The Safehouse

Last Updated: Mar 15th, 2006 - 17:20:44

Review: My vacation in San Andreas

By Nenjin Darkeyes

Nov 6, 2004, 15:06

Email this article

Printer friendly page

Discuss this story

Title: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Developer: Rockstar Games
Genre: 3rd Person Action
Release: October 26th 2004
Platforms: PS2, Xbox, PC(2005)

Took another sip of the potion hit the three-wheel motion
I was glad everything had worked out
Dropped her ass off and then chirped out
Today was like one of those fly dreams
Didn't even see a berry flashin those high beams
No helicopter looking for a murder
Two in the mornin got the Fatburger
Even saw the lights of the Goodyear Blimp
And it read, "Ice Cube's a pimp" (yeah)
Drunk as hell but no throwin up
Half way home and my pager still blowin up
Today I didn't even have to use my A.K.
I got to say it was a good day

It's been a long, blurry eyed trip through Rockstar's new playground, and my tank isn't even half empty yet. This is my second review of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and now that I've had ample time to rob, murder, and smash my way through the game, here's what I have. I'll go over the new features and elements like I did in my first review, how they play out in the game, and my impressions after 50+ hours of play(or approximately 22 pots of coffee). This is a long game. I like to dawdle and complete everything I can when I play games like these, and in my 55 hours, I've just broken 60% "completeness", or total owned properties, completed missions, secrets ect...so "sit yo ass down and shut up foo".

WORLD

I was pretty blown away when I first got a sense of the scale of the map. It's as massive as it is varied, with hills, deserts, mountains, forests, rivers, and a never ending variety of city and town landscapes. The world is a square. To drive from the south east corner of the map, to the north west corner by car would take about 9 to 10 minutes, going max speed with no wrecks. Suffice to say, that rarely happens.
The cities are especially well done, true to Rockstar's reputation with the GTA worlds. The slum where you start, Ganton, that hugs the freeway, feels like a slum, and it is vastly different compared to the clean streets and tall buildings of San Fiero. Las Venturas really looks and feels like Vegas. The little towns and villages that surround the major cities really feel and seem like tiny back-water towns. Combined with the variety of voices recorded, and the variety of vehicles, San Andreas really creates a sense of place and believeability as you play, no matter where you are. This is especially true when you are staring off the edge of the 2000 ft high mountain, checking out the landscape below. The use of the z-axis to really define and create unique areas(not to mention stellar jumps) is a big plus in San Andreas, something Vice City sorely lacked. It also has something else Vice City lacked. Real detail. Through either collisionable objects, or textures like grass, San Andreas really fills in the visual and enviromental gaps left by Vice City. The weather is better and visually more realistic, the cities all have a belieavable amount of fences, parking meters, light polls, crates, boxes, junk cars, barrels of flaming trash.....Rockstar really pushed to simply put more on the screen in San Andreas, and it's a richer, full world than anything they've previously done.

STORY

I found the story to be more compelling in San Andreas than in any other GTA game. It's not that it's especially new, or changed in some way, it's just a new approach to creating the virtual gangster that is GTA's trademark. Briefly, you're Carl Johnson. CJ grew up in Los Santos on Grove Street, with his moms, two brothers and his friends. As CJ and Co. grew up, they started to get into gang activity. At some point, because of some calamity(which the story is purposefully vague on), CJ leaves San Andreas for Liberty City. A few years later, someone kills Carl's mom. He returns to San Andreas, only to be picked up the notorious gang specialist, Officer Ten Penny; who promptly frames him for the death of a cop, forcing CJ to work for him. This is where the story begins.

It's got the usual GTA mainstay plots. Murder. Theft. Destruction. Revenge. Greed. Betrayal. Ambition. But they are all woven into Carl's story, and the story of Grove Street, which makes it a little more endearing than some guy, from Liberty City, coming to dominate a whole town. The story still suffers from the need for it to fit the kind of missions you are doing, but less so than Vice City. The major plot points are intresting(and do effect gameplay sometimes), and I can honestly say, I care about the story in San Andreas. You play a guy who gets used, conned, abused, and decieved by everyone. You're the true under dog in this game in terms of the story, which makes it more satisfying when you bust off 200 rounds into someone who really deserves it.

