If you are receiving a dreaded dose of “gamelessness” (defined by me as a horrible withdrawal symptom where gamers ran out of games to kill their time and find themselves edgy, twiddling their thumbs, staring blankly or drooling uncontrollably), look no further…GTA V is guaranteed to remove the affliction off faster than you can say “Rockstar Rocks” 10 times and you will stay gameless-free for a loooooooong time.

Why? Simply because there’s a ton to do in GTA V.

Let’s talk about SIZE. Because, as advertisements like to put it to pander to the male ego, size does matter (for an open world game). GTA V is gargantuan. Rockstar told the press that the map size of GTA V is going to  be greater than that of Red Dead Redemption, GTA IV and GTA: San  Andreas combined. Converted into square miles, that is an astonishing 49 square miles of area in real life. To get a sense of how big 49 square miles is, it is the size of San Francisco, and double the size of New York’s Manhattan Island.

(Fun fact: Singapore has a land area of approximately 275 sq miles)

Despite having a huge map like this, GTA V runs as smoothly as greased silk. There are no slowdowns in frame-rate, no loading times during the game and no disappearing textures. The world of GTA V is a beautiful sprawling metropolis full of activity. You walk down the streets as one of the 3 characters (Franklin, Trevor and Michael) and witness people jogging on the streets, people playing golf, people goofing and hanging around, biker gangs riding their Harveys on the freeway etc. The world is very much alive and unpredictable.

So what are the things you could do? Well, apart from going on a berserk killing spree and blowing things up for fun, GTA V actually packs a lot of stuff to do, and none of them feels like a last-minute rushed job slotted into the game.

Play golf? Check. Tennis? Check. Yoga? (I’m not kidding, killing one moment and yoga the next?) Check. Stripper performing lap dance? Check. Hang out with stripper after the lap dance? Check. Get her contacts? Check. Dabble in stock markets? Check. Having your own “social” webpage? Check. Secretly shoot a sex tape? Check. Steal the underpants of another celebrity? Check. Get eaten by sharks? Check. Online sex dating? Check. Have your own attack dog? Check. Take selfies after commiting a crime and pose it on Facebook? Check.

(Nothing spells “Sicko” more clearly than a selfie after an arson attack)

It is so easy to get distracted when letting out the depraved psycho in some of us, but the main story is actually one of the strongest points in this game. You have a retired robber Michael undergoing mid-life crisis and seeking help from his therapist; mixed with Franklin, a street-smart but inexperienced criminal at the beginning of his career looking at Michael as his mentor; and wells, Trevor, a terrifying psychopath who happens to be the best friend of Michael, and is a character that Rockstar needed to keep things outrageous, funny and batty. All three characters are so disparate but yet they could display such amazing chemistry when acting together. The script was very well-driven and the voice-acting is superb throughout the game despite the huge volumes of dialogue (The previous GTA IV apparently has 80,000 lines of dialogue, which is much more than Mass Effect 3 at 40,000 lines and Fallout: New Vegas at 65,000 lines). Throughout the game, you can switch and play seamlessly between each character, and see the world through their viewpoint. This is a refreshing take from previous GTA games and really strengthens the effect on story-telling.

Another major plus is the mission design. Open world games typically suffer from a design flaw, and that is the repetitive missions and gameplay that drives gamers away with boredom. A lot of poorly-designed missions eventually boils down to fetching things from A to B, or killing X number of people/creatures for some stranger you spoke to for the first time. In GTA V though, you could feel that great care has been taken to ensure that the missions stay fresh and unique, from spying on people with a police helicopter’s on-board camera, to hacking traffic lights to guide a getaway car through downtown Los Santos, or using a smartphone app to track someone. As the storyline progresses, you receive the masterpieces in GTA V mission design: the heists. These are the missions that makes you feel like you are part of Ocean’s Eleven team. They are big, awesome and open-ended as it should be. And how the heist will unfold would depend very much on the approach you choose and the crew you pick. With these heist missions being introduced, I simply couldn’t get enough of it. I wish the developers would eventually allow modded content from players to design and post their heist because that would put the A in awesome.

Vehicle handling is also much improved. The tires actually have more traction now and driving is not longer a skidding-messy-explosive affair. I was never really good at driving in the earlier GTA series. But with the word “Auto” in GTA, I absolutely have to drive (Duh, otherwise GTA would just become GT). Driving in GTA V actually feel a lot more pleasant and fun with the improved vehicle handling (plus Franklin has a special ability to slow down time while driving; the other two have other special abilities). Planes and helicopters are also much easier to fly now; the controls are intuitive and easy to pick up, and flying is absolutely a blast with the parachute equipped.

Beneath the layers of mindless fun, GTA V is actually a powerful social commentary. Again, you have to be impressed with the developers at Rockstar to use GTA V as a platform to satirize almost everything. GTA V takes a dig at Facebook blatantly (which in the game is known as LifeInvader) and the CEO boasts proudly about the number of child workers it employs across the globe. Apple is referenced as iFruit, and in the stock market, iFruit is described as “Purveyor of white shiny internet-surfing devices. The world’s largest religion.“. The US economic crisis is not left unnoticed by the developers, which described BankofLiberty in the stock market as “Multinational banking corporation that made billions out of bankrupting the American people, went bankrupt themselves, then got the American people to bail them out. Classy.”

