Last fall Rockstar got some of my hard-earned bucks by releasing the next iteration of the GTA franchise, GTA V. I latched on and played for a few weeks or a month before work pulled me off. Really enjoyed it: some really great characters (Trevor is still one of my favorite sociopath of all time), city environments were outstanding and the missions are varied and interesting.
What I didn’t like was attempting to play on the XBox with one of those damnable controllers. I’ve never really gotten the hang of it nor played enough on the Xbox to get good at it through sheer repetition. I’m looking forward to playing this one with a mouse and keyboard.
Also, I may very well have a 55 inch TV but I’ll be damned if the picture isn’t as crisp as I would have liked it. Perhaps it would have looked better on an XBONE but I don’t know. Being able to crank up the resolution, play in full screen with anti-aliasing on makes me pine for October. The crisp, clean image on-screen with very little blurring and tearing. Gorgeous!
I’ve played a good deal of Watch_Dogs for the past two weeks. And by a lot I mean when I can fit it between bouts of computer based learning, planning for our trip to Europe or just spending time reading Reddit. I don’t really have much time to fit it in but it feels very much like I imagine GTA V will play like when GTA V on PC becomes a reality.
Rockstar always manages to make the players interested in the story, invest in the characters and really gives the player an opportunity to play in a simply magnificent sandbox. So few games released lately give you that opportunity. I felt that way about GTA IV, the first console game that made me enjoy learning about who my character was and what his back story could be. More importantly, who I could make him become.
This is important to me; gaming is my escape. I release my mind into an electronic world that allows me to become that which is most interesting to me: not me. Someone whose wit is quick, whose intelligence is powerful, and whom doesn’t feel a need to kill EVERYONE all the time. While Rockstar continues to do this, I’ll continue to buy their products. Even twice sometimes.
Watch this beautiful announcement video full screen and in 1080p if your bandwidth can handle it. Beauty. Pure Beauty.