How will you feel when you have already made contact with a girl at the bar, changed your cap for a cowboy hat, played all your first impression games and won them all, took her to your home, were about to take off your clothes and suddenly she gives you this look that says wait, I can’t do this. And she disappears. Well, this is how you’d feel if you have waited all this year for Grand Theft Auto Online. Hands down, the online mode is the only bit of negativity about this otherwise mind blowing title. But does it deserve the amount of online rage that it has been attracting lately? I say yes, and maybe a little no too. Here’s what I think from my First Impressions of the submerging world of Grand Theft Auto Online, lovingly called GTFO, err GTAO.
The ever engaging persistent online world as conceived by Rockstar Games for Grand Theft Auto is a challenge in itself. Randomized player distribution makes it even harder for a person who wants to make friends in the world. Because there is a thin line that separates a friend from a foe, and that single choice is down to pure monetary interests. IN GTAO, every mission and game equals to an amount of cash that you will be rewarded with, carry the cash in your wallet and you may end up losing it completely. So once you have beat a mission, run for the closest ATM and deposit the cash, you may save some in your wallet to entertain yourself at the Strip Club – Vanilla Unicorn.
Major events from the main mission are rolled out in the online world, including my favourite Triathlons. There are tons of road/off road races to challenge other people to, there are tons of gang deathmatches and of course the GTA style races, wherein you can gun down other races within the race (I know right!) Apart from the single player famous quests, there are tons of online exclusive activities, like 1 vs 1 brawl (especially after someone runs you down) and arm wrestling challenges. GTAO seamlessly lets you switch from deathmatches and all sorts of online bragging to bromance exhibiting co-op missions. The Skill Adjust makes it perfectly alright to find a team mate who is at par with your progression. Some of the missions get extremely exciting, as one guns the enemy while the other collects weed stash and drives his car around the city to reach the destination unharmed.
If you think that this batshit crazy online world is devoid of any story driven plot or intention, then you are wrong. You are a character who has been personally invited to Los Santos by Lamar (know him from GTAV SP) and given a gun to deal the problems of the city with. The more missions you do, the newer and more people you meet, offering you jobs. Sadly, my 3 failed attempts with 3 deleted characters never went beyond Lamar and his early gang members. The story seems to have been fitted before the story of Michael, Trevor and Franklin. In your first attempt at gold in the online world, you are pitted against fellow drivers in a street race. There’s a different reason to remember the race though, I flipped my car into the First Position (I know right!)
But the most selling game of our times was disregarded to be so by its developers, and that’s completely fine by me. However, most of the times frustration will seep in deep, as tennis games would lag, deathmatches will feature teleporting enemies and street races will log you out even before you can push down the pedal. Rockstar North just hinted at composing GTA VI and I feel this way, well, first fix the online servers before you move on to another gigantic title like GTAV!
While most of the shooting is aided with the auto aim, it doesn’t take much talent to gun someone down. Just lay low and let him leave cover, and then thrash his soul off with 3-4 good rounds of your gun. If you are taking fire, press R2 (on the PS3 controller) and head for the nearest cover, wait for your health to regenerate a bit and then go for his head. Driving is as smooth as the Single Player Story, but the irritating AI drivers on the streets make it almost impossible to win a street race clean, hence I head for the water races.
The UI is definitely complicated, with so much to customize if you are hosting a session, that it easily becomes a pain to start a match. And did I tell you that the servers might crash just before opening up the session?! The UI could’ve been simpler, with the PLAY button as big as… I don’t know! I do like the dashboard that comes after a mission is played, showing you other activities that you and the sessions players can take part in.
There is a continuous flow of money into your account with solving missions, engaging in competitions and of course robbing stores. Some stores are there to be robbed, intimate the shopkeeper by pointing your gun at him or shouting like Jimmy Di Santa on your microphone. Or you can turn into a Lonewolf and trip your game mates for cash. Beware, too much of notoriety may cast you as a not so Clean Player and you will lose out on in-game rewards. But if you are optimist that the server will crash and you will anyways lose your character progression, then don’t give a damn about staying clean. Money moves and money heals, go a complete retard. You can invest in shares too, and get your car/bike fitted with an expensive theft tracker and when you grow old buy a garage or two. Staying in a gang/crew is the ideal way to stay on top in a GTAO world.
The intentions were gigantic with GTA Online, the execution wasn’t. Even though I have sided with the ‘Oh we never expected such online footfalls’ theory of Rockstar but I cannot promise that I will stay faithful till the time they come back clean. This last quarter of 2013 is still title heavy, as I am already hooked to Beyond: Two Souls, and expecting the same from Arkham Origins, Need For Speed: Rivals and Watch_Dogs. I am in love with Rockstar Games since Max Payne 2, and can almost die for a title like Red Dead Redemption, but at the same time I think Rockstar needs to speed up their server maintenance job, or else they will lose hardcore lovers like me to other competitive online games. And I’m just saying. Definitely the Greatest Open World Single Player Game of this decade, definitely not the worst Online Fail of the times (take a bow God of War: Ascension!)
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