Hiya!
So, last week, I talked about how Rockstar Games didn’t really give any good reasons to not pick the 3rd option during Grand Theft Auto V‘s ending. In that way, I also informed all of you I’ve finished all of the main story missions of Grand Theft Auto V. Even so, I still haven’t stopped playing it because, like with what Rockstar Games have done with the previous Grand Theft Auto games, there’s still lot of things to do. There are still some of the minor missions I haven’t completed yet. I still have to get Franklin Clinton to find all of the spaceship parts. Michael De Santa is still continuing with his deep-sea excursions in order to find all the submarine pieces as well. Trevor Philips is, well, is just being Trevor Philips, as in he’s busy being a crazy psycho.
Besides those side quests, there has been another thing I’ve been doing in Grand Theft Auto V a lot of. I’ve been replaying the heist missions. I had a lot of fun doing them when I was playing the story mode but, as there are two plans for most of the heist missions, I never got to play the other one I didn’t pick. Thankfully, Rockstar Games does allow players to replay the heist missions and even try out the ones you didn’t implement. Well, I’ve played them all and I do have to say, while they all have their high points and their low points, some of the alternate heist missions do fare better than the one I played.
So, let me go back and go through the heist missions which have separate plans and let me tell you which are the ones I found to be better than the other.
The Jewel Store Job happens because Michael De Santa’s hotheadedness. In a fit of rage, Michael unwittingly demolishes a mob boss’ house. Now in the need for quick cash to pay for the damages, he enlists the help of his old friend, Lester Crest, to see if there is a way to get as much money as possible (if you know what I mean). Lester then sets up a plan to rob the local jewelry store.
Smart Approach: This involves drawing as little attention as possible. The plan has the crew using knockout gas in the jewelry store’s ventilation system to knock the people inside unconscious. The crew then swoops in under the guise of a pest control team to steal as many jewels as possible before the alarms sound. The crew then use motorcycles to escape into the sewer system. As this is the quieter approach, this is the plan I implemented during the playthrough.
Loud Approach: This involves more brute force as the crew breaks into the jewelry store with a gunman trying to control the crowd. The crew then steals as many jewels as possible before making their escape using motorcycles through the sewer system.
Winner: Loud Approach
Both missions actually end up the same, with the crew still escaping on motorbikes. So, the focus is on the actual jewel store robbery. While I still do believe the Smart Approach is the, well, smart choice, the Loud Approach is much more fun because of all the things which can go wrong during the jewel store robbery.
With the Smart Approach, the jewel store robbery goes on without a hitch, with the only issue being with how much time you have before the alarm resets based on the hacker you picked. With the Loud Approach, however, you have to keep on your toes, especially if you picked a cheap/bad crew. A security guard to try to make their escape. A manager might call the cops. Having to both rob the store and look out for these things made things slightly more exciting. So, despite it being technically the worse of the two scenarios. it wins out because it’s much more fun.
Trevor Philips knows Merryweather Security has a high-tech, top-secret device on board one of the freighters. Trevor creates a couple of plans to abscond with the device but both plans are highly risky. He enlists the help of both Michael and Franklin in both of these plans.
Freighter: This plan has Michael boarding the ship unnoticed to plant several bombs to sink it. As the ship is heavily guarded, Michael will need someone to look out for him. That job falls to Franklin, who, armed with a sniper rifle, will take out the guards along Michael’s path. Once the freighter is at the bottom of the ocean, Michael will dive down and locate the device. This will allow Trevor, in a freaking submarine, to retrieve whatever it is. This is the plan I selected during my playthrough as this is the one I felt Trevor, being the psycho that he is, would choose.
Offshore: This plan is very uncharacteristic for Trevor as this is the more subtle approach. Here, Michael pilots a huge helicopter in order to carry Trevor’s submarine to the Merryweather Security test site in the ocean. Trevor then retrieves the device and, once he has it, Michael then picks up the submarine. Of course, things don’t go as planned and Merryweather swoops in to try to prevent the theft. Franklin has to now shoot down their pursuers while Michael tries to avoid getting shot down.