RPG ASPECTS

As a whole, these turned out more or less as I thought they would be. True to GTA's nature, much of the game isn't quantifiable with numbers.You never know the exact speed you were travelling, how much damage your guns really do, ect.. So the RPG aspects in San Andreas are very muted, behind the scenes, so that you are not consciously managing the information and numbers like you are in a classic RPG. In San Andreas, they've even changed your health and armor into bars instead of values.

GUN SKILLS

Having the quality of your gun play increase as you use the weapon, is pretty cool in practice, til you max out the weapon skill, which doesn't take very long. Once you max out the majority of your weapons(I did fairly early in the game), skill with a gun becomes less and less of a noticeable feature, and more like a handicap(like when you get a brand new gun). Some weapons, like all meele weapons, rifles, rocket launchers, mini guns, don't have associated skills for them, which also makes this feature seem even less "rpg-ish". But it still manages to be fun, and different when playing a GTA game.

PHYSICAL TRAITS

These more or less go like the weapon skills, except that they function in the slightly longer term. The increase in stamina(how long you can sprint) takes a long time to build up, but once physical skills are maxed...you can pretty much forget about them. Muscle is the exception. For example, after about 20 minutes of real time screwing around the gym, I took CJ from a skinny black dude to a BRICK power house. If you build up muscle to the max, and then stop eating, eventually you will lose muscle as your body eats itself to stay alive. If you stay active, running, biking, at least occasionally, your body will burn the fat you acquire from eating. Eating and feeding CJ turned out to be less of a pain than I was afraid of. Only about every 30 mins or 40 mins of game play do you need to really go eat some fat, and the rate of muscle deteroation is pretty slow. Basically, it's a non-issue, for those worrying about the "maintenance" aspect of GTA: SA.

ACTION TRAITS

Running and gaining stamina, learning to swin faster, holding your breath longer, cycling better and faster, riding a motor cycle better, driving better, all these "actionable" traits take a good amount of time to increase to the maximum. Once maxed these skills do not deteriorate. Depending on what you spend a majority of your time doing in GTA:SA, you'll find that your dominant activity is the first to max out(and you can go from cycling to driving to swimming in SA very quickly...) I think as you progress through the game, "newer" skills like piloting skil, or skill with the M4 Assault Rifle, level quicker.

My only real complaint about the whole system is, as a veteran RPGer, most of the best stats, skills and such can be acquired very quickly, probably too quickly. For example, I was of "hitman" skill in the pistol, the maximum skill and capable of dual-wielding pistols about 30 hours before the game even let me do that. But aside from increasing a little too quickly and becoming trivial, watching your skills grow and get noticeably better is gratifying, again because it's something new to the experience of playing GTA.

SWIMMING

I don't do a whole lot of this in general right now, but what I have done is well planned and thought out. It's still a shocker to play with friends, and have everyone groan when you hit the water, before you all realize you can swim! The controls from diving and swimming are very "realistic" feeling, as are the accompanying underwater graphics(more on this later).

CLIMBING

It's not really climbing per se. More like, grabbing the edge of stuff and hauling your self up. Now don't get me wrong, this is a cool feature, and a must in GTA:SA. In San Andreas, there are tons of chainlink fences, low walls, high walls, and other sorted things that get in your way when running from police. In Vice City, those kinds of enviroments were taboo because if you couldn't hop over it, or drive over it with a car, it was a solid barrier, which lead to some bland and unimaginative scenery to walk/drive through. Not so in San Andreas. With the ability to climb and negotiate terrain and objects, Rockstar really tried to include everything they could to fill in the world and make it as close to the real thing as possible(so to speak).

CARJACKING

It turns out to be nothing new from Vice City, other than the fact CJ will punch someone in the face, or boot them in the head, before ripping them out of their vehicle. There is no struggle or fight for the vehicle...until the victim gets up to kick your ass, anyways.

VEHICLES

This is where I start praising GTA in earnest. The amount of vehicles is absolutely MIND BOGGLING. 55 hours into the game and I am STILL finding new models and makes of cars. New kinds of vehcles I never thought of driving. Street sweepers, fork lifts, cement trucks, meter maid compacts, go karts, RC cars...and on. And within the actual scope of "cars", there are tons, and tons, and tons of cars. Alone in the "sport car class", I count in the range of about 15-17 vehicles. In the economy class cars, probably at least 15. Then you have the "speciality class". Anything from low riders, vintage cars, 4x4 monster trucks, hearses, tow trucks, SUVs...probably about 20 altogether there. 6 different kinds of motorcycle that I know of so far. And that's just stuff you DRIVE. I have counted so far about 8 different kinds of boats and or ships, and at least 6 or 7 different models of planes, from cessnas, to private jets, to full size 747s, an old style P4 fighter plane, bi-planes, water landing planes.....3 different types of helicopters that I know of so far.

