By Kenney Kost/editor-in-chief

With three individual protagonists to play, a massive open-world filled with missions and side missions to keep gamers busy and enough cars and guns for the gangster in everyone, Grand Theft Auto V delivers everything promised and more.

Rockstar Games has achieved the pinnacle of open-world game design with its latest release set in the fictional city of Los Santos.

The streets are bustling with people doing various things like talking on their cell phones, discussing their latest post on LifeInvader (their version of Facebook) or yelling at the player as they speed past in their car a little too close to the sidewalk. Gamers can get out of their cars and interact with a few of these characters from time to time, sometimes to hilarious ends.

The game’s three protagonists and the mechanic of switching between these characters at any time during most missions is what sets this game apart, not only from other entries in the series but from anything in genre.

Gamers play as Michael, Franklin and Trevor. Michael and Trevor are career criminals and have a sordid past. The two haven’t seen or spoken to each other since a heist they were working together went wrong. Franklin is a young, talented, street-race driver who repos cars for a shady, high-end car dealer. A chance encounter between Franklin and Michael eventually brings the three together as an organized crime trio.

While each character has several solo missions, the real thrill comes in the form of major heists.

The heist missions are broken down into the three main parts — planning, gathering supplies and performing the heist. Each heist has two or more ways a player can attempt them, each with different story possibilities.

One example is a jewelry store heist within the first few hours of gameplay. Players are given two options — either go in guns blazing or try to get in and out without being detected.

The latter option involves going into the jewelry store with camera glasses on to take pictures of the layout, stealing sleeping gas from a chemical delivery truck, putting the sleeping gas through the store’s air vents and robbing the store once everyone has been knocked out. 

The heists get bigger and more elaborate as the game progresses, and players can switch between the three protagonists at any time during the missions. You may scope out the store with Michael, rob the chemicals with Franklin then switch to Trevor to steal the goods.

The GTA series is known for its loose controls and shaky driving. Not in this iteration. The controls are tight, the guns have weight, and the cars handle very well. In fact, Rockstar took a page out of its Midnight Club racing series for this one.

Players can modify their cars in many ways including several cosmetic and performance-enhancing modifications. Hours can be spent stealing cars and souping them up to race in the street races that pop up all over town or just in making sure to have the best possible getaway car.

The game isn’t without bugs, though. Several times cars were spotted driving right through buildings or falling through the freeway. Sometimes cars that are supposed to be saved in safe house garages to drive later simply disappear. This can be incredibly frustrating after spending $40,000 in the shop to soup it up.

Aside from a couple of bugs, GTA V is a near-perfect game that any fan of the series should pick up and any gamer should try.