Grand Theft Auto V

- Play missions, prioritize the ones that are marked with smaller sized letters. The big ones are "main" story missions, so it's good to pop out all your available side missions first.

- Take cover, you can't take much more than a few hits unfortunately.

- I'm serious, this game sucks at warning you you're about to die.

- Upgrading cars is complete fluff, save your money for guns and properties

- Franklin's special ability to slow down time and take extreme control of a car is super useful, and you can basically use it constantly since it recharges from stuff like driving at top speed and narrow misses on other cars. Click it on to take a sharp turn or dodge traffic, then click it off, and you should never run out.

- When flight school opens up, go and finish it. You'll get a free parachute every time you enter aircraft afterward. Plus it can take Micheal's shitty flying stat to 100 before it's done, and you'll want that.

- When you're wanted, try and find tunnels, covered areas, or back lots where you can hide. It's much easier than just running.

- When you plan a heist, go with your best crew members even if someone says "Oh, this guy won't be as important because blah blah blah" because it's bullshit.

- Don't do assassination missions until you're in the post game. The whole point of them is to abuse the in-game "stock market" to make money, and you'll have a lot to invest after the final mission.

- For heists, you never really need the best hacker, but the best gunman can change things substantially.

- Like GTAIV, the in-game internet has a lot of fun fluff to look at, but even if you couldn't give two shits about that you should at least poke around a bit with Michael. You may find your faith...rewarded.

- The only properties that you can actually profit from buying are the submarine dock (unlocked after the second heist) and the Los Santos Custom in the desert, which allows you to freely upgrade any vehicles as much as you want, savings thousands on top-tier engines and bulletproof tires and whatnot. The rest mostly give you filler missions to drive a truck somewhere or fight off some gangsters. The only ones that approach being interesting are Trevor's gun-running missions (the very first property you can buy) but they still cost more than you'll make from doing them.

- On that note, get used to not getting paid for doing missions and sidequests. The game has a running theme of paying you next-to-nothing (and sometimes just nothing). Just do what seems fun.

- The same goes for hanging out with friends. You don't have to keep track of friendship points a la GTAIV and they offer no bonuses, just do it if you think it would be funny seeing Michael and his wife get drunk or whatever.

- As Trevor, you should definitely take people to the cult. It may not seem profitable at first, but it's worth it in the end.

- Don't bother buying armor, that shit is made of wet tissue paper and makes almost no difference.

- ^^ While armor is very expensive, I don't agree with this at all. If you have the $$$ money buy as much of the best armor as you can afford and always wear and reapply it during important sections. Especially in online heists. Armor makes all the difference.