I wanna give special mention to the BMX bike. Between the physics behind vehicles that is new in SA(more in a sec) and the fact you can do the equivalent of a 10 foot bunny hop while standing still at max bike skill, makes this hands down the funnest way to travel on the ground IMO. You tap the gas buttonl to get CJ pedaling super fast, crouch down for a huge bunny hop....and it's an instant stunt, no matter what. Or shall I say, instant entertainment.

VEHICLE SPECIFIC PHYSICS

The other fork of the prong that makes the numerous vehicles in San Andreas such a joy. Each car, boat, bike, air craft, drives uniquely. It has it's own acceleration, it's own top speed, it's own handling and cornering capacities...and they are all different, each car drives a little different.. You come to find your favorite sports car based on how you like your sports car, you find the econo class car that is either fastest or toughest...The bicycle especially benefits from unique physics. It handles like one, corners like one, impacts like one. The go karts corner like you expect a go-kart to. A real perk to San Andreas in terms of the car is that, unlike other GTA games, the vast majority of cars go pretty decently fast. Even the econo class crap cars can achieve a satisfyingly dizzying top speed. And the flying....the physics give the flying in San Andreas(especially the jumbo 747) a real boost. Flying in this game is exceptionally fun, because the planes fly, bank, land(and explode) just like they should compared to 2000 pounds of weight on a frame with 4 tires. The flying and driving takes some getting used to, I'll admit. Vehicles are more responsive(like planes), and less responsive(large vehicles), than in other GTA games. But you quickly catch on, and becoming skilled at driving in San Andreas leaves you feeling like you actually learned something. This is one of the high points of this game for me.

As a corrolary, speed is a much bigger component of GTA San Andreas than in previous GTA titles. Cars top out much faster, and the average vehicle goes much much faster than in previous titles. Certain vehicles are of course slow, Semis, Baggage Carts, Golf Carts, but if it's got 4 wheels and a 4 cycle combustion engine, chances are it's going to go "fast" at some point.

VEHICLE CONTINUITY

This is one of those aspects of the game that people weren't sure about when they heard of it. Cars lasting in GTA? WASHING cars? Well, it's true. You can wash your car. And supposedly, your car gets dirty too. But San Andreas plays no different than other GTA games. You're lucky if you can avoid getting a scratch for 2 minutes, even if you drive nice(slowly). What is cool about the idea of keeping your car nice is...there is ALOT of damage you can do to your car in San Andreas, visually. The front bumper takes a blow, and the left half of it dangles down, and wobbles as you drive. The windows on your car individually fracture and break. The panels dent fall off, and cars generally get more noticeably defaced than they did in other GTA games. All that being said, I have yet to really notice a "dirty car" in San Andreas. Sure, if you get real close to the paint of a car you've been driving and repairing constantly, the mip mapping makes it looks dull and sorta dusty. But the dirt isnt' really noticeable at 100+ miles an hour anyways, so I don't see it much. Dirt and rust is purely a visual feature. If you've got a beaten up junker, and it starts to rust dont worry, it's not going to drive slower.

NITROUS OXIDE

I'll admit it. I'm a speed junky, both on the real life road and in video games. So I was tickled pink to hear of nitrous oxide coming to my favorite racing and crashing game. The bag I got was a mixed blessing. First off, nitrous does make you go fast, way fast. San Andreas uses the blurring method, ala Need for Speed Underground, to simulate real speed. When you hit a certain speed, your peripheral vision gets blurry and colors and textures and lights start to smear a little, and the whole camera view shakes a little bit. Nitrous in GTA San Andres takes you to that kind of speed instantly, in that white knuckle, held breath, omfg I'm glad this is a video game sorta way. Speed in general in GTA San Andreas has a much more visceral feel than before. Which is a good thing, for me anyways. But it's got some issues too. Primarily, you can't turn it off!!! Nitrous is purchased in tank sizes of 2x, 5x, and 10x. Once you hit the NOS....it just goes, and goes and goes until it's empty. Even if you crash into something, and come to a total stop, the NOS just keeps burning...so turning around and reversing becomes a little tricky. So I don't use Nitrous that much in general play, not that you would ever need to accomplish the racing or driving missions. It's just another tool in San Andreas to have fun. If uncontrollable speed that ends in a giant fireball is your idea of fun.

