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while not technically an actual close encounter, I couldn't help but snap a screenshot here. After finishing up a mission at a movie studio I noticed an odd green shape walking in the background. It sure looked to me like one of the aliens that I had seen in Michael's crazy drug trip earlier. So I followed him and yup, it was an alien... costume. Apparently they're shooting some kind of horror movie on this lot. I still managed to get a pic of the actor before he took the mask off. I also tried to follow him for a while when he left the lot but he got annoyed with me and started a fight and the cops showed up. It was a whole big thing.

I'm like 55-60% through the story missions right now. I'm still really enjoying everything, though I'm guessing I'll need a break from Los Santos once I finish up the story. I don't think I'll be able to focus on all the side stuff required for 100% for a while... Railway Empire is hitting later this month, I'll be playing Final Fantasy Type-0 for TR, plus my wife and I keep meaning to hit up the Diablo anniversary dungeon before the month is over.

Anyway, not aliens exactly, but I did stumble upon the infamous "beam me up rock."

I played thru GTA V on the 360 when it originally came out. Beat it once. I enjoyed the game but felt like there was a lot I didn't experience. That said, IV and V missions to me are a lot easier than III, VC, and SA. VC is still my favorite. If I ever see V on sale for cheap ($20 or lower), I'll probably rebuy it.

I just can't believe how popular Shark Cards were with GTAO players. That killed the chances for SP DLC. I also think IV had a better online experience than V did at launch. Some of those game-types were crazy fun.

I've tried a couple of times to get into GTA Online, but I don't know. It just doesn't seem to grab me.

Anyway, I left off on the mission where Michael and Trevor confront each other in the cemetery. It's cool that you actually leave Los Santos. Are you able to get on a plane and fully explore this place outside of the mission later?

I got frustrated and quit after dying three times trying to get through the big cemetery shoot-out. It only occurred to me later that Michael had drawn a small handgun in the cutscene, but that I could/should have switched to a much better gun. I just wasn't thinking at the time. So I'll have to restart that mission later.

I haven't checked a mission list in a while, but I must be getting to like the last fourth of the story by now? Let's see... oh yeah - Rockstar Social Club says I've knocked out 53 of the 69 story missions. Okay. So I recently did the heist in the FIB building. It was kind of like we were the bad guys in Die Hard. To steal the fire truck I decided to go all the way up to Blaine County and nab one from a fire station there since there were no busy streets to deal with. Of course the cops go nuts and now I've got this long trip back to the city. So I i jump the median in the highway and duck into a tunnel and just chill there. Totally throws them off. It's a simple thing, but one I love about this game is that you're presented with problems and systems, and you solve the problems within those systems in a way that makes sense to you. I love when there isn't a forced "right" way to do something, so that even if you fuck up you can salvage a situation. What else? Um. Oh Trevor's back around and helped Michael get out of a huge FIB shootout. Michael's fam is back at home. Michael killed some stalker of his daughters - ahem - work. All kinds of stuff. And now we're working on setting up what I think might be the last big heist.

I had a really cool experience last night. My sister and her husband were visiting from California and he was asking me about Xbox One. So I turned it on for him and loaded up GTA5 since that's what disc was in there. As it happened Franklin was sitting on what was basically the PCH at the time and my brother-in-law was like "oh my God. This is right near where we live."

He then took the controller and started giving me a tour of their neighborhood. Off of the PCH he noticed an overpass and was in awe of how it looked so exact. So he got off the bike and started walking up and over it. He says "this is exact. Over to the left is the little park we take [their son] to." He went over to a fence and pointed out that they had shown me photos of the same view of the ocean.

He said that the Venice pier must be "this way, right?" and I nodded, "yeah but it's Vespucci." So he stole a car and headed that way. He was explaining what we'd see before we saw it. "at the end down here will be Bubba Gump Shrimp Company," just as he pulled up to Pearl's Seafood. "Different name, but same building." He then set a waypoint to the airport and was blown away by the condensed accuracy of everything from the beach to the airport. "I was just right here a week ago," he said in amazement.

...

Anyway, I'm on the last mission of the story mode, so I should be wrapping this up soon.

That is super cool. I've heard stories similar, but always wondered if it was really that accurate down to buildings and such. Must have been crazy for both of you!

he said it was as if they took neighborhoods and shrunk them. So like there were plenty of real life landmarks and buildings, but they just removed however many blocks so that the map is condensed. But for the flow of one area to the next, he was like a tour guide of Los Santos. He had never played the game, but was showing me where things would be without using a map. It was really neat.

As a New Yorker I felt something similar when GTA IV came out. They did a great job with both games for sure.

casterofdreams wrote:As a New Yorker I felt something similar when GTA IV came out. They did a great job with both games for sure.

Well there goes any chance of ever seeing a GTA game in a European city again. The streets were just not made for cars to go fast