Wow what a fucking game, one that I will hold in my heart for decades to come. It took me a whole year to finally come around and properly get into gtav’s story, but god am I so glad I did. This game quickly became one of my favorites of all time. It holds one of my favorite casts ever and my favorite dynamic ever being trevor and michael. Im pleasantly surprised with the genuine substance gtav’s story holds as well. It’s such a good satire of american capitalism and critque on materialism consumerism and hyper capitalism, and the dysfunctional isolated family found under capitalism as conveyed through michael and his central conflict with his family. How both trevor and michael exploit under the framework of capitalism but they do so in different, almost polar opposite ways. The juxtaposition between trevor’s unhinged and raw realness, and michael’s superficial “plasticness”. Trevor’s literal cannibalism versus michael’s metaphorical cannibalism, and the moral question of “is michael truly morally better than trevor when he’s doing the same thing as him, just less literal and less ugly”. At the start the game show’s trevor as this animal, and michael holds himself so much higher than trevor, but he’s nothing but a hypocrite and his morals and way of life are no better than trevor’s. Its very interesting to me how only trevor seems to be able to break michael from this capitalist fantasy and dillusionment of the american dream and the nuclear family and being surrounded by so much wealth and materialism, while trevor is also exploiting those under capitalism at the same time, just in a more brutal and honest fashion. Doing crime on the streets is trevor’s dream while it’s michael’s nightmare at the same time, and creates the guilt and self loathing we see in michael. One side of him seeks the thrill, adrenaline, and chaos of crime and its unhinged realness and rebellion, while the other side craves safety and security through his family, and this typical american dream. Trevor brings out the animal in michael. Overall just a funny ass fucking game, amazing satire, and an amazing dynamic that provides for insightful analysis. I could write paragraphs upon paragraphs about michael and trevor’s dynamic but I’ll save that for another space. There’s a reason for gtav’s massive success, fame, and legacy. Its one of those games that I believe everyone should sit down and play. I’m sad to be done with my journey with this beloved game, but I know there’s hours and hours of fun to be experienced with the online mode for me.

Game is a mess, a original, unique mess but still a mess. The troubled development shows, inconsistent acts, combat and mission design that exhausts itself after the first 6 hours and a story that is charming but in truth also not very well written. But it does have its high points and before all of the mysteries resolve (into a disappointing conclusion) it is pretty exciting to follow along all the shifts and twists that spring up.
The combat is original but not very fleshed out, genuine fear of every encounter was replaced with routine and indifference to death, because the game couldnt conjure any new tricks anymore.
Visually the game holds up, while the animations are outdated, it still has a certain charme to it, and the design of the levels and Bright Falls in general is often gorgeous and anything but typical for a video game setting.
I enjoyed my playthrough and while there were many thoughts of missed potential, confusion over some strange mission design choices and a bit of disappointment at the lackluster ending, the game was made with passion to create something that stands in many ways unique, particularly amongst western games.

This was my first Nintendo DS game and my parents got it for me (I had never seen the movie). I remember when I first played this and I put the cartridge in and couldn't figure out how to get it out so I thought I had gotten it stuck so I told my mom that the case didn't have a game in it because I didn't want to tell her I broke my Nintendo DS and she took me to Walmart and told the guy that there was no game in the case and the guy was really confused and gave me another one (Probably because he didn't get paid enough for this BS and didn't really care) so I get home and I now have 2 copies of this game and I fucking hate this game.