GTA veterans will still recognise how the game underneath it all works.
It's dizzying at times, but also daftly compelling, and the influence of multi-strand dramas such as The Wire is obvious.
The result is a freewheeling joyride through genre cinema and literature: there are psychopathic mafia bosses, insane motorcycle gangs, xenophobically sketched triads, corrupt secret agents and cynical movie producers – their stories twist and interconnect, slithering around the lives of our protagonists. And overlaying all this is a huge plot about warring government agencies and corrupt billionaires. Switching between the characters can be done at any time while off mission, and all three have their own little pet projects to get involved with, adding variety and a few amusing surprises: switching to Trevor usually involves some bodily function or weird violent episode, while Michael has his dysfunctional family to manage.
This three-character format emancipates the narrative, jettisoning the awkward requirement for one protagonist to be everywhere, witnessing everything in this vast world. The aim is a few final high-paying jobs, but there's a festering resentment between Trev and Michael that goes back a long way, a fizzing fuse that trails all the way through the carnage. When his old partner Trevor, a sociopath who bakes meth out in the desert, turns up in town, the two join forces with a young black kid, Franklin, who's set on leaving his gang-infested neighbourhood behind. Michael is the middle-aged thug, obsessed with movies, who pulled a witness protection deal with the feds after a failed heist many years ago. Set mostly within the glitzily superficial city of Los Santos, a warped mirror of Los Angeles, GTA V is a sprawling tale of criminal maniacs self-destructing on a blood-splattered career trajectory to hell.
0 kommentar(er)
