Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

I really like the Grand Theft Auto series, and I have made that obvious in the two reviews proceeding this one. GTA, while very violent and by no means for children in any facet, is a game series that knowingly mixes high violence and sandbox gameplay with detailed stories and expansive worlds in order to make one of the greatest game series of all time. From Grand Theft Auto 3 on, Rockstar continues to pump out great games as if they had the midas touch, and fortunately, I was able to get my hands on their latest version to give it a re-test before we begin to look at the ever exciting promise of Grand Theft Auto IV.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the third 3D game in the modern renditions of the Grand Theft Auto franchise. Proceeded by the phenomenal Grand Theft Auto 3 and enjoyable Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, San Andreas had nothing but promise- and it came all the way and met it's predecessors, and beat them at virtually every turn. Noting there was no real review for this available, I naturally felt obligated to share my blatant fanboyism for this latest game.



GTA:SA starts out with Carl ?CJ? Johnson, a guy who returns to his home of Los Santos upon the news of his mother's cruel murder to discover that his old home, along with his old gang the Grove Street Families, has gone all out of order, and the Grove Street Families are now the joke of the city. Instead of the familiar ?The Mafia tells me to do this? mentality of it's predecessors, Grand Theft Auto San Andreas follows CJ as he not only tries to discover the details of his mother's brutal murder, but also to rebuild his old gang into the kings of the city.

For those new to the Grand Theft Auto series, GTA is basically a fishbowl world where you are allowed to steal, rob, murder, and basically anything else you feel like doing- so long as you can avoid the cops while doing so. Tired of walking? Steal a car. Tired of driving? Drive the car at 100 miles per hour, aim it at a residential district, and jump out before it turns the whole place into the next Hiroshima. Sick of traffic? Drive on the sidewalk and crush everyone in your path. Everything is open to you, much like reality- but in this case, everything can be done very safely, and everything is one whole hell of a lot of fun. As this game style is not for children (see below), the Grand Theft Auto series is still a huge blast to play, allowing you the kind of freedom that you never got to have playing super-strict games before. If you're the person who shoots the hostage in Tom Clancy games, this kind of game is for you.

Everything is different in San Andreas, and not in a bad way. First off, the game takes place in a more Californian area, featuring a much more urban and Latino population than previous games. Where Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City had Italians and Chinese, San Andreas is all about African Americans and Latinos- and it makes things definitely more interesting, a world that Rockstar had never explored previously. Gang warfare takes a huge part of this game, different ?Territories? playing a huge part of where CJ is or is not safe, and even the clothes he wears can radically effect how he is viewed by the huge population of the city of Los Santos.



The big new feature of Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, though, is not so much the gang warfare as it is the vast customization options now available to players. Whereas Grand Theft Auto 3 required very little customization to play the game, Grand Theft Auto San Andreas makes even games like The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion green with envy with the different ways to customize, and nothing is left hanging in Rockstar's obvious attempt to capture the real essence of urban life. From being able to dress CJ in something like a million different ways to adding Tattoos, Hairstyles, and even watches, San Andreas allows for little minutia to be manipulated in order to provide the best manner of gaming.

Of course, the core Grand Theft Auto gameplay is present in a very good way. Cars drive better than ever, the NPCs in the world of San Andreas all are much more intelligent and responsive than any of their predecessors, and the vast number of buildings, activities, and missions will keep any gamer happily occupied for hundreds of hours. All of this is nicely balanced on a somewhat RPG-ish system of status points, all activities building themselves up in stats and allowing for more detailed and better actions overall- for example, the ability to ?Level up? CJ's driving. All of this plays very well into the grand scheme of Grand Theft Auto, and one may wonder why Rockstar didn't think of it back in the Grand Theft Auto 3 days.

The game itself, as I said above, is expansive. Los Santos and the outlying areas are absolutely huge and more detailed than any city in any game on the PS2 or XBOX, Grand Theft Auto or not. From the Latino side of town to the docks, everything is made to provide the maximum amount of missions and off-the-job explorations, and thankfully, smart gamers will be able to find themselves in a multitude of cool places to cause problems. Nothing is left out of San Andreas, and everything has the phenomenal Grand Theft Auto polish fans have grown to love.

And naturally, San Andreas features a host of technical upgrades. The Graphics have not fundamentally changed (due to the fact that both the PS2 and XBOX have trouble chugging out the sheer amount of stuff in San Andreas), but PC users will be happy to find that enough upgrades have been made to show a little bit of a difference. As for audio, Rockstar has done very well for themselves, even going so far as to sign big name actors such as Samuel L Jackson to do voices for the many colorful characters in the game. Rockstar did their homework for San Andreas, and they definitely deserve an A for such work in that respect.



But of course, no real talk about Grand Theft Auto can be had without mentioning the content itself. This game is absolutely not for children of any age, and the ?M? sticker on it is there for a reason. There have been many attacks upon this game for the gratuitous amount of sex, violence, language, and basically everything else considered ?bad? by ratings boards- but nonetheless, the game has redeemable values, namely the gameplay itself. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is for responsible adults, not psychotic children- so keep that in mind before you launch into sending me some kind of hate mail.

So, as usual, I end a Grand Theft Auto review with a sort of warning. This game is not for children at all whatsoever end of story. So long as you understand that key fact, you will have a blast with this game- presuming you are the legal age to play it. Grand Theft Auto San Andreas is something of an adult pleasure, providing all of the freedom that allows you to steal cars, shoot up National Guard members, and basically cause havoc all in a little fishbowl-like world. However, if you tend to take these games literally, I recommend you not touch this game (and get off this site, I'm not testifying for you when you do something stupid) and go play something like ?The Bible Game? for the Game Boy Advance. Your choice.

5 star(s) out of 5

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