Let me start by qualifying myself as a lifelong casual gamer. I go back to the NES days, and remember properly hard video games (Battletoads! Ugh). I've also played every major platform GTA game, and loved all of them, with San Andreas probably being my favorite.
GTA San Andreas offered so much raw creativity, and freedom that it was a shock to the sandbox culture of video gaming. It re-defined what a "game" is. You could go and spend hours flying aircraft around, or driving a tractor trailer, or playing darts, or causing chaos, or... well, you get my point. This game was so chocked full of fun, that it was the first GTA game that I actually enjoyed getting 100% on.
When GTA IV came out, the big talk was the physics. The physics were great! They had minor flaws, and I've heard the argument that if I wanted to play a racing sim, I'd buy a racing sim... but then, these are the same people complaining about the shooting not being realistic?
Lets talk about the shooting. Even when you set the aim to freeaim, it's clumsy at best (zooming in on a target changes your reticle?) What I don't understand is... how can a shooting game get this so wrong, and get such a great review? Oh... the point of the game isn't shooting you say? It's stealing cars and driving?
Yes, lets talk about the driving. Aside from the completely stuck to the Earth physics that are shockingly bad... even for a non-racing sim (that has racing in it btw), the cars seem completely incapable of going over say 100mph. The motorcycles are shockingly slow, the bicycles are shockingly fast, and the aircraft, even with 100% flying skill, are nearly impossible to keep level (trust me, I'm a pilot). But they also chose to go with details such as shooting the fuel tank, and causing the car to no start because it's out of fuel. Offer modifications to make your car accelerate? faster? Why would such a large part of the game get done so poorly, and net it such a good score? Oh... the point of the game isn't transportation you say? It's the story?
Yes, lets talk about the story. *******EXTREMELY MILD SPOILERS****** Now... I'm sitting here at 70 something percent, right before the "final" choose your own ending mission and I've got to say... what story? There are essentially 5 or 6 heist missions, and the rest of the game is complete filler. I found myself (someone who LONGS for GTA games) bored out of my goddamn mind. Why do I have to do this stupid strangers and freaks mission shooting some form of creature in order to progress the main story? I seriously found myself on NUMEROUS occasions having to do the side missions JUST because it was the only thing to do! So what story? I understand that GTA is a work of satire, and I understand that they're going to poke fun at cliches, but literally 90% of these missions are completely regurgitated bullshit from past iterations, or busy work. That said, the heist missions were amazing. But still, when there are 5 or 6 amazing missions, and a dozen that are just filler, with a further dozen that are good, but certainly not extraordinary... why is this getting GOTY recommendations? Oh, the point of this game isn't the story you say... it's the fact that it's sandbox?
Yes, lets discuss this so called "sandbox". What exactly is there to do? The World is huge, and there's plenty of stuff to do actually, as long as it involves getting into a 5 star police chase, riding a bicycle, playing tennis, or towing cars. I honestly LOVE the sandbox quality of these games, and this world is rather exciting... but it isn't Far Cry pretty, and it isn't Just Cause fun... it's just kind of, another Grand Theft Auto. The same ole same ole... so why are we giving this game a 95+ score?
Because it's GTA. Because people want GTA to be amazing, and they don't want to be the one review that says it should be better, that it needs to be better. The review BS needs to stop, how can every game that comes out be "this good"? They can't. What's the best video game of all time? You're telling me that this game is better than that? How are the reviews working? More to the point, if gamers and reviewers don't cut this BS, we're basically saying to every game company that "it's ok, you can just be EA Games". No one likes shelling out $60 for an unfinished game that's no different, or even worse than the previous generation, and game producers are going to keep giving us this watered down bullshit because we keep buying it.
So stop giving games "Amazing" scores when they don't deserve them, and stop pre-ordering games.