5 Reasons Why GTA V Will Never Be As Good As Red Dead Redemption

4. The Music

Radio stations. Who knew they could fit so much onto so many different in-game radio stations? Back in the days of Vice City on the PS2, I was hugely bowled over, not just by the quality of the soundtrack (I have to say that I'm a sucker for an 80s beat) but by the sheer size of it. As the years have gone on and the PS2 grew into the PS3, of course the track lists got longer, and the fake chatter and adverts and call-ins got more varied. Now, in GTA V, we're at a point where you can drive around for hours on end and never fear that you're going to hear the same thing on the radio twice. It's an amazing thing, when you think about it, and a perfect example of how Rockstar is able to simulate real-life and all its variances on a single game disc. Waiting to see who's on the soundtrack is always a big thing for me come the release of any new GTA, and this time around, I wasn't disappointed. Hell, you don't even just have one set of radio stations. Get too far from the mast in Los Santos and it switches you over to Blaine County programming. Insane! But then there's Red Dead Redemption. Of course, there were no radios on the horses back in 1911 (not that I'm saying horses come equipped with radios these days, but you get the idea), so Rockstar had to come up with something different to keep us occupied on our long treks over the prairie. And boy, did they. Enlisting the help of Bill Elm and Woody Jackson, Rockstar created a soundtrack so deep, so emotional, so fraught with adventure and danger and peace and loneliness that it still features heavily on my iPod today. Of course, they took their inspiration from classic westerns, mainly those by Sergio Leone. Not only did they manage to ape some of Ennio Morricone's most beloved work in the process, they managed to - in some cases - better it. And that's not to mention the songs that were drafted in from other artists. Each one, marking a particular beat in the story, was written, scored and performed so perfectly, their utilisation puts everything else to shame. Try not gasping in wonder as "Far Away" trickles from your speakers, Compass accompanies you home on horseback, and William Elliot Whitmore growls over the closing credits. Can't do it, can you?