Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Review

WELCOME TO SAN ANDREAS
Okay, I have to admit upfront, I'm a fan of the Grand Theft Auto games, and this game did nothing to change that. Before I proceed to the meat of the review, please keep in mind that I haven't so much as touched the PlayStation 2 version of this game (which came out significantly earlier and proceeded to break all kinds of sales records). In addition, all the GTA games I've played so far have been on consoles, but I'm also a very discriminating PC gamer. That is, my review should be relatively unspoiled by expectations or irrational fandom.

A bit of history: Grand Theft Auto 3: Liberty City, which first came out a few years ago for the PS2, was a landmark game, featuring a stunningly huge New York-inspired metropolis, with intense, open-ended gameplay; not to mention a rather brutal and visceral modus operandi for its main and peripheral characters. While years and a console generation have passed since then, the only game that has really matched GTA 3 has been its sequel, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. While a totally separate game, Vice City still looked and played a lot like its immediate predecessor, even if it was based in a much more pleasant place (a Miami-like 80's city of glitz) and featured various improvements. Improvements such as the ability to buy real estate, drive motorcycles and fly aircraft. It also featured an actual main plot, as opposed to just a disjointed set of arbitrary betrayals. Nevertheless, I personally felt like Vice City, while another stellar game, didn't really move to correct Liberty City 's greatest weaknesses, which to me were the cardboard-cutout feel of the huge city, and the immaturity of the writing and plot-- despite a definite Mature rating. So when Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was announced with a promise of an entire state to explore (along with an early 90s theme), I wasn't particularly impressed - it just seemed like it was going to be more of the same. And that, the third time around, might be less than enough for complete satisfaction.

Just another day at the office.

Cruising the Santa Maria pier on a stolen police bike.

The glitz of Los An... err, Los Santos

I stand corrected. San Andreas is what it's all about: Yes, it's bigger; yes, it's better; but it's also different. The differences aren't readily apparent at first: The game still begins without much fanfare, and the main character hardly seems like much to look at in his white tank-top and low baggy jeans. You will play as Carl "CJ" Johnson, a young punk who just returned to Los Santos (read: Los Angeles) from a lengthy hiatus in Liberty City due to the news of his mother's death. CJ proceeds to reunite with his brother and street gang. On the surface, everything is as in previous GTA entries: There are still lots of loyalty shifts, and the missions still involve killing lots of people. You're still limited to one area (Los Santos) at first, then forced to "evacuate" to a different area (the gigantic country areas, then San Fierro, and so on) by plot circumstances, eventually gaining access to the whole state of San Andreas. The tone of this game is really quite different. For one thing, CJ is a pretty likeable guy, despite being a horrible killer, unlike VC's robotic Tommy Vercetti or the mute LC protagonist. As an example, neither CJ nor his mates like what crack is doing to their neighborhood; for another, he's able to make actual friends with people, instead of just "business partners" to kill later. There are many hilarious characters, such as The Truth, a Peter Fonda-voiced hippie who grows fields of marijuana and drives an artfully decorated van called "The Mothership." The game even makes a couple connections to the other GTA games. I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll say you'll definitely recognize at least one face. Overall, the game is definitely much more personal and less mean-spirited than its predecessors. It comes off as much deeper in its emotional impact, as a result.

“San Andreas is what it's all about: Yes, it's bigger; yes, it's better; but it's also different.”

GAMEPLAY
With such a different tone for the plot and characters, has the gameplay also changed? Oh, the core gameplay is still all there: A huge city (actually, three, and country in between) to explore, a number of gangs to befriend or alienate, and any vehicle available to jack at the touch of a single button. The driving, which has always been the GTA hallmark, is as simple and addictive as always, with unparalleled feel and variety of the vehicles: cars, bikes, motorbikes, planes, helicopters, and more. That said, the terrain has been tweaked to be more interesting for driving, providing such joys as driving on the sides of the Los Santos River (which is as dry and concrete-laden as its real-world inspiration, the L.A. River) or dodging police pursuit on the hills of San Fierro (the GTA version of hilly San Francisco). All the addictive driving mini-games of past entries, like the Crazy Taxi missions and the insane stunt challenges, are still there. The combat is similar to past GTA entries, although there are now crouching, rolling, strafing, and even stealth melee moves. There's a variety of weapons, too, although the variations among each basic type of gun (e.g., the Tec-9 vs. Micro SMG) are occasionally confusing and seem unnecessary. The game box recommends using a joypad, but I found it much more powerful to use the keyboard-and-mouse control scheme, which allows for manual aiming. The foot combat has been rather difficult and unnatural in the past, and the new moves combined with keyboard-and-mouse controls should make this the best version of GTA combat-wise. However, the controls are a bit hard to learn, at first.

Based on this rock-solid foundation, San Andreas builds a game of unprecedented depth. The plot-advancing missions do their best to show off the cities of Los Santos, San Fierro, Las Venturas (read: Las Vegas) and surrounding country. For instance, one of the missions features a harried motorcycle chase through Los Santos, where it is the player's task to closely follow an enemy who chooses an absolutely insane path through the city, including driving on the shoulder just above a big freeway. Another mission makes use of the aforementioned Los Santos River to stage a shameless homage to the motorcycle/truck chase from Terminator 2. There are also indoor missions, race missions, stealth missions, break-in missions, drive-a-combine-harvester-through-a-field-of-angry-rednecks-with-shotguns missions, and the list goes on and on. All told, the average San Andreas mission is about 1.5 times as fun as the average Liberty City mission, and that's really saying something. There is still the occasional misstep, such as one mission where you have to save a woman (say what?) inside a burning building, while grappling with single-digit frame rates and unconvincing smoke effects.

