Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
By Meelis13
Greetings, folks. Big was my suprise when i browsed review directory, seeking out classic games yet to be reviewed and i saw this game hadnt had a single review. So here i am, seeking to repair this error- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, best GTA game in my opinion shall have a review!
Basic Introduction
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (also known as GTA SA or SA) was released by Rockstar Games in 26th October 2004 for PS2. It arrived to PC (as everyone now expects its younger sibling- GTA 5 to PC) in 7th june 2005, i.e about 8 months after initial release in PS2. Game takes place in fictional county of San Andreas (based on real life California and Nevada) in 1992. Welcome to San Andreas!
Minimum System Requirements:
1GHz Intel Pentium III or AMD Athlon Processor
256MB of RAM
8x DVD-ROM Drive
3.6 GB of free Hard Disk space for a minimal install
64MB Video Card with DirectX 9 compatible drivers ("GeForce3" or better)
DirectX 9 compatible Stereo Sound Card
Keyboard & Mouse
Recommended System Requirements
Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon XP processor (or better)
384(+) MB of RAM
16x DVD-ROM drive
4.7 GB of free Hard Disk space for a full install
128(+) MB Video Card with DirectX 9 compatible drivers ("GeForce4" or better)
DirectX 9 compatible Surround Sound Card
Game pad with twin axis analog controls (USB or Joystick Port)
Keyboard & Mouse
StoryAs said previously, game takes place in 1992 in fictional county of San Andreas. You step in shoes of Carl Johnson (known to his friends and family as CJ), who returns to Los Santos (city based on Los Angeles, one of 3 big cities) from Liberty City after his brother Sean Johnson (better known as "Sweet") calls him to tell that their mother was recently killed in drive-by.
Carl Johnson (CJ) and Big Smoke
But as soon as CJ is beginning to reach home, some old "friends"- namely corrupt cops Frank Tenpenny and Eddie Pulaski pull over taxi hes in and "confiscate" all his money before dumping him in turf of rival gang- the Ballas. Later he discovers that his former gang- Grove Street Families have lost their once strong footing and almost entirely caved in by pressure of Ballas and Vagos, plus they have split with other families.
So in effort to sort out his family life and to help his friends, he once again starts getting involved in gang business- a decision that'll have its ups and downs later on in game as by trying to help, he meets with hippie called Truth, famous rapper named Madd Dogg, protagonist of GTA 3- Claude and several more interesting characters, plus few more familiar characters from GTA vice city. He also steals some super-secret weaponry, blows stuff up, pulls a bank heist, learns of few betrayals and more.
He will also visit other cities (and surrounding countrysides) of San Fierro (based on San Fransisco- its interesting to note, that missions where you go to San Fierro, are named after famous song "If you're going to San Fransisco") and Las Venturas (based on Las Vegas). Oh and of course, area 69 (based on area 51)+ many other locations named in conspiration theories.
Story itself is good in length too, providing whooping 100 main story missions (excluding intro), plus tons of sidemissions. Its a lot more than any of other GTA-s to date. Also missions are greatly varying in style from stealing stuff from moving train to just killing enemies.
GameplayGameplay is what you may expect from GTA- do whatever you wish. I will try to break topics down as there is much to talk about in this topic.
Map of San Andreas county. Los Santos is in bottom right, San Fierro is in left side and Las Venturas in top right. Mt. Chiliad, highest point is that gray area on bottom left
Map- So far my favourite map of the game- it has great variety of landscape from urban areas such as Los Santos to villages scattered across land, rivers and even few mountains. Very detailed map, at least for its time. And its huge- or rather it feels huge as there is much to explore and even after years of playing this game, i still find new stuff i never knew existed. But to be truthful, you can quite quickly travel from one end of the map to another, though it can take time depending on route and vehicle.
Vehicles- name it and GTA San Andreas has it. It has bigger vehicle variety than any other GTA (though GTA 5 is very closely behind), that is, if you include non-operable vehicles as well. There are of course cars, but also bycycles (first time in GTA!!!) and of course bikes. There are also boats, choppers, various types of planes (including VTOL fighter and airliner), various trucks, forklift, train, jetpack, tanks, other military cars/trucks, cop cars (including SWAT tank armed with water cannon), firetrucks, ambulance, crane, harvester, tractor and such stuff.
You also may want to polish your driving skills on various driving schools- you have to be in driving school and flight school, but you may also want to visit boat school (north of SF) and bike school (in LS) to improve your vehicle skills, making you more good at them
Weapons- again, large variety of weapons. As i read there was originally supposed to be over 250 (!!!) hand-held weapons in GTA san andreas, but they cut number down. Still, there are a lot of weapons from funny melee weapons from *khm* adult toy (if you know what i mean) and flower buqets to lock-on rocket launchers and miniguns. There are 3 main tiers in total, but note- minigun isnt included in any of those tiers. And also there are of course weapons for vehicles, such as lock-on missles for VTOL fighter to minigun and rockets for military helicopter. Getting into airborne vehicles also gets you parachute that you can use.. as parachute.
