Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

"Like something you've seen twice before..."

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the third game in the series that we have seen on the current gen consoles. This time around I am reviewing the Xbox version. Given how little change there was between GTA 3 and Vice City some may expect the same from San Andreas. Is San Andreas more than just the same old GTA or is it just another attempt by a game company to milk a franchise of all it's worth. To find out what I concluded about the game continue reading my review of GTA: San Andreas.

First off let's talk about what San Andreas has to offer in the graphics department. Compared to some other Xbox titles, the graphics in San Andreas are...what's the best way to put this...an insult. Now before the fanboys go into a blood frenzy and try to kill me let me explain why I am being so harsh. First off I will address the main reason I am harping on the graphics so bad: the character models. Though they are far better than those of the PS2, the characters in San Andreas have a very polygonal feel to them. There are a lot of angular textures visible on the character models. After playing some other games released around the same time this seems an unforgivable offense. Character movement is also quite clunky, having a kind of robotic feel to it.

Environmental textures are another thing that drag down the game's graphics score. The environments are drab and boring to say the least. Some textures look good but that all changes when you take a closer look. One major thing missing from San Andreas is lighting effects. Sure all of the characters have shadows but if there is an explosion there is no light glow on any other objects. However at the same time there are some areas with pretty good real-time reflections. Still it would have been nice to see Rockstar step up to the plate and make San Andreas look like a real step up from its predecessors.

Sound in San Andreas is a mix of good and bad. The voice overs in the game are done well but get annoying very quickly. Also Rockstar made it a point to make the language of the game more vulgar than the last. I swear, the most common phrases heard are: "Oh s***!" and "I'm not f***ing around!" While the masses of profanity may give the game a more "street" feel, they fail to do any more than annoy the player. Another problem with the audio is the near lack of ambient sound. There are large areas of the game where there is no sound. This takes away from the realism of the cities in the game. A note to Rockstar: there is usually some form of background noise in a city.

One good thing about the audio in San Andreas is the user track radio. Yes I know that GTA 3 and Vice City also had this option, but San Andreas does it much better. By default it is set to radio mode which means that it will select random tracks to play and insert a commercial every now and then. You also have the option to just have it play random with no inserted commercials. This is a big improvement, considering that in GTA 3 and Vice City you had to manually select which playlist out of you library you wanted. Ah yes, nothing beats running around killing the innocent to the sound of my own music library.

The gameplay in San Andreas is also a mixed bag. On one hand it is fun to run around driving, killing, and doing whatever else pleases you, but at the same time it kind of gets old fast like it has in previous GTA titles. There are some major improvements though. One of these would be the ability to swim. Yes that's right, at long last if you end up ramping your car into water you won't die. Since San Andreas doesn't run on the Body Harvest engine like GTA 3 and Vice City. This freedom from the old engine allows for better control and as I said earlier no drowning. All of this adds to the gameplay of San Andreas. It still plays like GTA 3 only in a new city. This means that the classic GTA gameplay stays intact but this can be either a blessing or a curse.

The curse in this case is the segmenting of the map into several locations that are each only accessible after reaching a certain point in the game. San Andreas lulls you into a false sense of the entire map being open from the start. In fact you can even get to some of the other areas before you are supposed to. This is not without a tragic flaw though. If you reach an area before you are supposed to you will get wanted level of four and immediately be swarmed by police. I was disappointed by this...to say the least.

The replay value of San Andreas is pretty high. While you probably won't have the urge to complete the story missions multiple times, there is a whole city of other things to do. I would move to say that most people won't complete every mission or do every insane stunt. This is part of the fun of the game though. You can go into San Andreas and it has the capacity to never be the same experience twice. While some aspects may get old after time it is a game that is easy to come back to, even if it is just to kill gangbangers for a few minutes.

In conclusion San Andreas is a mixed experience. There were some good additions made this time around to complement the already decent GTA gameplay. The problem is that it is still marred by many of the same problems that plagued GTA 3 and Vice City. Sure you have some new options and a new city to run around in, but at the end of the day this game felt more like a hefty expansion pack than a full fledged game experience. Luckily San Andreas is now available as a Platinum Hit with a price tag of $20 or less. Is it a buy or a rent? I would probably say that it is a buy, if for no other reason than that there is so much to do in a game that it really isn't finishable in the week or so a rental lasts...unless you have gamefly, then rent. The final word on Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is a middle-of-the road 5 out of 10.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 03/10/06