After five years on the East Coast, it was time to go home...

Hey guys, it has been a long time since I reviewed an video game (or anything not related to vampires for that matter), so I think I should probably talk about one of my favorite classic ones of all time. If you are familiar with Grand Theft Auto, two things comes to mind: open world crime game and controversy. True to that, GTA has never been an stranger to the latter category and has been received with hell of love by gamers and just like any other game, this was pretty much San Andreas' reception. Due to combining all the best elements from previous games like huge sandbox, gang respect, plethora of vehicles and improve on several other aspects, it was considered the best one in the series hands down and setting up the standard for which every open world game that would come afterwards should be measured. With so many open world games of quality released nowadays, I decided to dig up this old gem and reviewed by current standards to see how well it holds up.

Summary

Note: this game takes place before any of the previous installments (notice how there is no number in the title) with some of their main characters featuring in an cameo and making it more or less an prequel, except the story and characters stand in its own right.

Set in 1991, former gang member Carl "CJ" Johnson returns to his home in Los Santos (a fictional version of Los Angeles) to bury his recently murdered mother Beverly. Having spent 5 years in the east coast, cleaning up his acts and hoping to leave his past behind, he is thrust back into it when he witness his hood - the Grove Street - an shadow of its former glory and absolutely estranged from his own family members. He aims to restore it back to power, being opposed by their rival gangs like the Ballas and the Vagos, that have grown more powerful due to drugs trade, some corrupt Grove member who also wants an slice of that cake and the C.R.A.S.H. Police Division, who blackmails CJ by placing some implicating evidence. He will do anything to overcome these obstacles to rise above his station and more importantly, find an place for himself.

Plot and Characters

At first glance, the story is nothing too deep or overly satirical like works that Rockstar would develop later, but its well presented in a way that keeps you engaged and you may find yourself already familiar the characters. The central theme belying the focus of gang warfare is that how much you want to move up in life and abandon your roots or even your principles for that. Loyalty, betrayal and revenge drive up the theme. It's all these little things that the game don't bash your head with it, that you can notice if you are willing to look up beyond for what it is.

CJ is the first attempt at an more likable protagonist, at least compared to his predecessors, depicted as an affable, generally nice individual with an sympathetic past, even if his motives are less than heroic. Unfortunately, his personality didn't go well with most audiences, since many criticized the complete contrast between cutscenes and gameplay, since no matter how likable the story tries to present him, there is nothing stopping the player from going on a murdering rampage. You see, previous protagonists in GTA didn't have this problem; Tommy Vercetti was established to be an psychopath that would kill you for looking at him the wrong way and Claude was an blank slate with no personality at all.

The supporting characters are really great and the dialogue has some great lines. Ryder, Big Smoke and Mike Toreno are among the most hilarious ones. The game's main villain Officer Tenpenny is an delightful corrupt piece-of-sh*t that you just love to hate and can't wait to gun down. Some characters don't fare better than others unfortunately, like Sweet, CJ's older brother, who still keeps giving him a lot of sh*t over abandoning his roots and never moves past this scthick, not even when CJ makes an name for himself and becomes more or less famous.

Gameplay

What there is to say about an third-person open world crime sandbox that you probably don't already know at this point? Oh well, I might as well describe how the gameplay aspects feel. Shooting is nice, even if the cover doesn't really do much and alto-targeting can be an pain, since you can't move from enemy to enemy very easily. Driving feels solid, although vehicles are a lot more fragile than you think they are - it takes surprisingly small effort to damage them to the point they will explode and even have them flip upside down and this includes vehicles like bicycles too because f*ck you. Police officers can be relentless at first glance as they will not stop pursuing with an 3-star rating from up, and if you are on foot, they can spawn from virtually everywhere, but this could have been easily solved by driving to an Sprain & Paint shop which changes your car's painting or just visiting your safehouse to save the game, advancing the time in 6 hours.

