Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

"Grand Theft Auto San Andreas: Could GTA get any larger and better than this? Yes it could but still outstanding."

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas is the third installment of the GTA series for the Playstation 2. Yet again Rockstar has made another outstanding GTA game that you will just spend hours and hours just exploring around and causing havoc.

Story: 8/10

The story in this game actually proves to be a bit better then the others but it is not so different. It digresses a bit from the usual “get revenge and get back on top” but it goes back on the same track. You play as a man named CJ who finds out that his brother Brian has just been killed. He comes back from Liberty City to his home town, Los Santos to attend his brother's funeral and find out why and how his brother got killed. However just as he is about to get back home he is greeted by a couple of corrupt police officers (Frank Tenpenny and Eddie Pulaski) who CJ clearly remembers from quite a long time ago. They blackmail CJ for the murder of another police officer who was going to bring them down and this is a murder in which CJ clearly did not commit and this begins the whole story. As you play through the game, you have to complete various missions to gain respect and power for your gang while in a strict rivalry between other gangs such as the "ballads" who commonly wear purple while your gang wears green. You also do missions for Tenpenny and his partner in order to not get blackmailed. Along the way you'll meet some interesting characters such as a certain “blind guy” who happens to have luck higher than any other character in the game combined. Other than that, the story actually stands out to be okay but it is nothing new we've seen before.

Graphics: 7/10

The truth is the graphics aren't that great if you compare it with most “good” games for the PS2 or other systems out there. There is not much to mention about the graphics except this game has a slight improvement from it's predecessors such as GTA3 and GTA:VC. However you can pretty much tell it looks very similar to the others in almost a lot of things. The loading times when you enter between cities are taken away (Yay!!!!) so no more waiting during the game except when entering building that is. On the streets the most you can see are 8-9 cars (probably a bit less or more). The characters pretty much move the same way as characters from other GTA games in which they basically look "bland". The graphics are basically the negative feature about this game in which it doesn't compete with other games that well.

The backgrounds and landscape are not good but they're not bad. When you're driving by, you won't notice anything. However, if you're standing still or moving the camera, you can see through walls and you'll also be seeing pixels on certain textures such as the grass for example. However considering the gameplay alone is something that makes this game truly outstanding. The cities you'll be exploring and passing by, it is actually considering to be pretty good. A game with this large amount of space with graphics like these is simply outstanding. However the graphics is not the feature which makes the game enjoyable...

Gameplay: 10/10

The gameplay is the most outstanding feature in this game and the fun part. The moment you start playing you're given the ability to explore the city around you... To tell you the truth, you are given three cities in this game plus the countryside and the desert along with a few other places but those places get unlocked until you reach a certain point in the game or… if you cheat which is common among most people when playing the GTA games. San Andreas is also about three times the size of vice city in which Los Santas (first city) is about the same size of vice city alone. Just by playing the first few hours, you will have a tendency to hijack a car and just explore all you want!

Oh yes, the vehicles... I do love exploring with vehicles and there is so much to explore!! You can now max out your "skill" with using a vehicle depending on how much you've driven with it. In other words the higher you skill is with the vehicle such as a motorcycle, the more you can handle it and make sharper turns. This turns out to be very useful as you progress through the game and makes it more enjoyable.

You can now change your character's appearance in this game. This is something you could not do in other GTA games with the exception of “changing clothes“. You're now given the ability to raise certain stats that affect your character. These stats range from muscle/strength, fat, stamina, etc. To raise your muscle status, you simply work out at the gym lifting weights. Obviously, the more weights you lift, the more muscle you gain and your appearance changes as you lift weights changing your character from a skinny weak guy to the bulky tough guy. Of course muscle/strength isn‘t the only stat that affects your character‘s appearance. Another stat that changes your appearance is fat (it also happens in real life). If you don't have muscle and don't eat a single thing, you're basically going to look like a "toothpick" and if you eat " A LOT" you're going to look like the pillsberry doughboy. However, if you make him too overweight, he could sometimes get a “heart attack” and you get a warning of this. In other words you can make CJ overweight or skinny depending on how much food you give him.

