Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas [PS2]
This was intended for another site, now that one is closing down... so i share my views with this site, one of my new homes. Enjoy
Game title: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Developer: Rockstar (Rockstar North)
Genre: Action/Adventure
System: PlayStation 2
Ports: Announced XBOX and PC ports.
Number of players: Up to 2 player on certain situations, the main game is one player.
Format: DVD
Introduction
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2004 was the year Rockstar decided a new game of the Grand Theft Auto series, San Andreas. Big ammounts of hype were received on the industry, as Vice City was one of the best sold games of PS2 of all time, and critics gave it a very nice rank. As usual, a polemic series. Foul language, adult situations and storyline are with the series, making this an adult only game.
One of the things players loved about Vice City was the "Freedom" given to the players. On VC, you could go anywhere on the city (AKA Miami) searching for missions, side quest, vehicles stealing... the options were many. San Andreas is no exception, now featuring 3 Cities, Los Santos (Los Angeles), San Fierro (San Francisco) and Las Venturas (I guess is Las Vegas), being the map itself at least 400% bigger than VC!!! Being this alone awesome, what we can find on this whole big cities, and their borders, caughts our attention...
Is SA you control Carl Johnson, who returns to Los Santos after he is released from jail and went away from the gangsta life on the streets. He lost his brother and mother on Los Santos, and returns to the streets. After he returns and hangs up with his old gang friends, he gets enganged in a gang wars, that will go high on temperature reaching Mafia, goverment coverups, drug dealing... heh, why should i spoil this intensive storyline.
Grand Theft Auto series is a third-person view game, focuses on exploring the city, and then going to the missions that are represented on the map and radar as a small circle with a letter or a small logo. Complete all missions, and the main storyline will be completed, but as usual, there are many subquests... the options are infinite, or at least plenty.
Graphics
It is no secret that this may be the lowest point of the entire game, but it's no way bad. Yes, it could be a lot better, but is obviously limited to the PLayStation 2 hardware. It seems that again, Vice City engine has been taken up and upgraded. Color pallete looks better now, showing more realistic colors. People and cars models look better than VC, but this nowhere reaches a peak on PS2 gfx representation. Face models and others are fair simplistic, specially on NPC. They improved on the characters animation, now they are clearer, and it's no way that girls hip is going to fly away =D.
Landscapes and other details are better than previous games of the saga, but again are not as detailed as other PS2 games. Other point we see is the frameskip, probably low. My guess it's that it goes from 15 to 30 frames per second, at least half of top benchmark hardware games. While frame skipping may look bad to gfx whores, my point it's that the game looks FINE AS IT IS! Yes, it would be cooler to look better, but it is behind this gfx what the real gameplay is.
Another thing we don't like is that, on the beginning of the game, specially on Los Santos, there is a predominant ORANGE color... why? Heck i don't know. It seems that in LA everything looks orange-ish when it is getting dark. It looks dumb, while is a big tech aspect, it looks bad and sometimes you will get lost in the big orange sky. Other effects we will see it's a rain effect, that looks stupid also. If you played Silent Hill 4, it's the same effect when you are fighting a ghost. It's a blur effect that looks nothing as rain. Other, copied from Need For Speed Underground games, it's the car high speed blur effect. Reach at least 100 MPH and everything will look blur-ish... heh, looks cool and gives you the "Damn i am fast!" effect, that mixed with the framerate, the result will often be a crash =D
Ahother issue about the gfx it's the heavy pop up present on some high speed chases and airplane cruising. It may be my PS2 lens, but one time in a plane I CRASHED on a BUILDING that it was not RENDERED when i reached there. Meaning, the damn building was invisible when i crashed, and when the plane was burning, it showed up... crap.
But lastly, you will recognize characters, they are all different. Cars is something to be noted of, they look great, and way better than VC (Not reaching Driv3r detail) and while most people will moan you'll be fine on low framerate and pop up on certain situations, it's ok... it's about average.
