That’s not where it ends though, most of the characters are well written. Luis’s oldest friends, a couple of drug dealers from his old neighborhood, are homophobes and, frankly, assholes. His mother is constantly begging him to go back school and always mentions how much better his siblings are doing. Luis is a character that could very easily be someone you know… without all the gun fights and helicopter theft, of course. Naturally, it wouldn’t be a GTA game without obnoxious, over-the-top characters, and there’s no shortage of those. Hell, we even get to meet Brucie’s brother. Yikes.

I’ve always been fond of GTA for the story, as ludicrous as it may be, because it closely resembles all the great combat and intrigue of a summer blockbuster. What’s different about this is that, while full of gun porn and explosions, there’s a complex and mature story beneath it all. Rockstar is a company that just keeps getting better at what it does, and if you like GTA you should certainly pick this up. It’s worth noting that the dual-disc release for The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony does not require the original GTA, so if haven’t purchased either DLC, that’s not a bad option.