Always one step ahead of the flames. CJ finds out that his mom was murdered, and comes home to Los Santos for the funeral. Turns out that his gang is in disarray, most of his friends are dead, and corrupt police offers now rule over the gangs of the city. It's time to take the 'hood back. NOTE: Some of the images used in this review show modified content. These changes do not affect the mature content of the game unless otherwise stated in the "mods" section.
1. Gameplay _ Before the actual “review” begins, let me give a disclaimer. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has far too much content for me to include in a single review. I could write a 30-page essay on all of the aspects of this game that fit into any of the normal categories below, but in the interest of time (and my sanity) I have condensed everything down to as much of the “serious” content as possible. _That being said, keep in mind that San Andreas is a “sandbox” game, meaning that the player is free to do almost anything. If the player wants to take a car, drive up on a crowded sidewalk, and mow down 30 innocent civilians in a horrible hit-and-run simulation, the player is free to do so. If the player wants to pick up 3 prostitutes and have an orgy in his car, he’s free to do that as well. _However, the player can go through the entire game without ever having sex with a prostitute or running over a civilian. It’s unlikely that a player would be that good at driving, but it’s possible. I can’t rate the game based on those “potentials”, but the stuff that the game forces the player to do in the missions and mini-games more than makes up for this. _
The Grand Theft Auto series has a history of borderline satire that is deeply rooted in the target era’s culture. San Andreas takes the turbulent times in early 90’s Los Angeles and makes it into a huge, intricate storyline where the player has to complete missions and leave a trail of dead that extends from Los Santos (Los Angeles) to San Fierro (San Francisco) and then to Las Venturas (Las Vegas). _First, the positives. Grand Theft Auto has a history of awesome open-world environments with long storylines, and San Andreas kicks that to an even larger level. Even knowing exactly how to complete missions and having more than enough weaponry and ammunition to take down a full-scale army of pixilated gangsters, I still ended up playing this game for easily 12 to 18 hours. That amount of gameplay also doesn’t include the absurd amount of hidden content that the player can find all throughout the game, so there’s definitely enough content to go around. _The characters, while not always believable, are interesting enough to be engaging. While some characters fulfill their role better than others, there are usually clearly defined lines. The characters you are supposed to hate, you hate, while the characters you are supposed to like, you like. It may seem like a no-brainer, but there have been far too many games that don’t effectively do this. _The mods also are a serious plus. Ignoring the “Hot Coffee Mod” (discussed in painful detail in the “Mods” section below), the vast majority of this game is spent travelling from one location to another. The ability to change the game’s boring seemingly limited selection of cars for a wide variety of recognizable (and awesome) models gives this game a level of fun unseen in other similar games. Who wouldn’t want to drive around a police Lamborghini or fly a B-2 Spirit? _Now for the things that could have been improved. First, the main character was unbelievably annoying. It wasn’t his personality or what he said but more of what he did that just left me wondering what the heck I was doing. For some reason, the main character CJ does exactly what he’s told no matter how idiotic the idea is. _This was especially aggravating with any mission that had to do with the character “OG Loc”. OG Loc is a terrible wannabe rapper who has no talent and no brains. For some reason the main character is nice enough to OG Loc to go around and do random tasks. If it were me, I would be hard-pressed to give a person like OG Loc the time of day, but for some reason my character not only volunteers to drive OG Loc around the city as he kills his gay prison lover but also agrees to steal a successful rap artist’s (named Mad Dog) rhyme book and kill that artist’s manager. _Then, later in the game, the player saves Mad Dog from a suicide attempt and decides to help Mad Dog get back to the top. This involves going back to Los Santos and stealing the rhyme book back from OG Loc. The game fails to justify why CJ helps out OG Loc in the first place and then why he turns his back on OG Loc to help Mad Dog. _Unfortunately, this isn’t an isolated incident. The main character CJ is always a robotic puppet who goes around and does what people tell him regardless of how dangerous or illogical the task. He NEVER stands up for himself, and the only reason he ends up “fighting the power” at the end of the game is because someone tells him to. The only reason he ends up rising to greatness his because he can accomplish any task that is given to him. Even when he’s seen as a “leader”, it’s only ever because he knows how to get something done. But he’s always the one receiving the orders and hardly ever the one giving the orders. _When I first played this game, it was unbelievably awesome. The large-scale open world environment, the variety of missions (most of which seem very original), and the sheer customizability of this game made this an awesome game for its time. It was definitely better than the competition. But now that I have had some time to think things over, I’m left feeling very disappointed. Where I thought I would be able to talk about the positives of this game for pages, I’m left wondering why I originally enjoyed the game so much. _