7 out of 10
Gameplay/Controls
I could go hours writing on this aspect. As i said before, the game notion is to navigate San Andreas and it's cities searching for missions, side quests, mayhem (Killing people for fun, robbing houses, do street racing) and fun. But the game does not stop here.
On the map and the small radar on the screen, Letters and icons will often appear, and they indicate main missions and other important spots on the city. In order to progress in the game, you need to pass every mission. Beware, there are more than 90 missions on the game, and every mission IS DIFFERENT FROM EACH OTHER. The diversity is amazing. From "go from A to B" to "Kill this guy", "protect someone"... it is AMAZING the variety that this game has to offer. You will spend hours of fun doing this variety of missions. You can move on foot, using weapons to kill your targets (and some collateral damage also), vehicles (you can fire on certain vehicles) from cars, to bikes, motorcycles, planes, boats and choppers. You get to use an Apache-like chopper with missiles and machine gun on a mission! ou get to use even a Harrier-like plane with hovering and high speed chases!!! Cool huh? The range is awesome, even bigger than VC, and i didn't think it was possible!
This doesn't sound that different that VC, but there are way more missions, and a range of options... heh, i don't get tired to say that. Side quests are available also, as previous GTA. From Street Racing, to playing pool on a bar, a girlfriend sim... check a lot of the stuff that San Andreas has to offer, you will be amazed. As i said, there are 3 cities and several towns arround, so you must do a lot of investigation to find out everything!
New to the series, it's a "Stats System". Similar to a normal RPG, this game has several stats that go increasing as the game progresses. The main ones, are Max Health (Your life bar), Stamina (The time CJ lasts running before getting tired), Sex Appeal (Don't ask), Reputation (You can sign some bodyguards from your gang), Weapon Skill (Obvious, the skill with the weapon you are holding), Bike Skill (Skill with a motorcycle), Fat (The Fatness of CJ), Muscle (Doing exercise at the Gym you gain the muscles, increasing your size!)........ i could go on and on! The stats are actually important sometimes, like Stamina on gun chases, of Fat, even Muscles when you use a Melee weapon...
As usual on the series, as you take out some people, you will get police attention, and then... let the chase begin. When doing certain missions, you must chase guys, and even have the police shoot you! The stars visible on the right top of the screen, is the Wanted Level.
If you hit a cop, you get one star. Policemen nearby will chase you, if you get away, no problem.
Kill a cop, get 2 stars. More patrols appear, chasing you on bigger distances. Harder than 1.
Still killing cops? Congratulations, you have 3 stars. Swat Team appears to kick your ass.
Still having fun? 4 stars. A chopper apears, gunning you from the air. Some FBI cars chase you.
Why do you hate them? on 5 stars you will get more FBI attention!
6 stars, obviously you want to die. The ARMY shows up, literally. A war tank shows up, and the soldiers are with M-4 rifles.
To get rid of the stars, is so simplistic (And the cop AI isn't as hard as VC was) you must enter a Paint'n'spray (Paint shop for your car), Change your clothes (Heh, i haven't told ya that) or changing your Hair style.
As i mention that you can change clothes and hair styles... yes. The character is customizable as hell. From gaining weight and muscles, to change individualy your shirts, pants, hats... Yes, no "full customes" as Vice City, now they are totally customizable! Have fun with your CJ, making him a fatso, naked guy with hearts boxers! ^^ And other than clothes, in Barber shops you buy hair cuts and beard cuts... and in tatoo parlors you get tatoos, totally visible!
There is more that San Andreas has to offer, it damn amazes me every time i play it.
Controls are an usual excelent mark on the series, and here they are no exception. Walk controls rock, as usual, getting the kick ass Auto Aim on almost every weapon. So, it's a little arcade-ish, and easy to get into. While sometimes you will be surrounded by many enemies on many angles, you may be lost sometimes thanks to the camera, but this doesn't happens to often. God bless the auto aim!
