my own game reveiw

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

I’ve chosen to review the game grand theft auto san andreas, although is it even worth doing so? Released on the 29^th October 2004 san andreas has to be the best game I personally have ever played, having such a vast and expansive environment and multiple stories lines, characters, minigames and much more that I am sure I will miss one or two things because there is just so many aspects to the game. I am going to break up the game into different elements and discuss them separately in an effort to cover everything.

Setting:

The game is set in the fictional American state of san andreas consisting of three islands which are meant to resemble real places, los Santos, san fiero and las venturas are based on los Angeles, san Francisco and las Vegas. The islands are not total replicas of these places but are stylized accordingly.

Story:

 You play as a young African American man called Carl Johnson or “cj” who has returned home due to the death of his mother although it is unknown exactly how she died. This is the main storyline of the game however finding out the answer is nowhere near as simple as it might seem and will see cj working for a vast array of people to find the truth although it turns out to be a lot closer to home than he thinks. san andreas is very much about American gang culture which encompasses money guns drugs sex and everything else associated.

When first arriving home you are met by two crooked cops, tenpenny and pulaski who strip you of your money and leave you for dead in a rough neighborhood, along with carls family and friends ten penny and pulaski are the main recurring characters of the game.

After your run in with the two officers you head home on a push bike back to your mums house finding an old friend known as big smoke, in the end it turns out big smoke and your supposed friend ryder who lives next door were actually working with the two crooked cops and actually new all the details of your mothers death as the last main story mission see’s an epic chase where you and your brother are trying to kill big smoke.

This is a very brief overveiw of the story line as it is so long that it would take to long to describe in detail and for those reading who haven’t played the game should make a point of doing so.

cj driving, big smoke front left, sweet back left,ryder back right

Main Game play:

 the game is a 3^rd person action/adventure game with an open world/sandbox environment , not all the areas of the game are available to explore at the start or at least you are advised not to leave the first island ( this results in police chasing and trying to killing you).

In order to progress to further areas of the game without being chased by the police you have to complete missions however it is still possible to do this at your own pace and explore as much or as little as you want between missions and because of the various other game play aspects it is fun explore and the game seems to be as much about doing what you want when you want rather than being restricted to having to do mission after mission.

Game play outside of the main story:

After completing the main story which would take you a fair few hours anyway this doesn’t necessarily mean the game has ended as there is massive amount of other things to do throughout san andreas which is one of the reasons I think its such a great game. Personalization is one of the great features as you are able to buy clothes and wear what you want, get a hair cut and tattoos and also go to the gym. After researching into the game as its been a while since I played it I found out that your appearance effects how pedestrians react to you for example if you become fat from eating to many burgers then when you walk around the streets people will comment on your weight which, the game is full of little things like this that when put all together create a great game. As well as just spending your hard earned money on your appearance you can also modify cars with body kits and nitrous etc but also going to the casinos of las venturas and gambling or even just going to a normal betting shop to bet on horses, again its these little elements which make the game special as a lot of games don’t feature much more than a main campaign and multiplayer. One last thing I nearly forgot was collectable items, the two previous gta games included them aswell, in this game there are 100 hidden horse shoe’s throughout the game and also 50 stunt jumps. Although the extra things don’t gain you anything except completion percentage this aspect is out there for the hardcore gamers who like to 100% their games. I personally wouldn’t spend time finding 100 horseshoe’s but there are people out there that would.

Vehicles:

Compared to the previous grand theft auto games san andreas has a lot more vehicles with some entirely new ones such as push bikes, aero planes,jets, a combine harvester, street sweeper, hover craft and even a jet pack. Other vehicles included are standard cars, motorbikes, monster trucks, vans, tanks and boats.

It is also possible to go to a driving school and flying school to gain licenses for these vehicles which is a nice touch and you literally fly anywhere you want

The jet pack

Cheats:

cheats were an integral part of the game for me at least because there were so many, also because it made the game easier to complete e.g. weapons, health, armour and lower wanted level cheats. Aside from these there were a lot more cheats such as spawning vehicles e.g. a tank, a jet,etc blowing up all cars cheat and pedestrian’s riot.

flying boat cheat

Characters:

There are a massive amount of characters in the game most notable of which are officers ten penny and Pulaski who are voiced by Samuel L. Jackson and Chris Penn respectively. The game features a huge amount of voice actors some of which are musicians, to name a few, James Woods, Danny Dyer and Axl Rose. The main character base of the game are cj’s family and friends which consist of his brother “sweet”, sister kendl, friends big smoke and ryder, obviously carl mother is deceased but I am unsure as to the status of his father as I recall it is never actually mentioned.

crooked cops tenpenny (right) and pulaski (left)

Graphics:

The graphics are not the most amazing you will have ever seen but for the time they were not terrible also considering the massive scale of the game world and the amount of rendered assets at one time you can’t really fault it, also the great game play makes up for graphics and personally I don’t have a massive issue with quality of the graphics as some of my favorite games don’t have the best of graphics or are not even 3d.

multiple hydra jets using the spawn cheat

Replayability:

I personally think san andreas has a massive replayabilty factor due to its huge amount of missions, side missions and mini games and if your bored after all that then you can have some fun with the copious amounts of cheats and not to mention the game does not even feature online multiplayer and to be honest I don’t think at the time it really needed it however if it was released at the present time it would definitely feature online play like gta iv incorparated.

100ft high bmx bunny hop cheat

Conclusion:

 I strongly believe this is the best game available on the ps2 if not ever and could only be topped by grand theft auto 5 which is currently in development and is due to be released at some point between now and the early 2013. Having played gta iv I don’t think it has the map size, story length and enough extra mini games and activities which san andreas has, although I cannot complain about the story of gta iv. I think that gta iv was meant to be a lot more realistic than previous titles or what you might call larger than life story lines although I liked the film style un realism of  san andreas for example the mission where you are riding on the back of a motor bike being chased by a massive truck which is obviously homage to the film terminator.

To sum up if you have never played this game, do yourself a favor and play it! After writing this review I actually bought the game again because I remembered how much fun it was.