ic-games Review - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

ic-games Review - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii ic-games Review - Home - Review, Preview and Interview for PC, Xbox,Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Information
Reviewer: Andrew St.Denis
Developer: Rockstar North
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Reviewed: PC
Genre: FPS/Third Person/Vehicle
UK Release: 10th Jun 2005
Article Date: 17th Jun 2005
Difficulty: Medium
Retail Price: £24.99
Price Comparison:
0

Score Breakdown

Experience:
Game Play:
Graphics:
Sound:
Overall Score: 97%

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Pros

It's GTA, only better

Planes, Trains and Automobiles to drive

Mouse control over analogue joypad

Cons

Mouse control over analogue joypad

Slow fill speed on moving from distance to close up

Screenshots

26 of 67

Nearly eight months after Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas hit the PS2 had fans frothing at the mouth, the phenomenon has finally made its way over on to the PC and thankfully, it’s had a bit of a makeover too. For while some people might have had equipment to make the PS2 graphics look real good, the majority of the punters ended up with blurred graphics and a struggle to read sign posts and even tell what was going on with the ‘mini map’. But enough of the PlayStation 2 bashing let us embark on what the PC can do with this title.

Now if you have played the title before then you will have no problem zipping through to where you got to before, the gameplay has not changed very much, just a few little tweaks along the way. The biggest alterations though come in how you control CJ, gone is the PS2 analogue controller, now you have the mouse to control your characters aiming and camera angles for the most part. This is both a blessing and a curse however, for while aiming is made a whole lot better the driving and flying experience has suffered somewhat, but it's all down to which you feel most comfortable as to which platform will suit you the most.

But onto what the newcomers can expect, at first glance you might be forgiven if you thought that nothing much had changed in the Grand Theft Auto world, well except perhaps the standard bike that faces you when you first start the game. The graphics don’t look particularly different as you take your first tour around the surrounding areas on the bicycle paying close attention to the usual “Ammu-Nation” and “Pay ‘n’ Spray” shops. You’d be wrong though, there is more to see and do in San Andreas than any of the other GTA games put together. It’s just tucked away in the game, and every so often you’ll be offered up another gem, something else to do, that you simply will not be able to put the controller down. You might as well superglue the disc into the drive as nothing else will be played on it for some time to come.

The plot is still as dark as any of the other stories in the GTA franchise but yet somehow San Andreas’ plot oozes much more atmosphere and feels far more realistic than anything we have seen before. Again you control the main character, this time called CJ, who has just returned to his old neighbourhood after learning of his ‘moms’ death. However all is not well as he drives into his old town, framed for the murder of a Police Officer and unpopular with his old gang CJ must not only win back the trust of the gang but he must also learn exactly what happened to his family and return his jaded gang back to the glory days.

The story is in part great due to the extensive voice talent that reads more like a “who’s who” in the best of voice acting and it shows. Samuel L Jackson is brilliant and instantly recognizable playing the corrupt cop “Frank Tenpenny” while Ice T plays rapper “Madd Dogg” with understandable ease. W. AXL Rose adopts the persona of Tommy "The Nightmare" Smith, of the classic rock station K-DST. Shaun Ryder (Happy Mondays) plays Maccer with Chris Penn, Peter Fonda and Andy Dick even making appearances, plus Danny Dyer returns as 'Kent' Paul. The full listing is quite spectacular and you can be sure of bumping into many characters from previous GTA titles.

However the biggest changes to the Grand Theft Auto franchise involve your main character, CJ. In previous encounters you have been able to change clothes and that’s just about all you could do to alter the main characters appearance. San Andreas alters all that by introducing heavy RPG elements alongside the expected linear missions. CJ must eat, workout and earn ‘respect’ from his fellow gang members. Eating too much and travelling everywhere by car will make CJ get fat and unreliable on missions. Fortunately scattered around the huge maps you can find gyms in which you can work off the fat and start to build up a few muscles. Cycling or walking also offer great health benefits if you are prepared to make the extra effort. And while you are going about your daily business of eating, having sex with prostitutes, going on missions and having more sex with prostitutes your character will change. Pile on the weight and CJ will get fat, trim yourself up and purchase the best clothes you can afford and the women will be all over you. Just about everything has a “Skill Level” attached to it, from driving to shooting, and it’s up to you to make sure you become proficient at the things you want to be good at. The upshot is though that Carl becomes exactly who you make him and you’ll have nobody to blame if things get out of hand.

