Task 2 GTA 5

Let’s get this out of the way now: this is one of the best open world games ever created and there won’t likely be one to rival it until Rockstar decides to adopt next-gen development kits. Across this generation, we’ve seen other games take and pare down the formula established by GTA into entertaining bite-sized chunks: Crackdown recreated the expansive city; Saints Row took the irrelevant mayhem; Test Drive Unlimited embraced the countless distractions, but none have come close to attaining the astonishing level of detail that GTA V harnesses on a minute-by-minute basis.

To non-players, the very notion of the game, in which the player “inhabits” criminals and plays through their morally bankrupt antics, no doubt sounds grim. But gaming has become a cultural form that is at home with moral complexity, presenting players with realistic dilemmas along with the cartoonish violence and ridiculous challenges. The audience for GTA 5 is not simply hormone-fuelled teenage boys in their bedrooms. Ofcom’s 2012 survey of adult media habits found that a quarter of those questioned played console games on a regular basis. Studies suggest that as much as 47 per cent of the gaming audience is female.