GTA5 - not love at first sight, but love did come

 

At some point after getting the newest model XBOX the other year, I picked up Grand Theft Auto 5. I had seen game play at friends' houses for years and knew I would try it sooner or later. I mean, I was long used to being years behind on my games.  But had gotten into playing with others online in other games, especially with my old friend "T." She had been a Skyrim nut for a handful of years, and I had suggested we try Elder Scrolls Online as a thing to do together, since I had been playing ES since the original Morrowind. Though we could still play together, little dungeon delves and fishing and such, she had been putting much more time into it on her own. She is now in guilds and in far off lands, while I sort of futz around when I play alone. Since she is playing ONLY ESO, and I like to diversify, we will never be anywhere near equals in that game. 

Imagine her as Valeria from the Conan movie. 
Now imagine this is me..

As I was trying to keep up with T for several months, GTA5 only got a little play here and there. Maybe an hour every weekend or so. Though much of it is intuitive, it is also hard at times for a noob. Driving was bad enough, but driving and shooting? Yeesh. Fairly early on there was a mission for main character Michael that had you chasing crooks on a big rig that had stolen his yacht (don't ask), and you drove your sports car on the equivalent of the 405 Freeway, shooting at dudes on the yacht who were trying to kill your buddy Franklin who had climbed aboard. Man, it was hard. Must have played out that mission a dozen times before being successful. 

I figured that even harder missions would follow, and that was intimidating. It may have kept me from playing it as much as ESO. But man, this game setting did appeal to me. So much of it was not just based on Los Angeles, but even parts of my home town Venice Beach (Vespucci Beach in the game), the side streets and alleyways, was spot on. Buildings I had been in and neighborhoods I grew up around were recreated, often in loving detail. My favorite was the Venice Canals, my birth place. Having a gunfight in my childhood neighborhood was mind blowing. 

And this familiarity with Los Santos/Angeles was super appealing to me. But what else to keep me involved? I mean, every time I got in a car to drive I ended up rear ending other cars, and accidentally running over pedestrians. You see, if you don't drive crazy, you are pretty much just stuck in traffic. The main reason I actually Left Los Sant...uh, left Los Angeles. So even just tooling around you are blowing street lights and driving on sidewalks. Otherwise its an LA traffic simulator. Yeah, fuck that mess. Then the cops chase you, and you crash and get out to run as bullets blast into your body. 

Yeah, a bit disappointing at first. But in the last couple of weekends I suddenly went from "meh" to "omigawd I love this shit". Here are some reasons why:

Maybe some 10 or 12 hours into it, I get it. Understanding has come to me. You see, you spend 10's of hours putzing around, driving and walking around nice areas, getting into occasional fist fights and gunfights and wondering what the hell is the point. Well, it finally dawned on me. As I started getting better at driving and other activities, I realized that the game has a grand plan. It is training you for what is to come. Basically, this is the prelude for you putting together your gang of bank robbers. The game is letting you fuck around so you can get familiar with just being alive. The physics of your world. It knows you will be a bad driver at first. It knows you will be bad at shooting people. And it wants you to get better by just plain experiencing the school of hard knocks in Los Santos. It knows that no setback is permanent. You die or get caught by cops, the just try again. 

When I turn the game off and go to bed I imagine
myself as that Mayhem insurance guy walking
away leaving this behind..

I started regularly going to the shooting range to be a better gunman. I started driving at high speeds around the city to be a better driver. I stopped worrying about being a better driver, and just drove at high speeds through the city. And suddenly I was exponentially better at that.  School of hard knocks.

 

Suddenly I could feel the improvement. Not just in my personal skill, but the game engine itself eases up on you, steadies you. A sort of smoothness starts setting in. 

The other night I was playing the main character, Michael. I decided to go down to "Santa Monica Beach" at the California Incline (his psychologist lives down there), and ran into a jogger lady. You know, one of those older, cut, kinda pretty but hard jogger ladies you see who are way serious about it. She challenged me to a race down the incline stairs to the beach, and though I was wearing a suit and dress shoes, I took her up on it. I was doing OK for a middle-aged guy dressed up, but I kept faltering. I clearly did not have the stamina to keep up. So another activity goal; do some jogging to get better at running. I'll probably need that for bigger missions later anyway. And to eventually beat that lady. Oh, sensible shoes probably don't hurt.

The boy from the hood character, Franklin, gets in a street race. All the other racers seem so much better than me. I try and try but just can't win it.  I keep crashing into poles or houses on tight corners. Then around the 6^th try I remember that Franklin has a special ability to go into "slow time" when driving. Boom, I win that race. Again, this will likely be important skills during a heist. The game is prepping you. School of hard knocks. 

OK, also, for whatever reason playing Tennis was unlocked. Michael's big Sunset Blvd house, surrounded by office buildings, has a tennis court. Wandering over to it, the choice to play is activated. Michael's alcoholic, cheating wife shows up to play. I quickly get my ass handed to me, while she chides me and insults my manhood. Ugh. My vow to get better at tennis happens. And there are other tennis courts around the city where I can play other people to get better on the side. And this isn't for nothing. I looked it up, and playing tennis makes your character all around stronger. Hell yeah. School of (kinda) hard knocks. 

Now that's my kind of hard knock school 😍

As an aside, an encounter happened to me playing Michael last week that just blew my mind. I was tooling around downtown, and saw a question mark in the courtyard of some big office building. I got out the car and walked over to see what was up, and some guy had a marijuana legalization table set up by the fountains. After his speech he gave me a doobie. And when I hit it I realized it was clearly sprinkled with some stronger drug, because ugly aliens suddenly appeared in the area. A ray gatling gun appeared in my hands. Suddenly here I am, in the heart of downtown, being charged by weird aliens as I gunned them down one by one with my Buck Rogers blaster. It blew my mind. This was truly when I knew I loved this game. Anything can happen. School of hard knocks.

They have mental powers. I have a Sci Fi
gatling gun. I like my odds.

But yeah, the improvement of mechanics and physics as you go along is something I always loved in games.  The Elder Scrolls seems to have lost that, but I remember loving it when it was present in Morrowind and Oblivion. But it is so obvious in GTA5. I can actually feel myself getting better as I do things. Yeah, the feeling has won me over. 

So Michael's old geek buddy Lester has a jewelry store heist in mind. We staked out the Rodeo Drive jewelry store and everything so far. But before the mission I think I need to maybe put a few more hours into practice to get prepared for the big time. More driving around the city. More time in the shooting range. And of course, more tennis and jogging. For the job. And of course to be able to beat my nagging, ball busting adulterous wife at tennis, and to win a race against that mouthy jogging bitch down by the beach. School of hard...well, you get the point. 

I predict I will be playing the campaign mode for a long time to come. Hell, I'll probably mostly be jogging and playing tennis around the city for the next month. Just driving around there are always nice things to look at as you level up your skill set..

And testosterone level

Cheers