I'm modding GTA 5 every day in a quest to either transform it into a PC version of GTA 6 or break it entirely. Come back tomorrow to find out what new horrible thing I've done to Rockstar's baby, or check out what I got up to earlier.
Can a game go on life support? Can it begin, in its dotage, to show signs of the ailment that everyone knows—but would never say—is the thing that will one day bring it down for good?
Grand Theft Auto 5 can. Installing my latest mod, Dynamic Traffic Colours, has brought my installation of the game to the point that it's failing death rolls. It will only launch in windowed mode, now. Trying to fullscreen the game before it has loaded will leave you suspended in the void. Quite literally: you will reside in an eternal black screen from which escape is impossible, unless you hold CTRL+ALT+DEL.
Anyway, once I was in and windowed, I encountered a mystery. The point of Dynamic Traffic Colours is to mix up the hues of Los Santos' cars. I think it is doing that, but with a conservatism that borders on timidity.
For the most part, the cars I see (and, to be fair, many of them more-or-less implode on spawn) are the same humdrum colours you get all the time. But then, like a vision, you get a car that's a garish mix of tints, sailing past you and into the side of a building.
So I don't really know what's going on there. Perhaps it's a lesson to change my thinking. Rather than letting me gorge myself on clown cars, the mod presents them like rare, nourishing treats: oases in the windowed desert. I'm thankful for that.