Now what good would Grand Theft auto be if you didn't have violence? Well it would still be fun due to the exploration however the violence is always a necessity in GTA. Like "ALL" GTA games, you have the freedom to kill the people around you and like all GTA games you have what I call the “star system“. The star system is basically the law (police, FBI, Army) and this is the only problem standing in your way of your goal of complete destruction. The first star you get, you'll have some police officer running after you trying to arrest you. Second Star, they will tend to shoot at you and be a bit vicious. You can get rid of these stars over time though. However by the time you get the third star and higher things start to go bad for you. You'll have the police laying traps for you (wire-traps to blow out your tires), you're having the FBI chase you down (they're insanely fast)… Then the army, which you better find the nearest save point or cheat as their tanks destroy your car in one hit and if you‘re out of the car their weapons can pretty much kill you before you can even react. However it's nothing new, but still fun none-the-less.

You can kill by using the usual “tactics” you've used in the other games… These are by beating them to death with hand-held weapons or shooting them with guns. A new feature that this game has that others did not is the ability to level up your skill with weapons (mainly shooting weapons). By maxing out your weapon skills you'll either given the ability to use the weapon faster, cause more damage, or duel-wield guns which are nice features added to this game. In other words you can shoot a shotgun a lot faster and shoot two handguns at the same time instead of one if you max out the skill.. You will have a tendency to max out all these skills before you probably reach the second city.

I also forgot to mention the newest feature this game has to offer. You can now finally swim people! No more throwing your controller out the window because you failed the mission by driving your car into the water, getting out of the car and drowned. Now you can drive your car into the water, getting out of the car, and swim! Drowning was an issue that made a lot of people angry with the past two games because the main character couldn't swim in the water. It frustrated a lot of people when you fall into the water and drown. Of course in San Andreas you can now swim by just jumping into the water. You can also dive underneath the water for some undersea exploration though it really only plays a minor role and it‘s only used for a few missions. Other than that, the ability to swim is truly one of the greatest features added to this game. The gameplay still top-notched and can compete with other great titles easily.

Sound: 10/10

Sound is a positive feature of this game but it‘s nothing too new when compared to the GTA3 or Vice City. The GTA games are known for the great cast of voice acting in which it is just perfect in so many ways possible. Just like other GTA games, they had some well known actors to do the voice acting in this game such as Samuel L. Jackson, James Wood, and Chris Penn (R.I.P). Other than that, the voice acting is still top notch and the actors do an amazing job when they voice their characters.

The music is pretty much used the same way as the other GTA games. When you hijack a car you have a radio. With the radio you can basically switch to any station you want. Each station contains music and talk shows. Although, I'm not really a fan of the so called rap, Reggie, R&B music. They have other stations that contain Rock, techno, and country. However the talk-shows are something you must pay attention to. Most of them have hilarious comments just like the games predecessors and you would enjoy listening to them speak. GTA does a well job implementing music and talk shows into the game. Other than that, the sound is great for Grand Theft Auto game.

Replay-ability: 10/10

Not much to say about the replay value. It's just too high. Chances are the moment you start playing this game, you're going to be playing this game for awhile and be addicted to it! However as time goes by (usually after beating the game once or twice) you will tend to get slightly bored of it. However this is expected from almost any game really. What I have to say is Just enjoy what San Andreas has to offer for you and have fun with the freedom this game has to offer. There is a lot to do in this game. A lot of exploring to do, lots of missions and side missions, listen to the radio (well not that interesting), kill people, drive cars, rob peoples houses, etc.. There is just a lot of stuff to do. You'll definitely come back to this game after awhile just to some of these things. This game simply is that entertaining.

Overall Review: 9/10

Overall this game is great. It's an outstanding game that will make you play game for months just simply due to gameplay and the addition of many things to do.

I rate this game a 9 out of 10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/22/07