9. The Setting
Though the open world universe of GTA V is a stunning achievement, with a plethora of activities to draw the attention, and a massive number of side missions and intrigue points dotted liberally around the map (including a huge number of Easter Eggs and in-jokes) there's something not quite right with the Californian setting. The sun-drenched Californian community is a great setting on its own - the pools and swanky backyards of the affluent neighbourhoods lend themselves to some entertaining time-wasting (like pool jumping) and the rolling hills and countryside offer scale that hasn't been possible to date. But it's hard to resist the feeling that the neighbourhoods might have been better if you could enter every building, since the move away from a New York City style skyline drags the scale of the game down to street level, and the mountains and hilly areas needed more to do. It simply isn't as appealing as Liberty City, whose vast scale and New York reference points had more of an identity, and felt more appropriate for the content of the game. And it isn't merely the general feel of the setting - the game is so big, and the constraints of console technology so limiting that the environments feel a lot deader than they should, especially on completion of the story mode, which papers over the issues a little.