Is It About Hell Time?

Other than neglecting the Glog, what have I been doing since January? Not a whole lot of note (at least not yet). But inbetween a regrettable World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor relapse and being surprisingly unengaged by The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D, I did manage to sink a good number of hours into GTAV, again.

As I told a buddy who asked if it was worth buying and playing again on PC, in a word, "yes." And in some more words: Whereas the old-gen version of the game was massively enjoyable in spite of insane loading times, a shitty framerate, and a disappointing display resolution; this time around, there are no sacrifices to make. (Well, as long as you have the VRAM for high-quality textures.) This is the version of Grand Theft Auto that was meant to be, not just since the original release of Five, but since Four tried to make the GTA world feel like a real, tactile thing.

That having been said, in my second go-around I was bothered more by the lackluster story pace than I expected to be. The set pieces are fantastic, of course, but there is a great and persistent sense that the spaces inbetween them were cut to shreds and left mostly aside in the garbage bin. While Michael, Trevor, and Franklin are all fun characters, their development arcs simply aren't built as well as Nico's. Comparable to Luis's, if I'm thinking critically about it.

Beyond and after the main storyline, though, it certainly feels great to tackle odd jobs for crazy strangers while driving through the city so fast that oncoming traffic literally never knows what hit it.

Progress: 79.7%