I launched GTA V again and realized that my last session had been on February 28. The story mode is still holding up well, although my progress is only a little over 9%.

The activity that has taken me the most time so far is the street-racing content. When I first stole the sports car, I was still using a keyboard. Switching to a controller took some adjustment, and the races themselves are not especially forgiving. Several tracks contain sharp right-angle turns. After trying for roughly two and a half hours, I finally won by using what felt like a cheat—although it is actually a skill provided by the game.

One of the protagonists can temporarily slow down the action while driving, producing an effect similar to bullet time. At high speed, this gives you enough time to make much finer steering corrections. It is not exactly an effortless solution, but it made the difficult corners manageable.

The running race also took me two or three attempts before I worked out the trick. Normally, running means holding the X button, so I initially kept a steady pace during the race. I tried taking shortcuts and failed. Then, while sprinting along the path by the sea, I noticed that repeatedly tapping X seemed to produce an extra burst of speed. On my final attempt, I kept pressing the button throughout the entire race and finally secured the win.

Afterward, I went down to the beach and noticed several surfboards, some mounted in place and others lying on the ground. I tried taking or picking one up and starting a surfing activity, but nothing happened. It seems that surfing may simply not be an actual feature in the game.

A hallucination, a stolen yacht, and a chaotic rescue

One of the question-mark missions begins near a fountain plaza. A man is sitting on a bench behind a table, delivering a loud speech about current affairs and promoting democracy and freedom while selling marijuana. After the protagonist takes a puff, the game shifts into a hallucination. He ends up carrying what appears to be a minigun and mowing down aliens.

Another memorable mission involves the wealthy crime boss who made his fortune through organized crime and his Black partner, Franklin. They set out to rescue the boss’s son. I originally assumed the objective would be to recover a stolen yacht, but the actual sequence becomes a much more elaborate chase.

You have to drive after a truck speeding away with the yacht. Franklin throws one of the guards out of the vehicle, and the older protagonist accidentally drives over him. A second, heavily built guard then nearly pushes Franklin off the fast-moving truck. At that point, you must continue driving while shooting. The aiming reticle seems to stay fixed, so accuracy depends on positioning your moving car correctly relative to the target. Once the guard is dealt with, the rescue is not over.

The son is clinging to the end of the yacht’s mast, which has tipped toward the car. He is holding on with both hands to the mast as it hangs roughly parallel to the road, and he is close to falling onto the highway at full speed. You have to drive underneath him and catch him. It took me two or three attempts to complete that part.

The automatic checkpoints helped a lot. Each failure sent me back to the relevant stage instead of forcing me to restart the whole mission, which made the sequence much less frustrating. By the end, the protagonist’s sports car was damaged and smoking. The son was saved, but the yacht was still taken away.

The paparazzi mission was much simpler in concept. I rode a motorcycle while carrying a photographer who wanted pictures of a celebrity inside a limousine. I never actually saw the photographs, but the dialogue between the characters was crude, violent, and deliberately excessive.

Dogs also have a small interactive role in the game. You can play fetch with the puppy, throwing a ball and watching it run back to retrieve it.

The in-game phone and a questionable stock purchase

The phone is more useful than just a way to receive mission calls. It can be used to make calls, take pictures, and browse the internet. While exploring the phone’s websites, I found a stock-market page.

At the time, I had $8,000. I spent half of it buying one stock, but when I tried to check my holdings, the page required an internet connection. I could not tell whether the stock market was closed in the game or whether the feature really requires an online connection. For now, that investment remains unresolved.

A short session with Dead or Alive

The other game I tried was Dead or Alive. Its story mode is entirely in English, so I treated it as a small opportunity to practice reading and listening to English. The fighting feels reasonably satisfying, and I played through around 49 chapters, although I do not know the total number of chapters in the mode.

I will probably have to delete it after finishing, simply to free up storage space. GTA V alone takes about 100 GB, possibly because of downloadable content or additional missions. I am still not sure whether those extra activities affect the overall completion percentage.