GTA 5:THE NEXT BIG THING

            GTA  5

The Grand Theft Auto series boasts one of the longest-running and successful franchises in the industry, a titan-sized amalgamation of open-world crime sprees, wanderlust, and a public relations philosophy surrounding the communicative efficiency of a baseball bat. Taking the stage at the Credit Suisse 2012 Technology Conference (via GameSpot), Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Rockstar parent studio Take-Two, attributed the series’ latest achievement of 125 million copies sold overall to a release philosophy acknowledging and circumventing the “risk” of annualization.

From the “people are still talking about this?” files today comes an interview by The Guardian with Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser that touched upon Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas’ Hot Coffee scandal. The ensuing media scrutiny and negative pressure wound up “draining and upsetting” company members facing “a tough time” keeping relationships with the press civil.The prospects of a PC version of GTA 5 appear to be in a terrifying state of flux. After seeming to be a dead cert earlier this year, doubts emerged when the game’s posters confirmed only a console release. Now asked directly about a PC version by IGN, Rockstar’s Dan Houser would no more commit to that platform than he would Wii U.

A potential PC version is only “up for consideration,” he said. “That’s all I can give you. The main thing is we are not… we are a third-party publisher. We’re not Nintendo, we’re not Sony, we’re not Microsoft. We love all of them in different ways. But we can do what we want wherever there’s the appropriate business opportunity and chance to find a market.”

It’s time! The second trailer for Grand Theft Auto V has finally arrived. No, there’s still no mention of a PC version, but since every previous GTA game has eventually found its way to PC, we’re fairly confident this one will too. The new trailer spotlights Michael, Trevor and Franklin, the game’s three protagonists, but also includes some new info.

Excited by the prospect of multiple protagonists in Grand Theft Auto V? Or just confused as to how they’re going to work? Either way, you’re in luck. While we learned some of the details from Game Informer last week, another preview by Guardian brings new info on Rockstar’s three leading men and how you’ll be switching between them.

But nope, still no mention of a PC version.

Rockstar have announced that GTA 5 will be released during springtime next year “for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3,” confirming that the GTA 5 posters that leaked out earlier this week were correct. Unfortunately, there’s no mention of a PC version on the posters or in Rockstar’s post.

This doesn’t mean that GTA 5 will go the same way as Red Dead Redemption, it took Grand Theft Auto 4 eight months to make it onto PC and we had to wait six months for LA Noire. GTA IV shipped with an extra video editor on PC, Noire had “increased resolution and graphical detail” on PC and Max Payne 3 didn’t look too shabby either. We may get a PC date yet. Here’s hoping it’s a better port than GTA 4 was.

Photos of promotional posters for Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V have surfaced on the Polish website GTA-Five.pl, indicating a release date of spring 2013. No particular surprise there, even if the reliability of this source remains unclear. But what is a bit disconcerting is that the PC is not listed as a platform.

The photos, which appeared on the website last week before being picked up by Kotaku, advertise the release of the game on Xbox 360 and PS3 and bear a European ratings label, but there is no mention of PC at all. Let’s hope Rockstar aren’t going to do a Red Dead Redemption on us all over again.

We know that Grand Theft Auto V’s anti-hero is a father who relocates to San Andreas’ Los Santos, and we can guess at themes of economic depression from the trailer. That’s it. In its typically coy fashion, Rockstar is only serving nibbles of information – appetizers to makes us salivate over the imagined deliciousness of the main course

                                                    YOU DECIDE IS IT BIG

Assassin’s Creed 3 

I am pursuing a man in a tricorner hat through the streets of colonial New York. In the top-left of the screen, Assassin’s Creed III instructs me to chase him. In smaller text just below it, there is a secondary objective: ‘do not shove or tackle anyone’. I turn sharply into an alleyway and barge past a woman, earning myself a red X on the mission log and losing my ‘full synchronisation’ bonus. I’m not sure why I want to be fully synchronised, but the completionist in me insists that I try again.

A few attempts later, I’ve figured out a system. Stop sprinting when the alleyways give out onto open streets, edge carefully around pedestrians, and continue. It’s ludicrous – why on Earth would I not shove someone, if the fate of a nation was at stake – but I’ve not incurred the red X, I’ve not lost my bonus. I chase the man and, as is tradition, wait for the cutscene where I catch him. It doesn’t come. We pass through the same fishmarket for the second time and I realise that we’ve done a lap of central New York. The game is waiting for me. Oh! I think. This is an assassination. I do those.

I can’t get close enough to use my hidden blades so I wait until we’re running down a clear alleyway, pull my flintlock, and fire. Desynchronised! Target was killed. Try again.

It takes another couple of tries before I figure out that the game wants me to catch him – tackle him, if you will. My objective is to give chase. My sub-objective is to not tackle anyone. The solution is to tackle someone. You may Google your own facepalm jpeg.

Assassin’s Creed III features the silliest and most self-defeating mission design in the the series’ history, and it’s a huge shame. When it isn’t directly hamstrung by constrained mission areas, flakey AI, and imprecise movement, it manages to steer you into the path of these flaws anyway with optional objectives that encourage you to game the system – and Assassin’s Creed III’s systems do not hold up well to gaming. When full sync bonuses were introduced in Brotherhood, they were designed to encourage creative use of the tools at your disposal. Here they more often tamp down your options, exposing the emptiness of the game underneath. You can ignore them, sure, but you can’t ignore the signal sent by that big red X.

• 
• 
• 
• 

• 
• 
• 
• 

• 
• 
• 
• 

• 
• 
• 
• 
  
  
  
  
    

•