New review out, my first for a long time. It's on the amazing DVD, School of Rock.
New review out, my first for a long time. It's on the amazing DVD, School of Rock.
Member since:22.04.2005
Reviews:40
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Intro: Oh My God is what I say when I get asked about GTA: San Andreas. I think it is the best game of all time, my friends think it is the best game ever, and all the official and unofficial magazines agree. This is one of the rare few gems that netted itself a 10/10 from the Official PlayStation 2 Magazine. (Only 8 games out of many hundreds have achieved this feat.) There is so much to talk about and do in the game and it is almost unbelievable that Rockstar have fitted so much just onto one disk. This review is very long, and feel free to read just the section you are interested in, or however much you want. Hope it's not too boring.
Key Stats: Name - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Set in - Early 1990's Locations - The game spans over 3 cities, with countryside and desert in between. (See the 3 cities section for more info): Publisher and Developer - Rockstar Released about 14 months ago. Certificate - 18 mainly due to language Size - takes up 400kb minimum of memory card.
History: This is the fifth proper grand theft auto (GTA) game to date. GTA 1 & 2 were on the antique console that is the PlayStation. The game was all top down view, and had a childish look to it, but, despite this, both were 18 certificates. The top-down view and childish graphics was the main reason I didn't buy into the franchise. Then followed GTA 3, the first fully 3D game on PS2. Again, another 18 certificate. This was a huge update on the previous to titles, and loads bought this instalment. The official rating was 'only' 8/10. (A mistake the official ps2 magazine now recognizes). About a year later came GTA: Vice City. This was set in the 80's and improved upon every aspect of its older brother. This received the first of two 10/10's. The review praised every part of the game, wondering how on earth Rockstar could ever create a better game. (Vice city was also 18). About fourteen months ago, Rockstar released the latest GTA in the series - San Andreas. Remember, Vice City was thought to be the best. Would did Rockstar do, they made San Andreas better. And not by a little bit either. San Andreas was 5, yes 5 times bigger than vice city. It shot straight to number one in the charts, easily scored 10/10 and was branded the best game of all time. I now hope to convey to you how amazing this game actually is. Read on…
Price, Packaging, Manual: Would you believe it, I bought this game for only £20. It's been out for about a year, so new, it would cost around £30 from all good shops. Cheaper on the Internet. I got mine from the pre-owned section of GAME. I think I've certainly had my moneys worth. The front of the box the game comes in has a background 'mosaic' of pictures done in the typical GTA style - cartoony yet adult. Overlaid on the in the centre is grand theft auto San Andreas, done in the usual font. The 18 certificate is bottom left, and the Rockstar logo is bottom right. On the back are the usual in-game screenshots, with some text explain about the storyline. The game doesn't explain about new features, or what you do in the game, as anyone who buys this is likely to have heard all about the series. The manual has the cleverest layout I have ever seen. It's called the local business advertiser's guide. And it does just that. On every page are adverts for things in the game (e.g. barber shops, restaurants, strip clubs, diners, car modification, clubs, casinos, clothes shops, car racers etc.) Also on each page is a little box explaining a small point of the game. Rather than tell you everything in the game, weapons, characters etc, the manual gives you minimal info in a very clever way. The controls are properly explained. The amount of detail just gone into the manual is amazing. I suggest you read it, finish the game and read it again. There are things you will now understand. Also on each page is a track listing of each of the radio stations. Here are a couple of names you might recognise - Public Enemy, 2Pac, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Eazy E, Kiss, David Bowie, Boyz II Men, Guns n' Roses, Ozzy Osbourne and many more. Finally, along with the manual also comes a poster/map. On one side is a poster (a blow up of the front cover of the box), and on the other is a map of the whole San Andreas state. This is infinitely useful and marks on all the important locations.
Controls: An San Andreas Veteran will have no problem with them. You can crouch, jump, climb, run, walk, sprint, shoot, target, strafe, move, roll, change the camera angle, change weapon, start missions, talk, take vehicle, change radio station, power slide, brake, accelerate, change view, look behind you, recruit gang members perform drive-bys and more, just at the touch of one (sometimes two) button.