This game is extremely long. There are dozens upon dozens of missions that the player will have to complete in order to finish the main storyline. There are also at least a dozen minigames that a player can complete for extra advantages in the game. For example, if the player completes all 12 levels of the firetruck minigame, he can become completely fireproof. _There are also a number of different types of hidden items that can be found in the game. Oysters can be found underwater, lucky horseshoes in Las Venturas, etc. This game will definitely give the player a ton of content to explore. _
Since this is an older game, it gave me some serious problem with my newer hardware. The actual gameplay was relatively smooth, but the game discontinued support for widescreen resolutions. This meant that instead of using the most recent version of the game I had to use one of the oldest versions in order for my correct resolution to work. Otherwise, the game would have seen stretched and distorted on my monitor. _There were a few specific problems I had with the game itself. First, the game’s save system is archaic and can be unbelievably frustrating. In order for the player to save the game, he must walk into a floppy disk that is found within every safe house. The player cannot save during a mission and there is no checkpoint system anywhere in the game. _Unfortunately, this means that if the player dies during a mission he has to restart that mission completely. There were a number of missions that I was just about to finish when I died or the game crashed, which meant that I had to restart the entire mission. It got very annoying very quickly. _There are two particular missions that were unbelievably aggravating, especially the first times I attempted them. In the first mission, the player has to drive a dirt bike alongside a moving train while his passenger shoots at four enemy gang members who are standing on top of the train. The problem is that the passenger is an unbelievably poor shot and the angle that the passenger needs in order to be able to hit the targets leaves an extremely small area that the player has to stay in throughout the entirety of the mission. _While it is not impossible to complete the mission successfully, it requires a skilled player who can use snap judgment and a good understanding of practical geometry. The passenger has to kill all four of the targets before the train leaves the city, which leaves a very small margin of error. _The second mission is one where the player has to perform an absurd mid-air skyjacking of a plane. The skyjacking portion is described in greater detail in the “extreme sports” section below, but the frustration has very little to do with the absurd plane-to-plane jump that the player performs mid-flight. The player has to fly a propeller plane just above a private jet. The problem is that the propeller plane flies at exactly the same speed as the private jet (I’ve checked), which means that instead of flying up behind the plane like the game suggests the only way to successfully complete the mission is to fly in front of the plane and slow down. _This doesn’t sound nearly as complicated as it is, so let me try and explain this. You’re flying forward trying to stay just above a plane that flies at a constant rate. You have to try and slow down without losing altitude (good luck with that) and try to fly at an angle that matches the plane behind you. If you look behind you, the controls feel inverted so you have to take very brief glances back and if you slow down too much and miss you basically have to restart the mission. _If I could have flown any other plane this mission would have been relatively simple, but because I was stuck in this slow propeller-based junker I was left wishing I could skip forward in the storyline. _There is also one mission that requires that the player improve his swimming skill to a certain degree before the mission could start. The problem with this, however, is that improving this skill takes a lot of time. The player has to swim for a long time (at least 30 minutes) in order to get his skill high enough to attempt the mission. The swimming required is just tedious work, as it does not improve the ease of the mission by any significant amount. 2. Parental Notices _
