Who on this planet does not know of the Grand Theft Auto series? Everybody is talking about the game. Everybody is talking from the government to the kids in high school. Grand Theft Auto 3 is pretty much the game that launched Rockstar and the franchise into the stratosphere. The game was praised by gamer for letting the player do whatever he chose to do. And grumpy old congressmen and women for being too damned violent scolded it. Rockstar went on and released Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, which took gamers into a “Miami Vice” atmosphere. The game had cool late 80’s music and a style that we will never live down to this day. Rockstar always pushes the envelope in terms of gameplay and violence. And they do it again with their latest game; Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
Finally Xbox and PC owners can now experience the same “awesomeness” that Playstation 2 owners have known for the last six months. This exclusivity deal between Rockstar and Sony has been a small thorn in the side of Xbox and PC gamers since Grand Theft Auto 3. But there is good news in that we’re hearing from Take-Two (Rockstar’s parent company) is that this might be changing in the next generation of games. But let’s focus on the here and now. GTA: San Andreas is finally here, and a couple of nice nuances come as consolations for the Xbox version from Rockstar. For you PC gamers, San Andreas comes on a PC-DVD, so you need a DVD Rom drive to play it. But it’s only one disc instead of the regular four you’d get in a regular game.
So if you’ve been patiently waiting for the game to come out, you will both be rewarded a little. So enough chit-chat. Let’s break down all that is GTA: SA.
Storyline and Gameplay:
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas follows the story of CJ, a young black man from the hood. He has returned to his roots because of his mother’s death. When he gets back into town he meets up with his brother and fellow homeboys. But CJ does not have any time to take in the emotions of his mother’s death, because the rival gang members are already trying to kill his crew. CJ takes it upon himself to take out the rival gang, or die trying. And so this is where the story begins.
As with previous GTA games, you will have a storyline that you can follow. You will have to do things like tagging walls with your gang tag, or going to take out rival gang members. The story plays out in normal GTA fashion, with a bit of humor thrown in. But as with the last few GTA games, you can choose to do whatever you want to do. You can go out and have some fun and not worry about the storyline, it will always be there when you get back to your neighborhood.
Your character CJ starts out as a regular guy. But you can go to different places within the game to change your appearance. First you can go to the local barbershop to get a new cut. You can have a variety of different looks, from a high top fade to jerri curls to going bald to having cornrows. You can also buy new clothes, which you can change into at your crib. Another place that you can go to is the tattoo parlor. You can hook your body up with some kick-ass ink. You will be able to choose where you want the ink as well, on your back, body, arms, etc.
Now unlike the older Grand Theft Auto games, you will have to keep up with your body. You will also have to eat food to keep on the pounds. CJ will have a small list of health bars for each thing, such as body fat, hunger, etc. The game has a new system where you need to eat. This will affect the type of body CJ has. If you eat all the time you will become fat. If you exercise you will start to get ripped. There are gyms located all around San Andreas where you can go. But you don’t just have to hit the gym. If you do a lot of running you will get fit. Swimming in the ocean or in lakes will also get your body fit.
Yes, the new thing that the player will be able to do is swim. And Rockstar has done it right (unlike the game Driv3r, where swimming looked horrible). CJ can swim anywhere and not have to worry about dying. He can also dive under and swim deep into the ocean and lakes. But CJ will need air, so he can only dive for so long. Just imagine it, running from the cops, you dive off of a pier and swim across onto the beach to evade the cops. The possibilities are simply endless in this game!
What Rockstar did with San Andreas is make sure while the core elements of the game are still intact, there are enough new elements to make the game feel fresh. The first thing that you will notice is how huge San Andreas is. The playing field is about four times as large as Grand Theft Auto: Vice City! This game is HUGE. And one of the coolest things about San Andreas is that the game is split up into different towns and locations. What I mean by this is that there are places where you have the hood. These places are slums, there are drive-by shooting, there and gang members on almost every corner, and there is violence everywhere. Then you have the stuck up snobby neighborhoods with fancy cars, and the people are dressed in suits and business dresses. Then you have the out of town places where there is nothing but trees and woods. There are pretty much filled with rednecks that all drive tractors and big-ass pickup trucks and large campers. It is like totally different cultures that you can go to at any time.
One example is CJ was running from the police for killing a few people in the city. So I had CJ escape into the countryside. He ended up in this old town with a bunch of toothless rednecks dressed in overalls. So I had a little fun. I stole some old farts tractor, ran him over with it and then drove back to the hood in it. It sounds deranged but what the hell, it was funny. And yes, you can take ANYTHING in this game. You can steal somebody’s boat, rip off somebody’s truck, or even better, steal somebody’s BMX Bike. This is one of the coolest new features of Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. Riding the bike is so much fun and easy to do. It almost feels perfect. You can jump and do tricks with the bike. You can also tap the button to get CJ to cycle as fast as his feet can to go faster. There are many different styles of bikes that you can steal.
In Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas there are many side-games that you can play. There is a basketball hoop outside of your house. You can play some hoops, which is pretty fun. There are also basketball courts spread across the various towns in the game. You can go play some ball in these courts as well. There are also games that you can play with a BMX bike. You can ride around and collect these rings before time runs out. There are also little videogames you can play in your house as well as in bars. Speaking of bars, you can take people on in a few matches of pool. There are other things you can do like steal a police motorcycle and become a vigilante.
