9. Better Friend Activities
Hey Cousin, wanna go bowling? No, no, no, no, I am busy. How annoying is it when Roman or any other friend, or girlfriend, rings you wanting to go out, and when you refuse their respect for you goes down. The Ballad of Gay Tony and The Lost and the Damned gave you the option to turn on sleep mode on your phone and was a great improvement even for downloadable content. The Ballad of Gay Tony gave more of a choice for friend activities but on the downside, you had fewer friends to go out with. Luis could take out both Armando and Henrique and go to five activities, providing they didnt get bored. GTA V will of course continue with the idea of friends, so hopefully better activities will exist. This is needed to be a radical change because giving you one hour (one-minute real time) to pick up your friend, who is probably on the other side of the city, is ridiculous. Planning arrangements a few days ahead would be best, like the first date system, then the planner would be truly useful. Going to a bar with a friend results in them entering, a blank loading screen then them walking out drunk. You are left to wonder why you even bothered to go on this pointless trip. Rockstar obviously thought it adequate that we were deprived of an insight into what the conversation or the meal was like. GTA SA gave a cutscene of if the date was going well or not, and this was enough, at least it gave a better insight into the meal. So to sum up I am going to suggest that friend activities could be improved by firstly having an arranged date for outings, secondly having a quick cutscene showing what is actually happening during meal/drink/date and finally minigolf, swimming, weights, jogging and other beach activities could be added to highlight the sunny Los Santos weather.