Michael De Santa

the American dream

five is um GTA games always reflect the era when they come out um in terms of their humor and content and stuff this was very much peak uh how do you say it um American capitalism simulator even more so than the other ones uh I don't know man like it opens up really well like you start with Michael in therapy so that you play as this is ridiculous but you play as Michael you play as Franklin and you play as Trevor who comes in later and it's sort of It was the first big, big game I can remember where you could swap between the three seamlessly.

It would do a zoom out of the city and then move across the city to where the other person was and then they're in the middle of something.

It's really cool.

But it opens with Michael in therapy talking to his therapist who's obviously ripping him off and taking the piss.

And Michael sits by the beach and then Franklin walks past and steals a car with his mate Lamar.

And then you do a really cool drive mission right from the start through Los Santos and it goes from there.

I don't know man like having now I think what helped me enjoy it more is having been to LA whereas obviously when this came out I hadn't been spending time in LA for any amount of time like it is the most vapid people really are like that over there you know everyone's so like full of themselves and like I think they're the center of the universe and like it's just funny to see it you know on TV now when you're playing it being like fuck this is actually spot on

[laughs]

And Michael's like, "I sh- I'm not." [laughs]

[laughs]

And Mike, who was the developer, "I don't know science."

Hey, Spider-Man

...

it, it, [laughs] it was so amazing to just kind of see New York City realized the way it was, insanely gorgeous, uh, beautiful visuals, and with a lot of, like Michael was mentioning, really cool costumes to switch to, with, I think, I think the strongest narrative that they've told.

Like, the, the way that that game sort of ends, and all of the emotions kind of hitting you in a m- in a million different places, I think th- I think this is, like, their strongest Spider-Man game, for sure.