Story: Five years ago, Carl Johnson (CJ) escaped from Los Santos, which was tearing itself apart because of the gangs, drugs, and corruption. It is the early 1990's and CJ has to go back home. First off, his mother has been murdered, and his family are falling apart. Also, all of his old friends are heading for disaster. As he returns, two corrupt cops (Tenpenny and Pulaski) frame him for homicide. CJ is forced to travel across the state of San Andreas, trying to save his family, and regaining control of the streets. In Los Santos, you try and get the drugs off the street, and attempt to earn back the respect you once had. As things progress, you meet a whole host of new characters, so funny, some strange, so crazy, some helpful, so traitors etc. There isn't just one specific storyline, because you get missions from loads of people, and can do them in any order you want. You don't even have to do the story missions of you don't want to.
Sound: This is the only game I know of that got 10/10 in the sound category. As well as brilliant weapon sounds and sound effects, it is the in-vehicle radio, which cuts this game out from the rest. Instead of having tracks that play at random, as in almost every other game, San Andreas comes with about 10 radio stations. Each is believable and it is through the these radio stations that you can listen to the games music. There are chat shows, new programs, house music, rock, a cowboy station, hip-hop, local radio and much more. The music is good, and there are some big names on the list. The games manual has a list of all the track, artists and albums on the radio. The talking is funny at worst, and can be laugh out loud sidesplitting hilarity at others. Here are a couple of clever things. If you have committed a crime and
get a wanted level (star/felony) you crime will be read out over the radio, along with your last seen location, and what type of vehicle you are driving. Secondly, when you reach a certain part in the game, you get access to the countryside area. The bridge leading to it was closed before, but on the new channel, you hear the reporter saying that the bridge has finally opened! Now that's clever sound design.
Longevity: In the official ps2 magazine, they said the lifespan of the game (how long you could play it for) was two years!!! I disagree. I think more like a year, or even half. The reason being, as soon as you load the game, you are sucked into an ultra-realistic imaginary world. And the simple truth is, it's just impossible to stop playing. Case in point: myself. I bought the game just before Christmas. Apart from the times I was away on holiday, I've played it every day. So far, I have clocked up 68 hours, and have only got 65%. First of all, most PS2 game will last you a maximum (often a lot less) of 20 hours. Then, you will have finished it, got bored, or got stuck. With San Andreas, you are never stuck. Finding a story mission hard? Go collect some oysters and increase your sex appeal. Short of money? Find a certain car, take it to the docks in San Fierro and export it onto the ship. Volia, $40,000 richer. You see what I'm trying say here, the game has endless possibilities. You can literally waste hours having fun but not get yourself any further in the game. Even once you've got 100% (an impossible feat) you can still carry on playing.
Graphics: If there is one thing that lets this amazing game down slightly, it is the graphics. Don't get me wrong here; they're good, but not brilliant. Pretty much most of the objects (buildings, writing, trees, people etc) are distinguishable, but not crisp. The game would just be that little bit better if the graphics were better. The fact is, it's such a huge game, with so much detail, and it's a shame that the graphics don't allow you to maximise your enjoyment. And then you notice that this is the biggest game on PS2, with the most things to, and you wonder how they managed to even get the graphics up to this good standard.
Vehicles: Definitely one of the highlights of the game. There is a huge range of different vehicles in the game. Each of them looks different and handles differently. Here are a few vehicles. A golf cart. A motorbike (loads of types) a forklift truck. A plane. A helicopter. A dinghy. A speedboat. A jeep. An aqua plane. A sports car. A tank. A Tanker. A dune buggy. A moped. A train. A S.W.A.T. vehicle. A jetpack. And literally hundreds more. Cars can be blown up in one shot by shop the gas tank. Wheels can be shot, the windows and windscreen can be smashed, bonnets can come off and roofs can be dented. The best vehicle for me is a motorbike because it's very manoeuvrable, fast and hard to hit.