You may also want to target practise as much as you can with each weapon as when you get more proficent, CJ unlocks new abilities, such as dual-wield for some weapons.
Customisation- That is a big one in here. In GTA-s previous to San Andreas, customisation was minimal. San Andreas, however, was also sort of test platform for various ideas and so it turned out that CJ became most customisable character in GTA-s to date. You could combine various clothing pieces instead of having only pre-made outfits like in previous games, or you could wear a bonus costume. You had also wide variety of accessuaries from sunglasses to chains to watches.
In addition to clothing, you could also get tattoos, get a haircut (which has spawned numerous laughs for getting from caesar (almost bald) cut to afro).... or eat yourself fat/starve to skinny and also work out for muscle (shows on body and makes you stronger) and stamina (allows to run longer).
Your style, muscle, fat and sex appeal also can affect wheter or not you can get certain girlfriends (you can have multiple at once).
You can customise health as well- if you are healthy enough, your max. hp will increase. You can refill hp by eating/drinking. Funny thing i noticed- with maximum max hp you survive the jump from LS tower.
You can also customise most cars- choose paint (or with certain cars, paintjob), wheels, for some cars if you want roof or not and if you do, then which type, buy nitro for car and also get hydraulics installed for some car dancing, should you feel up to it... and then you drive carefully to garage and will keep your cool car there... forever...
Dating- like said, style can affect wheter you date someone or not. I found it extremely annoying (though good in terms of gameplay) if i were rejected for having too much muscle or dressing like jackass. Various girlfriends like different activities and also different places to eat. Having relationship progressed to certain point unlocks bonuses, such as car or free repairs. At end of some dates you also get called in for "coffee"- originally it was intended for this to mean wheter you want to engage in sex minigame, where you could control CJ while he was.. *khm* peforming adult activity with female. This was removed from final release (replaced with camera shaking and you hearing moaning), but it was still kept ingame and some people discovered it and unlocked it with mod known as "Hot coffee mod". It caused huge upset and game rating was raised to adult only.
Gang wars- As leader of Grove street families, you can also take part of gang wars in Los Santos. Your areas are marked with green, Ballas territories are purple, Vagos yellow. You can take over territories by initiating gang war by killing few gang members in some areas (in some its actually hard, as some are really small), then by surviving 3 waves. But its not only you who is attacking- sometimes you have to defend your territory as well- as soon as marker flares up on map, go to spot and defend area flashing red by killing all enemies. Only way to end gang wars is to take over all territories- in fact for final mission of game you NEED to take over most areas.
Wanted system- If you go on and kill every person on street or nudge a cop car gently with a bike, you get wanted. commit more crimes and you get more wanted.
1 star= minimal wanted level- only local cops are after you. Only level you can evade by staying out of sight.
2 stars= you cannot outrun them. Paint your car or change clothes to escape or use safehouse savegame feature
3 stars= cops call in airforce- choppers are after you
4 stars= all previous+swat
5 stars= feds join the hunt
6 stars= cops throw everything they got to stopping you, military joins in with troops, tanks and VTOL fighters. Highest level of being wanted. Still, you can escape them as you could with 2 stars, also i've noticed that 6th star is easy to go away
Missions- besides story missions there are also multiple mini-missions (for example, dancing) and also some sight-seeing ongoing missions, such as find and spray all gang tags in LS to get bonus. You can also gamble in Las Venturas by playing virtual poker, wheel of fortune or blackjack. It wasnt rare for me when i was in debt -250 000 when i played last hand and ended up winning millions. Though about debt- you dont want to get in debt as gangsters start chasing you. There are also races, which were a great joy. There are also such events as derbies and skill-driving with dirtbike, which are also a tons of fun.
Mods- GTA: SA has also more mods than any other GTA, in fact there are so many i dont even try to list them. Many are fun, so go check them out.
Multiplayer- GTA: SA doesnt have multiplayer. Well, at least not built-in. There are 2 ways of playing GTA: SA online though- fans have continued Multi Theft Auto (site: http://www.mtasa.com/ ) project to GTA: SA as well. Other very popular (and in fact my favourite) multiplayer project is SA-MP (site: http://sa-mp.com/ ). Both are free and still have thousands of players with hundreds of gamemodes and servers.
Music and Graphics
View to Grove Street
Music is excellent in GTA: San Andreas. Main theme is most spot on for GTA game i have heard- and it isnt rap music, as you'd expect from gang game so props for that! Radio stations, especially Radio Los Santos have plenty of rap though, but also other type of music and also chat shows. My personal favourite radio channel was WCTR, which is talk radio. There is also possibility of making your own radio station for your favourite tracks- just copy shortcuts of song files you wish to yourusernamehere/documents/gta san andreas user files/user tracks/ directory and then scan them in options. and voila.
Graphics. While i get nostalgic, these graphics are quite bad for 2004. Still, i dont mind them as rest of the game is great. There are also mods for improving graphics, so look them up if you want.
Summary
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is definetly still game worth playing- excellent story length, lots of activities and customisation possibilities, great story are just few of the reasons you should do it, even if graphics are outdated even for 2004 (fact that mods can easily fix).
My rating: 10/10