Violence in this game is surprisingly mild. The player can use weapons to shoot enemies. The types of weapons vary, but most simply cause an enemy to be damaged and fall down dead. Blood will eventually pool around the dead body, but the body will disappear very quickly. _The player can get headshots which will cause the enemy’s head to disappear as if it was shot off or exploded. A fountain of blood will shoot up into the air from the target’s neck. _Flamethrowers and Molotov Cocktails can be used to light targets on fire. Those on fire will often run and scream until the fire goes out or until the target dies. _If the player has a knife, he has the ability to sneak up behind enemies and stab them in the neck. This is considered a stealth kill and will allow the player to remain undetected. _
The player eventually can get girlfriends (yes, multiple girlfriends). The player can go on dates with these girlfriends (one girlfriend at a time). If successful, the date will result in an increased influence with the girlfriend. After a certain percent of influence is gained, the girlfriend will give the player access to a particular unique item. This can sometimes be a unique car or a unique ability. _Eventually, with enough influence, the girlfriend will invite the player into her home for some “coffee”. If the player accepts, the camera will stay outside of the home, but muffled sexual noises can be heard coming from the house. _If you’re looking for more information on the “Hot Coffee Mod” that is based on the system just described, see the “Mods” section below. _In order for the player to gain the keycards need to pull off a heist of a casino, he has to seduce a female employee of the casino. The female employee is into BDSM, so the player has to go to a sex shop, get a gimp suit, and go to her house. He then kills the man that she was supposed to have sex with and goes to her house. The camera stays outside of the house, but muffled sex noises can be heard. The player will also have to go into a sex shop. The only thing that the player can do in the sex shop is buy a "gimp suit" for the mission just described. _Soon after the player leaves Los Santos, he will meet Catalina, an bipolar and sadistic woman who has the player rob a number of business. After the first or second robbery, the player’s character will be invited into her house. The camera stays outside, but the dialog clearly implies that she is torturing him before they have sex. _Some of the radio advertisements are extremely sexual in nature. They are satirical in nature, but some things like the ad for the male cologne or for the “Glory Hole Theme Park” have a definite hidden meaning. _There are a number of strip clubs that the player can go into. Strippers will dance on the stage while men (and sometimes women) will stand around and watch. The player can throw money at the stripper, who will do some sort of seductive move and then change dances. _Within the strip clubs, the player can go into a back room for a private dance. The stripper will enter and will give the player a lap dance. As the player pays for more private dances, the stripper that dances for the player will change. In general, the more times a player pays for private dances, the more attractive the dancers will be. _Throughout the game the player will be able to pick up prostitutes who walk on the sidewalks. These prostitutes are extremely common. The player can “pick up” the prostitute in a car, drive to a remote location, and have sex with the prostitute. The player will lose a bit of money and, in exchange, gain health. Having sex with a prostitute can give the player up to 125 health (the normal limit is 100). _Along a similar line, there is a pimping minigame that the player can engage in. If the player enters the proper car, he can pick up prostitutes and drop them off for customers. After a time, he will pick up the same prostitutes and take a cut of their money. If the player completes a certain level within the minigame, he will unlock the ability to have prostitutes pay him to have sex with them. _One of the characters, Maccer, has a chronic masturbation problem. There are very few times in the game when the character isn’t masturbating. _When the player first meets two other characters, the player finds out that the characters gave herpes to a nearby hick farm girl. The girl describes it as the “itchy red bumps” or something along that line. _
For the most part, substances are portrayed in a negative light. Narcotics are synonymous with corruption and insanity, and both the main character CJ and his brother Sweet stay away from them and, as a result, come out on top. Those characters that get involved in drugs, with one exception, are seen as corrupt and evil and all end up dead. _With that said, drug use is extremely common throughout the game. Characters will smoke various types of drugs using everything from homemade cigarettes to large bongs. The specific substances aren’t usually clear, but the fact is that they get high enough to be affected yet are still sober enough to give the player coherent orders. _There are a number of characters who can be seen smoking throughout the game. What they are smoking is usually unclear, but sometimes it looks like a cigar. _One of the characters, Ryder, is constantly smoking marijuana. He refers to it as different