Over the past few weeks I’ve been taking a trip down memory lane and playing as much as I can of some of Rockstar’s better games of the last few years. What has struck me about them is how much, especially the multiplayer, holds up on a lot of these games as well as just how amazing these games look for being a few years old now and on the current generation of consoles. We all know the limitations of this generation of consoles, from the processing power to the limited RAM offered on it, yet these games still look gorgeous to this day. This gives me a lot of hope about what to expect from Grand Theft Auto V and how it will be the perfect send off for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 before the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 take their place on shelves.
It’s true, go and play Grand Theft Auto IV or Red Dead Redemption right now and tell me that those games don’t still look every bit as good as they did when they were released. In fact, stack them up to a lot of other games that have been released after and compare them. It is almost uncanny what Rockstar has been able to squeeze out of systems like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and that they did it years before the consoles’ end of life cycle. Their use of textures, bump mapping and lighting was the right mix to bring large worlds to life with minimal loading or texture tearing.
This only bodes well for Grand Theft Auto V, which by the screenshots and artwork already released for the game, is shaping up to look pretty impressive, considering that it is being built for current generation systems. The delay that pushed the game back until September just means that it will be one of the last major titles that will launch exclusively on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, putting it in the unique place of being one of the last truly great games that was developed for those platforms.
While I’ve been critical in the past of stuff in both games like the mission structures being a bit repetitive, or the characters in Grand Theft Auto IV just not being all that appealing (opinion, of course, you can love them all that you want), it is still easy to look back at these games and realize that there is still the potential for so much more. With Red Dead Redemption in particular (note: it is a triple XP weekend for multiplayer, you should play it), the multiplayer provides a ton of replay value through all of the modes that are offered, big and small. It isn’t hard for the imagination to wander when considering some of these modes and more being included in Grand Theft Auto V.
No matter what side of the fence that you are on, which console you like best, it is still important to reflect and make note that this was a pretty solid generation of consoles with some great games on it, and Grand Theft Auto V is going to make for a perfect send off for this generation and help to prolong the life of those consoles for just a little bit longer while we wait for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 to finally arrive.
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