Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Almost, but not quite"

I was first introduced to the GTA series by a friend in the 3rd grade, who let me borrow GTA2 for the PS1. It was one of the most awesome games I had ever played. The swearing, bloody violence and the ability to pass wind instantly pulled me into the crazy world of Grand Theft Auto. It's focus on gang-related crime seemed to warrant another game in the series, this time in 3D for the next generation of video game consoles. GTA3 started the sandbox style gameplay, Rockstar improved on this with GTA: Vice City, and in 2005 came out with San Andreas. Vice City was my favourite of the series, and I felt that San Andreas didn't really improve a lot, except for more features. While the game is fantastic it doesn't quite reach the level of the previous game.

Let's start with the story, seeing as the series is quite heavy on plot, mostly about betrayal and trust. You play as Carl Johnson, a man who's been away from his family and gang. When he returns home, he is framed for homicide and finds out his mother was murdered, his family and gang are falling apart. Now he has to find out what happened to his mother, and pull back his family. I found this story to be fairly interesting, with a good twist, however the story and twists from Vice City, I felt were much better.

Characters
I'm going to start with the main character, CJ. I have a few problems with CJ. He seems to be very negative at times, but at others very arrogant, not exactly a good mix. His brother Sweet is pretty cool, and so are the rest of the characters, especially Officer Tenpenny, possibly one of the best video game villains ever. Even though he is incredibly evil he is still very likeable, funny and also quite threatening at the same time. It was also good to see some of the characters from the old games here, examples are, Ken Rosenberg from Vice City and Catalina and Claude from GTA3.

Visuals
This is where things start to get a little bit tricky. The map for the game is massive, although some parts like empty grassland or desert seem a bit wasted and unnecessary. The graphics are still pretty much the same as the other GTA games, but look a little worse, the characters look a little blockier and I'm not a fan of the heat effects and kind of dull colour. Although with this update of the series they added heaps of different models of people and vehicles so there is lots more variety rather than the same 20 or so civilian models in previous games.

Game play
The game play basically follows the same formula as the other two games. The missions all vary and are pretty interesting and sometimes really fun. Missions are generally medium in difficulty, however some can be easy and some fairly difficult. So the game overall holds up a good challenge. Now, one of the biggest things about San Andreas are all the extra side missions, features and mini-games. The great thing about GTA is that it was a free world and you didn't have to do missions all the time. You were always given an option of mission, or screw around a bit. The good thing about San Andreas is that while it has a massive world, it gives you heaps of things to do. Don't want to hunt down the people who murdered your family members? Go get a haircut, play basketball, dance, gamble or have some CJ time at the local strip club. Getting new threads, a haircut or even a tattoo, helps to personalize your character and is a nice touch, it's fun when you first dance or play basketball, but it can get old fairly quickly.

The other main new inclusions to the GTA series is the planes. They are pretty fun to fly and are good for navigating the large San Andreas map quickly. In this GTA game, you can now go on dates with women. A couple of these women are crucial to the plot and the others are optional. You have to take her out on a date regularly though, these are fun and funny at first, but again, get old and annoying. Gang wars are new, gather up a crew and take on a gang for more territory. This helps when getting around so you don't have those pesky gang members shooting at you when you drive through their territory.

Of course, when you're tired of doing these sorts of activities, you can go back to what is basically the main focus of GTA, mindless murder. Mowing people over with your car, getting into fights with people, shooting people or cars, it's still as fun as ever. The only disappointment being the lack of rampages, which were very fun and gave that extra thrill to killing in the other games. All the old side missions, like taxi driving, ambulance and fire truck missions are all still here. Also included, are valet missions, trucking, quarry missions and a few others. Other things include some cool arcade games and billiards which again can get old quickly. There are heaps of things to do and places to go in San Andreas. Many buildings are purchasable to give yourself plenty of hideouts and a reason to get more money.

Sound
The sound effects in this game are very good. The only real downfall was, in my opinion, the weapon sounds which I thought sounded kind of poor and not of the same quality as other GTA games. The vehicles all sound different and great, explosions are still neat and the voice acting is just fantastic. Each cast member really delivers their lines well and the script is well written and funny. My only problem being the comments CJ makes at times, which are arrogant and annoying. The big drawcard for me with the GTA games is the radio. San Andreas has fabulous radio stations but really, just wasn't as good as Vice City's. My main favourites are the talkback stations which are hilarious, but the other stations are also great with plenty of music tracks.

In my opinion Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas doesn't reach the same level of Vice City but is still a superb game. It has improved with more features and more to do but a lot of these novelty mini games get old too quickly. The game has some minor flaws but will still definitely entertain with its engaging story and formulaic but still fun GTA game play and shouldn't be missed.