things, but some of the references are clearly about marijuana. _The player finds out that many of his friends have been corrupted by some hardcore drug. I’m not sure exactly what the drug is, but knowing the area it is likely either crack cocaine or heroin. The characters have essentially become slaves to their drug dealers. _The player comes into Ryder’s house to discover that Ryder is cooking some sort of drug on his stove. He describes the drug as “wet”, which my research says is marijuana mixed with formaldehyde. I would have thought this combination would kill the user. _Drug dealing is also present throughout the game. Dealers will stand on the streets, selling drugs to passersby. The player has to kill a few drug dealers during one of the missions. _There is also more than one mission where the player will have to enter a large-scale drug production warehouse. The player inevitably destroys (or is involved in the destruction) of both facilities. _
Gambling is present in the game, but it’s almost a side note compared to the rest of the content. The player will have to complete a series of missions within Las Venturas, a city based on Las Vegas, and within the large casinos the player can play a few different types of casino games. The most obvious of these games are the video poker and blackjack that are easily visible as soon as a player walks into the casinos. _However, I soon found these games boring and completely pointless. They function just like a real game with no added benefit. The odds of winning the games are extremely small and as a result the player will often lose money very quickly when playing the games. _There is also one mission where the player will rob a bookie, but the player doesn’t seem to be able to bet on any of the horse races. 3. Other Factors _
The console versions of this game were released with some controversy but nothing that wouldn’t normally be expected from a Grand Theft Auto game. Around nine months later, the PC version was released. Soon afterward, something happened. _A game modder went through the lines of code in the game to find things that developers took out or left hidden. It’s not an uncommon thing. Developers usually just comment out partially created parts of the game in case those parts want to be added in later as DLC or a game patch. It also prevents problems if aspects of those partially-created projects are used in other parts of the game. _This game modder found and reinserted what is now known as the “Hot Coffee Mod”. Here’s what happens: _In the “vanilla” version of the game, the player will take his girlfriend to her house after a successful date and she will invite him in for “coffee”. If the player accepts, a brief cutscene will play (as described above in the “sexuality” section). That’s it. _If the “Hot Coffee Mod” is applied to the game, the player’s girlfriend will invite him in for coffee. Instead of switching to a cutscene, the player jumps to a minigame inside of the girl’s house. The player still has pants on, but the girl is on her knees in front of him and simulates oral sex. Afterward, the girl will get on the bed and the player will dry hump her (again, with pants on). The player will have to hit the arrow keys in time with the humping in order to successfully “complete” the minigame. _The minigame was in poor taste and definitely should not have been included in the game, but I don’t believe it deserved the controversy that it got. Take a look at the rest of the content that ALL players, even those playing on consoles, are actively exposed to. While the Hot Coffee Mod would be completely inappropriate for a game like Half-Life 2 or Bioshock, is it really that much worse than the rest of the content in this game? _My problems with the hot coffee mod are that the thing is absurdly boring and, on faster computers, is often broken. If the player refuses to have “coffee” with the girlfriend, he loses significant influence points, but completing the minigame after every date is extremely tedious. It’s almost as repetitive as the characters’ actions in the hot coffee mod. Secondly, on my computer I found that the speed of the minigame was far too fast for the player to keep up, which meant that often times I would fail the absurdly simple minigame and lose even more influence with my girlfriend than if I had rejected the coffee. _Let me also make one more thing clear, the hot coffee mod can only be seen on the PC version of the game and only after a mod has been applied to the game. The current retail version of the game does not include the Hot Coffee Mod anymore, and as a result obtaining the mod is nearly impossible now. The player would have to actively search for a mod that re-inserts the Hot Coffee Mod into the game. _Aside from the Hot Coffee Mod, there are a number of “adult” mods or mods that increase the amount of adult content in the game. In my brief search I found mods that make all of the prostitutes on the street and the strippers in the strip clubs naked. I also found a mod that makes the “Adult” store have pornographic content. _That being said, I found this mod much more enjoyable with the non-adult mods in the game, particularly the car mods. The player can change the appearance and handling of every vehicle in the game. Considering that the vast majority of the game is spent travelling from one location to another, I found it much more enjoyable to drive around a Toyota Supra or a Police Lamborghini Gallardo than the cars that are included in the game. _
