Strategy Guide Review: GTA V (GamerGuides)

It must be a nightmare for guide writers to get their teeth into a big open world game and actually tear out a chunk of something worth publishing. Add to the mix the possibility of said game being one of the biggest and most anticipated titles in the current generation of consoles, and you’ve got yourself quite a daunting task. Undeterred by such worries, GamerGuides released their Grand Theft Auto V guide a few weeks ago, and after trying out a few missions both with and without the guide’s help figured it was about time to tell you guys the good news.

That good news can be summed up pretty briefly: for a smidge under $5 you get both the web-based and iPad-app-based guides, so you can sit and read it while working or plonk it on the sofa next to you for easy access. The guide itself doesn’t go crazy and hold you hand through the entire game, but instead focusses on the more challenging task of getting all of those pesky gold medals. If you’ve played GTAV by now you’ll know how annoying it can be to finish a mission and get told you only got a silver medal, even though you had no idea what the objectives were and still don’t have a clue. The gold medals are far from essential, but they’re nice to aim for and are certainly a nice extra for when the main story has been played through and you’re looking for more entertainment.

GG-GTA5In that sense, this guide isn’t a full guide of the game, and anyone looking for every last direction will need to look elsewhere, but what you do get in more detail is the heists and raids that you’ll be carrying out throughout the game. In these six cases you’re provided with videos demonstrating the perfect job, not only in terms of planning and which crew members to use but also how to pick up the gold medals in the process. The videos themselves show the important bits that you’ll need, as well as giving a commentary outlining key decisions, important locations and any other bits of useful information that will stop you from making a tit of yourself by getting it all horribly wrong.

Other handy sections of the guide include a brief online section telling you what gets unlocked at each rank through the game, and although this is useful to have it might be nice to have been provided with some extra guidance on some of the missions and tasks you’ll find when playing with others. In fairness the delayed release of GTA’s online mode meant the guide was launched before it was even on offer, but with GamerGuides updating their products quite regularly it would be nice to see more on this at some point. Elsewhere the completists among you will revel in the locations of every last scrap of paper, every piece of nuclear waste and the precise spots where you’ll find rare vehicles and some of those bizarre easter eggs that Rockstar seem to enjoy dropping in. You can also keep track of your trophies or achievements too by ticking them off in the trophy section and seeing which ones you still need to pick up, but don’t expect any hints on achieving them – all you’ll get is the trophy name and description.

Despite being a guide for completionists, there’s a lot of useful stuff in GamerGuides’ GTAV guide. The videos provided are clear and helpful, the instructions for those gold medals is concise and brief (meaning you won’t waste time reading through a load of rubbish before finding what you need) and being able to read it on your iPad while playing is a huge benefit. There are a few gaps that perhaps could be filled, but for a collection of great guidance in one place with everything you’ll need to ace every mission through the game you can’t really grumble at $5. Definitely worth a look.

You can find the guide over at GamerGuides.com

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