This review is really 2 reviews, one to cater for the lazy people in the form of “San Andreas review in a nutshell” then a more detailed review later on for people who want to read into a more in-depth view of the game.
[SAN ANDREAS REVIEW IN A NUTSHELL (FOR THE LAZY)]
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the follow up to the heavily successful GTA3 and Vice City games in the series on the PS2. The game is crammed with masses of new features and mission variations. In this game you won’t play the somewhat loveable character of Tommy Vercetti like in Vice City but a streetwise Carl Johnson returning from Liberty City, the city GTA3 was based in. The story begins fairly slowly but builds up into a dramatic tale of events with longevity to keep you up for hours on end. The game features many new aspects like the nutrition system whereby you need to eat to shape the way you look and how you act physically. E.g. if you’re too fat with little muscle you will suffer in running away from police or fighting adversaries. In the game you will encounter some great characters like the flamboyant OG Loc or the corrupt police officer Tenpenny voiced by Samuel L Jackson, the soundtrack of this game is what you’d expect it to be filled with a host of big names and recognisable tunes like “Welcome To The Jungle” and “Express Yourself”. The game is easily the best in the series building upon and surpassing the success of the previous instalments in this series. San Andreas exceeds everybody’s expectations providing an in depth experience.
[SAN ANDREAS REVIEW IN DETAIL]
The most anticipated game of the year alongside the likes of The Sims2, Half Life 2, Doom 3 and Halo 2 and it is finally here at long last. The game I’m talking about is Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. After the success of Vice City and GTA 3 rockstar games have returned with a vengeance with the biggest instalment of GTA ever. Beginning life as a 2d overhead view game on the PlayStation One Grand Theft Auto was released around 1996 or 1997 and created a lot of controversy. For the first time you were able to go round as a proper criminal. Killing helpless civilians, dealing drugs, getting involved in gang warfare and most importantly committing grand theft auto. The game was incredibly controversial at first because it struggled to be released due to its content and narrowly stayed in the minimum 18 years old age limit. The content of the game was protested by many pressure groups of morality. The game was an instant success due to the publicity it attracted from the controversy. The success of the game spawned an expansion pack which was named “Grand Theft Auto: London 1969” which was indeed based in London and featured the same gun toting, car stealing action you’d expect and the familiar mini with the British flag featured in films like Austin Powers. After around 1 year the highly anticipated but somewhat flawed GTA 2 was released and improved leaps and bounds featuring gangs, more varied missions and the good old action of past GTA games.
A year or two after the PlayStation Two was released we saw the release of GTA: 3, which were one of the best selling games at the time. The game featured the 3D action that fans commanded and a lot more. The game sold excess of a million copies and fans demanded a sequel. Another year on and we saw the release of another big seller, Vice City that was another GTA game of the same style with the gun toting action we would expect but with major improvements like the purchase of property. But one of the major aspects of Vice City that assured it’s success was the 80’s soundtrack that was used to great effect This was probably one of the most popular aspects of Vice City as it complimented the story that was set in the mid 1980s. Artists featured on the soundtrack were no strangers to the listener with people like Michael Jackson and Bryan Adams.
2 Years later in one of the biggest years for gaming ever we see the release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on the technologically fading PlayStation2 console. The game is no money making cash in as there have been huge changes to the game in nearly every area.
If you’ve never played a Grand Theft Auto game I’ll explain it for you in simple terms. In most GTA games you will play a criminal looking for revenge or reform, along the way in the story you will encounter criminals who you will work for in the forms of missions. Most of the missions will involve you killing, chasing or delivering goods, in all of the games the missions have been incredibly varied and there won’t be anything linear about it. Each time you complete a mission for someone you progress further and further into the story and will encounter many different things. When you’re not striving to complete your missions you can roam around the huge city or in San Andreas’ case a whole state in which you can interact. You can interact in many ways, by hurting people, by attracting the police or by car jacking someone and having the ride of your life.
