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Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Review
When things are all said and done, 2004 may end up being the biggest year for gaming in a long time. It’s not because there have been more games than usual, or even more hype than usual (which after Halo 2, seems a bit understated). 2004 seems to be making large strides in the gaming industry in terms of quality. Quality is a term we use in gaming to describe a product in terms of its worth to a gamer’s hard earned (for the most part) money. Let’s face it, 2002 and 2003 left much to be desired and while the new millennium brought us new consoles, truly revolutionary games were few and far between. If I was forced to pick a game in the early years of this decade that was a truly high quality product of revolutionary proportions, it would be Grand Theft Auto III. While Vice City and now San Andreas have expanded from the foundation it started in, its initial impact came from GTAIII not Vice City or SA. Grand Theft Auto III introduced gamers to the infinite possibilities of open ended gameplay. You were an escaped convict thrown smack dab in the middle of a giant city and it was up to you to make the choices. While all of the GTA games have had a linear story path to a certain degree, its’s outside of the story that truly made each game unique. GTAIII introduced us to the open ended aspect of the gameplay, whereas Vice City showed us the immense variety of its world, and now San Andreas attempts to show us how large this vision can be when put to the test on a much larger scale.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas takes place during the early nineties and has you playing Carl Johnson (CJ) who has returned from his temporary home of Liberty City to discover his mother has been murdered. While CJ is initially desperate to find his mother’s murderer, that personal quest is quickly thrown to the backburner as he finds his hometown deep into drugs and gang warfare, more than he ever knew when he lived there before. That is essentially the central story, and most of the plot points are derived from the story missions where CJ will converse with his friends, namely Big Smoke and Sweet. Later on in the game, CJ will meet many new characters that will eventually lead him to the story’s climax and resolution. But if we know anything about Grand Theft Auto games, it’s that they never really end once your initial mission is complete. Once again Rockstar has enlisted the talents of Hollywood A-List stars to voice the game’s characters. Samuel L. Jackson plays Officer Frank Tenpenny who is a cop out to use CJ for his personal and professional purposes. Jackson provides an excellent personality to the character that only a man who had gone from hit man to Jedi could achieve. Other actors involved with the game include Ice T, James Woods, Peter Fonda and Frank Vincent. Newcomer to the scene Chris Bellard (aka Young Maylay) makes his debut as CJ and does an excellent job of conveying a confused but likeable character. The series since the third outing has relied on top notch voice acting to pull the story along, and make it more interesting, since sometimes it’s just so easy to forget it and engage in other “activities”.
 
It’s hard to classify Grand Theft Auto in any one genre. At heart, it’s an action shooter with heavy driving elements (vice versa) and then it often delves into other areas like putting out fires, engaging in lowrider contests and well, eating. Yes, you heard right, eating. One of the many additions to the series is the ability to eat. While much has been made of it in initial coverage across the media, it’s pretty much an afterthought in terms of its effect on gameplay. Every once and awhile it is necessary to go to a local fast food restaurant or hotdog stand and buy some food so you can replenish your stamina and prevent yourself from becoming too skinny. If you eat too much, you can become very fat, but this seemed like a treat for those who wanted to see what a fat ass CJ would look like, since there is rarely a reason to eat more than one meal per five hours of gameplay.
 
The core gameplay setup is intact. You are thrown in a giant city, and you have the ability to take on story missions, jack cars or go around killing everyone in sight. The story missions were much more enjoyable than in Vice City this time around. Playing CJ provides an excellent departure from the mafia influenced characters of the last two outings. You get to see the connection between CJ and the rest of his gang and what leads them to make the choices they do. Missions range from the insanely easy (visiting a local crackhouse to teach the users how to say no to drugs), to maddeningly difficult (“Wrong Side of The Tracks” should be given the award for its ability to induce hair loss). It’s much more balanced though thanks to the many different ways you can choose to complete your goals. Familiar mission types like races, and collecting specific amounts of a particular item have also returned. Instead of the 100 packages that were included in the last two games, spray tags have been included. You use a spray can to spray over a rival tag, finding these tags is crucial to getting full completion ratings. The main story missions can take anywhere from 20-30 hours to complete depending on your experience with previous games in the series and your ability to think on the fly.
 