The first new vehicle that you will come across is the bicycle, which you see as soon as you start the game for the first time. The bicycle is ridden like any other vehicle but if you tap the sprint button you can make CJ ride even faster. It also works exactly the same as if you were on foot in that tapping the key instead of holding it down will make CJ go even faster (supersprint). Police now patrol the streets on lightning fast motorcycles as well as the standard cruisers and of course one or two helicopters and other airborne transport is available but they appear far later on in the game which starts in the ghetto of Los Santos. And if you ever find yourself on foot its reassuring to know that CJ can now leap over walls or climb barriers that would have become impossible to the residents of Vice or Liberty City, even water is no longer the instant death from previous GTA titles.

And training in these important areas like shooting, holding your breath underwater and running has a direct impact on your character. The more you swim underwater for example, the better you’ll become at it, and because of that you’ll be able to swim underwater for longer. To stop everyone ‘levelling up’ in a few hours Rockstar decided to limit on how much you could improve in one game day and it works quite well. Work up a few level points on the treadmill and once you achieved the limit for the day you’ll be notified and will not be able to improve any further until the day has passed. The amount of attributes that you can actually improve is staggering. CJ must learn how to drive, shoot, swim, workout, be healthy, sprint and participate in relationships but we will discuss these in more detail later.

The mission structure works roughly the same as it did in Vice City. You’ll normally have two or three mission paths at any one time, and it’s up to you to a point when you complete them. Some of the missions however teach you brand new things that you can get up to in San Andreas when you are not participating in missions. For example one mission has you breaking into somebody’s house to steal guns. After an initial scene it becomes obvious that you’ll be the one actually breaking in and stealing the goods. Because the person you are robbing is actually asleep you have to move slowly around the house and steal certain objects from the house without waking up the owner. A noise meter will track your every move as you creep about the house, make too much noise and you fail the mission. The upshot is though that you have just discovered something else you can do in San Andreas at night when you are not furthering the story. You can now burgle houses whenever you want (at night of course), and all that from just completing another fantastic mission.

Failed missions can also be returned to quickly with the excellent use of the “Trip Back” function. Rockstar have obviously learned that the single most frustrating issue with Vice City and GTA3 was you having to drive to a mission destination over and over again because of mission failures. Now whenever you restart or activate a particular failed mission you have the option of hitting a key and automatically appearing at the mission hot-spot. Obviously some people may prefer doing the driving and earning more “skill points” in driving by doing so, well they can simply ignore the “trip back” feature and drive to their hearts content.

Making the trip around the town even more satisfying is the fact that the only loading sequences you will encounter are when you enter or exit a building or when you activate a key mission moment. When you bear in mind how huge the areas are you’ll begin to appreciate the headaches Rockstar must have had trying to keep the loading sequences down. While in essence this is the same technology that ran Vice City the problems that haunted the previous GTA game have been carefully ironed out. You’ll still notice a few clipping problems and (if your graphics card isn’t the fastest) some unfortunate slowdown when the screen is heavily populated but it’s certainly not a major problem.

And it’s not only the standard missions that you have to worry about now, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has now introduced a relationship element to the gameplay. When you are not busy evading the Police, killing rival gang members or undertaking one of the many missions available you could be taking your girlfriend on a date. Yep, GTA now borrows slightly from EA’s blockbuster hit “The Sims”. While it is not as involving you are still expected to take your girl to restaurants or nightclubs (although she usually has the choice as to what is going to happen). Like all the other attributes found in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the relationship factor builds up positively when you have invested enough time to trigger the counter forward.

As well as flirting, firing a weapon also takes practise and with every shot fired you’ll be slowly getting better and better at each weapon. Become a master of the side arm and you’ll be allowed to wield two weapons of the same type with devastating consequences to rival gangs. All the familiar weapons make a return such as shotguns, colts and semi automatic weapons with a few new ones making an appearance. Targeting is a relatively simple task of using the mouse, you’ll see an arrow above the target when they are targeted, this also changes colour to show their health.