The story of the game is you play Carl Johnson returning to Los Santos in San Andreas 5 years after he ran away from all the gang problems, drugs and corruption. Los Santos is the virtual equivalent of Los Angeles and is home to the Ballas and Grove Street Family Gangs. Carl Johnson returns to his home of Los Santos for good but his family has been torn apart and his mother dead. When he returns he is encountered by a couple of corrupt cops who blackmail him to do their dirty work or they’ll frame him for a crime he didn’t commit. Upon arrival back in his childhood neighbourhood he must re-establish the bonds between his Brother Sweet and old friends Big Smoke and Ryder.
[FIRST IMPRESSIONS]
My first impressions of the game were when I was viewing the intro to the game the graphics seemed a lot like the previous instalment of GTA, Vice city though this is expected as it uses the old game engine. When you first get into the game and can interact you must ride a BMX bicycle to your neighbourhood of Grove Street. The BMX bike is really nice to ride though your skill on the bike will be very low so you will be falling off a lot but when you get the hang of it you’ll absolutely love using it. The BMX bike works
in the same way as walking whereby the faster you tap the x button the faster you will go but don’t expect to go Lance Armstrong fast as at the beginning of the game you begin with little stamina so you’ll be pedalling at a slow speed. In addition to just pedalling for your life you can perform hops with the L1 button or do a wheelie with a lower movement of the left analog stick
Grove Street where most of the initial storyline develops and is also where you save your game. The area looks like a rough area in America, which is what it is and this is where you will begin to establish yourself and create links with people. The first person you meet when you return to your childhood household is Big Smoke a rather large guy who you knew well before you escaped from Los Santos. Big Smoke initially greets you with adversity until he remembers who you are. After a brief moment of catch up you must go to the cemetery to see the grave of your mother, when you arrive you meet two people, your brother and your sister. Your brother Sweet is initially still angry with you for leaving the Grove and won’t accept you back into their social circle. Then the Ballas gang in a nice red car greets you with machine guns attempting a drive by. You, your brother and Big Smoke must escape from them back to the Grove on your BMX bikes encountering on coming vehicles and gunfire from your adversaries the Ballas gang. The initial missions of the game seem boring but as you progress after 1 or 2 missions you will be engulfed in the storyline.
[THE GAME]
A lot of people loyal to the Grand Theft Auto series expected only a fair few changes in the game but expectations have been exceeded in more ways than one. One of first most notable changes is that there are 3 cities in this game in the state of San Andreas. The cities are Los Santos based on Los Angeles, San Fierro based on San Francisco and Las Venturas based on the bright light city of Las Vegas. Rockstar claim each city is the same size as Vice City but it is certainly not the case. The city of Los Santos is a lot bigger than Vice City even with the 2 islands. Each time I have drove around Los Santos it is very hard for me to see the same thing twice. Along with the inner city and locations on the outskirts there are countryside areas to Los Santos, which are populated, in small numbers and in some cases resemble a sort of ghost town. A lot of the building designs in San Andreas are similar as in Vice City but I wouldn’t really expect a lot of building designs due to the sheer number of changes and features in this instalment of GTA. As Los Santos is based on the American city of Los Angeles many attractions from the real life counterpart can be seen in Los Santos. These include, the Vinewood sign in the style of the Hollywood sign, the Chinese theatre with the walk of fame, Beverly Hills style properties around the area of Vinewood and the LA Expo centre which is what I think it’s called is also in the game. The LA Expo centre for people unfamiliar is the location for the annual Electronics Entertainment Expo “E3” which is the biggest computer gaming show in the world. As expected with the huge area of the City of Los Santos there are a lot of missions that will occupy your time, due to this fact I’ve only just left the City and reached the missions in the countryside of Los Santos so I don’t have much experience of the other 2 cities featured in the game but I’m sure that shouldn’t hinder this review of the game. In the countryside of Los Santos you will see hillsides and mountains, which gives the area a realistic feel.
