-Before playing it, I wasn't sure if returning to Los Santos was a good idea. GTA: San Andreas had the same exact setting and there are more places on the earth Rockstar never went. I was a bit disappointed by the size of the map. I was expecting something bigger than, for example, Just Cause 2, considering how similar Just Cause 2 is to GTA and how crazy Square Enix went with the size of it. Facts aside, it feels to me smaller, probably comparable to the biggest island in Just Cause 2. While smaller, it's a lot more denser and there's a ton of things you can do which I will explain more in details below.
-At the start, the controls don't feel strange at all. They are in the same vein than GTA 4, with some ameliorations. For example, navigating through radio stations or the gun selecting is so much more easier, by far. Thank god.
-Gun handling is pretty good. Only thing that really bothers me is when you want to chose your target, it's not as responsive as it was before. One thing that's misleading is having to change weapon when you're driving. Happened a lot of times that I got confused and I hit LB instead of X (playing on Xbox btw).
-Getting on ladders is automatic, no more need to have an extra button to mash, good thing.
-One of the most positive change the developpers had this time is the flow between cinematics. There's no cut which is frankly, an amazing thing to watch. You really feel like playing a movie. You don't feel any stops in the game so it's hard to find the right time to stop playing.
-The ability to replay missions are, again, a very good decision. Also, when dying during missions, you don't restart at the beginning. No more driving on the same road again.
-Additional objectives during missions are kinda cool too. There are some missions I would like to play again and try alt ending.
-Getting killed during missions is ineviable of course, and is a pain in the ass. 50% of the time, it was because I did something terribly wrong (like standing directly in front of someone shooting at you and doing nothing...). The other 50%, it was by sheer bad luck. I got so many dumb kills it's inimaginable.
-The storyline and main missions are nearly flawless. For me, this was the best storyline of all Grand Theft Auto. The action never stopped until the very end. Unlike Poison, I really did like the end of the game, but I think they urge things too quickly. The difficulty of the missions was ok. It's not hard for everyone to finish the game, but it does get harder at the later stages. The most I had to try a mission again was 3 times I believe. I was expecting a way to increase/decrease the difficulty but there is none.
-The choice of having three protagonists instead of only one is a genius idea. Might have been a tough decision for them, but I think it really payed off. If you don't like someone, you can change to the other two. In the previews they presented a few months ago, the only one I really liked was Trevor obviously, found Franklin okay, and Michael very bland and depressing. Turned out it was Michael my favourite, he's the most complex of the three and he has the most interesting background/entourage. Trevor comes second for me, he's very charismatic and has a lot of good lines but sometimes, I found him too excessive to be a credible character. When he shows himself a new side of him, he soon change to the dumbass-psycopath killer so you often see a one-sided personnality. Franklin is my least favourite but not by far. I just find he's way too passive about everything. He's like a soft gangster. I do find he's the one that you can associate the most with, starting with him in the early stages, meeting people and growing your skills along the way. He's the extension of every gamer pretty much.
-Chop is a pretty fun character. Being able to control him during one of the missions was a definite highlight of the story. I was hoping you could do the same afterwards.
-There's barely no link at all with the other games of the series, especially San Andreas which is a big negative point. I was hopping to hear more from past characters and maybe a cameo from CJ or something (I did see his name in one of the objectives (spoiler) on the mission you have to steal a train with a dirtbike). It did featured Johnny Klebitz, Terry and Clay from The Lost and Damned tho.
-The police "wait" time is wayyyyyyyyy too long, especially when you have played the previous games. This time, it's excruciating to wait for your 5-star wanted level to go down. You really have to find a good spot to hide yourself, or be constantly moving. My hint is to find a good way underground (shoot for the metro). If you're in Blaine County, go for the mountains. Sometimes you can just be totally unlucky; it happened that a police cruiser spawned only a block away from me so you can get detected pretty easily. :s
-Would have loved the ability to fart during yoga sessions, for extra laughs.
