Review - Grand Theft Auto : San Andreas

Grand Theft Auto : San Andreas is the next games released after GTA:Vice City around in November. Of course you already knew that but that was for the noobs who have no clue about what GTA: SA is/ It is a Free-Roam game where you are left out in a big city, you can do anything you want to (withing the game limits) from jacking cars, earning money, completing storyline missions or just some sight seeing.

Though the PC and Xbox version (about to release in 2-3 month from now) will be no different from the one on ps2 now, the PC version will be the best looking out of the three, considering your graphics card and in game display settings. On the ps2, the Draw Distance is Very Low. I mean when flying in a Helicopter and going at full speed, you will see the road clearly below you, but you will not see the cars, trees or any pedestrian. At one point, a Tree just Suddenly appeared in front of me when i was pretty sure that the road ahead was clear, and i was in some major shock! This is the only downpoint of the GTA SA on the playstation 2 and it doesn't actually bother you that much in gameplay but its noticeable.



Grand Theft Auto San Andreas has been introduced with very real type living basic stuff such as eating and working out regularly, which has been done pretty well. It can also get annoying because you'll have to do that everyday unless you keep your charecter really fat, and that means eating a lot and no gym. There are 4 different branch of restaurants to choose from which include a pizza place, a burgar place, another burgar place and a proper dinning restraunt which only become available when taking out your girlfriend on a date. Each branch of restaurant have their own menus and you will have to make your order at the counter just like the real life Mcdonalds. There are plenty of meals to choose from, for example if you pick salad meal available for $2 you will not gain any fat and will give you energy so you can work out in the gym or you can go for the heavy meals that will help you put on weight, though if you max out your muscles in the gym and gain some weight you don't look bad at all, just if you were wondering.

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There are three different city's in the game - Los Santos, San Fierro, and Las Venturas. If you don't feal like driving you can take a train to go on to different city's in no time or you can a buy a ticket at the airport to go on planes instead, or better yet, hack in an airport and hijack the planes is my choice. Driving from one city to another isn't bad too and will only take you around 20 mins depending on your speed, because the highways are fast. On a bike its faster. Each City has their own gym, and each gym has their own use, one you can use for muscles, one you can use for improving your fighting style. That's the basic explained.


Now, Girlfriends! They are a PAIN!! I forgot to mention it above but i don't thing this will not be gone in the PC version. But it isn't that bad if you like wasting your time EVERY SINGLE day above that not 1 but 5 girlfriends! it sucks. For instance in my case right now - after eating i go to gym, then the whole day is spend on dating girlfriends because each girlfriend has their own time to go on date so you'll have to wait for them to come out. And you'll be dating them for a pretty long time, a long time are the strong words here. There is a progress bar with each GF you have, and getting the bar to reach 100% is very tuff. On dates, yoo'll have to take them to the place they want to go - usually they don't mind if take them to a restaurant. But she has to like the foood, or else the progress bar will fall back down. At some point you'll have to take them out for a drive or a disco club or a bar. a lot of hassle if you ask me.



Don't like the charecters hairstyle ? Wanna get him tattoed up ?? U got it. There is a Tattoo parlour, and lots of Hairdressers all over the city. You can get your favourite hairstyle done. And ive filled my Charecter up with lots of tatoo's all over his body, check out the scrennshots for more-

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Now Cars, Bikes!! C'mon we are talking about some stylish sleek old school vehicles here baby! The cars are awesome. The bikes just Rule!! lots of different bikes and you don't keep falling of them every other minute just like in Vice City on a PCJ 600!! The PCJ 600 is back, along with 2 other sports bike which are faster than PCJ 600 inluding Nrg-500 which is the fastest bike in the game. You'll still see a lot of cars from Vice City but not that often. Comet, Inferno, Oceanic and many other cars from Vice City are in this game but are pale when compared to the new cars featured. A huge amount of new fast sports cars have been introduced, you definitely won't be dissapointed.
Then there are these Mod-Garages you unlock later the game, which make GTA: SA a little NFS Underground type thing. You can change the color of the car, add a roof, change tyres, along with numerous other little things you can add on to your car like making it a Lowrider, or adding the Nitrous speed. Once the car is fast enough, you can activate the nitrous, and it'll just be like NFS U, the background goes hazy, and your car is just super fast!! The screen hazy thing happens when your car or bike is really fast and its just overwhelming pleasure to be controlling the Joystick that time i tell ya'!! Driving, in Gta San Andreas is one of main reasons of the success of this game, it is 50x better than Vice City or Gta3.

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The MAP is huge, three different city's, and the city outskirts! The Country Side plus that!! The Country side is like the 4rth city in the game.

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Not to forget you can also Swim! And they have a sweet swimming system in the game. The more Stamina you have (now, that again depends on how much you work out in the gym) the more faster you can swim, you can go underwater for a little amount of time. Swimming is really cool.