One of the major aspects of this game is that statistics or attributes system that has been incorporated by rockstar. These stats can be monitored during game play when on foot by pressing the L1 button. The stats that appear on this popup are: -Respect -Stamina -Muscle -Fat -Sex Appeal
All of these meters have to be increased in a certain number of ways. The respect meter is your reputation. It is the respect you gain when you carry out certain tasks and complete missions. Each time you complete a mission you will either get a cash incentive but most of the time you will receive respect which is expressed by “Mission Passed: Respect” The bar won’t increase a fair bit which means you will have to work hard to earn the respect you deserve. The stamina meter is how much you can run, swim or cycle for. At the beginning of the game your meter will be low so you will have little stamina in order to run, swim or cycle for long periods of times. In order to build this up you must go to the gym and use the treadmill or the exercise bike for a long period of time hence an increase of stamina. The muscle aspect is how powerful you can punch and how much strength you will possess in terms of taking damage from opposition attacks. To gain muscle you must also go to the gym and build up by using the weights. The fat meter is obviously how fat or obese you are, one of the best features of the game is the eating system whereby your character must eat of they will become too skinny or if they eat too much, too fat. This leads to either being weak in attacking if you’re skinny or if you’re too fat very sluggish, can’t climb over walls or be slow at fighting. So in order to maintain it you must eat a fair bit but also visit the gym on occasions. Sex appeal is how much you appeal to the opposite sex; you can build this up by shaping up in the gym, getting a haircut, tattoo or new clothes. Along with these stats you can also gain stats from other things like shooting, driving and in relationships.
The cars in the game seem the same as in Vice City except it is powered by your statistics. When you begin the game your skills at driving will be very low which means that handling will be very bad, accelerate slowly and gain damage quicker than in Vice City. This means that in order to increase your skill you must drive a lot. Due to the sheer vastness of the game your meter will rarely go up and the meter will popup on your screen when you’re skill increases. A lot of the cars in the game are typical 90s with more estate and saloon type cars than the huge amount of MPVs 4x4’s. There are other forms of transportation featured in this game other than cars. There are motorbikes which are always incredibly fast when you get used to it and this also has it’s own skill meter which is obtained in the same way as cars. Other forms of transport are trains that are very hard to get onto and when you initially drive it the camera angle is veered slightly to the left. The speed is what you’d expect, very fast and quite deadly if you’re on the wrong end. You can also travel on planes because of the vast size of the state of San Andreas. Since I’ve not gone very far into the game I can’t give you many specific details but you can travel on commercial planes and learn to fly a plane. If you’re on a high wanted level when flying a plane the U.S. Airforce would hunt you down and most probably shoot you down with no remorse. Another vehicle you can drive is a forklift, which is required in a certain mission in the game. The forklift is not made for road travel so be aware of a lot of wheel spin if attempting road travel.
The people in the game have been changed a fair bit in this game. People will now interact with each other more, some couples will hold hands and if you run in between them they will stop holding hands then resume after you’ve gone past them. People will also talk to each other and brutalise each other in some cases. One time I saw a car run over a whole line of people for no particular reason then drove off. One of the most significant improvements to the AI is that the police will no longer just be after you, if you drive around enough you will eventually see the police chase down other criminals and it may result in a shoot out. When you attempt to car jack someone, sometimes you might run into a little trouble like the other person trying to get back his car by using a golf club or a nice little pistol in which to shoot your head off. If you are in the territory of an enemy gang and you try to car jack someone then the members of the nearby enemy gang will help out the driver and take you out. If many of them are charging at you and you’re only just into the car you will have a hard time staying in the car. And when you’re in a car driving around your friendly enemy neighbourhood and go past some friendly guys with machine guns you will be greeted with gunfire. Not the most pleasant thing if all you want to do is get a burger or pizza in the area and you’re greeted by a face full of bullets.
I just couldn’t believe it when I discovered the sex appeal statistic, did that mean you can get girlfriends? Yes it does, later on in the game as you progress you will find yourself in a life saving mission to save your future girlfriend from a fiery situation. Armed with a fire extinguisher and your supposed attractive presence you must save her from a burning building. After driving her home you’ll establish a relationship whereby you have the chance to start dating her. When you go on your first date she’ll want to go to get something to eat but then changes her mind halfway through the journey and asks to do a drive by, I would have preferred the food myself but killing helpless members of the enemy gang sounded like a nice mouthful as well. After satisfying her trigger-happy mentality you have the job of taking her home. Upon arrival at her house she will wave goodbye then your relationship meter will rise a tiny bit. An icon will also appear by her front door, which will let you add another Dual Shock Controller and have a little 2-player action. I haven’t used this yet but from what I’ve heard is it involves a drive by. Remember that if you don’t date her often enough she will harass you will cell phone calls and she’ll leave you for a fellow gang member, which I don’t think you would want.