What most players will notice when they open up their case and pull out the map, is that the world is absolutely gigantic. Those who thought Vice City was large (hey, I did) will be stunned when they realize that the game is at least five times larger than Vice City. The game includes three main cities, with the addition of countryside areas, which overall are bigger than the cities. Each of the three cities is bigger than VC and the variety strewn throughout each is amazing. You start out in Los Santos, a more community oriented area and then end up towards the end of the game in Las Venturas, which is a unique take on Las Vegas. Cities feature industrial areas, slums, resturaunts, casinos, airports, train stations, and all of the other things you would expect to see. The countryside is the real star here though as the game now features foliage and fully detailed trees stretched across mountains, deserts and ocean. Of course there was ocean in the previous games, but the one key thing that separates it this time is the fact that CJ can swim. CJ is now fully able to swim large distances, escape from sinking cars and even go underwater. Aside from its sometimes urgent uses like escaping from cars, the feature is more to please fans than to add anything genuinely new to gameplay.
 
The common GTA sidequests have returned alone with a few new ones. CJ has the ability to jack a Taxi, Police Car, Firetruck, Ambulance and now a pimp car to take on various “fed-ex” missions. In the taxi, you must pick up a fare and then drive him or her to their destination within an allotted time without destroying the car. With a fire truck you can drive to a fire and put it out with a hose, in a cop car you can hunt down criminals in high speed chases and in the pimp car you can pick up prostitutes and deliver them to their destination so they can get on with their “business”. Another small addition to the minigame sector is the Lowriding. If you find a lowrider car or have one modded with hydraulics, then you can enter lowriding competitions as either part of missions or for money. These missions are best left for when you have either beaten story mode or when you feel you need a break from a particularly challenging one.
Aside from eating, three other customization options have been added in San Andreas. For one you can visit a barber and select from a variety of hair colors, facial hair styles and haircuts to personalize CJ to your liking. CJ can also visit a clothing shop and pick up new shirts, shoes, glasses, bandannas and jewelry to add some style to his character. The option to change your clothes and hairstyle is also a way to improve your standing among your gang. The main gang’s color is green so if you walk around your neighborhood wearing purple, prepare to receive some dirty looks. The last thing you can do is customize your vehicles. Mod shops have been added so you can customize the appearance and inner workings of any car you like. Prepare to dish out major cash for some of the features like rims and nitro boosts (which happen to be very fun to use in the countryside on long stretches of road), but if you have the dough, this might be an interest to you. Just beware that modding your car doesn’t provide it with any extra protection, so when you happen to throw your car off a cliff into the water, you can kiss all of that money goodbye. 
Another interesting feature added into SA is the ability to work out and weight train. Going to a gym gives you the opportunity to increase your stamina by riding on a stationary bike, increase your strength (at the expense of stamina) by lifting weights and learn new moves by boxing. While it initially seems like a gimmick, these little minigames can help you later on in missions, and other areas of the game. I found myself visiting the gym quite often to increase my stamina, because whenever you lose a car in the middle of the countryside, prepare to do a lot of running. Your appearance and abilities do help you out in other ways aside from strength and stamina though. Dating is yet another feature new to San Andreas. It isn’t as well implanted as in say The Sims, but it only adds to the game’s already enormous wealth of options. You can meet women, give them gifts, and dance in clubs in a particularly enjoyable button sequence minigame. It’s yet another way to pass the time in the state of San Andreas.
AI hasn’t been something the Grand Theft Auto games have been particularly well known for. In Vice City, many times partners or even enemies would simply shoot blindly at their targets with no real tactics or purpose. In San Andreas the situation has been remedied a bit with the inclusion of team AI. In certain missions you will have to control one or more members of your gang, and you can now control them and tell them to follow you with button commands. This is extremely useful when your teammate simply continues shooting at other gangs when you know it is definitely time to go. Team drive-bys are now in San Andreas but they are not directly controlled by you. Another way in which the AI has been put to good use is through the gang wars which are something players will encounter later in the game. When in an enemy turf, (the map is divided by which gang is in control) if you trigger an attack from an enemy gang member, a gang war will begin and it will be up to you to unleash the pain. The way members swarm at you is pulled off quite well and doesn’t always seem too unbelievable. The addition of the gang wars helps to add some sense of influence over San Andreas when CJ and his gang control more turf.
