By Katey Khaoss

Here we go again. Dangerous missions, guns, hot women and fast cars. It’s everything you’re accustomed to from the Grand Theft Auto franchise since its debut in 1997 on the PS1. Since then, not much has changed with the game, aside from locations and main characters.

Do the players care? Not likely. I mean, you can’t exactly steal a car and proceed to go on a shooting rampage in real life and use a cheat code to weasel your way out of it ~ so there’s that.

Jokes aside, though, Rockstar Games has created a series that, with minimal changes ~ same basic idea with some mods ~ feels like an entirely new game every time. This fall, Rockstar Games will be releasing the latest installment to the series ~ GTAV.

Although not a whole lot has been leaked about the storyline, personality trailers have been released, allowing players take a look at the colorful cast of characters they’ll be playing. I’d like you to meet Michael, Franklin and Trevor, three men with dysfunctional lives ~ what else is new?

Michael is the retired career criminal who’s living the easy life in a huge mansion in Rockford Hills. Despite the luxury, he’s bored with his new life, sick of his family and is looking for some new excitement.

So, in other words, he’s having a mid-life crisis.

Next up is Franklin, the youngest of the bunch. Franklin’s set-up is nothing short of what you’d expect from a Rockstar game ~ a young black kid trapped in gangland violence in the bad part of town. Grove Street, anyone?

Finally, we’ve got Trevor. Ever heard of an ex-military pilot redneck who deals drugs? Well, now you have. He’s the epitome of ‘MURICA ~ minus the drugs. He frequents the area’s trailer park, Sandy Shores, with a posse of meth addicts in tow. From the looks of it, Trevor will be the comic relief of the trio and completing missions with him will be nothing short of hilarious.

Yes, you’ll be swapping between the lives of all three men as you explore the vast urban sprawl of Los Santos, both willingly and via missions. From what I’ve seen, Rockstar has done a nice job incorporating the trio’s backstory into these missions.

To check out the character trailers and a few other teasers for GTAV, visitrockstargames.com/V. GTAV will be available Sept. 17 for both PS3 and Xbox360. Pre-order is happening now and can be done at the link mentioned above.