CUSTOMIZABILITY

If there is one area in San Andreas I'll gripe about because my expectations exceeded the product, it's the customization factors. My disclaimer is this: I complain about these aspects still mindful of the fact it's something you didnt' get to do in other GTA games, and to have it in San Andreas is a plus, and a step in the right direction.

CLOTHES

There is a decent amount of clothing in San Andreas, although less imaginative clothing than I originally thought. There are 6 clothing stores in San Andreas, each selling a successively higher profile line of clothing. The stores, to my knowledge, don't even get anything new in, so once you've gone in and bought what you want, you never really have a reason to return. Nor should you when a lot of the clothing is just recolored and more expensive versions of the same clothing you already have(Binco carries a green hat, Zip carries the same hat, except black...and 120 dollars more). Still, there is a decent variety of over all clothing types in game, such that there really is no excuse for you to have nothing to wear(unless you swing the natural way, which is entirely possible in game...and potentially hazardous). Over all, I was pleased with the choices of clothing, if not in the over all volume and presentation of them.

HAIRCUTS

There are about 15 hair cuts you can get in game. But there are really only 10 styles. Close shaved, close shaved 2, afro, high afro, wedge, corn rows, mowhawk, mowhawk 2, bald and one other. Most of these haircuts can come in 3 colors. Black, blond-ish, and hot pink. They are all available from the beginning of the game, and to my knowledge, you never get more. I found the selection some what limited, but it's still a nice way to customize your own personal ganster.

TATOOS

Tatoos are in the same boat as the hair cuts. You seem to get tats based on certain achievements, like if you max out machine pistol skill, you can get a Tec-9 tatooed on your breast. But there are relatively few tatoos throughout the first half of the game, and all tatoo stores, like the barbers, sell the same proucts. Again, I felt the selection was and is pretty limited, but again, better than nothing. Seeing as you have to go shirtless to enjoy most of the tats, it's wasn't that big of an issue with me.

CUSTOMIZING VEHCILES

In what seems to be a symptom of trying to do too much at once, there are lots of things you can do to your car...just not very many options within those things. For example, when you want to put a new front bumper on your import racer, you get 2 choices, same with skirts and rear bumper..and exhaust..Rims you do get a selection, 10 or so, but when it comes to rims, that isnt' very many to choose from, and the graphics in that area aren't particularly flattering. Hydraulics, and the stereo upgrade, are one time deals with is just a yes/no choice. To me, aside from slapping the nitrous tank down on a car you haven't had it on before, vehicle customization in San Andreas is one of those things you do "because you can". It doesn't have any real practical purpose other than to use up your cash. But it's still kinda nice to put hydraulics on a 90,000 dollar sports car and go make trouble, none the less.

MISSIONS

There are a few new mission "types" in San Andreas. In addition to Paramedic missions, Vigilante Mission, and Taxi Cab missions, there is now pimping, where you pick girls up, drop them off with a john, and occasionally persuade some cheap bastard to pay up. Another new one is Burglary, one of the cooler "free" missions, but one of the hardest to make money at. You find a specific type of truck, wait til 10 at night, then activate the mission. Residential houses will become buildings you can enter. Once inside, you have to walk slowly, often in the dark, and take things like tvs, stereos, appliances, out of the house and back to the truck. If you bump into stuff, go through doors too fast, or run, a timer counts down til the cops show up, and often the resident runs out of their bedroom with a gun. You have until sun up(about 9 mins if you started the mission right at 10), at which point you go unload the pilfered goods at a garage and get payed.

There are missions from other GTA games too, like the ever fun "go steal me some imported vehicles", one of my favorites. The RC vehicles missions are there too, plus a bunch of races ranging from dirt bikes in the country, to a dirt ring, to street bikes in the city, import sports car races, dune buggy races, mud bogging and 4-wheeling competitions....and on. You can also, oddly enough, date in San Andreas. You pick your girlfriend up in the typical mission style, and you take her to a bar or a club or the local Cluckin' Bell. Some girls want to do kinky stuff, like go gang banging on rival gangs in bad neighborhoods, or go hold up gas stations and banks. Some just want to you to dress up in a leather gimp costume and get the double-dong dildo (you only wish I was making this up). As you take the girlfriend out on more dates, you get more progress with her, at which point I guess you have sex. Since none of the girls in game so far like to drive 100 miles and hour down the street and ramp off of stuff, I understandably haven't found out what happens when you "fill the progress bar". If you don't pay attention to your girl, you lose progress, and no booty if forth coming. But a ton of reptitive and annoying calls on your cell phone sure are.

