Some of my friends own ‘consoles’. As it turns out, these ‘console owners’ have been rewarded for their suspicious behaviour with access to Grand Theft Auto V. While this may be a bit annoying, I'm certain that it's no more than an elaborate test of faith wrought by some benevolent God publishing executive designed to challenge my resolve.





In order to illustrate my devotion to the master platform, I’ve put together this handy survival guide designed to help scratch the itch brought on by GTA V’s ubiquitous launch. I realise the ‘Grand Theft Auto experience’ accounts for more than just the sum of its parts, but there are some great aspects of GTA that the following games do as well, if not better. Plus, you can buy all of them for the same amount you’d have to shell out for Rockstar’s latest grand crime/arsing about extravaganza. So here are my picks for a DIY GTA V:









You know how much fun it is in GTA to jump off tall buildings before opening your parachute and gliding gently to the ground? Well, in Just Cause 2, you can fly a fighter jet through a city, get out and STAND ON TOP OF IT WHILE IT IS STILL MOVING, jump off the plane (letting it crash into a tall building), skydive through the air, grapple onto a helicopter, propel yourself towards it, throw the pilot out of the door, get shot down, jump out, deploy your parachute, THEN glide gently to the ground.





Burnout Paradise - £9.99 (Steam)





given to you; you don’t even have to steal them – which makes Burnout Paradise the moral alternative to GTA, in a way. Driving around cities crashing into stuff has formed the backbone of the GTA series since its inception, by which I mean way before anyone gave a shit about it. Burnout Paradise takes one of the core mechanics of modern-day GTA and focuses squarely on what makes this particular facet of the game so enjoyable. Each flavour of destruction, from smashing up your own car, smashing up someone else’s car, or racing smashed up cars against each other is conveniently organised into individual events on the streets of Paradise City. And the best part is: you’re rewarded for your hard work by having new cars delivered to you. Yes, they are; you don’t even have to steal them – which makes Burnout Paradise the moral alternative to GTA, in a way.





Hotline Miami - $9.99 (GOG)





GTA thinks it’s all violent and cool. It thinks it’s controversial. Hotline Miami makes some of GTA’s missions look like an episode of The Thin Blue Line. Hotline Miami is what GTA would be like if Ryan Gosling’s character from Drive was the story’s protagonist, only considerably more psychotic and wearing a rubber owl mask. Hotline Miami is so violent and cool that whenever people say GTA is violent and cool, I laugh so hard that blood pours out of my eyes. And it’s got a better soundtrack.





Virtua Tennis 4 - £14.99 (Steam)





Hear me out here. There are mini-games galore to be found in Los Santos, but why choose to spend your time playing watered-down versions of tennis, or golf, or whatever other minor distractions GTA tries to blind you with when there’s plenty of perfectly good stealing and killing to be done? This way, you get the very best interpretation of your chosen pastime. Accept no imitations!





There you go: a perfectly viable solution to console exclusivity. Sort of. You could also just ignore all this and buy Saints Row IV. Either way, we’ll be absolutely fine until Rockstar gets its act together. I’m sure of it. Can’t be too long, anyway, right? ...right?!

- £9.99 (Steam)