Michael and Trevor are running from a heist gone bad. The cops arrive as the men’s getaway vehicle, a helicopter, isn’t where it was supposed to be. Michael takes a bullet and Trevor escapes across a foggy snow bank. Nine years later, Michael and his family have entered the witness protection program, living it up in sunny Los Santos. Michael has everything a superficial Beverly Hills type could want, but he was much happier when he was pulling big scores. This is the first playable character.

The second playable character, Franklin, is a young street gangster who aspires to leave the hood. He doesn’t like the life he’s “supposed” to live, surrounded by low-level thugs who often brag about doing time for unambitious crimes. During an insurance scam, Franklin meets Michael. Michael sees himself in Franklin and Franklin sees someone who can elevate him to the big leagues. Thus is the beginning of a promising partnership in crime.

When Michael later catches his wife banging her tennis coach, he and Franklin hop into a pickup truck, drive to the man’s cliff-side house, and use a winch to pull one the support structures out from underneath it (just like Lethal Weapon 2). The problem is: tennis coaches don’t live in multi-million dollar houses in the hills. It turns out the house actually belongs to an associate of the Mexican cartel. Now Micheal and Franklin have no choice but to pay off debts by pulling off bigger and bigger heists.

You’ve seen Trevor, the third playable character, in the marketing materials. For several hours of gameplay, however, Trevor is absent. It’s a wise choice on Rockstar’s part. You keep hearing about him in the meantime, amping up the hype until he finally comes blasting into the story with all the kinetic energy of a wrecking ball. As he weasels his way back into Michael’s life, he brings with him the additional heat of The Lost motorcycle gang (remember them?) and the baggage of a meth operation.

The best crime stories work in layers (see: Layer Cake, a film which took the concept literally), folding in one incongruous situation after another. In their attempts to fix one situation, GTA V’s main characters often just create more situations. It’s a heavily layered plot involving methheads, street gangs, various levels of law enforcement, and a private military.

Gone is the feeling you have to do a ton of busywork in order to unlock all areas of the game. You still have to take jobs to advance, but very few feel like filler chores. With the addition of frequent checkpoints, you no longer feel the annoyance of having to start a mission over from the very start, which reduces the urge to rage-quit. Though the ragdoll physics have been downgraded and driving doesn’t feel as realistic, this is the best GTA game yet. All three characters are just as likable as the previous game’s Niko Bellic—and boy, did I really like Niko.

Like many, I was disappointed by Rockstar’s decision to release Grand Theft Auto V on consoles only. That means I’ll have to buy it again on PC if it comes out. And for those of us who played Sleeping Dogs on PC, GTA V is a minor step down in terms of graphics. Even so, I was impressed by the art direction. It’s not quite as pretty as Uncharted titles, but as it simultaneously streams data from your hard drive and the disc itself, you can rest assured that modern technical limits are being pushed. The draw distance is a notch above acceptable and long loading times are a virtually a thing of the past.

Easily the game of the year.