Grading GTA 5's new freemode events

Drive a la mode

Rockstar just introduced 19 new freemode events that occur all over the map at regular intervals in Grand Theft Auto 5 Online. I spent a few hours last night trying, and grading, the events that appeared during my sessions.

After an event ends, there's a 12 minute wait for the next one. Just for the heck of it, I decided to occasionally grade what happened during those 12 minutes as well.

Headshot Kills Challenge

Headshot other players while they try to headshot you. Whoever headshots more heads, wins. It's not terribly imaginative, but at least it will encourage players to shoot one another, which rarely ever happens in GTA 5 Online. That is a joke! People do shoot each other's heads, often!

One guy shot my head while driving by on a motorcycle. I was impressed!

Grade: C+
You sort of don't need a special mode to shoot heads or get shot in them.

Reverse Driving Challenge

Have you ever been to a meeting and the boss is like "Let's go around the room and everyone give one idea," and by the time it gets to you all your best ideas have been suggested in some form by other people so you have to offer up some lame, shitty idea? I have a feeling that's how we got the Reverse Driving Challenge, from some producer at Rockstar who was at the tail end of the round robin and was forced to mumble "Uh... everybody drives... I dunno, backwards?"

Everybody drives backwards. Whoever goes the farthest without crashing wins. You don't need to go to a set point in the city, everyone can just do it wherever they happen to be.

Grade: D+
It's just... driving backwards. It's not really fun.

Intermission: Hacker?

Are there still hackers in GTA 5 Online? You be the judge. A guy had been killing me repeatedly, despite no one being anywhere near me on the map. I finally found him standing on a beach, where I rammed him with a police car about five times, before finally pulling right up next to him and emptying an entire clip into his head.

He then suddenly appeared in my car. I drove off a bridge and into the water, at which point he died despite the fact that I was unhurt. That all seems a bit weird.

Grade: D
Hackers aren't fun.

Kill List Competitive

This one came up twice during my sessions, and I missed it both times because, apparently, Kill List can be activated before the preparation timer runs out if a few people get to the designated area early. As another player summed up in text chat: "why did you dicks start kill list!! we had 2 minutes more to get there!" A moment later, he added "you dicks started without us." They did indeed.

The description indicates that players need to get into a vehicle and destroy Merryweather patrols. Though I arrived late I could see a ghost tank driving around shooting ghost shells, so I assume you blow up vehicles before the timer runs out.

Grade: C-
Driving tanks sounds like fun, but dicks being able to start early isn't fun if you don't get there early like those dicks did.

Penned In

Players converge at a specific point at the map. When Penned In begins, a large yellow ethereal dome appears over the area, and begins to move. Players must drive while staying inside the dome. The dome speeds up, changes directions, and moves over roads and up hills and through valleys. It also begins to shrink.

If you leave the dome by accident or by getting rammed, you have a few seconds to get back inside it, or you're done. I lost, but it was a lot of fun, and you can still spectate if you've been eliminated. By the end, the dome is very, very small.

Grade: A
It's like a Battle Royale, but instead of starting all over the map, everyone begins in the same place. Also, there are cars.

Intermission: I bought a new hat

Grade: B+
I like my new hat.

Travel the furthest distance when bailing from a vehicle

I think they forgot to name this one, because only the description above appeared on the screen instead of a pithy title like 'You've Got Bail' or 'The Holy Bail' or 'Exit, Car Left'. You can do this anywhere. Just jump from a moving car and travel (with your body) as far as you can. Without dying. If you die it doesn't count. I know that from dying.

Grade: B-
It's fun, and since I regularly bail from my car without meaning to, I am often tumbling down the road anyway.

Intermission: Curbside service

While shopping for a rocket launcher to take down a pesky jet that had been hovering over the city, a player driving a pink armored car was so desperate to kill me he drove right into the gun shop.

Grade: A
I like people who don't give up. Also, he killed me, so good for him!

King of the Castle

Everyone converges on the same building and fights to enter and then defend it from everyone else. It's a great idea, and I figured players outside would work together to kill the player inside, but I am an idiot for figuring that. Everyone just immediately kills everyone they see and nobody really gets inside or even near the building after the first thirty seconds.

Making things worse are the godawful spawn points. This 'castle' was on the beach, and I spawned at least a dozen times in a row on the same spot with zero cover. One player had a minigun with endless ammo and was just standing on the beach killing everyone the moment they spawned. This went on for approximately forever.

The only cool part was someone attacked the castle with a jet.

Grade: F+
A good idea completely ruined by crappy spawn points.

Sniper Kills Challenge

Everyone kill everyone else with sniper rifles. Not much else to say about it.

Grade: C
It's just not that interesting.

Intermission: Mic drop

I flew a plane around while waiting for the next event, an experience completely ruined by the guy who had an open mic the entire time. All you could hear was his nose-breathing and mic-nudging and him typing on his keyboard.

Grade: F
You suck, turn off your mic.

Hunt the Beast

One player is turned into a beast, imbued with powerful attacks, health, and speed. The beast must visit eight landmarks, and after each visit an icon flashes on the map, letting the rest of the players briefly know where the beast is. The more landmarks the beast visits, the longer the icon lasts.

I was unfortunately was on the other side of the map when Hunt the Beast began, and I arrived just a moment too late to see the beast before the other players killed it (though I could hear it snarling). It was fun, though, as everyone joined in to chase the beast down, racing all over the city together, and taking a break from killing one another.

Grade: B+
Seems fun, and it's probably extra fun to be the beast.

Inverted Flying Challenge

Find a plane and fly upside down, over land, for as long and far as you can. The map is populated with extra planes, and if you die you respawn near one of them.

It's fun flying upside down. I chose some poor routes, though. I flew over the military base and was shot down, and I also wound up flying through that giant wind turbine farm, where I crashed. But still fun.

Grade: B+
It's fun flying upside down.

Intermission: All planes explode

After the challenge, all the planes spawned during the match explode. So, you get to jump out of a plane just before it explodes, which is always fun.

Grade: B+
It's fun jumping out of planes before they explode.

The rest

I only got to play (or try to play) about 10 of the new modes, and there are 19 total, so I'll just guess what the rest are, and grade them anyway.

Something Having to do With Parachutes: B+
Blow More Stuff Up Than Anyone: B+
Drive a Car and Don't Let Other People Drive It: C
Everybody is Stabbing Stabbing Stabbing: C-
A Race of Some Sort Where You Miss That One Checkpoint And Have to Go Back: D+
We're All In Helicopters: B+
Chase a Guy Who Has a Thing, And Get That Thing: B-
Fly Under Bridges Unless You're Bad At It: C
Get Run Over by Random Trucks: A (Because I would win this one.)

(Here's the actual list.)