POPULARWhy GTA V is the Greatest Game of All Time
Although it's been a bit of a rocky journey, Grand Theft Auto has become a gaming goliath and joined the likes of Mario and Pokemon as a household name. It's been more than 20 years since the first GTA came out and paranoid soccer moms have been dreading the title ever since.
This is a series that has sparked outrage, protest, and evening news segments claiming that it turns kids into killers and drug dealers. But even though the outside world saw these games as dangerous, the gaming community saw them for what they really were: incredible.
Of course, we've come a long way in 20 years. The Grand Theft Auto franchise is now widely considered among the best ever and has earned every bit of both its critical acclaim and commercial success.
But this isn't about the series. This is about GTA V, and why GTA V is the greatest game of all time. I’m not gonna delve deep into the single player/story because it’s excellent but you already know it’s excellent because it’s something that GTA games consistently do excellently. And I’m not trying to downplay it: if GTA V was only single player it would still be a fantastic, award-winning game. But I’m so glad it’s not.
GTA has always been at the forefront of providing gamers with plenty of content and plenty of freedom, and GTA V Online is what happens when they dial it up to 11. This is the type of freedom you get when the franchise that made open world the standard decides that gamers are too restricted. There’s not many games out there where you can blow things up with helicopters, join the mafia, become an assassin, have tank wars and knife fights and you get the point. You can do literally anything you want.
Here’s a story:
I was browsing GTA on Twitch for the first time and randomly clicked on one of the top English streams. I think it had like 900 viewers. It was some guy in a role playing server, and he was role playing as a member of the Kudo Kai Yakuza. He was engaged to a wealthy businessman which had apparently ruffled some feathers in the community and people were out to assassinate the Kudo Kai guy.
Over the course of 10 minutes I watched this guy hire security, wait for security while his chauffeur drove him around, get shot by an assassin, get driven to the hospital, and have surgery. While he’s at the hospital, a sheriff comes with a handcuffed inmate that needs treatment for taser wounds. While the doctor is tending to the inmate, the sheriff notices our Yakuza man and starts talking to him, at which point the inmate sprints out of the hospital and when the sheriff notices he chases after him. What's so crazy about that? THESE WERE ALL REAL PEOPLE.
That was a real human being dressed up as an inmate, as a sheriff, as a nurse. Real people who had businesses as drivers or as security or as assassins. When you combine that level of freedom with the level of quality that GTA V gives you, what you get isn't just something magical. Not just a masterpiece. What you get is the best there is, the best there's ever been, the pinnacle. And I can't wait for a game to come and change my mind.
PS: That guy never did get his deposit back for the security guards
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