GTA V review

GTA 5 PC Review

The long wait has been worth it. If you’re a PC gamer who’s spent the last eighteen months envying the console crowd while they all got stuck into the latest, greatest GTA, then rest assured that you can now play the definitive version. Sure, the Xbox One and PS4 versions were amazing, delivering GTA 5 at higher resolutions with more detailed textures, smoother surfaces, better lighting and cool depth of field effects (see our full review below), but the PC version offers even more enhancements plus a couple of additional features that play to the PC’s strengths. In doing so, it adds a few more meters to one of gaming’s towering achievements.

Having covered the game twice already, we won’t go too far into the detail of what makes GTA 5 so good. Partly, it’s a question of experience. With four previous 3D GTAs under its belt plus Red Dead Redemption, Bully, and assorted DLC packs, Rockstar has had time to refine its vision for open world gameplay and its systems, and GTA 5 has the best driving, the best shooting and some of the best mission design of the series.

It’s also a question of structure. Dividing the action amongst three protagonists with three interlocking storylines and three distinctive flavours means you nearly always have the option to flick from Michael’s ageing career criminal saga to Franklin’s ambitious hoodlum story to Trevor’s crazed, amoral brand of mayhem, where the dumb, cathartic slapstick violence we all – deep down – love GTA for finds its natural home. With repeated play, it only becomes clearer how well all three tales mesh thematically with Rockstar’s savage satirical take on the Californian dream.

And the budget definitely helps. The more time you put into GTA 5, the more you come to appreciate what a large and intensely detailed creation Los Santos is, and just how much is packed into the surrounding Blaine County. That’s because Rockstar had the ambition and the money to put in all the golf and tennis mini-games, all the stunt challenges, all the bizarre side missions and all the weird, hidden stuff that probably 90% of players will never see. The amazing thing about GTA 5 is that you can spend hour after hour playing it yet still be struck by all the stuff you haven’t done yet. No other open world feels this coherent. No other open world has so much to do.

GTA V

So, what does playing on PC bring to the experience? Well, for a start there’s the most visually impressive and immersive version yet. Those lucky enough to have a 1440p or 4K monitor and the rig to run it will have ample cause for amazement, and the rest of us who have to struggle along at 1080p won’t go short. GTA 5 PC benefits from the new lighting model, post-processing effects, day-to-night cycle and added vegetation of the next-gen console versions, but also additional levels for textures, shader effects, reflections and shadow detail that affect everything from the way characters’ faces look close-up to depth-of-field effects, water and grass.

It’s open to a huge to amount of tinkering, but then it needs to be. Basic gaming systems, like a budget Core i3 with an old GTX 660, will struggle to run GTA 5 at a decent frame rate unless you reduce the resolution and start pulling settings down from high. Our test system, with a Core i5 and a Radeon R9 285, still wouldn’t run smoothly with settings above high at 1080p.