But above all that - This games playing time is enormous!! now look at my Stats for intance- playing time - 95 Hrs - Percent Completed- 70%!!
I finished Vice City in 40-45 hrs of playtime when compared! A lot of missions plus you don't go collecting Hidden Packages anymore, instead there are 3 different types of hidden packages type thing to collect all over the three city's!! In Los Santos you have to locate these Graffiti tags and spray them with colour cans, and these are really hard to find and they are 50 to find and spray in total. In the next 2 city's you have got to find wishbones and available only underwater in lakes and sea's these Shell type things. In total, there are 200 Hidden Packages type thing you must find all over the entire huge area! Plus that, if you have enough money to gamble, you can go to full working Casino's!! Casino's are excellent and include almost every game you'd find in a typical real life casino! Snooker, Street Basketball and list keeps going on......

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One of the best things in the game are the Robber missions! These are so done in detail, a burglar noob can use this feature of the game to train himself up! No Kidding!! You must find this speacila van for this that is disguised as a Police Van. Only when the sun goes down, you can enter houses, pick up stuff like TV and Stereo sets, crouch really slow and make sure that the house owners don't wake up. Some house owners don't sleep, and are generally watching TV on their sofa that's when it goes all wrong and not before long you'll have a 3 star police rating :bleh: So you've got to get in houses when the owners are sleeping otherwise if any person in the house see's you, you've just gotta run your *** off!! This is just the brief explanation of the Burglar missions, there are so done in detail, i won't let my younger brother even do that missions because i don't think youngsters should be doing this, you'll know it yourself once you experience it.


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The storyline is good. Carl Johnson has returned to his hometown after 5 yrs. His mother is dead, and must go back to his brother. But the bad old day's come back because a couple of cops who used to bully him recognize him even after 5 years. Carl's brother explains him how their gang cannot keep up with the wars, now that a lot of members of gang and his family are dead, and its up to Carl Johnson to regain the gang and take over Los Santos, his hometown. And the story goes on......

A lot of F-words not to mention, so i'd really reccomend keeping the volume mute or low if you have parents in the same room.


If you didn't know, in the recent Spike TV's Official Video Game Awards- GTA San Andreas bagged the game OF THE YEAR award, Half-Life 2 bagged the PC game of the year award and HALO 2 didn't have much luck. Plus the Game of the year award, it also got nominated and won several other awards inlcuding the best performanceby a human Male- Samuel L.Jackson. Also Grand Theft Auto San Andres is the only game to have retained the Number 1 rank position even after 3-4 months after its release at Gamespot!

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All in all, this game is the only reason to get a ps2, but now the PC and Xbox users don't have to wait that long. If you don't get Gta San Andreas as soon as it releases, then you certainly are missing the greatest game the Gaming Industry ever produced.


Feel free to ask me any questions you have about or want to know about this game. I'll be glad to answer.

:thumbsup:


Screenshots selected from " Gamespot.com "

well done...a great review...
in any case, i'll get the game as soon as it arrives..:)

Quote:

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A lot of F-words not to mention, so i'd really reccomend keeping the volume mute or low if you have parents in the same room.

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lol..i recommend getting a headphone instead so that u don miss out on other things...:)

Its hitting the PC - June 7th, 2005.

BUT -

http://www.gtagaming.com/

Check the news of 25th of Jan, it say's it'll only be included on a DVD!


but i kinda' doubt it, it has to be on CD's too because majority don't own a DVD Drive yet!

awesome review !!

completed the game yesterday. Finshed all storyline missions. But a glitch (kinda' like Ice Cream Factory save glitch from Vice City) will now stop me from ever getting 100%. But still having fully completed the storyline was cool.

nice review....params7

nice review..good screenshot too.. i would like to buy this game..what is the minimum requirement to play this game??

good detailed review....nice work!!

Following are the minimum requirements of your pc to play GTA-SAN ANDREAS:

Supported Operating Systems are:

Windows 2000 Professional (Workstation) (plus Service Pack 1 or higher)
plus DirectX 9

Windows XP (Home and Professional) (plus Service Pack 1 or higher)
plus DirectX 9


Minimum Hardware Requirements:

1GHz Intel Pentium III or AMD Athlon Processor
256 MB of RAM
8 speed DVD-ROM Drive
3.6 GB of free Hard Disk space for a minimal install
64 MB Video Card with DirectX 9 compatible drivers
("GeForce3" or better)
DirectX 9 compatible Stereo Sound Card
Keyboard
Mouse


Recommended Hardware Requirements:

Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon XP processor (or better)
384(+) MB of RAM
16 speed DVD-ROM drive
4.7 GB of free Hard Disk space for a full install
128(+) MB Video Card with DirectX 9 compatible drivers
("GeForce4" or better)
DirectX 9 compatible Surround Sound Card
Game pad with twin axis analogue controls (USB or Joystick Port)
Keyboard
Mouse

hey i have a p3 933 mhz with dvdrom and 256 mb ram and geforce4 mx 440 pci card and 64mb ram

so will the game run?

i hav played this game on my ps2

nice review & also the sreen shot is excellent