Rockstar releases biggest update ever to rave reviews…
is something I would have loved to have seen when the update launched earlier this week. Unfortunately I and many other players have realised that’s not the case.
The heist takes place on the aforementioned island of Cayo Perico, a private island owned by, El Rubio a man who looks like what would happen if Owen “wow” Wilson went of the deep end and never looked back. A ruthless drug lord who sees his men as disposable fodder and is prepared to go to any means to keep his large empire afloat. Still, he’s stupid enough to let a “tour manager” and their three odd-looking friends onto, what is basically his life’s work. The player, after spending $200000 on a submarine(which isn't important) is brought to the island by party boy, Dave, the most cockniest of cockneys, and somehow not the most annoying thing in the update. More on that later. The player is greeted by El Rubio and is prompted to drive to a beach party and after a surprisingly fun dance section, is instructed to go to the south gate and explore the island. To reach the south gate you have to sneak past , a couple of guards and avoid a few cameras. Quite easy really, I still can't access the weapon wheel, which is odd, but makes sense ,were in a crowded area after all. I’m sure we’ll get access to silenced weapons once were out the area. Getting silenced headshots and scoping an exoctic island should be fun.
Upon exiting the gate, a message flashes up on the screen, “ your weapons are stashed on the plane, avoid detection by guards”. Yes, the award for the most annoying thing in this update goes to the Scope Out better described in a fictional note I imagine one of the Rockstar developers sent in an email to his colleagues:
” Hey Dave,
I’ve just had a well good brain revelation, remember how the stealth in this game is pretty much non existent, well how about we force the player into a stealth section but with no weapons, and a million cameras! That should really set them off. Oh also, before I forget, we should really patch that bug, y’know the one that lets players jump up rock walls, it breaks the immersion y’know”.
Thanks,
Stu
I imagine the reply looked something like this,
“ That’s a great idea Stu also we should make the animation when you get caught longer, it’s way too short. Anyway, I’ve got a date after work, so I don't have enough time to patch it into the main game, I can put it into the island though, it’ll make it more realistic”.
Cheers,
Dave.
This fabricated conversation could be really inaccurate but somehow I dont think I’m that far off. After that laborious scoping, your taken back to the mainland to plan the heist. Fun!
On the mainland, the joyful nature of prep work awaits! Often the bane of players from previous heists, often needing more armour, weapons and vehicles to acquire than you can shake a can of Rockstar Xdurance at. Here, surprisingly, I was not forced to acquire 150 different guns, instead that was replaced with a far more doable 12 items to get my hands on. So the prep work was mostly quite easy, one mission sends you on the hunt for a fingerprint scanner which sees you infiltrating a casino and taking out the casino head of security, it was quick, fun and offered a different location other than just a random warehouse or run down factory. With the hassle free prep work done, I was actually looking forward to the heist. A stealth helicopter was selected, our approach was chosen and even though the scoping of the island was the most frustrating experience I’ve had on this game, it helpfully meant we had the entirety of the island full of loot. There was an option for extra support, but we figured, there’s three of us, the loot is on the map and we’re pro gamers, we can handle it. It turns out we should have taken that support, even if it cost 25 grand. We were about to lose a lot more than 25 grand.
So, the heist begins, we rappel down to the island from our AI-controlled chopper and we walk freely around thanks to our prep earlier, meaning that all the guards were taken care of. We began heading for the airstrip where the first section of loot was, except it all went out the window when I got spotted by a car, suddenly alarms start blaring and a hundred guards appear out of nowhere and converge on our position. Despite our superior gamer skills, we died, a lot, in the process of acquiring loot and avoiding the endless waves of gun toting mercenaries employed by a “ruthless” drug lord. Eventually we had acquired all the secondary loot we could carry, after finding out we hadn't scoped the tools necessary to get into locked doors and gates and our bags weren't very large so could only carry a certain amount of secondary loot. There was no second bag much to our annoyance. So we gave up on the loot, with all our deaths and quick restarts meant we’d pretty much lost 400 grand by the time we got to the main compound. Getting in was an ordeal, deaths followed, thousands of dollars was lost. We made it to the secret elevator grabbed the file and got out of there, eventually.
We were angry, in the press release for this update, Rockstar stated “ for the first time, tackle the heist solo or with up to three friends”. There were three of us and we barely made it out, with only the main target acquired, it was 1.1 million, but there was 4.4 million up for grabs if we had actually got the support and had the right tools. Point being, three pro gamers struggled, how a one man team is supposed to do any of that is beyond me. I felt cheated, the “ biggest update ever” may be true, technically the island is a new map but its a sorry excuse for one. It feels rushed, the story as is with all GTA Online is purely window dressing, the environment is tropic islandly but the hundreds of invisible walls disguised as trees and bushes do not help whatsoever. It’s either intentional, there to bug the players or it's an oversight that they couldn't be arsed to fix.
Obviously, this is not important in the grand state of the world at all, I’m complaining about not properly setting up for a free heist that is part of a free update, released during a pandemic, from a notoriously money hungry developer also why are you writing this? I don’t know why I wrote this, just stay indoors , don’t be a jerk, and play some video games.
Sincerely,
Boris