The next major aspect of San Andreas that must be addressed is the food system that has been implemented. The food system controls the fat statistical meter in your stats popup. You can gain fat by eating a lot of food and if you eat a lot you can see your character develop physically by him getting bigger or if you don’t eat, smaller. There are a few places in which you can feed yourself. First is the Cluckin’ Bell which is the virtual and parody of KFC. There are 4 meals offered at Cluckin’ Bell, little meal, big meal, huge meal and the salad meal. All these are charged at different prices and have a greater effect on your weight. The staff at Cluckin` Bell are very impolite with phrases such as “if you come back you’re a moron” or “hope you choke a doodle doo” You can find Cluckin’ Bell online thanks to RockStar Games at http://www.cluckinbellhappychicken.com/
Other food joints you can get food from are a pizza joint which doesn’t seem to resemble any real life fast food corporation. A burger joint whose logo resembles the burger king logo and again has no nutritional value but there aren’t many healthy alternatives you can have. Alongside the fast food joints you can go to your local 24/7 store another take on the 7 eleven convenience stores and you can purchase snacks and soda pop from the vending machines $1 a pop. If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, no you can’t hold up the fast food joints because you can’t get into the till but the people in restaurant usually have around $40 in total. If you decide on spending heavily on your food intake be aware if you order around 10 meals you will eventually throw up and your fat meter won’t progress as much as it should.
So you’ve eaten your moneys worth at the fast food restaurants and you’re looking a little bit chubby. What can you do? Visit the good old Gym for a good old work out for your statistics and to lose those extra pounds you’ve put on from that cheeseburger. Well at the gym you can do that and beat up some boxer with new moves he’ll teach you. At the gym there are 2 types of workout you can do on the equipment. The types of workout are either to build up your muscles or your stamina. To build up muscle you can use the weights, which have 10 levels of weight, then to build up stamina you can use the treadmill or exercise bike, which also have 10 levels of power. After using the machines or weights for a while you will gradually gain some stats on either muscle or stamina. If you’ve got enough muscle then you can walk over to the boxer near the punch bags for a little lesson in hand to hand combat that will help you on the mean streets of Los Santos. Once you step into the ring you learn a combo, running attacks and ground attacks then you get to the best bit, beating him senseless. He is pretty weak and slow so he is basically a glorified punch bag on legs that can get up after being knocked down. If you go a few days without working out in the gym then you will notice that statistical popup again either with a depleting muscle or stamina meter.
Apart from eating and working out there are shops in the game you can visit. One of the first establishments you’ll be visiting is the barber where you can preview hairstyles that are certainly not even in fashion, not even in the 90’s then choose the one you want, I chose the blonde Mohawk because it looked so ridiculous. There are also tattoo parlours in which you can get the ink-induced images on any part of your body except your genitals. You can also shop for clothes and probably your most trusty friend in the game, guns. One feature that a lot of fans demanded for this GTA game was the ability to burgle houses. Guess what kiddies, it’s here and you burgle to your heart’s content. The only problem is you must have a fan in which to load the goods you steal. When burgling a house you need to be silent, this is where the left analog stick’s pressure sensitivity comes into play. The analog stick must be moved slowly in order to stay silent when moving around a house, any sudden noises may wake up or attract attention to you. You can’t burgle houses straight away only when you reach the mission of having to steal boxes of guns from a colonel’s house. After burgling for the first time you will need to find a loading truck in order to start the robbery missions. The closest one to your home in Grove Street will be near the local gym. The only times you can burgle are between 20.00 and 6.00 I think and you must stay silent at all times or you will instantly receive a wanted level of 3 to 4 stars.