-When doing the pilot school, why are the helicopters missions so fucking hard compared to the plane missions ??? Talking about helicopters, they are so hard to control... They're all wobbly and shit, I still can't control them properly. Airplanes are ok for me.
-Speaking of vehicles, the driving received some ameliorations. Many people complained about that in GTA 4, but I didn't found it really THAT bad. I did note that slower cars are definitely more fun to control than they were in the past. Crashing doesn't always result in Niko going through the windshield screaming "AAAAAHHHHH" anymore. Your character does take damage when crashing at extreme speeds but I wasn't killed by this so far (lucky I guess).
-I find driving motorcycles a bit risky. I tend to avoid over-speeding (GTA 4 syndrome probably) and it's not as fun as in San Andreas. The camera tilts a bit, which can be uncomfortable in the very beginning, or when switching from car to a motorcycle. Other than that, it's good.
-Boats are ok. The only thing I really find annoying is when hitting waves at higher speeds and going through the air, I have the impression that I'm losing speed everytime. The Marquis is a complete snail, so really avoid it. And, I have still yet to found a Jetmax somewhere. I've tried the submarine and it's hard to control at first but it get's easier during the side missions. Speaking of that, it was extremely boring having to make a complete loop around the island... Not really talking about biking or train because I haven't tried those a lot.
-I find parachuting to be really hard too. They ask you sometimes to land on a moving vehicle which is frankly, almost impossible to make it on your first try. Getting a good landing is difficult because hitting LB+RB at the same time does make you slow down, almost to a complete stop. So it must be hit at the last time.
-Modding vehicles was something I really missed in GTA 4 and it was one of the feature I was the most excited about. I do love that you can anything free after you buy a concession. Oh, and you can't save any cars safely at any garage atm because of some glitch.
Hopefully Rockstar will patch it soon.
-Animals are included now, was really happy to see that. It's sad you can kill them, I try not to, but it can happen. No kids in the game obviously.
-Pool was removed and that's weird since it was a classic in GTA. But, honestly, I won't complain because it was such a pain to play, so damn painful to watch the balls having to make it to a complete stop.
-Golf and tennis are much fun than I thought. Especially golf.
-Graphics? They're very similar to GTA 4. At this point, we are pretty close to photorealism that it will be harder to see any improvements from now on. Sun flares, reflections are better. Water effects are not really that great... watching Michael pourring himself a whisky is lulzy.
-The music in the game is good. The official soundtrack is well done and I was really surprise to know that Tangerine Dream and DJ Shadow took part of it. And, Soulwax and Flying Lotus getting their own radio station. I was hoping a good rock station like GTA: San Andreas had (Radio X), but I can't find it.
-There's almost no bugs I found in the game. Only thing I should note, is when you go too fast, some objects (posts for example) don't have time to appear.
-Have yet to try the cinema. Shows were mediocre to good in GTA 4 so I don't know how this one will go.
-I don't understand that Binco has the same layout, same items than some discount shop you can find (4 locations). Error from devs ? Oh and your wardrobe at your safehouse looks like a mess, the options are not ordered very well.
-Found one "big" easter-egg completely by mistake, that was a special moment for me.
-I'm at the point where I need to build 150 million to get the golf club I still have to play with the markets. I tried to save before and see if I can get back to that save (after checking which company got the best profits) but when returning, numbers changed so it's random apparently.
-The torture scene was imo, not necessary. I was not shocked by it or anything, but it didn't bring anything to the story nor the character development.
-Getting drunk or stone are pretty cool but the effects don't last as long as it did in GTA 4...
-Oh and there's not enough interiors for my tastes.
So yeah, overall, I was very pleased with the game. They took a really good decision waiting to release the game testing it and
finishing up some details. There are some few things I was disappointed by (notably things that worked better in past games, some bugs that they really have to figure up : car saving glitch, clotches, etc.). Other than that, the missions were a breath of fresh air and being able to do just about everything you could possibly do before was just about amazing. A strong contender for best game I've played this year. (along with Borderlands 2)
Oh and there's still the multiplayer to talk about...