Another neat little kind of mission that is new in San Andreas is the gang warfare. In the early stages of San Andreas and again in the middle, you get to wage turf wars with the rival gangs in Los Santos. You fight for a designated block(s) of the city, where waves of gangsters will come at you with ever increasing numbers and fire power. Win, and your gang populates the captured area, in addition to a steady income based on the number of your territories. It's a pretty cool feature, I think, and something I didn't expect or really read about in other reviews.

That leaves the story missions. Some of these have a bit more depth than Vice City mssions, and are multi-part. If you're not familiar with GTA missions, they at first seem hard, but after once or twice running through it, you complete the mission. Not much has changed here. There is the occasional mission that will leave you wanting to rip your hair out(some of the flying missions especially), but on average they are fairly easy, and GTA is a fairly forgiving game when it comes to failing and re-attempting objectives. It's hard enough in parts I feel challenged, and easy enough in others I don't get overly frustrated.

THE PEOPLE AND THE AI

The PEOPLE in San Andreas turned out to be a little less responsive than I was hoping from my first report. More appropriately, the responded a bit more simply. They react to your clothes, your hair, and your car by saying "Nice shoes!" or "Nice Car!", or "That hair cut looks like ass!". But they don't really treat you different. The NPC population in San Andreas does what it has always done in GTA games. Walk past you oblivious to your prescene, or start shooting at you, or run away screaming in terror. To the developers credit though, it was kinda funny to have members of the enemy gang walk up to me and start a conversation before opening fire on me. Never made that mistake again. I also did not notice much different treatment when I was wearing gang colors or not. Cops still came after me when I offended the law without colors, and gang members still open fire on my car the second they see me. On a positive note, the visual and auditory detection by NPCs is better. You can actually crouch behind a wall and avoid enemy detection. There is some form of hiding in shadows, but I have as yet to really have it be useful in play. It is possible to walk up behind hostiles without them noticing, although it doesn't change in difficulty with the type of terrain you move on, like walking on leaves.

The FUZZ also changed somewhat, but not as drastically as I hoped(and feared). Johnny Law isn't much smarter than he was in GTA Vice City. He will still run out into the open when you've got a sawed off shotgun pointed at him. But he's not a total moron this time around. He will, from time to time, take cover behind stuff, to further annoy you. He does shoot from his car, and his motor cycle, which makes him somewhat more threatening than he was in other games...but not by much. Just another incentive to drive faster I guess. However the coordination and execution of the police seems to have gotten better. Today I encountered my first road block. In GTA Vice City, a road block was 3 cop cars liberally spaced across the road, 4 cops, and a guy with tire spikes. Today I encountered a solid wall of SUVs end to end, with barricades and between 10 and 15 cops waiting for me. Needless to say, the guy strapped to the front of my hood was a little worried when I refused to back down. Cops will also more aggressively pin you in a vehicle, or wedge you into a wall than you might be used to. Instead of one helicopter every 5 minutes when you have 4 or 5 stars, it's more like 2 helicopters, every 30 seconds. Overall though, I'd say the cops are easier in San Andreas, mainly because you can save your game and get rid of stars....so with the 30 some odd save points spread across the map, getting rid of stars is a relatively trivial matter. But woe to the felon that gets caught out in open with 5 stars, and no vehicles available to him.

The GANGS are another part of my small discontent with San Andreas. Oh they do exactly what they said they would do...get in your car, shoot at people, and follow you around. Up to 8 of them by the way. Probably sounded better on paper than it is in practice though. The problem arises from the fact that CJ can run a hell of a lot faster than his gang members, meaning having gang members on foot means you won't be running. No biggie, right? I'll just lead them to the point and....wrong. In San Andreas, there are tons of people that don't like you. Normally, you drive right past these people without noticing them. You gang members don't miss them though. As you run around, your gang is constantly car jacking rival gang members, fighting them on the street, and getting themselves killed. It's much like herding turtles, turtles armed with AKs and gold teeth. No biggie right? Just need them for drivebys, right? Wrong again homes. I drove a circle around a cop for about 30 seconds, with a car full of homies laying down a constant stream of fire...after the cop nearly pulled me from the driver seat twice, I learned that gunners in your car don't accomplish squat. All in all, while fun, gang members are virtually worthless to game play, only slow you down, and don't even do what you need them to. Oh well. At least I can lead a mob. To it's death if necessary.