As Carl Johnson is only 1 human being he requires backup and that is what he gets in this game. As you progress further and further into the game you will encounter the need to recruit people into your gang so you can carry out specific missions like taking out enemy gang leaders. The one thing that goes with gangs is turf and a gang’s territory is essential to the game. Near the end of Los Santos you will start the gang battle for turf. This means respect and a lot of money coming your way so you can buy guns, property or fill your gut. In order to gain territory you must fight your way past the gang that occupies the turf you want. After taking out each gang member you will then own the turf and receive money as an income as a result of owning the turf. Be aware that gangs will also attack your turf so be aware of red alerts on the radar warning your territory is under attack. Most gangs will attack your turf usually in numbers in excess of 4 usually equipped with firearms such as 9mm pistols or sub machine guns.
The weapons you will get to use in the initial city of Los Santos will vary depending on the mission your doing and how far you have progressed in the game. The first few weapons at your disposal will be pistols and melee weapons like pool cues and fire extinguishers. As you progress in the story the gun shops like ammunation will be available to you where you can purchase guns like pistols, SMG’s, machine guns, shotguns, armour and hand grenades. All these will cost you a fair bit of money so you should find some rich old ladies to steal from on the streets of Los Santos. The aiming system on San Andreas can sometimes be a little flawed, for example in battle against a gang after killing one member the aimer can sometimes go crazy and start targeting an innocent civilian that is about 20 metres away.
A lot of changes have now been made in how your character moves around in the game. Previously your character would instantly drown to his death if he or his car fell into the water but now the community’s prayers have been answered and you can now swim. When swimming it is the same as riding a bike whereby the more you swim the better you get and another statistical meter is enforced called lung capacity, which will increase the time you, can stay under water. You also have the option of swimming deep under water, using a basic doggy paddle or a more relaxed breaststroke. Another new feature on has been the ability to climb over walls, which reduces journey times, and help you escape from adversity quicker than before. How many times has an enemy cornered you on a wall? Well now you can climb over and save yourself from a nice kick in the teeth. Alongside the devilish wall climbing you can also crouch which will reduce your noise in some cases and protect you from on coming gunfire when behind an object like a car. When being attacked you can also block attacks that is useful when your boxing the guy in the gym and he’s trying to do a combo.
When you’re not trying to complete missions or creating havoc on the streets of Los Santos you can try your hand at the mini games available. There are a lot of mini games at your disposal these include going to the local bar and having a game of pool with the computer or with a friend if you have another controller. In the bar there are also arcade games, which are rightfully in a retro format to represent the time the game, is set in. You can also visit the local Los Santos arena where you can enter truck races, which you can earn money from or go to the local low rider meet where you can battle for money where you have to sync the hops with the music in a pop idol, parappa or dance dance revolution style affair.
Many missions in this game are varied and have a lot of longevity value, missions like stealing a combine harvester from a bunch of stoner farmers will keep you amused for at least a few minutes. Or more serious missions like having to escape on a bike while shooting down enemies franticly chasing you. Most of the missions are quite different and a lot of missions you won’t get bored of like the rhyme book mission where you must kill guards with stealth in order to steal an infamous rapper’s rhyme book for your wannabe rapper friend OG Loc. Or perhaps the corrupt officer TenPenny wants you to pick up some crates of ammunition and weaponry which you have to throw to Ryder while you're on a moving train and he is on a moving truck. One of the most fun missions in the game involves chasing a train with latinos on, in an incredibly fast motorbike with your friend BigSmoke taking them out with a sub machine gun.
Sometimes the missions can get quite difficult but after a few attempts you will get the hang of it. If for example you fail a mission and you attempt it again and it involves a trip then you can just get into the car again and if the trip skip icon appears you can skip the car journey to the destination. In some cases the journey is just to update you on the storyline.
[GRAPHICS]
The Playstation 2 is certainly not getting any younger, while GTA 3 and Vice City attempted to push the graphical innovation to it’s limit the graphical power in San Andreas has been modified a slight deal. But with additional graphical power comes sacrifices, these can be easily noticed if you have a rather older version of the playstation 2 from 2 years ago or older. In many cases you will experience very slow performance if there are many objects like cars or people in the scene which means the game operates at a slow frame rate which means manoeuvres can be quite difficult to manage. There is also the problem of the lack of draw distance in the game, this is where as you further onto the map objects of scenery will just pop up instead of being visible from a fair distance away, this can make car chases very hard to manage as you could hit a tree if you’re going too far and you spot it at the very last second.