A lot of negative reviews out there would point to a particular gruesome torture scene by torture is used to extract information. Yes, I know what you are thinking; that’s the one and only famous one that stirred up the hornet’s nest. What many people fail to realise is how incredibly genius it is for Rockstar to slip their message about US government use of torture using black humour. The scene is definitely uncomfortable and many a times, the player is reminded that the torture victim is perfectly willing to talk before he’s tortured, but you are ordered to do it anyway and Trevor happily obliges. The entire torture scene was pointless and towards the end, as Trevor sets the victim free, he says,

“The media and the government would have us believe that torture is some necessary thing. We need it to get information, to assert ourselves. Did we get any information out of you?”

“I would have told you everything!” the man replies.

“Exactly!” says Trevor. “Torture’s for the torturer. Or the guy giving the order to the torturer. You torture for the good times! We should all admit that. It’s useless as a means of getting information.”

There you have it. GTA V caters perfectly to the adult thinking gamer who knows how to juggle mindless fun with satirical introspection. That is Rockstar’s way of telling you their point of view. Such scenes may not sit well with many stomachs, but they are still food for thought. Therefore, if the player could just pause and think about it, they will see how brilliant Rockstar is for trying to drive their point across. While the pow-wow nature of the action is exciting, the game also shows you the consequences for their actions in the end. The sad pathetic lives led by the “protagonists”, while seeming glitzy and exciting on the surface, resonate loudly with how very empty they are.

I give it a 9.8/10 (0.2 for too few heists…I want more!)

I have never been a die-hard Tomb Raider fan. I recall attempting to play Tomb Raider in secondary school only to wind up in frustration over where to go, how to get from point A to B, and not having enough action to kill baddies on screen. Needless to say, apart from Lara’s stunning “bazookas”, Tomb Raider was nothing but a fleeting aldolescent memory. It was the wrong game for me at a wrong time.

Fast forward years later, Crystal Dynamics revamped Tomb Raider and give everything a different polish to it. Gone is Lara’s unbelievable giant boobs and hot pants. The unlimited ammo for the twin pistols were gone. The difficult puzzles that could let one get stuck and the sporadic wolves as enemies that come along are gone. Everything you thought you knew about Tomb Raider has been tweaked by Crystal’s touch.

And that is a good thing. Tomb Raider has been around since the 1990s, and the series have shown really quality elements that gave its fair share of hardcore fans. However, despite all of the games being perfectly playable, Tomb Raider as a series feels tired out. Lara Croft as a character was losing its freshness too. With the new spin to it, Lara Croft morphs into a badass male fantasy to a more realistic character that one can actually emotionally connect to.

The game starts off with Lara and her crew starting on a voyage to learn more about the Yamatai tribe, a lost tribe from Japan where the queen apparently is said to have mysterious powers. Somehow, along the way, she and her crew got stranded in an island. Lara is a fresh, out-of-college girl with little combat experience. Her emotional and physical vulnerability from the start gives a very credible feel to the character. Lara actually cries when she first killed someone. The obvious trembling in her voice, the panic in her combat actions are all examples of top-notch acting and details that gives her a solid framework to begin with. As Lara gains experience, one can watch her grow from the initial clumsiness of her combat to the fluid killing moves she displays as a hardened warrior. Her voice slowly gains confidence as she navigate her way around the island to rescue her friends and to get them off the island.

Graphics-wise, Tomb Raider is stunning. The environment is crisp and detailed, and every leaf, stalk, grass and waterfall is nicely placed and designed. Lara gets grime, dirt and blood as she rolls and tumbles into places, and gets cleaner when she passes through waterfalls or slides along sloping rivers. Her previous battle wounds become visible scars. Her lovely ponytail flutters in the wind and falls nicely depending on gravity (and not like a stiff, waxed ponytail in earlier games).

The combat and level design for Tomb Raider is what truly shines for this game in the series. Tomb Raider flows seamlessly between puzzle, exploration, hunting to open, full pow-wow action. Each of Lara’s weapons are useful in their way, and like in Legends of Zelda, certain upgrades or equipment are needed to explore previously-locked areas. Lara begins with a makeshift bow and arrow, and she gains the ability to upgrade it (and other weapons as well) using salvage as currency in the game. The bow always gives me a satisfying feel of giving headshots to enemies as the game rewards precision over the crude blasting. The cover system is absolutely intuitive, allowing Lara to automatically go into combat without having to press any additional buttons or to lean out of cover. The puzzles are very well-balanced and evenly spread. Zealous puzzle solvers could satisfy their cravings in optional tombs, where a puzzle usually stands in the way of a much greater reward. Lastly, the set pieces are spectacular. For example, Lara has to scamper through a burning fortress and that is easily one of the most heart-thumping moments in the game.

All these points out to how Crystal managed to take Uncharted and further refine the elements in it to make Tomb Raider a good solid game. When Uncharted was out, Naughty Dog was primed to take most of the thunder from the Tomb Raider series. But now, it seems like Tomb Raider has caught up, and gave much more to the formula that worked. Its storytelling, gameplay and graphics could give Uncharted much to chew about.

As I sat through the credits watching Lara giving up her previous casual civilian life to a life of adventure, I saw a note from Crystal Dynamics saying, basically, “Thank you for playing, we tried our hardest to make the best game we could possibly make.”

Well-done. Definitely well-done. This game deserves a 9.5/10 from me.

(P.S. I have completed all the optional tombs. Let me know if you guys run into any difficulties)