San Andreas offers an good mission variety with some chasing, drive-bys and some stealth sequences, although one must be warned that at that point in the series, it was considered an GTA tradition to not have checkpoints under absolute any circumstances. If you failed an mission, you had to start it all over again - that is it. If you die or get arrested in or out of missions, you have your weapons removed along with some of your money. And make no mistake this game is actually quite hard, but for the wrong reasons. Flying missions for example are awful due to the stiff controls, but thankfully they don't appear until much later in the game. An particularly infamous mission called "The Wrong Side of the Tracks" has you driving an motocycle alongside an moving train while your friend Big Smoke shoots at some rival gang members on top of the train. You have to ride at an the perfect position just so that Smoke can fire at them, since he is an terrible shot and can only hit one at the time. Be ready to hear "All you had to do is follow the goddamn train, CJ".

For an hard game as this, it was surprisingly quite easy to make money . You see, the first few missions rewards you with respect and a not too substantial amounts of cash, but if you decide to jack an firefighter truck and press a button to start an side mission where you have to put out fires under an time limit, you can earn lots amounts of money as with each fire put down, your rewards increases. And before the first act ends, an gang territory mechanic is introduced requiring CJ to take over some enemy territory by attacking some enemies and then taking it over for the grove, earning some money and revenue. Trust me you are going to need every money you make, since you have to re-stash all ammo and body armor you have or replace what you lost if you were wasted/busted.

The map is certainly colossal as it includes three major land sections including urban areas and country sides, with plenty of collectibles to find as well as some small activities that can be done for their own sake like visiting the bar, casinos, basketball fiels and so on. Actually it can be considered too big since in order to see anything you want to, you have to do a lot of tedious driving, as fast travel wasn't created at this point yet. However, its not like the whole map is open to you from the beginning, since there are road blocks preventing you from going to other regions until the plots call for it. Try to bypass them and you will have an 4-wanted level rating with some angry as f*ck cops breathing down your neck. Its the game's nice way of saying "You are straying too far from where we want to. Get back before we end you!"Oh yeah, this might be disingenuous to bring up, but this was the first game to allow the character to swim. Before San Andreas, you would drown if you happen to touch an neck-deep body of water.

Also RPG elements are introduced including stuff like Driving, Fat, Fitness, Stamina, Gang Leadership, but most of these stats offer little change in gameplay and they require a lot of grinding to see any visible results. You want to get really buff? You better bust yourself in the gym as much as your body can take. You can even get fat by eating like a pig, even if eating too much will make you puke. Melee combat get some nice evolutions, as you can learn different schools and even take martial arts. Unfortunately these things are ultimately useless, since you seldom find enemies willing to engage in melee and even if some moves can kill in one hit if pulled off correctly, why would you ever need to use them if you have several weapons that can do just that? Because its cool, that is why.

An final word of advice. Cheat codes are insanely fun and definitely make the combat much easier after so many frustration attempts, however be warned that they cause some serious glitchs and bugs on the save file they are used as they can prevent from certain missions of being completed along with countless negative effects. At really best, trying to use some cheats like health and armor won't have effect during missions or you will fail instantly if you type them. If you want to apply the more outlandish type of cheat code or the ones that can't be turned off, better use it on a another safe file than what you are currently using just in case and then you can go wild.

Visual and Sound Effects

Even for the time they were released, graphics are just average - they aren't necessarily bad, but nothing groundbreaking. Stones and trees textures look really grainy and almost if made from paper. The character models looked very plastic, animations were stiff outside of cutscenes, faces were unable to convey emotion and there was always something about characters' hands, their finger seemed to be glued all together. Thankfully the voice acting and the good writing makes up for the limited graphics, and damn do they have some good ones here. Samuel L. Jackson and JAMES WOODS certainly do not get wasted here and make some hilarious deliveries. The radio stations are quite alright to listen, even if I just listen to Radio Los Santos the most, as they are the ones with music that fitted the setting the better, and the rest are just meh.

Final Rating

7/10 - It was quite interesting to see how this game fares today once you remove the nostalgia filter. Sure, many of the flaws are due to limitations given the time it was made rather than downright laziness, but this game still retains some of its charm and fun aspects which makes it an classic. Its worth checking out for any open-world fan, but beware of all the warnings made here.

Thank you guys for reading it. I will see if I can get my reviews back on track and do a lot more of these more frequently. I hope you guys enjoy it and don't forget to share your opinion in the comments. See ya next time =P