There is one mission where the player must kill a prostitute and her sugar daddy because the sugar daddy is trying to take the prostitute away. The sugar daddy turns out to be a corrupt stereotypical Christian pastor. As the player begins shooting at the pastor’s stretch limo, the pastor can clearly be heard telling the prostitute to begin performing oral sex on him. _One of the characters, Big Smoke, constantly makes references to quotes from “The Book”. It can be assumed that he’s trying to quote passages from The Bible, but the passages are not biblical at all. They’re mostly just confusing, vague platitudes that loosely refer to what the player is feeling or involved with. _There are also some crosses on churches and gravestones. _
This game could not possibly exist without the idea of laws and the rebellion against those laws. The player, a known gangster who goes around killing people just because he is told to do so, is constantly in conflict with the law enforcement of the land. While the game may seem “unlawful” to the outside observer, the laws in the game are only “loosened” (significantly). There are laws that the player will benefit from following and law enforcement that will enforce the laws with lethal force. _Some actions are more serious than others. Committing acts of violence in front of a police officer will give a player a one-star wanted rating. Wanted ratings can go up to six stars, after which the US military (complete with harrier jets and attack helicopters) will attempt to put the player down like a rabid dog. There are few players that could last more than 30 seconds with a 6 star wanted rating, but the amount of carnage that a player has to commit in order to get to that level of wantedness is absurdly high. _Getting the wanted rating back down is a very simple process. The player can walk through a police “bribe” (which are floating star-shaped symbols) that will reduce the wanted level by one star. This can be a significant difference and, towards the higher wanted levels, spell the difference between life and death. The “Pay ‘N Spray” (discussed below) is also a viable option for lowering a wanted level. _Aside from this, the idea of police corruption is pivotal for the main storyline. CJ is constantly harassed and threatened by three corrupt police officers. These officers, led by the notorious Officer Tenpenny, force CJ to commit a variety of illegal and often times heinous acts in order to benefit themselves. They threaten CJ by saying that the lives of his sister and brother will be taken if he ever refuses to do what they tell him to do. These officers are loosely based off of the narcotics officers involved in the Rampart Police scandal in the 90s. _Gang warfare and organized crime are also extremely common elements in San Andreas. CJ represents the “Grove Street Families”, and are in constant conflict with a number of other gangs in San Andreas. Other, more well known organized crime families, such as the mafia and triad, also make themselves known throughout the game. CJ will become deeply involved with these organizations, but this is discussed in more detail in the “Miscellaneous” section below. _One element that has carried over from the previous Grand Theft Auto games is the “Pay ‘n Spray”. If the player drives his car into a “Pay ‘n Spray”, it will be repaired and repainted completely. The paint job will make him unrecognizable to the cops (because evidently they can’t notice a freshly painted car of the same model driven by the same person). This will completely negate any “wanted” rating the player has gained unless the player performs an unlawful action shortly after the new paint job. If the player performs any unlawful actions within that brief time window the previous wanted rating will be fully restored. _In one mission, the player has to sneak into the secret government facility “Area 69” and steal a top secret project. The player will have to kill dozens of soldiers in order to make it down to where the project is being developed. The project turns out to be a jetpack. _Another similar mission has the player use the jetpack to steal some sort of undefined green substance. The game never truly identifies what the substance is. The character that takes the substance from CJ just says that “it changes everything” or something to that effect. _In another mission, the player is told by the corrupt police officers to take Molotov cocktails and burn down a known gang apartment. After torching the apartment, the player finds out that there is a woman trapped on the second floor of the burning building. He then runs inside the building and, with the help of a trusty fire extinguisher, saves the woman. The woman then agrees to become his girlfriend. _
There are no multiplayer game modes for this game. _
