Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

"A massive game that offers endless amounts of stuff to do.."

Anyone who hasn't been living under a rock for the past few years will recognize the name of Grand Theft Auto. The series grew a tremendous amount of popularity with the release of Grand Theft Auto 3, which offered a big world with some of the most non-linearity offered in a game of this kind of genre. After the success of GTA3, a sequel was announced and released under the name of Vice City, which took the basics of GTA3 and built up on it to make it a wonderful game. Of course, Rockstar won't let such a popular series die so quickly, so they announced another Grand Theft Auto game with the subtitle of San Andreas. Does it keep up with the gameplay of Vice City, while keeping things fresh enough to offer a unique gaming experience?

GRAPHICS
I must say that I was quite impressed with how things turned out. The characters are well detailed and unique, although the hands are a bit awkward since they're blocky. They also move very seamlessly as you're playing through the game. I have never seen any problems at all in this game involving the characters, besides from the hands.

I also feel that the environments are nicely done and feel like what they're supposed to represent. They are varied enough to make it seem like no two areas are alike. The ghetto feels like the ghetto, with all kinds of dilapidations in the surroundings. The countryside feels like the countryside, with all of the trees, farms and openness of the wild. The desert feels like the desert, with the barrenness of the land. Lastly, the cities feel like cities, with a bustling of activity and the large skyscrapers and other buildings. Nothing at all wrong here.

Of course, it's not like the visuals in this game are perfect. One of the major issues is that the framerate seems to go down when there's a lot of action going down onscreen. Some reports have said that it actually goes down to a snail's pace, but I have never seen such drastic framerate issues on my game. There is a bit here and there, but it doesn't really take away from the game much, to my experience.

SOUND & MUSIC
I must say that Rockstar did a great job with the soundtrack for San Andreas. There's plenty of variety as far as the music. There are a total of 11 stations in San Andreas, ranging from new and old rap to new and old rock to even country. There are some many famous bands/people on the soundtrack, including Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Guns N' Roses, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Public Enemy just to name a few. Each station offers around 15 or so songs corresponding to that genre, so you will be happy with at least one of them. Of course, the ever popular talk radio is back, although it didn't seem all to great when comparing it to the past two ones. Needless to say, Rockstar did a mighty fine job when compiling the soundtrack.

The voices and sound effects for the game are also well done. You may recognize some of the names that were used for some characters, like Samuel Jackson for Officer Tenpenny and Ice T for Madd Dogg. I'll go on to say that there didn't seem a voice that was out of character in the game.

Of course, one of the complaints is that there was quite an excessive amount of swearing in the game. There is quite a lot of swearing in the beginning, but I feel it adds an overall atmosphere to the game. The first segment of the game takes place in the ghetto and, from my personal experiences, the swearing adds a nice touch to it. It does calm down a lot as you progress farther into the game, but the swearing isn't all too bad when considering the setting.

GAMEPLAY
Let me begin by saying that the game is HUGE. You'll notice that Los Santos, the first area, alone seems to be bigger than all of Vice City. Of course, getting lost is inevitable as you traverse through the areas of the game. The in-game map offers something new because of this massive size, the ability to put markers on the map. Yes, you can actually manually place markers on the map should you need to keep tabs on any particular place or help when planning a route for a mission. I feel this helps a lot on some aspects of the game.

Another thing you'll instantly notice is that CJ now has stats attributed to him. You have respect, muscle, fat, and stamina. Doing missions and other specific things will raise respect. There are now gyms in the game where you can exercise to increase your muscle and stamina, giving CJ an extra boost when he needs it. Another thing you have to watch out for is eating too much, which will eventually make CJ fat. Fat can cause CJ to move much more sluggishly as he runs. Customizing CJ's appearance makes for an interesting addition to the GTA series. You can also get haircuts, buy new clothing (individual pieces), and even get tattoos for CJ. His physical appearance aren't the only things you can improve upon in the game.

There are also skills now attributed to most weapons and to each type of vehicle in the game. You can improve your skill in a weapon as you use it to shoot things more often, thus making yourself more efficient with it. Build your skill high enough and you could even wield two weapons with a few of them, like the pistol for example. Not only weapons can increase with skill, but also your ability to drive vehicles. The more you ride a BMX bike, the better your Cycling skill will be. This holds true for boats, cars, motorcycles and flying vehicles as well!

One more thing to talk about is the addition of new collection items in place of the previous two games' hidden packages. Each area in the game (Los Santos for example) has their own collection item. Los Santos has gang tags that you must spraypaint your own gang sign onto, San Fierro has icons which you must take a photograph of, and Las Venturas has horseshoes to collect. Of course, there are oysters that you must swim (yes, you can finally swim now) to get in all three areas. This adds some variety to do in the game than just collect 100 white packages.

REPLAY & DIFFICULTY
The game is huge and playing it through one time just to beat the story will probably take around 30-40 hours. Getting 100% completion will probably take around 50-60 hours. Of course, the game has so much more to offer besides that, which makes replayability very high. Simply going around and killing random people and having standoffs with the law are also very fun. I know after I get 100%, I'll feel like starting completely over again because the game is that fun to play. Also, the game is huge and you'll probably not see everything on your first time through the game.

As usual with the last two games, there are some missions where the difficulty is quite high. Although the game isn't too difficult in the missions, there are a few with a factor of frustration that can make you want to go and break your controller (Supply Lines and Pilot School come to mind). Besides a few select missions, the game overall is moderate in difficulty.

CONCLUSION
Overall, the game is huge and offers a huge amount of gameplay options for the gamer. I feel that this game should be a definite buy on every gamer's list. The sheer size gives more replay to the game, because you could probably just drive around for hours on end enjoying the sites around you. If you're still reading this, why haven't you gone out and bought the game already? GO NOW!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/18/04