COMBAT

Hand to hand also turned out to be one of those features that was more hype that it was substance. Hand to hand attacks consist of 3 kinds. Los Santos Brawling Style, San Fierro Kung Fu Style, and Las Venturas Dirty Boxing Style. Basically, they are all the same, they just look different. With each style, you have a running attack, a triangle button attack, and a stomping attack. You can "combo" this triangle button attack in with your normal meele fist attack(I quote that because calling it comboing is being generous) to basically beat the crap out of anyone you need to, guns and back up aside. But there is no really difference beyond that. The only real unqiue "move" i've found is with the dirty boxing style, when you will lock up their head and neck and knee them in the face. As with many features in San Andreas, in any other game they would be called laughable attempts at content...but because they are new to GTA, Rockstar gets away with having them be less than complicated.

The 1st person targeting actually works however. It's more of a quasi over the shoulder 3rd person, but you walk and strafe with the left analog stick, and aim with the right. It isn't nessecarily easy to play the game like this, and I'd probably call you hardcore if you did(or call you a liar). But it's nice to be able to switch to free aim when you need to, as some of those pesky bastards will use cover to their advantage, or when you need to shoot a car and don't have 10 minutes to line yourself up directly in front of it. However, GTA does still have some issues with the camera and targeting, more related to how CJ moves and turns. If someone is blasting you in the back, you have to turn around and face them before you can lock on. When you don't know where you are being shot from, or worse, your camera is bumping into something, this can become a pain, and get you killed. Thankfully, if you know where your target is, and don't go all spastic on the controls, it's not too difficult to manage.

Stealth attacks are about as simple as many of the other aspects of San Andreas. While there are a multitude of hand to hand weapons, very few if any but the knife seem to be capable of a stealth kill. And when using a gun, a stealth kill basically means, getting close enough to a locked on target so that the gun points straight at their head, sneaky or not. Still(and I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record here) compared to other GTA games where instant suprise kills were pretty much impossible, it's a nice feature to have, simple as it is.

2-PLAYER

This is something people time and again have said was a good idea for Rockstar to do for GTA. 2 people on one screen, on one console. Well, you can do it in San Andreas, and I think it pretty much bites. It's essentially a mission with no win condition. All buildings and missions close up, and 2 players share one screen, where if one player is at the edge of the screen, the player on the opposite edge can't go any further. When a player enters the car as the driver, the second one gets in as gunner and leans out the window with a targeting reticle that is free aiming. The problem is, the second player can move the camera by swiveling around, which is the kiss of death for the driver. So the 2nd player has to keep their reticle on a very narrow section of the screen, and that, on top of someone actually driving the car, makes shooting from the vehicle near impossible, if not a total waste of time and ammo. So you rampage around the city until the camera, or the cops get you, which ever comes first. Nice of Rockstar to try, but it's not pheasible, and even among my manic GTA friends, none of us find it very fun to play for very long. GTA Online one day maybe...

MUSIC

The sound track for the game really takes me back to highschool. I still catch myself singing along with a lot of the songs that come on the radio. The soundtrack is an ecletic mix with a decent chunk devoted to rap and hip hop. But there is a still a classic rock station, an alternative station, a reggae station, a house-techno station, plus the wacky and always colorful news and talk radio. I don't know if I could say the sound track realy captures the early 90s, but it definetly puts you in mind of it. Props to Rockstar for their track selection. I am even managing to enjoy the House Techno Station...and I normally can't stand House music.

EXPLICIT CONTENT

I'll make no excuses, San Andreas is by far fouler and more crude with the language than any other GTA game. The story revolves around ghetto gang bangers, homies, drug dealers and pimps, and the vernacular is right on. It is laced with all your favorite 4 letter words, about every other sentence. But that's just the tip of the ice berg. Sex takes a supporting role in the game. Not only can you pick up hookers, you can pimp them too. Sex shops are abound in game, as well as colorful items like an all leather gimp suit complete with mask, and a 3 foot long double dong dildo that you can use as a meele weapon. There are about 5 strip clubs in game, with private lap dances. From trampy looking prostitutes lining the streets, to beach floozys in string tops, sex is tucked into just about every corner of San Andreas. Luckily for the censor's refined sensibilities, there is no visually explicit content...but people will say the damndest things when you listen to them, and the women sure do seem to talk alot during sex...is that talking or moaning...?