The graphics have changed little from Vice City but there are some noticeable differences. To try and give an impression of speed while driving the screen now blurs at pace and the effect is certainly satisfying when cruising down a motorway at full throttle. Also when raining the engine now takes on a grainier, filtered look but sadly the effect seems heavily borrowed from Rockstar’s other hit Manhunt during the “video recorder sequences”. The vast majority of buildings and the roads hide their level-of-detail until you get close and it’s not unusual to have to wait for the detail to “load in” even on occasions when you drive quite close to the buildings in question. Another feature (if your graphics card supports this) is heat haze, find yourself in sunshine and watch the screen ripple with the heat rising from the pavement and desert sands, all very pretty but sometimes annoying when you can’t get a bead on a long range shot.

It wouldn’t be a GTA game without a brilliant soundtrack. Once again the car radio returns with the varied stations built around it. Although not as stuck in the ‘era’ as Vice City’s soundtrack, San Andreas still features a mouth watering line-up. Playback FM features brilliant classic rap like “Eric B & Rakim’s – I Know you got Soul” and “Rob Base & DJ EZ Rocks – It Takes Two”. Radio Los Santos favours more modern hip-hop (but you must still appreciate San Andreas is based around the early nineties. Expect tunes from 2-Pac, Dr Dre and the excellent Cypress Hill. Bounce FM specialises in the funk music and so “Kool and the Gang” and “The Isley Brothers” make special appearances. Country Fans are catered for with K-Rose FM, Classic Rock fans should tune into “K-DST” and await groups like Boston, The Who, David Bowie and Billy Idol (probably our favourite station). The talk radio style station also makes a welcome (and hilarious) return with “West Coast – Talk Radio”. There are other radio stations available but we wouldn’t want to spoil everything. It’s worth noting though that whatever your taste in music we’ll doubt you’ll be driving long with the car radio feature switched off. In addition you can create your own playlist, by adding links to your music in the GTA folder you can listen to your own music while a DJ fills in, between tracks. The DJ’s also follows your progress through the game, adding sound bites to mirror recent events in the game world.

When you try and describe to people exactly what you can do in San Andreas it’s possible to lose track. You have of course got your standard missions but you must also now weigh in the dating elements, Carl’s appearance and (after a few missions) territory occupations. The other usual side distractions on offer return such as Taxi driving, Vigilante, Ambulance, Fire fighting, Trucking, and of course the ongoing quest to find every single hidden item scattered around San Andreas. With games lasting at most a few days after an intensive gaming session, San Andreas is a monster of a game that will take many months to complete in its entirety. It’s possibly around four to five times larger than Vice City with many more things to do even after the mission structure is completed. For value for money we are hard pushed to find a bigger single player game to compare against.

Anyone who has steered away from the series because of its unethical moments will not be surprised to learn that San Andreas is more of the same. With drugs, gangbanging, drive bys and the largest profanity count in console history it’s quite obvious that Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas deserves its 18 certificate. It’s obvious to anyone with common sense that the humour is satirical and that Rockstar have strived hard to make the game brilliant rather than shocking. However the game has earned the rating for a good reason and this should be taken on board if this is a present for someone else. Swearing still takes centre stage with every other word involving something that could easily offend someone, somewhere.

Grand Theft Auto is, in our opinion, the greatest game franchise ever released (although the less said about GTA 2, the better) and now that Vice City has been shown not to be a ‘one time’ thing Rockstar have shown they still hold the crown as publishers of total class gaming originality. GTA: SA is oozing with so much gaming fun that anyone with sense will be walking into a shop tomorrow to pick up a copy. Cut scenes have been brought to a new level, especially later in the game, not only will you need to watch them to learn what to do in the mission; you’ll be failing it just so you can watch them again. More cars, bikes, planes, helicopters and boats (and even a hovercraft) then any previous GTA title plus the sheer size and longevity of San Andreas mean this just has be a part of any self respecting gamers collection.

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