9 / 10
21 Feb 2006 at 14:44
Review by: twisted_dreams
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the fifth in the Grand Theft Auto series, not including Grand Theft Auto Advance. And really, creators Rockstar have outdone themselves.
The area where the game is set, is the fictional state of San Andreas, comprised of three huge cities, and several smaller villages. Each city is on a seperate island, traditional Grand Theft Auto style, and at the start of the game, only the first of these islands are available, and the others are unlocked as you play through the missions.
The islands all have their own distinctive settings. Los Santos, the first island, is a gangster scene, with different families engaging in street fights and gang wars. Outside the city there are forests, fields, and mountains, and around these are scattered a few villages, populated by farming yokels driving tractors and combine harvesters.
The second island, San Fierro, is quite different. It is more of an industrial place, with businesses and docks, strewn around the place. San Fierro also has a huge are of countyside, and like the country areas of Los Santos, these are populated by more farming types.
The third island is different too, even more so than the second. The island is called Las Venturas, and is based on Las Vegas. Las Venturas has many casinos, gambling spots, theme parks, and bright lights and colours to match. Las Venturas is built in the middle of a huge desert, with a couple of villages far from the city, and an abandoned airfield far out in the middle of no where.
All the areas are fully explorable, and very, very big, so big in fact that it takes about ten real minutes to drive from one side of the state to the other.
Graphics aren't perfect, but they are pretty high quality. Everything has a slightly cartoony look to it, which is seen all through the Grand Theft Auto games. Textures in the environment, such as hills and cliffs, are all reasonably high resolution, and the cities are pretty good too.
Characters are slightly blocky, especially the hands, but they aren't too bad. Lip-synching isn't the best either, and the character's mouths will wiggle about long after they have stopped talking, but it isn't so bad that you will make a big point of it. The animation though, is pretty good, when you run along then jump over a hole and then vault a wall it looks pretty flawless, but in cutscenes everything seems a little badly chorographed. Characters act a little late in comparison to others, for example in one cut scene somebody gets punched, but it takes them about a second to react to it. But mostly, like the lip-synching, you don't dwell on this long enough to care about it.
Moving on. The gameplay of GTA:SA is incredibly varied. There is more to do in this game than any other at this time, and that is one of the reasons this game is so great. Like any other GTA, there is the standard shooting, fighting, stealing cars, and driving aspects of play, but there is so much more.
There are several types of boats, ranging from small dingies to speeding powerboats, there are helicopters to travel around quickly, and a new feature, planes. But not the incredibly awkward Dodo from previous games, not at all. There are several types of plane that you can pilot, from a World War Two fighter plane to a massive jumbo jet, from a private cruiser to a military jet capable of covering large distances in seconds.
There are also races you can compete in. As you get further into the game, races will be unlocked in many different places. The races include stock car racing round many laps of a short track, biking through dense forests, mountain biking competitions, and breakneck speed nitrous infused supercar races around the cities. Winning the races will earn you money, new cars, and respect.
In this installment of the Grand Theft Auto series, you have to eat to survive, and there are restaurants scattered all around the map, but eating to much will make you fat, and will change the speed you can run at and other athletic abilities. If you get too fat, you won't be able to jump high enough to grab ledges, and you'll run out of breath quickly. But if you want to lose some fat, you have to exercise. There are a few gyms around the map too, and in these you can learn new styles of fighting, or use the exercise machines to work off fat. The exercising itself involves a frantic button bashing, and how quickly you lose fat depends on how fast you tap the buttons.
There are also many side-missions you can do. You can put out fires in a fire engine, speed after wanted criminals in the police cars, ferry prostitutes round in pimp-mobiles, and run taxi services, and make a lot of money out of it. You can gamble at casinos, burgle houses, or simply run around randomly murdering people and stealing their money.
Money can be spent on new clothes, flashy cars, a variety of weapons, upgrades for vehicles, houses to stash cars and rest at, or even at strip bars, believe it or not...
But that's just the optional parts. There are many, many missions in this game, following the story of Carl Johnson, who has just returned to San Andreas after his mother was killed in a gang shooting. The missions carry on the story, and they start off with running some less than legal errands and petty gang shootings, but after a major event in the plot, which I will not reveal, Carl is sent off to work for Triad leaders, old friends, drug dealers, gang lords, and mafia bosses. You'll find yourself hijacking cars, assassinating reporters, taking over gang territory, protecting contraband helicopters, sneaking through mansions, and even infiltrating the heavily guarded "Area 51" in search of mysterious equipment.
That covered, I think it is safe to say that GTA:SA may last quite a while.
Of course, Grand Theft Auto wouldn't be Grand Theft Auto without its own brand of subtle humour and easter eggs, and San Andreas doesn't dissapoint. Pedestrians will talk to each other, and the conversations are usually very funny. When you are in fights, Carl will say things such as "Bang bang bang! Betcha didn't see this!" while you shoot at enemies, and there is such a variety of things he says that you will be hearing new things all the time. There are many easter eggs throughout the game, from spoof place names to a sign on the top of a bridge stating that "There are no easter eggs up here, go away". Classic.
Well, there you have it. Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas. Get it, or your game collection will never be complete.
Graphics: 7
Sound: 8
Gameplay: 10
Lifespan: 10
Overall: 9
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