Script: The script is movie grade. Yes, Rockstar could have a successful movie with that script, it's that good. There's a huge range of actors, all who perform their lines to perfection. The script is very funny, and can provoke lots of emotions. Everything a character says is believable, if sometimes unrealistic. However, watch out for the language. No one under 14 should be hearing this. There are expletives in almost every sentence and every obscenity I can think of is used. Yes, even the c word. Kids - don't ask your parents. I know technically I shouldn't have this game as I'm 16, but to be honest, I'm old enough. That language is nothing new to me anyway. If you're easily offended by rude words, this is not the game for you. I think the language helps you to make the characters more believable.
Story Missions: In any other game, the story missions make up pretty much all of the game. Here, I think they 'only' make about 60%. When you think how long it takes you to complete 10%, (at least a few hours) the size of the game becomes apparent. The remaining 40% of non-story missions are side missions. As you can, there is a heck of lot of extra mission, to make up the remaining 40%. The story missions advance the story. They will each start with a small cut scene, sometimes introducing characters, giving you hints etc. After the cut scene, you get prompts that help you carry out the missions. For example, 'the vehicle must not be damaged' or 'go to the cemetery in Vinewood'. After completing a story missions, you often get either get a monetary reward, or you respect bar is upgraded a little. Once the mission finish, you are left where it finished, and have to make your own way back to more missions. Characters you meet will often provide you with missions. Their locations are marked on the map. For example, if you can take missions from Big Smoke, a BS icon will appear on the map. When you get there, there will be a red marker on the ground, and simply walk into it to start the mission. Some missions can only be started at certain times of the day. Completing a story mission may even give you no reward, but always adds a small percentage to your total. One final thing, these story missions are optional, as in you can complete other parts of the game before you do the story missions. Only when you reach a certain part in the story do you get access to the other cities.
Side Missions: It took me about 70 hours to complete all of the story missions. Even once you've done all of this, there are still a huge of amount of side missions (representing a whole 30% of the game) to be completed. The most common are vehicular missions. This is when you get you in a specific vehicle; you can complete a series of tasks specific to that vehicle. SO you get the idea, I'll quickly describe a couple. Paramedic mission - get in an ambulance, and deliver an increasing number of people to a hospital. Police mission - get in a police vehicle and kill an increasing number of escaped convicts, trying to escape. Also include are fire fighter, taxi, pimping and freight train mission. Collecting oysters, horseshoes, snapshots and gang tags are also side missions (see later) There are so many of these side missions I won't even attempt to explain them. Here is a list of things other than the story to do. Deliver packages around each of the city. Find specific cars, and export them onto a ship for a monetary reward. Earn a license in a series of schools - driving, boating, flying, and biking. Compete against competitors on a shooting range in ammunation. Collect coronas on a bmx and motorbike. Compete in street races across the city. Each of these optional missions will help you on your way to 100%. There are more side missions which I have forgotten, but the above list was just to show you the scope of the game - ABSOLUTELY F***KING HUGE.
Weapons: There are a huge variety of weapons in this game. First off are your standard weapons. These include pistols, rifles, shotguns, explosives, machine guns, and rocket launchers - the usual. All of these weapons are scattered around San Andreas, but enemies also drop them if you kill them. If you're feeling rich, you can even go to your local gun shop (ammunation) and dish out the dollars. Certain weapons become available for purchase only after certain points. All the weapons sound realistic, gritty, and solid. With the most common weapons, you can build up your weapon skill. This is done by shooting cars or people. The better you get with the weapons, the faster you can fire, the more accurate and therefore lethal you become. With some weapons, you can even wield two of them when you reach maximum weapon skill. Then we come to the more unusual weapons. These can include chainsaws, golf clubs, shovels, batons, flowers and dildos. Yes. These are all close range weapons, and you would surprise how lethal the flowers can be. The R1 button is used to target someone/thing. You can use L2 and R2 to cycle left and right through multiple targets. Finally, use the circle/L1 button to unleash mayhem.
