GTA V’s satire doesn’t pull any punches

Cameron Koch

“Grand Theft Auto V” is many things.

For starters, it’s a record breaker. In just three days on store shelves, “GTA V” blew past the $1 billion sale mark, making it the fastest selling video game of all time.

It’s also an open-world sandbox game like no other. Want to ride a bike down the coast of “GTA’s” fictional California? Go for it. Want to do yoga? You can. Play tennis? No problem. “GTA V” is filled to the brim with activities that many players will never go out of their way to experience, yet it is all there, and adds to the immersion of playing in a living and breathing world.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, “GTA V” is filled with brilliant and biting satire. It doesn’t pull any punches. Every aspect of modern American society is in the crosshairs.

Whether it be the game’s social networking site LifeInvader, the bum of a son who won’t look for a job and sits on his couch and plays “Call of Duty” all day every day, the fear-mongering media blasting over the airwaves, or even just the fact that every character in the game, even small time broke thugs, own smartphones, “GTA” takes a shot at just about anything and everything that makes up American society in 2013.

Satire is the name of the game, and “GTA V’s” main narrative delivers it in spades, telling a compelling crime drama on the absurdity of the idea of “get rich or die trying” and the myth of the “American Dream.”

New to the series is the ability to play as three protagonists and switch between them on the fly.

Small-time crook Franklin is just looking to move up the social ladder, and he’s disturbed by a friend’s willingness to do anything, including drug dealing and kidnapping, to get ahead and make a few bucks.

While repossessing a car, Franklin meets Michael, a rich ex-bank robber who faked his own death and now lives “the good life.” And by good life, I mean he hates his life, as he is the father of a deadweight son, a daughter looking to get into the porn industry, and a cheating wife. He sits by the poolside of his hillside mansion most days, day-dreaming of something more. After a rash decision, Michael finds himself in serious debt to some serious criminals and is forced to come out of retirement and come up with the cash the only way he knows how – big time bank heists.

Eventually his old psychotic bank-robbing buddy Trevor finds out Michael is alive, and together, the three men set out to rob a series of banks and come out on top.

“GTA V” is an improvement in just about every aspect over it’s predecessor, except perhaps story. The game features much improved visuals, refined shooting controls, and more responsive driving.

However, the tragic American immigrant story of “GTA IV” is tough to beat, and though “GTA V” features stellar writing and two additional protagonists, they are all much harder to relate to than the struggling eastern European immigrant Niko Bellic just looking to get by in a new country.

Like I said before, “GTA V” is many things. Is it offensive? Yes. Is it violent? Very much so. Is it fun? It’s impossible not to be entertained.

But what makes “GTA” so popular as a series is not just the open sandbox world where players can go to the strip club or snort cocaine, but that it all has a point.

The point is that American in “GTA” is one dumb, excessive, wealth-obsessed joke, even if many of the players playing it don’t realize. And that makes it more than worth your time to investigate.