Winner: Freighter
This is not exactly a preference thing but rather a winner because of aversion. Even though I can get everyone to the highest level possible when it comes to their flying skills, I still cannot get a hang of the flying mechanics in Grand Theft Auto V!
While the Freighter does have its own problems, such as the underwater swimming aspect (which I also don’t like), Offshore is basically one giant flying mission. The majority has Michael flying in a helicopter and there’s just something about the flying controls which I haven’t connected with. I weirdly feel better with flying planes in Grand Theft Auto V. Helicopters, however, are the worst! It’s so easy to either whizz past your target landing area or undershoot it. I must have spent around 5 minutes just trying to hook up the submarine to the helicopter at the start of the mission. Then I had to do it again near the end! The shooting in the helicopter could have been a redeeming factor but it wasn’t enough for all the frustration I felt with all the helicopter flying!
Under orders from corrupt FIB agent, Steve Haines, who is under investigation, Michael and Franklin have to infiltrate FIB and retrieve evidence against the aforementioned FIB agent. Unfortunately, they cannot simply hack into the computers and they have to physically break into the computers in order to delete the files.
Covert: This has Michael infiltrating the FIB offices by dressing up as a janitor in order to plant bombs in strategic locations. After setting off the bombs, the rest of the crew will come in disguised as firefighters and enter the server room to retrieve the digital evidence. The idea is they should be able to walk out but the bombs were more violent than expected. This then means the crew have to escape a crumbling building while also having to fight their way out when the ruse is discovered. This is the plan I executed during my playthrough as I didn’t want Michael to waste a good janitor ID and uniform.
Roof: Instead of walking in the front door, the crew instead parachute in from a helicopter to the roof of FIB headquarters. The team then break into the server room in order to plug in their cellphone to allow the hacker to get into the system remotely. They then have to defend their position while the hacker does his job. Once the hack is complete, the plan is to escape via the helicopter. Unfortunately, the chopper is shot down and the crew must make it to the ground floor while taking out highly trained and armed FIB agents.
Winner: Roof
Once again, action wins over a smooth operation. Although the Roof entry has Michael flying a helicopter at the start (yuck!), you don’t have to be all that precise to activate the start of the mission. Also, more shooting is more fun!
Simply put, with the Covert mission, the entire sequence of mopping the floors really felt like a chore. You also had to “aim” the mop to clean an area quickly as possible and then also wring the mop once it got dirty! That got boring real fast! I also didn’t like how you controlled Franklin during the shootout phase of the mission and you couldn’t switch to Michael. Since the Roof mission was more dynamic and you had a lot more to do, it felt more exciting.
The final heist mission where the crew rob the Union Depository of some of its gold and make them legends as well as super rich. This is what the team has been gunning for the entire time so they better make this count!
Subtle: The plan here is to dupe them into actually giving the crew the gold bars! This has the crew hijack the armored cars scheduled to pick up the gold bars. They then come in disguised as the guard to roll the gold bars into the armored cars without raising any alarms. The team then move the gold bars into their heavily modified cars to carry the gold to another location to complete the heist.
Obvious: The plan here is more meticulous as this involves the team actually drilling into the vault from underground while another team cause a distraction. After drilling into the vault, the underground team have to fight their way out while also moving the gold bars to a pallet where a couple of helicopters will fly out the gold onto a train the crew has commandeered. This is the plan I picked because I didn’t want to go through the trouble of stealing and modifying 3 separate cars.
Winner: Subtle
Once again, flying a helicopter spoiled a lot of the fun for me and Obvious had you picking up the gold with a helicopter and then a sequence where you have to fly around with the gold while security goes after you.
I also did like the curveballs the Subtle mission threw at you. I enjoyed the hacking minigame where you control the traffic lights to allow your crew to drive through traffic and slow down their pursuers. The big fire fight where Merryweather catches up to you while you’re busy moving the gold to the cars was pretty awesome as well. Finally, the big car chase at the end where you have to drive your car into a moving truck was straight out of the movies.
Byee!
Which was your favorite heist mission in Grand Theft Auto V? Let me know in the comments section below!