The 3 Cities (and everywhere in between): The 3 cities on the game are (in order of appearance) Los Santos (based on Los Angles) San Fierro (based on San Francisco) and Las Venturas, based on Las Vegas. In between the first two cities is a huge expanse of countryside (The Badlands) and in between cities 2 and 3 is a desert area (Tierra Robada). Each city has a different vibe to it. You will also find more of certain vehicles in one city than another. It can honestly take you ten minutes just diving from one side of the map to the other. The countryside and desert that links the cities has been cleverly designed. You seem to be in the middle of nowhere, but are often only a couple of minutes away from a vehicle. It might frustrating blowing up your car in no mans land, but there is often another vehicle nearby. One slight criticism of the areas in between cities is that the game does not reward you for exploring. For example, you spend ages going around the countryside, and find a remote farm. You would expect there to possibly be a weapon, or body armour, or health or even a vehicle. Very often, you find nothing. So now, I tend to rush through the countryside and get out as quickly as I can. Onto the cities. The first one you are in is Los Santos. Roughly the first 20% of the game is spent here. In each city, the is an collection objective to achieve. In Los Santos, your objective is to go around spraying rival gang graffiti over, with your own tag. (You need a spray can to spray over their tag). There are 100 tags all around Los Santos, and a lot are impossible to find without a guide. Only once you have sprayed over all 100 do you get the reward. A small increase in total percent complete, and……….4 really good weapons spawn in your most visited house. These make missions a lot easier. The second city you arrive in is San Fierro. Your base is property with a very useful 4-car garage. There are four asset properties here, so a good area to earn money. The best way to earn money (apart from doing missions) is using the import/export dock. (See side missions.) This city is contains all three most annoying and hard missions in the game. You don't need them to continue the story, but you need them for 100%. Bugger. The third city is where I am at now. It's called Las Venturas, and is the gambling city. There are 3/4 casinos where you can play slots, black jack, roulette etc. An easy way to earn money to bet all your money on roulette, and if you win, great. If you lose, just reload your can and try again. Again, this city has a different feel to it, with some lush expensive sports vehicles as well.
Cops and Felony: Onto a very important part of the game. The cops quickly become the most annoying thing in the game. Doing illegal things in the game often earns you a star. This is known as felony/wanted level. There is a maximum of six stars you can fill up, and at each level, a new force comes to get you. The felony bar is in the top right hand corner, and only appears when you have felony. Felony can be earned doing a huge number of things. Here are a few examples. Knocking a policeman off his bike and taking it for your own. Pulling people out of their cars/vehicles in the view of a policeman. Throwing a grenade/Molotov cocktail normally always earns you a star. Killing a policeman is a definite star. Killing people/beating them up gets you a star. Transporting illegal good. Nudging, yes, just slightly touching any police vehicle gets you a star. At one star only a couple of policeman will come after you. With two stars, there will be more, and motorbikes join the chase as well. At three, you get helicopters as well. With four it is the SWAT cars. At five stars the FBI. And finally, at six stars, you get the tanks, the FBI, SWAT teams, helicopters, police boats, and bikes and patrol cars after you. AAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH. If you can get to a save house, you are lucky. And all you have to do is save, and your wanted level will instantly disappear. Another way to get rid of stars is to collect police bribes. These are golden stars, floating around San Andreas, and reduce your wanted level by a star.
Money: Money is in American Dollars. If you kill someone, you will often get money from them. The main way of earning money is by doing story missions. Other ways include doing some R3 missions (see side missions) exporting vehicles, winning races, gambling, betting on horses. Money is used mainly for buying property and weapons and armour from ammunation. It is also used for food, clothes, prostitutes, cars and more. It will take you up to the middle of the game to get a worthwhile amount of money, and once you have bought all the properties you should be fine with your money.