(Update: Boy is my face red. The Hot Coffee mini game was earned Rockstar the wrath of your friend, and mine, the ESRB. In retrospect, I shouldn't have been suprised by the discovery, although I was. It was a very short step for Rockstar to actually make getting it on it's own mini-game. Congrats to Rockstar for getting their name in the paper. And screw you for getting Hilary Clinton involved in all this! 9-24-05)

That's not the end though. If you've played any Rockstar games before, you know that there is a particular brand of humor they use. Laced in the voice and audio tracks are blatantly racist, stererotypical, and insensitive remarks, often made by stereotypical pundits like the ultra conservative right-wing-baptist-gun freak-preacher, or the hippy-tree-hugging-conspiracy-theorist, or the whiny-left-wing-liberal-sissy, or the ditzy-blonde-sex-doll-stripper-girl, or the righteous-minivan-driving-psycho-breast-beating-mother-of-four. Neither side, or any side for that matter, are spared the barbs of Rockstar's "wit". Exactly what position the developers take on all these presentations, and if the things said in game reflect their true feelings in some way, is anyone's guess. But suffice to say, if you have easily offended sensibilties, no tolerance for vulgar language, sexual references, mockery of religion and values, objectification of women, drug use, and overall general bombast, avoid this game like the plague. I have a feeling at some point in the near future, someone is going to be holding this game up as yet another example of video games harming children and society. Didnt' work the first, or the second time. Probably won't work this time either. Or maybe it will. Thanks Dubya.

THE NITTY GRITTY

GRAPHICS:

I'm not sure how Rockstar squeezed this much out of their engine for Vice City, but San Andreas is a leap past Vice City in overall quality. Rockstar lived up to it's promise to deliver 20-30% more polygons on the screen at one time. The level of detail in their textures has improved markedly(although is still pretty rough compared to a lot of games), such that those terracotta houses and red brick walls look really good. The weather effects are also much more prevalent in San Andreas. The famous San Francisco fog rolls in with a vengenace, obliterating your visibility. Rain storms look like a layer of static on the screen, til you notice the individual ran drops. Cloud banks are thick and fluffy as your fly your airplane up to 30,000 feet. And the sun flares and coronas are so life like they are painful to look at, litterally. The underwater effect uses the same kind of "overlay" as the rain and the heat waves in the desert. Everything underwater is aqua-green, and the screen undulates to simulate water. The effect is really well done.

Unfortunately, all this graphic goodness comes at a price. Say you are down town. It's raining. You crash into 2 cars, killing a cop in the process. 2 more cop cars crash into the pile, and stuff starts exploding. Between the rain, the constantly moving objects, the debris, and the extra building and object textures, some slow down does occur. It's not bad, but it's noticeable when you are in a SUPER busy scene, or dealing with moderate activity in weather conditions. Thankfully, that is not all the time, nor most of the time(unless you create the situation). Most of the time the game runs smoothly, and crisply. Aside from the purposeful and artificial blurring the game does at high speed to simulate velocity, San Andreas does not suffer from the "texture smearing" that GTA3 and Vice City were famous for, where when moving the whole camera rapidly, traffic lights, edges, and colors would blur out and come back into focus when you straightened the vehicle out, to preserve frame rate. That has been virtually eliminated in San Andreas. But that doesn't mean there aren't short cuts. The game has a very bad habit of not loading some textures and visible objects while you are in motion. Sometimes wall textures on buildings load half way, then phase in as the game catches up. Or you discover an invisible light pole or tree by crashing into it (usually in a plane), and then it appears. Obnoxious, but not a game breaker.

SOUND:

Lots of classic GTA sounds here, from the muscle cars reving up, to the weapons fire, to some of the jingles from the radio, down to old characters from GTA making cameos. This game is full of celebrity voice acting, like Samuel L. Jackson and Chris Penn(as Officer Ten Penny and his angry white partner), James Wood, Ice T, and others. The "chatter" that you hear people say is sometimes blase', sometimes shocking as hell. Talk radio is enough to make your hair stand on end, no matter what nationality, gender, political group or race you ascribe to. I've always had a soft spot for the audio in GTA games, as it's some of the only audio in games I really take the time to listen to, just to hear what unbelievable thing will come out someone's mouth next.

