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" It&amp;#039;s been five years since Grand Theft Auto IV was released on PS3 and Xbox 360, and five minutes with the newest entry in the series, Grand Theft Auto V (in stores today),makes it perfectly clear that Rockstar Games spent those 1,800-plus days making the highly-anticipated release as massively sprawling and consuming as possible. GTAV is, easily, the most expansive, addictive, and downright amazing game to ever grace a modern console gaming system.  The Grand Theft Auto series has been a time-suck since the groundbreaking release of Grand Theft Auto III in 2001, when its open-world &amp;quot;sandbox&amp;quot; format (basically giving the player the freedom and ability to do just about anything they want inside the game world) made waves in the industry. GTAV, however, is the culmination of more than a decade&amp;#039;s worth of advancing technology, experience, and tweaking on Rockstar&amp;#039;s part, and it shows.  Between the task-driven primary missions and the ability to drive virtually anywhere, GTA from the beginning has provided its players a lengthy run-through time and high replay value. Grand Theft Auto V has perfected nearly every aspect of what the previous entries attempted. The main storyline in GTAV plays out more like a grand choose-your-own-adventure film than ever before with emotionally rich, action-packed missions that benefit from the bonus of being able to play the entire narrative through the eyes of three separate (but inexorably linked) characters. The ability (and need) to work together (and switch characters on the fly) adds another level of fun and innovation to the series. Music has also always been key to GTA, making longwinded gaming sessions feel like a short drive to the corner store. GTAV packs 15 music-playing stations (there are two talk radio stations) full with over 200 licensed songs. Whether you prefer West Coast hip-hop classics like Snoop Dogg&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;Gin and Juice&amp;quot; or the rabid punk sounds of Youth Brigade&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;Blown Away,&amp;quot; there&amp;#039;s a little something for everyone. Rockstar even wrangled folks like Pam Grier and Kenny Loggins to sit behind the turntables and DJ several of their stations. (Check out our playlist below to listen to some of the better tunes on the dial.) Side missions, mini-games, and other sundry things to do around the city (and beyond) help add to the open-world feel of Grand Theft Auto, and the list of available pastimes in this fifth installment have grown exponentially. When you&amp;#039;re not pulling off heists, your GTAV characters can feel free to take in a movie, grab a quick game of tennis (this mini-game is so impressive it almost plays well enough to be a standalone tennis title), golf, and even race jet skis. There&amp;#039;s also parachuting, hunting, arms trafficking, bail bonds, shooting ranges, yoga, triathlons, ATM robberies, stunt jumps, flight lessons, submarine piece recovery (!), playing the stock market, and much, much more. And that&amp;#039;s not even getting into the various character and car customizations you could spend time implementing. The options are nearly limitless.  But it&amp;#039;s the ever-expanding world of GTA that may be most impressive. Rockstar has continually pushed the envelope on just how much landscape it can include. In GTAV, the city of Los Santos (an equivalent of Los Angeles) and its surrounding Blaine County map are so enormous they&amp;#039;re actually larger than several of Rockstar&amp;#039;s previous games&amp;#039; playable areas combined. You can drive, walk, fly, bike, or even scuba-dive through mountains, rivers, lakes, military bases, beaches, oceans, farms, desert, forests, and just about anything else you can think of. Combine that with the open-world nature of the gameplay and you could virtually live in Blaine County for the rest of your life. (Though, you know, you might want to avoid that.) Despite some of the highest expectations ever imposed on a pending game release, GTAV not only lives up to the hype; it actually demolishes any doubt that Rockstar has created what will be known as the height of what the PS3 and Xbox 360 can do, just before we say goodbye to them and hello to a whole new generation of gaming systems.  GTAV has 15 music radio stations. Here&amp;#039;s one favorite track from each station. Feel free to shuffle the order however you like.      Follow The Culture Blog on RSS and on Twitter at @ESQCulture. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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