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Vehicle controls rock too, as usual on the series. Controlling cars NICELY is a thing you need to get into, for instant getting used to the high speed chases, i recomend a lot of driving, specially on bikes. It is not that hard to get into, but it has a learning curve. They have improved, and this time i aplaud, the Airplane and Helicopter controls, making them waaay more arcade than before. Thanks rockstar for letting me use that WWII airplane nicely ;)
10 out of 10
Music/Sound
GTA Vice City was an excelent work on music and voice acting, and GTA San Andreas is no exception. The voice acting here is excelent also, bringing a realism to the cut scenes that is really just amazing. As for the music, as usual on the series is excelent, but i am not a fan of Hip Hop. Because SA developes on the 90's, the music has the 90's feeling, so we have a range of selection that is very cool, although i liked VC soundtrack better, SA doesn't fall behind. Is an excelent selecion of music, using the famous "Radio Stations" system, having several stations you get to choose the music style that you want in the moment.
An excelent work, a great voice acting and a fairly good music selection.
An overview of SA voice cast: (Samuel Jackson is here!)
Cast overview, first billed only:
Young Maylay .... Carl 'C.J.' Johnson (voice)
Faizon Love .... Sean 'Sweet' Johnson (voice)
Yolanda Whittaker .... Kendl Johnson (voice) (as Yo Yo)
Clifton Powell .... Melvin 'Big Smoke' Harris (voice)
Mc Eiht .... Lance 'Ryder' Wilson (voice) (as MC Eiht)
Jonathan Anderson .... Jeffrey 'OG Loc' Cross (voice)
The Game .... Mark 'B-Dup' Wayne (voice)
Big Boy .... Barry 'Big Bear' Thorne (voice)
Eugene Jeter Jr. .... Emmet (voice)
Ice-T .... Madd Dogg (voice)
Clifton Collins Jr. .... Cesar Vialpando (voice)
Samuel L. Jackson .... Officer Frank Tenpenny (voice)
Chris Penn .... Officer Eddie Pulaski (voice)
Armando Riesco .... Officer Hernandez/Pedestrian (voice)
Cynthia Farrell .... Catalina (voice)
9.5 out of 10
Fun Factor and Replay value
If i didn't tell you before, SA is loads of fun. It is indeed very long, and may take you from 40 hours to complete it 100%, having fun all over the way. There are more than 90 missions, all of them different, and that doesn't count side quests at all. Even the girl simulator is fun at times, and necesary in some missions...
But, i guess that when you have completed it and you have nothing else to do, SA is still there for fun purposes, for doing all over again sub quests. It is a very long game (Sometimes it feels too long for an action game, but when i feel tired a great mission pops up)
The 2 player game side missions are not as brilliant as the game itself. While player 1 controls CJ, player 2 controls a minor character (this event is triggered at the "Massacres" icons) or a girlfriend (On girlfriend houses) and are often for mayhem purposes. While Massacres give you some points on your final percentage, this mode will be evaded most of the time, unless you want to kill lots of people on the game. The 2P game still developes on one screen, there is no division, so the range of movement is very limited beetwen the players. Just use it when you are bored.
9.8 out of 10
Overall
Game Haters aside, GTA San Andreas is an excelent game, one of the best games of the year, if not the best. It has many fanboys out there, yes, but if you are casual, bypass the flaws that may present, if you are open minded on in-game violence, you will se beyond all that a wonderful game. Yes, it is nothing new, rather, GTA SA gathers many elements we saw on Shen Mue, RPGs, action games, fly simulators, Racers and even Girlfriend sims, and see all those awesome elements on one game, it is a very nice experience how developers really efforted on this piece of software.
Maybe the gfx aren't as pretty, but that's not what i look for into a game. If you liked previous games of the series, this one will fit your game library. If not, take a shot at it, you may fall in love with it... Also check out GTA Vice City, still for this days standards, it is a pretty good game.
Graphics= 7 out of 10
Gameplay/Controls= 10 out of 10
Music/Sound= 9.5 out of 10
Fun/Replay Value= 9.8 out of 10
Promedy of values= 9.075
Final grade (Not an average!)= 9.5