THEME:

Classic GTA, with a fresh injection of an actual story and character personality. I think I like CJ the best out of all the GTA characters, because he's the most real, and the least cardboard. Tommy Vercetti in Vice City was a good start, but the characters and their personalities are really fleshed out in San Andreas. The voice acting is good(for the most part), and the world is just like every GTA game, like our world on crack. I dig it. Can you?

GAMEPLAY:

If you have a hard time with free form games, GTA probably isn't the game for you. But if you like those type of games, or are at least willing to try, San Andreas offers tons of missions, both story driven and self initiated, (like doing pimping, missions to get property to turn over money, vigilante missions, ect). As a veteran GTA player, I was daunted by the sheer volume of stuff to do and try when I first started the game. I can only imagine what someone who has never had the experience of Rockstar's virtual city(world) would feel. The missions, on average, are not overly difficult. GTA games never really punish you that bad for failing, so when you fail a mission it's just try, try again, and don't forget to save. Nothing new there. Whether you're the "do all the missions" person, or the "I like to explore" person, or the "I like to stab crack whores and steal their hard earned $11 dollars" person, there is litterally hours and hours of stuff to do in any direction. Not much else I can say without devolving into a drooling fanboi. Love the driving mechanics, love the mission types and stories behind them, love the vast variety of things to see, do, drive, and destroy...

SO NOW WHAT THE HELL DO I THINK?

GTA games are really all about the gameplay. The graphics are always a notch below the peak, the controls are always rough and loose(although the driving in San Andreas is argueably a real skill), and the real meat of the game is a series of player missions, backed up by a story, with some easter egg hunts as "extras". To some gamers, GTA was always a sub standard game. And I don't nessecarily fault them. Grand Theft Auto games are a very arcade-ish, free form play games, that emphasize quantity over pure quality. Why do I go on about all this? Because if you don't find the fun in the gameplay style of GTA games, there's no reason for you to play it. So this next opinion is coming from the bias that I really enjoy the play of GTA games.

This game deserves to be considered for game of the year, bar nothing. It's sheer size and scope, combined with the detail Rockstar put into the game to recreate a little micro-cosm of California, makes GTA: San Andreas stand out as a real work of time and love in a day and age of crappy titles and low expectations. As a GTA fan, this is more than I could have anticipated, as much as I followed up on it's development. I've played GTA: Vice City since it came out, and up until the week before San Andreas, was playing it still. And San Andreas is 2x the game Vice City is.

I can't remember the last time I bought a console game and put upwards of 50 hours in on it the first week I had it. I think I need a job...Suffice to say, I love this game, and it's going to have a firm spot in my list of games even after I complete it, probably for a wihle to come. Essentially, this game is GTA v3.0+. If you can dig that, then get strapped, hop in your hoopdie, and let's go bang on some bitches.

RATINGS:OUT OF 10

Graphics-8.5
GTA games will probably never get full marks from me in graphics, but the graphics are a big enough improvement over the old, and impressive to boot, that it earns good marks from me.

Sound-9.0
The audio is funny, offensive, interesting, and in the case of the music selection, stylish and varied. Rockstar keeps up with expecations. Gets even better marks from me for all the classic sound effects I know from GTA.

Theme-9.0
Again, because it's an improvement on what they've already done, and I'm still enjoying it this long into the game, it gets good marks from me. The world of GTA is a familiar and entertaining one for me, and like wine, the world of GTA has gotten finer, and sharper, with time.

Gameplay-9.0
It's rare I ever give a game full marks for it's gameplay, because when you go out to create something, and do something half way, I'll usually notice and dock some points. GTA isn't much different, except that it's holes are in very small parts of the game. Mainly the lack of real quanitity and variety in customization options is where San Andreas falls short for me...but that's a pretty minor issue.. AI can be a little wacky too, again, nothing I count too heavily against a GTA game. Most likely the team ran out of time and energy to do more. Which is ok, because everything else is a total win with me.

RAGEBRINGERS-4.5 out of 5

Just go out and play it already.

Thanks for reading.

Justin "Nenjin" Wheeler
Safehouse Staff Writer

Top of Page