameplay of Grand Theft Auto V from last generation (you can catch my original review here), I have to admit that the visual changes and the slight upgrades for the PS4 have been quite significant enough to warrant another financial ‘go’ for this title.
The first and biggest upgrade with GTA V is the amount of presentation enhancment that Rockstar did to make this one of the most beautiful games of this current generation. I rate this up there with Assassin’s Creed Unity (gorgeous — when the fps isn’t going batty) and Dragon Age: Inquisition (still tops for this year in my book). The very first sign of this enhancement is with the draw distance in the game. If you’re outside of the city, and on a mountain top, you can see to the city of Los Santos. The game can draw out the entire landscape as far as the eye can logically see. There isn’t a lot (if any) pop-in to this and Rockstar makes sure that whatever you can see, can be reached. That is enormously impressive. For example, while I was riding to Trevor’s area, from the highway I could see giant wind turbines in the distance and they got closer and closer until they were in full detail. I was about, hypothetically, a couple of miles out from them when I saw them.
Seriously, crazy draw distance.
The textures have also been improved. You can see cracks in the ground, more fluid animation and detail to things like flags, grass, trees, leaves and streets. If you have ever driven in Los Angeles, you know that the highway is worn down and cracked, and GTA V has the same type of texture and look to their highways, so they look worn and used. Everything in the game, texture-wise, looks detailed and realistic. The game itself a year ago looked good in this department, but now there’s no comparison between it and the PlayStation 4 version. Just an absolutely upgrade that is visually worth it.
On top of this, you also get better lighting, shadows and shading that is proper to not only the time of day, but also the the direction of the sun during the day. This includes reflections off of vehicles, glass and buildings. When it isn’t sunny, the rain is coming down dynamically with randomly sized puddles developing in the street and lightning and thunder in the background that adds more feel and depth to it all (the controller shakes when it thunders/lightning). Improvements all over the map in terms of presentation and visuals.
Speaking of maps, when you’re on a highway or in Los Santos, you will also notice that more cars have been added to create more traffic, as well as a larger amount of pedestrians to tortu…err…to interact with in the game. The world in GTA V for the PlayStation 4 has been significantly populated to make it seem much bigger. The world is much bigger, at least visually speaking.
By the way, the PlayStation 4 is running 1080p at 30fps. Xbox One folks, you’re supposed to be the exact same.
On the audio side of things, the game has added 150 additional songs to the radio stations and more DJ dialogue to make for some solid entertainment. There’s nothing quite like a DJ saying, “Here’s another fucked up song about life” when you’re driving along. You can swipe between stations using the touchpad on the Dual Shock 4. Swiping up and down will change the stations, while left to right changes weapons. Nice use of a touchpad (finally it’s useful).
Presentation for GTA V has been enormously upgraded to make this worth your while. Honestly speaking, if this was the only upgrade to the game, I would pay an additional $60 to get it. It’s that damn good. Because of the scope of GTA V and how much land you can cover during its lifetime, there was enough thought and love put into the visual upgrade of this game to make it worth the purchase. Hell, if you need proof then look at the ocean. Those water effects are the best I’ve seen in a game this current generation.
Presentation aside, what about gameplay? The initial gameplay core is still very much intact from the first time around with GTA V. You still get to drive and do what you want, though you pay the consequences, which is the GTA flavor to the game. You still have the ability to build your characters up and reenact the movie Heat in downtown Los Santos if you’re feeling lucky enough. You still go through the three stories of Franklin, Trevor and Michael in the game. Everything you loved about the gameplay in the original launch of 2013 hasn’t been ruined one bit.
One addition to the game that has made waves is the inclusion of first-person perspective. In my opinion, this doesn’t ruin the game one bit. In fact, it actually makes the game somewhat cooler. Having played the hell out of this series in third-person perspective all these years, it’s interesting to see how first-person adds another element of excitement to the package. First, I think that first-person actually improves the gunfights quite a bit. Third-person shooting has always been a bit shoddy and shaky affair in all games, even in Grand Theft Auto. It doesn’t help that GTA V has a tiny dot for an indicator when you’re trying to shoot something or someone. It does help that assisted aiming is default in the game (and you can adjust that with the new version of the game to assisted aim full/partial or free aim assisted/complete freedom), but if you’re trying to go with it manually, then it’s incredibly difficult to see or aim. Moving over to a first-person perspective helps to eliminate most of that difficulty, though the dot is still an issue. Scopes look and feel better on guns and the entire process is just easier, but using that damn dot is *GRRRRR*.
Now, first-person also allows for some pretty epic crashes in cars. Yesterday (Monday), Nick the intern accidentally went head-on with a garbage truck in first-person. He was playing Michael and Michael was ejected from the broken windshield of the car, did some flips and landed on top of the garbage truck semi-safely. What was neat is that you got to experience that flipping motion and he was even launched so high that you could see Michael’s flailing shadow on the sidewalk. It was pretty darn spectacular. Nick also rolled his car down a mountain in first-person perspective to see what that looked like. I tell you, that could cause some major motion sickness.
In short, first-person perspective is damn cool. Rockstar did a great job with including it, though I can’t see using it on a regular basis to seriously play the game. I do like the fact that you can set first-person perspective in the car and still maintain third-person when you get out of the car. You can divide them out that way. Anyway, I hope they continue to include it in the future, as it’s quite fun.
On the online portion of the game, there have been some upgrades as well.
The visuals are just slightly brought down in comparison to the story mode. There are some pop-ins with the levels.. In one instance I ran into the cityscape background popped in when I stared at it long enough with my character. You can tell that the textures have been slightly downgraded to probably accommodate online play, though I’m honestly sure that most people would expect this, as it’s typically the case with online games on a console. None of that takes away from the online experience, and Rockstar still does a damn good job with making the world better than what you would find when compared to the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 versions, but it’s not quite the level of the story mode graphics. I am completely fine with that.
For the stuff you truly give a damn about on the online side of GTA V, the game has increased player count to 30 (+2 spectators). The character creator has been buffed a bit to give you a lot more options when creating a custom character that fits your gameplay needs (my guy is a cross between Drake and Terrance Howard — you can’t get much cooler than that). It’s not quite yet to the Skyrim level of customization, but it’s getting there.
Everything that you know and love since the launch of GTA V is still intact with this upgrade, so you’re literally losing nothing going to the current generation platform. I do have to admit that I wish I could have reviewed this portion of the game last year (it was offline at the time of our review), so that I could have set up my own character and established myself online. I did feel a bit lost when first entertaining GTA Online, but quickly fell in love with it, despite getting dispatched multiple times by one particular individual I won’t name.
For those of you returning, you have a rail gun to look forward to and some more goodies (you can discover those yourself).
Overall, I think that the Grand Theft Auto V’s re-release is definitely worth your time and money. I think that the visuals alone will make it worth it, as well as the additional material (cars) and such that make the game a bit deeper. Had I not received this for review, I probably would be adding it to my Christmas wishlist. It’s still a helluva game to go through and a helluva lot of fun to get lost in. Definitely worth it.