This game is just filled with little side games. You can also gain money from doing cool stunts. You can grab a motorcycle and do some cool bridge jumping in the country. You will be rewarded some cash for the longest jump, highest jump, etc. And if you need money you can always kill somebody for the green stuff. I have found that different types of people will have more money. Take out a man in a business suit and you will get a good amount of cash. There are also dealers who have a ton of cash on them.
Grand Theft Auto San Andreas also has a ton of weapons for CJ to play with. Mostly all of the older weapons from the past games are here. You have your different arrangement of guns as well as thinks like a chainsaw, shovel, knife, brass knuckles, spray paint can, etc. It is much easier to fight somebody now. You now have a pointer icon to aim at people. This helps when you are shooting someone and it also helps in hand-to-hand combat with somebody. You still have the police star meter.
The prostitutes are still in the game, and they are much better then in the previous games. You can actually hear them now and CJ talks to them as well during the dirty deed. It is much easier to pick one up now as well. You can respond to people with either positive or negative comments. CJ can also do things like climb walls and jump fences. So it is easier to run from the cops now. All you have to do is jump over a fence. I wish that the cops did the same though. It would have made it a little more realistic.
Presentation:
Each time Rockstar brings out a Grand Theft Auto title, the graphics seem to get better and better. The Xbox version, really doesn’t look that much better than the PS2 version. Suprising for a game that released 6 months later. The same was true for Midnight Club 3 DUB, so we’re not sure what that’s about. Oh but the PC version does look better. It’s built for Nvidia card, which I have in my PC. It looks really sharp on the PC and remains fluid throughout. That said the graphics still look a little more polished then Vice City. The game still has a cartoon look to it. But the game looks so much better then Grand Theft Auto 3.
I will get the bad out of the way first. But they did fix a couple of the glitches from the PS2 game like the overly-orange sun glare and the “floating dead people” from hitting them with your car. As we mentioned the game is HUGE. And you can see for miles off into the distance. So it is good to see this improvement. The cars, trucks and other vehicles in the game look a little more polished as well. The countryside levels look great, with tall pine trees and grass covering the ground. The characters themselves look much better as well. They seem to animate much better then in the previous GTA games. Textures all look much better and the stores and sign do not repeat themselves in every town you visit.
Music and sound are probably the best of any of the GTA series. As much as the 80’s tunes in Vice City were awesome, the sheer number of tunes and the variety of them are incredible in San Andreas. You have some gangster rap like NWA, Big Daddy Cane, 2 Pac, Public Enemy, Bell Biv Devoe, etc. You will also find all kinds of other music from old school soul to country!! Rage Against The Machine, Eddie Money, Willie Nelson and Heart, just to name a couple. And who doesn’t like the talk radio stations in Vice City! Oh man that stuff is hilarious. Just as funny as the between song commercials! But going back to the music for a second, what could be better then running people over while listening to Jerry Reed singing Amos Moses (for you young folks, Jerry Reed was a country singer and played The Snowman in the Smokey and the Bandit movies)?
Voiceovers have been a big thing for the Grand Theft Auto series, and San Andreas is even better! Faizon Love, Samual L. Jackson, James Woods, Ice-T, Chris Penn, and Peter Fonda round out a realy large cast of voices in the game. Grand Theft Auto San Andreas could also very well have the most cursing of any game to date. Samuel L. Jackson isn’t playing Mace Windu in this game! This could very well be the “GoodFellas” of gaming. Characters let out the F-bomb like every other word they speak. Many people will complain about this (as well as the violence) but you need to understand this is how the gang life is. I have never visited Compton or places where gang members live, but I have seen shows on HBO that depicts the life. This is pretty much the lifestyle that they live day by day. It’s just that people do not see how crazy this lifestyle really is and they turn a blind eye to it. This is gang life in video game form!
Nobody, and I mean nobody has ever been able to hold The Grand Theft Auto’s water. Not Driv3r or True Crime (as much as we loved that game too), or any other game that tries to rip off of Rockstar’s winning formula. This game is HUGE, and you can do whatever you want to do. You can play some hoops, rob a poor old man, hook up with some bitches, rob a pizza shop, steal a rednecks tractor, jack someone’s bike. The possibilities of San Andreas are as endless as any of the other GTA games. Oh, and there is also a story mode if you decide to play through it after having some fun doing all of these cool things.
You know people will continue to complain about this game, especially now that’s it’s back in the gaming world’s eye again. Say it is too bloody and violent for kids. And you know what? That is why you parents should take the responsibility for yourselves. The game clearly states “Mature”. And instead of pushing your kids off on TV for babysitters you need to do your part and watch what they are doing. Stop blaming gaming companies for making kick ass games for us gamers to enjoy. Quit making excuses for your own wrong doings! Bravo Rockstar! BRAVO!
NOTE: Original Article from Next Level Gaming on June 8th, 2005.
Review Score:
- “Ah shit, here we go again…”
- A great follow-up to GTA2
- You can swim now
- Excellent graphics and sound
- Excellent voice acting
9.8/10