This ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of an island somewhere in the south-western U.S is the last place a logical person would go. The crime rate's so high, I'm surprised anyone even lives there anymore. It's flooded with meth, crack, fat people and ultra-capitalism. And for some reason, the most common variant of Kalashnikov is a bloody Norinco Type-56-2. There's the players you need to worry about too: most of them will shoot you on sight, hack you, or scream at you in a squeaky child's voice.

It's going to be a long journey, mate, so bear with me.



You're fresh off the plane. You're standing in the middle of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ street, Downtown Los Santos, probably in nothing but your underwear. To your right you see a Tank with numerous N.O.O.S.E vans tailing behind as it passes a sharply-dressed clown beating down on a pedestrian with a police baton, and to your left is a modder forcing two players to partake in an awkward and fully-clothed dryhumping session. The hacker turns to you and says "oi fam, wont som free mon£y?"

How do you respond?

A. Sure!
B. No thanks, man.
C. <Leave the server>
D. <Bend over and prepare to suffer the same fate as the others>

That's right, there is no escape! No matter what you do, there will always be that one hacking ♥♥♥♥ of a 5-year-old on the server who thinks it's okay to sociopathically ruin people's days. And there's one on EVERY. SINGLE. SERVER.

That's right. The bulk of this game is grinding. They said you couldn't put a price on fun, but Rockstar sure proved them wrong!

The missions all follow a very specific formula, so I'll take you through it:

Thanks, Rockstar

Starting The Mission
Now this is a staple in the mission formula, really. Now, despite such a concept not existing in other video games, they made starting a mission feel realistic and captivating. When you start the mission, you magically teleport 5 meters away from your car on the side of the street with a gun in your hand. The sense of realism in this game is unreal...


Drive There
Now all you need to do is drive 5 miles across the map to get to your objective.


Sounds boring right?

Well that's because it is you're doing it wrong! What you REALLY need to do is either get a friend or some dude off the street and tell him to drive to the objective. That way you can spend the next 10-20 minutes doing paperwork, going out for a walk and generally do something more useful than sit at your computer bored and pressing buttons like a braindead caveman.

Make sure you do this, and you won't end up like these poor sods:












Shoot 'Em Up



How you feel when shooting dudes up:













Reality:












Grab The Package & Return To Base
This part is similar to Part 2, get your friend/withbenefits/hobo to drive to the objective because it's going to be just as long - if not longer - than before!



Get Paid!
This is the part you've been waiting for, the part you've so far spent 30 minutes getting to. You prepared for a momentous reward of...












SERIOUSLY!?

Don't worry! You only need to do at least 300+ more missions if you're going to be able to purchase a high-end apartment!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH6qR2gliug

Congratulations, you just bought the Scarface mansion. Now, the sky's the limit! You can spend your money on whatever you want! A Tank, a Cargobob, a Technical, maybe a Yacht...










That's right, you blew your money on your new house.

That means...

YOU'RE GONNA HAVE TO START GRINDING AGAIN!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H07zYvkNYL8

Because either the host pays you ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, people keep leaving before the match has even begun, one guy keeps dying over and over at one point, and...

Congratulations. You've made it. You've finally made it. You've bought the most expensive shark card in the game and now you're in the money. You spent £60 bloody quid on virtual in-game money that will probably only last you a day. You could have bought DOOM. Or Battlefield 1. Or another pretty great, totally seperate game for the same price you bought that shark card.

You bellend.

In conclusion, what I suppose I'm saying is don't bother with GTA: Online. Stick to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about in story mode, where you get to play around with interesting characters, a good story, modding, quite a few side activities and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ AI. GTA: Online is way too ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up at the moment and unless it goes through some major changes, it isn't worth too much time.

I've ran out of things to say so...


God bless this magnificent orange.