There are no licensed vehicles in San Andreas and there never have been in any GTA game for that matter. It’s most likely the violence associated with the game and the damage done to most of the cars, but for whatever reason Rockstar has had to make due with their own creative imaginations. Vehicles are varied and come in different shapes, sizes, colors and abilities. Lowriders have the ability to jump up and down on their front and back wheels while you drive, the motorcycles had much better speed capabilities but are more prone to crashes and the cars which are the most unique from model to model, can range from fast to slow, and strong to incredibly weak. Vehicle statistics have been included, so the more CJ drives a particular type of vehicle, the better he becomes at it and the less he will fall off or crash. You will be flying too. Planes (full size ones) and military aircraft have been added with the addition of CJ being able to jump out with a parachute and land safely on the ground (especially for those who have yet to master landing one of those beasts). Bicycles are also included, but they feel a bit forced, since very early on you will be using one in a mission central to the story. It feels too “Hey look you can ride bikes now!”. Acceleration is gained by rapidly pressing the X button, and they are thoroughly entertaining, especially the BMXs. Overall though, I found the motorcycles to be among the best vehicles in the game. They are fast, easy to maneuver and if you know how to drive, they can last a long time. So, go bikes!
While driving the game’s many cars, planes and bikes, you will be serenaded with the many diverse sounds of 90’s music. From classic rock to modern hip-hop, (of the time) San Andreas tries to appeal to everyone in its musical stylings, but its emphasis really seems to be on rap. The music was well chosen and it fits the mood of the game excellently. If I have any complaint its that well, I didn’t seem to see many of the songs that were the big buzz of the early nineties. Almost all of the songs included were hits in some way, but quite a few of them seem a bit more obscure. Luckily, since almost all of the songs are a treat to listen to, this is never a problem, and more of an observation.
Last but surely not least, the weapons. What can I say? There are simply a lot of weapons. From pistols, to automatics, to knives and baseball bats, San Andreas really wants to appeal to your masochistic needs and it pretty much does. Most of the mainstays have returned with a few new ones that should be discovered by you and not ruined by me. The targeting system has been replaced by one similar to that found in Manhunt. This basically means it’s a lot easier to target who you really want to shoot, and it doesn’t obscure your view as much. You are now able to aim by moving the right analog stick around after targeting someone. This makes aiming much more precise, and allows the player to plan out his or her actions more clearly.
From all of the buzz regarding the next generation set of consoles, it seems the Playstation 2 has maybe one good year left in it before attention shifts to another Sony console. San Andreas is an example of a game that is pushing the system to its limits. The character models are more detailed, the cars have a new shine effect, the heat shimmer and lighting effects are also a nice touch but all of this along with a farther out draw distance come at the expense of performance in some instances. The game never becomes unplayable, but during certain instances when you are in an area with a lot of action the game will begin to stutter, often noticeably. On older systems you can also expect to sometimes see textures not load in properly until a few seconds after you have been standing straight in front of them. These are all small issues, none of which hamper the experience that San Andreas offers. If anything it’s a sign of how much work Rockstar is putting into the game to make sure it works as well as it does for an aging console. Overall though, San Andreas’ cities mixed with its vibrant deserts, grasslands and farms, creates the most convincing Grand Theft Auto game yet.
It’s difficult to tell what kind of response San Andreas will get from parents and the public as a whole, but what must be understood is that San Andreas is a video game. A game made for the entertainment of the people who purchase it. It is not a beacon for children to start committing violence or for people to jack cars in parking lots. It’s the combination of many imaginations to create an experience that is both fun, and innovative, especially for the medium it is presented on. San Andreas can definitely be looked at as a more morally objectionable game by some, but that does not make it any less of a game. If someone doesn’t like it, they don’t have to buy it, and I think San Andreas makes this more clear than any other previous game in the industry’s history.
 
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is an excellent video game achievement that ranks up as one of the best games of this generation and in the high list of the overall best. It may not be revolutionary like GTAIII, but it has successfully taken the idea presented in that game, and delivered it on a much grander scale, that will keep quite a few gamers entertained for over 100+ hours. There is so much to do, so much to see and the variety of gameplay types is baffling. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas could very well be the best game ever released on the Playstation 2, but that opinion, is all yours.
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Written by Joseph Bennett. Posted year 2004.
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Released on
October 19, 2004
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