Property: All over San Andreas (the state you are in) there are properties to buy. When you first start the game, you will have no money, and it really takes a long time to get the money to buy the properties. There are about 30 properties altogether in the game, with about ten in each city. Properties can cost from $6000 (for a hotel suite) to $120,000 (for the Mullholland Mansion). The properties you buy are glorified save points. You can enter them to save the game, and change your clothes using own wardrobe. Saving the game obviously saves your progress, but also dos 2 other very useful little tricks. If you have any felony/wanted stars, these disappear once you save. Also, if you are very low on health, saving replenishes your health to the max. There is one thing I don't like about the properties. From the outside, the properties all look different, and you would expect the case to be the same for the interior. But no. There are about 3/4 variants of interior, so it's a shame then when you've just shelled out $50,000 for a hotel suite, it looks just the same as a $10,000 property. Some properties come with a garage in which you can store any vehicle that fits! Garage space ranges from 1 car to four cars. You can, however, fit about 20 motorbikes in the 4-car garage, but overstuffing any garage normally makes some vehicles disappear. If a vehicle is damaged, shove it in your garage, let the door close, and once it re-opens, you have a brand new car. Once you store a car in your garage, you can go as far away as you want, but when you come back, it will still be there. There are also properties called asset properties. They generate a certain amounts of money as time goes by. Usually, to gain an asset property, you must complete certain mission, or advance in the game to a certain point. Some asset properties include an abandoned airstrip (gives you a huge $10,000 a day) and automotive dealers, and a Food Market. The money builds up over the day, and you can collect whenever you want. However, once the maximum is reached in one day, it will not carry on generating extra money. To collect the money, simply walk into the dollar sign outside it.
Girlfriends & Dates: Another new feature is the ability to score with a girl, and take her on dates. There are a total of 6 girlfriends in the game, and you can date all of them at the same. Girlfriends don't add to the total percentage of the game, but do give you certain perks. Normally, every time you get arrested and sent to hospital, you lose all your weapons, but when you have a cop and a nurse as your girlfriend, you don't lose your weapons in both cases. I personally don't bother with girlfriends, as they are very time consuming, but it's a great touch, and shows rockstar has thought of absolutely everything.
Eating: This is another new feature in the game. You the more you eat, the fatter you get. You can the run this fat off and turn it into muscle, without having to visit the gym. There are 3 places to get your food - clucking bell (a chicken place) well-stacked pizza (pizza place) and burger shot (burger place). There are outlets spread all over San Andreas, so you need never go hungry again. At each outlet, there is a choice of 4 unhealthy and one healthy meal. Take your pick. Like visiting the gym, this soon becomes more of a chore than anything else. The comments the workers say are funny, and then they get boring. Eating is a great idea, it just hasn't been expanded enough, but who said there wasn't going to be a GTA 4 (There is, on the PS3).
Gym: This is another new addition to the series - the chance to customise your character buy exercising at the gym. There are 3 gyms altogether, one in each city. Going to the gym does four things for you. 1. Allows you to learn 3 new hand-to-hand moves. 2. Decreases your 'fat' bar. 3. Increases your 'stamina' bar (by cycling/running) 4. Increases your 'muscle' bar. (By lifting weights). Going to the gym is fun for the first few times, but can get repetitive. Here's what I suggest you do. GO to each gym to learn the new moves. Max out your 'stamina'' bar by going on the treadmill and/or exercise bike. Max out your 'muscle' bar. Then, visit the local eatery and eat a few meals. This increases your fat by a little. Once stamina is maxed, it doesn't change. If your fat runs out, then muscle starts to run out too. If you always keep your fat bar above minimum, you have no reason to visit the gym again, once you have done the above. Note: Be aware that your fat will go down as you run and exercise.
Appearance: One of the new features is the ability to customise your appearance. You can buy clothes, shades, chains, hats, shoes etc from six chains of retailers, all around San Andreas. There is a huge choice around, but some clothes are better than others. Every item you wear gives you a small respect % and a small sex appeal %. Some clothes give you more than others. You can also get haircuts and tattoos from the respective shops around the state. Again, some will earn you more respect and sex appeal than others. Every item you buy can be tried and worn using your very own wardrobe you have in each of your safe house. There are guides on gameFAQs.com telling you which clothes, tattoos, and haircuts give you the most respect and sex appeal etc.
