Grand Theft Auto 5 was released over ten years ago in 2013. It is the fastest-selling entertainment product in history, making over 800 million in sales on its first day and 1 billion in its first three days available. In its entire history, GTA 5 has generated 8 billion dollars in sales. I say all this to show that GTA isn’t just a popular video game but a prominent part of pop culture. Chances are, if you for some reason never played GTA, you’ve definitely at least heard of it. For those who don’t know, Grand Theft Auto is a video game series developed and created by the company Rockstar Games. The premise of the series is that you play as a criminal in an open world where you can do anything you want. Each GTA title is set in a different city that is portrayed as a satirical version of a U.S. city. For instance, the first one I ever played was GTA 4, which is set in “Liberty City” a.k.a New York City. You also play as a different criminal in every installment of the series. In GTA 4, you play as the middle eastern Niko Bellic who has sailed to Liberty City to live the American dream. This criminal open world idea has been done many times before by other companies, so what makes GTA so special? Rockstar Games is known for putting an insane amount of detail into their games; Nothing is half-done. They also provide, in my opinion, the best graphics in the gaming period. GTA games are designed for the gameplay to be as smooth as possible, which is another reason why it is incomparable to other games. Overall, Rockstar has its system down when it comes to making a great game.
Like I said, the first GTA I ever played was GTA 4. I was around nine, and I had received an Xbox 360 for Christmas. Inside the box was a handful of games, one of them being GTA. I had never heard of it before, so I asked my dad what it was, and he told me that it is a game where you run around and steal cars. Hearing that made me anxious to start playing, So I ran downstairs, booted it up, and started the game. I was instantly amazed at how good the graphics were. I loved the fact that it gave me free rein to explore the city and do whatever I wanted. So, I immediately stole a car and started running people over. That is when my cousin asked my Dad why he was letting me play, to which my dad said that he was a horrible father. To be fair, these games are not created for little kids. They are recommended for people 18 years of age and older. But, because the games appeal to kids, children are actually the ones that play the most.
So, I played GTA 4 for a while, until I heard about GTA 5. GTA 5 is set in Los Santos, a.k.a Los Angeles California. The difference in this title is that instead of playing as one criminal, you can switch between three different guys. I remember kids talking about it at school, and I really wanted to get the game. After a few months of begging my dad for it, he finally let me buy it off of eBay. I would like to reiterate that I was young and dumb, and I totally should not have been playing GTA 5 as a fifth grader, but you live and you learn.
GTA 5 had finally arrived and I, again, immediately began playing. The instant gameplay and graphic difference I felt compared to 4 was lowkey mind-blowing at the time. The vibrancy of the city, the smoothness of riding a car, the hyper-realistic graphics, everything was an upgrade. I was about thirty minutes into playing when my babysitter came down and asked me if I was allowed to be playing that. I told her “yes” because why else would my Dad buy it for me? She was about to make me turn it off, until she decided not to. From that point on, GTA 5 was the main game I played.