There are a couple of missions in the game that involve illegal street racing. The earliest example of this is a race where the player has to race a low-rider against Hispanics through Los Angeles. _One of the street races that occurs in the middle of the game is against an asian guy who wears sunglasses. Turns out that the guy is blind but can still drive and race extremely well. He says this is because he has tuned his other four senses to near superhuman levels, but somehow I don’t think this would allow anyone to drive. _There is one mission where the player must fly a plane above another, jump out of the first, land on the second, then enter the second mid-flight. If one can overlook the absurdity of the task required, the true danger of the task becomes evident. Even the most experienced of daredevils would not attempt this. _When the player is flying a plane, he can jump out mid-flight. The plane will almost always give the player a parachute to use in the descent. This does not result in the player’s injury despite the fact that an “ejector seat” is never used. The player simply opens the canopy and jumps out of the plane. _One mission ends with the player jumping off of top of the game’s representation of the Hoover Dam. He lands in the water with no injuries. _
Magic is not a factor in this game. _
Gang Warfare The entire plot of the game centers on gang warfare. The game presents gangs as close collections of friends that are simply corrupted by larger, stronger forces. The most corrupting influence is drugs, which is shown in an extremely negative light (this is discussed in great detail in the “substances” section above). _Many of the negative ideas associated with gang warfare, however, are shown in a very positive light. While the player completes the sections of the storyline that are in Los Santos, he will be able (and late in the game, be required) to fight for territory for his gang. In order to take over a territory for his gang, the player will have to kill three enemy gang members on that territory. This will provoke a “gang war”, which will force the player to eliminate three waves of progressively stronger forces of the opposing gang. _CJ’s brother Sweet constantly rails on CJ for not doing enough for “the family” and “the hood”, which is basically his way of saying that he’s not doing enough to help out his gang. This is despite the fact that CJ has managed to break out of “the hood”, get rich, and make a name for himself. The majority of CJ’s interactions with Sweet are a glorification of gang life and gang warfare. _Organized Crime Outside of Los Santos, CJ will get caught up in other forms of organized crime. Police corruption has led to the creation of a huge criminal enterprise comprised of large gangs pushing drugs for a few corrupt police officers. This force will become CJ’s main enemy throughout the entire game. _CJ will also have to fight with and against Triad forces in San Fierro and against Mafia forces in Las Venturas. This seemed like the only way for the developers to explain why CJ has to fight hundreds of enemies in three different cities. _Language The amount of language in this game is unbelievable. Some of us here at SSG joked about trying to keep a running tally of how many f-bombs were dropped during the conversations. I lost count after the first 10 minutes of gameplay (and that’s not because I can’t count). _Aside from that, there are tons of racial slurs and four-letter words thrown around in this game. I don’t think there has been a single conversation without some sort of language used by one of the characters involved. _Murder-based Problem Solving This game teaches a very clear lesson: If you have a problem with someone, kill them. Problem solved. _This happens extremely frequently throughout the game. The first example is one where a character has a problem with the manager of a rap star, so the character tells the player to go kill the manager. This type of mission occurs over and over again throughout the game. _Riots Late in the game, one of the main antagonists, the corrupt policeman Officer Frank Tenpenny, is brought to trial for on a long list of charges. The player knows that Tenpenny is guilty, but the DA eventually drops all of the charges against the officer. This causes the entire city to erupt into rioting (a clear throwback to the famous LA riots in the early 90s). The rioting is extremely chaotic. People walk around with TVs, cars catch on fire, civilians attack police, gangs shoot at each other, etc. _Prostitution / Pimping Prostitution and pimping occurs throughout the game. Aside from the horde of prostitutes that can be found walking the streets, the player will be able to pimp out prostitutes through the “pimping” minigame. For more detail on this and more, see the “Sexuality” section above. _Human Trafficking
There is one mission where the player has to storm a large cargo freighter and kill all of the Triad on board. He discovers that the Triad is smuggling in illegal immigrants from China to the United States. After killing all of the gang members on board, he releases the illegals.
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