Pause Menu: Could go on for ages about this here, but don't worry, I wont. Hit start to pause the game. Here you can access a map of the whole of San Andreas, check controls, photos taken, edit options, load, save and start a new game and check all the stats you could ever want to. Everything is clearly structured, so you know exactly where to find what info you want.
HUD (Heads-Up Display): This really just means what is on-screen when you are playing the game. In the bottom left hand corner is a circle with a small map inside it, showing you the area you are in. For a bigger map, you can pause the game. On the small map, important locations/destinations/attractions are marked on the map, so you can find the general direction towards it. The bottom right hand corner is empty apart from when you get into a vehicle (The name of it flashes up) or when you cross a boundary into the next area. All of San Andreas is divided up into the 3 cities and countryside mentioned, and these areas are further divided up into towns, areas etc. In the top right hand corner is the most info. It has a square, with a black and white caricature of the weapon you are carrying. There is also the time of day (one in game minutes is one of our real life seconds) Obviously the colour of the sky etc changes as it gets darker, moon and sun come up, etc. Also there is a red health bar, a white armour bar (if you have any army), a money counter (showing how much you have altogether) and a number of felony stars, (if you have any, that is.)
Mini Games: There are four mini-games, played in the form of arcade games. These machines are often found in clubs. The best way to describe these games is retro. They are the run of the mill collecting, shooting, dodging etc. Although not particularly fun/exciting/inventive/hard, they do provide a bit of light relief and show another way that Rockstar has made the game so very interactive.
Other Gangs and Gang Wars: In the first city, you will encounter other gang member wandering the streets, as well as your own. The emphasis in the first city is really on earning respect, and killing other gang members. The Ballas gang are your main rival, and are dressed in purple shorts and white t-shirts. There is only one other gang - the Vagos, who wear yellow and have sweatbands. Towards the end of the first city, you are introduced to gang wars. This involves Walking into enemy territory, and finding some enemy gang members to shoot. Kill about four quickly, and you will spark of a gang war. The area of territory you are trying to take over will flash on the map on-screen. To win the territory, you must kill three waves of enemies, one after the other. Providing you have the right weapon, this can a piece of cake, but once you get surrounded, it a trip to the hospital for you. To make things easier, there is health and body armour scattered around, to help you stay alive. After the first city, any territory you have taken over will disappear. You only have opportunity to start gang wars again when you return to Los Santos, at the very end of the game. Note: Your gang is called the orange grove street family. They dress in green and you can get them to help you in gang wars etc.
Items: In each city, there is a set of certain items to collect. In Los Santos, it is gang tags, in San Fierro it is the snapshots and it Las Venturas it is the Horseshoes. Spraying all 100 gang tags means that 4 lush weapons spawn in one of your safe houses. Taking all 50 snapshots with your camera makes for weapons spawn outside you a save point in San Fierro. Collecting all 50 horseshoes increases your luck for gambling, and also spawns 4 lush weapons. All around San Andreas, in the water, are oysters, collecting these increases your lung capacity and sex appeal. It's needed for 100% so get your trunks on. Also, not an item but something to earn you a bit of money - unique jumps. Around the state are ramps and objects you must use to jump a certain distance. The best vehicles by far are the motorbikes. There are 70 jumps to do, but they are not needed for 100%.
Conclusion: By far the best game ever to grace any console. It's all the little details and extras that help elevate it to legend status. This game is better, longer and more enjoyable than your entire collection of games put together. If you have a PC, Xbox (eughh) or PS2 (Yessssss) you MUST get this game. It's your loss if you don't.
Ok, finished. Thanks for reading (if you got this far) and if you rate it H or lower, please tell me why, and how I can improve it. There are also small things I haven't covered, like more about the pause menu and health etc, but to be honest, that's just too much detail. Even at almost 5500 words, there are still topics I haven't touched upon. I've tried to tell you the main things about the game. Hopefully, this review should help you make a decision on if you're going to buy the game or not.
Phil
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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: £1.94 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: Loads of things to do, great missions, hugest map in a game ever, huge variety of vehicles and weapons, great graphics. Disadvantages: None - it's absolutely perfect
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 (26%):
very helpful by (74%):
