GTA 5 is a technical masterpiece. The parody of LA is masterfully done, the level of detail is amazing, the driving mechanics are perfect, but the story and the writing are a big let down.

GTA has always had amazingly sarcastic writing. GTA 3, VC, and SA had such unique sarcastic and brilliant mockeries of America. I can still YouTube the radio commercials and they are still hysterical. Even many of the missions were outrageously funny or just driving around and viewing the city would make you chuckle: just seeing the NPC pedestrian fashion in Vice City made me laugh or the oversized cell phones.

Even the LC Stories side game and the Lost and the Damned expansion had really interesting characters, dialog, and story. It wasn’t just GTA either. GTA styled offshoots Red Dead Redemption and Bully were brilliantly written and hilarious. Manhunt wasn’t funny, but the writing was absolutely spot on. The game mechanics were slow and grindy and behind the times as far as cutting edge action games, so I can see how that turned people off, but it was the perfect way to experience the brilliant story/art/music/dialog content.

There is still some quality writing in some of the side missions and the radio still has quality content, but the mainline story is a big disappointment from what I’ve played.

GTA 5 is technically better than ever, but the mainline story is the first major disappointment from Rockstar. The jokes are peurile. Watching dogs or celebrities humping is supposed to be funny? Watching grown men plan bank heists or Ebonics spouting black Americans revel in their gang culture is just completely flat to me.