[SOUND]
Always one of the greatest aspect of the GTA games with a whole host of recognisable tunes and funny interviews on radio. San Andreas features around 10 radio stations, which have a slightly diverse musical style. Most of the radio stations play r&b or hip hop music which is very reflective to the time the game is set as hip hop was getting increasingly popular as time went on. The game features tracks from artists like, 2pac, Rage against the machine, James Brown, Dr Dre, NWA and the Miracles. Alongside music there are also radio interviews and radio hosts one of the most notable being Chuck D from Public Enemy. While the soundtrack is spectacular the other aspects of the game also have great sound. The cars will have varied sounds depending on the model you drive while the characters in the game will have suitable voices, like the voice of corrupt police officer TenPenny being played by Samuel L Jackson.
Here is the San Andreas soundtrack you can purchase, it is only 2 cd's whereas the Vice City soundtracks were 6 Cd's.
CD 1 1. The Theme From San Andreas 2. Rage Against The Machine - Killing In The Name 3. 2 Pac - I Don't Give A Fuck 4. James Brown - The Payback 5. Ronnie Hudson - West Coast Poplock 6. Guy - Groove Me 7. Eddie Money - Two Tickets To Paradise 8. Cypress Hill - How I Could Just Kill A Man 9. The Maytals - Pressure Drop 10. Slick Rick - Children's Story 11. Rick James - Cold Blooded 12. Raze - Break 4 Love
CD 2 1. Ohio Players - Funky Worm 2. Heart - Barracuda 3. Compton's Most Wanted - Hood Took Me Under 4. Lyn Collins - Think About It 5. Public Enemy - Rebel Without A Pause 6. Faith No More - Midlife Crisis 7. Bell Biv Devoe - Poison 8. Max Romeo & The Upsetters - Chase The Devil 9. Eric B & Rakim - I Know You Got Soul 10. Willie Nelson - Crazy
[FINAL WORDS]
GTA: San Andreas is definitely one of the best games in the GTA series and easily one of the best PlayStation2 games ever. The game has longevity and caters for the needs of a lot of gamers. I recommend that you buy it and if you haven’t got a playstation2 then you’re in for a treat as a new smaller, slim line model of the playstation2 has been released onto the market. The game will take up hours and hours of your time and will take weeks or even months to some extent to complete.
This game can be bought from many online retailers like amazon, play.com or gameplay.co.uk for around £29.99 - £32.99
For people reading this before 29th October, the game hasn’t been released yet until that date, pre order early because retailers are already running out of stock. I will also state that I reviewed the final release version and I didn’t play the beta or alpha builds of this game.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
How can anybody rate this any less than an Exceptional review?And to that mong who accused you of plagiarism earlier.... we can all see its a different review! You just made yourself look stupid in front of the dozens of people
who read these comments!
Considering how massively popular the last twoGTAgames were Rockstar couldve knocked out ... more
any old rubbish as their last GTA game this generation, but despiteGrand Theft Auto: San Andreasnot being a full sequel (it still uses essentially the same graphic...
Postage & Packaging: £3.80 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Five years ago Carl Johnson escaped from the pressures of life in Los Santo, San Andreas, ... more
a city tearing itself apart with gang trouble, drugs and corruption. Where filmstars and millionaires do their best to avoid the dealers and gangbangers.Now, it's...
Postage & Packaging: £0.00 Availability: Out of stock
Advantages: The freedom, the music, the variety, the characters, the story, the size, the vehicles, the script, everything. Disadvantages: The graphics are pretty good, but not brilliant. This is due to the mammoth size of the game.
Advantages: The game is good because you can easily kill time when you have nothing to do! Disadvantages: There isn't much "point' to the game, i mean besides walking around the city and doing missions.
![Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas [Platinum] PS2](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/99139291.jpg "Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas [Platinum] PS2")
exceptional by (52%):
very helpful by (43%):
helpful by (5%):
