Got into the game a bit today and it's very good. It's a polished version of the older games with almost every aspect of play improved... But there are faults.
I'll just start with one. Whoever stated that the story, dialogue, and acting are Oscar-worthy needs a punch in the fucking face to start, then a forced sitdown and viewing of the entire catalog of AFI's Top 100 immediately following that. Meh. Niko is likable and his acting is pretty good. Roman is just a little worse. The only character I really bought into was the secretary chick with the thick Jersey accent. Michelle, one of the possible love interests, is horrible. Both her dialogue and acting are absolutely atrocious.
Another case of video game reviewers pimping movies like Star Wars or Blade Runner as the gold standards of cinema while failing to realize that they don't hold video games to even the standard of those poorly acted films, for 95% of video games are loads worse. And thus far, GTA isn't proving any different. IMO, the acting is a notch below Mass Effect when you factor in multiple characters.
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