Gang politics have always been a big part of the GTA experience, but this game finally makes this consist of more than a few scripted missions and the fact that if you drive through hostile territory, your car will be shot at. In fact, gangs now have well-defined territories, and CJ can initiate gang wars to try to take over more land. Conversely, rival gangs will often attack territories controlled by your gangs, and you must defend them. The gang battles themselves are somewhat similar to earlier GTA games' Rampage missions, but feel much more real, especially since you have to play both defender and attacker. Interestingly, controlling more land puts money virtually directly into your pockets, which makes the whole thing worthwhile.

Much publicized were the additions of personal statistics, eating, exercising, and dating to the Grand Theft Auto brew. If you're afraid that GTA is now an RPG, rest easy -- it's not. Eating and exercising are basically very simple and not at all time-consuming ways to keep certain statistics in check: fat, muscle, stamina, sex appeal. These tasks are non-intrusive--all they amount to is a nice reminder that you're a real person as opposed to some sort of robot. Dating, on the other hand, is kind of a pain--you have to pay pretty close attention on your girlfriends, or they lose interest or start nagging you by cell phone in the middle of one gang war or another. However, dating is strictly optional and generally amounts to another mildly amusing do-it-whenever-you-want mini-game.

“If you're afraid that GTA is now an RPG, rest easy -- it's not.”

 

Fighting the man!

All this is yours, too.

Welcome to San Fierro.

The game also features a skill system for each weapon, and it's a resounding success. CJ starts off as a good fighter and becomes quite deadly in the face of superior odds. His lock-on range increases, and new abilities (such as dual wield) are added as various skills rise in level.

The clothes system of Vice City is back, together with customizable hair styles. The fact that people around CJ comment on his looks makes this that much more rewarding. Overall, the RPG-like traits, while never approaching the depth of an actual RPG, add a certain texture to the game making CJ feel more like a real guy instead of a hollow placeholder. The San Andreas environment, with numerous indoor locations and businesses, as well as many minor mini-games (basketball, pool, arcades, dancing), achieves a similar effect: The cities no longer feel like pretty but hollow shells, but rather they feel real and bursting with life.

While my list of grievances won't be anywhere near the length of the above list of praises, the problems that exist are serious enough. The most important problem lies in the gang war system. The strategic idea is very good, but the implementation of group warfare itself is lacking. There is a limited squad system, but CJ's squad mates are very, very dumb, to the point of being unable to clear simple obstacles. They also have an extremely annoying habit of shooting rival members while the cops are staring right at them. Trying to fight a gang war (which is tough enough as it is unless it's part of a scripted mission) while also having cop cars and helicopters firing at me isn't my idea of fun. The frame rate also bogs down in large gang situations, presumably due to the AI effort involved, despite your enemies also acting as dumb as a bag of bricks. Last but not least, thrown weapons feel incredibly clumsy and usually are more dangerous to the thrower than the target. With 3rd-person games with such silk-smooth combat as Max Payne 2 on the market, that's pretty sad. The sometimes clunky foot combat and the clumsy gang warfare knock the otherwise stellar gameplay down a point to a 9.

GRAPHICS
Graphics have always been important in the Grand Theft Auto series. The point of GTA is to immerse the player in an alternative version of our own world, and then let him/her do whatever. And while I've already spoken at length about the "doing whatever" thing, audiovisual immersion is almost as important.

Well, the good news is that San Andreas definitely looks and sounds eerily like the geographical areas on which it's based. Most any California landmark you can think of, and probably many you can't, is represented in the game in vivid detail and color. Wanted to visit the Santa Monica pier? It's there. How about the Golden Gate bridge? Absolutely. Ever wondered what it'd be like to live in that awful neighborhood in Boyz 'n The Hood? Okay, it's not really a landmark, but this is your chance, because every feature of a South Central neighborhood is there, together with dilapidated houses and car carcasses in the green-brown back yards. And just as you think you've seen all there is to see, you get kicked out to the country, which also looks convincing, with its winding mountain roads and highways, small towns and villages, lakes, farms, and industrial complexes. To top all that off, there are dozens and dozens of building interiors, all painstakingly textured, including fast-food joints, night clubs, individual residences, stores, and more. Your homies loiter about your dead-end street in Los Santos, drinking 40s and smoking something or other. It all just feels very authentic (however, I freely admit my idea of "authentic" consists of films about the era, not the real thing). Much like San Andreas' gameplay far eclipses the sometimes cardboard-cutout feel of, say, Liberty City's, the sheer volume and detail of graphical work completely eclipses the past two Grand Theft Auto games, possibly even put together.

So what's the bad news? Well, as an avid PC gamer, my first impression of San Andreas' visuals was a bit jarred. First of all, even on the more than capable review system (Athlon 3400+, GeForce 6800GT, 1GB RAM), the game defaults to a resolution of 640x480, rather mediocre maximum draw distance, and even caps the frame rate at 25 FPS. While such a frame rate cap is acceptable on a TV (and, in fact, low frame rates are something of a Grand Theft Auto trademark on the PlayStation 2), it just feels completely wrong on a PC screen. At first, I was very scared as I watched the game's introductory cut scene at these settings. Of course, I immediately removed the cap and pumped up all the settings, and the game ran very well and looked great. However, the game's PS2 origins are still visible: There is no normal mapping (so everything looks flat and angular), definitely no real-time lighting, and there are serious clipping issues with most objects other than vehicles. The textures, at least at the highest settings, are a great improvement over the previous GTA entries - the ads and billboards, for example, are easy to read now. Still, about the only fancy graphical features I noticed are bloom lighting and soft shadows. Technologically speaking, this game looks beautiful - but maybe two or three years old. It looks like the PlayStation 2 version, except with much higher resolution textures and a huge advantage in draw distance. However, if the choice is between cutting down the sheer scope of this world and cutting down the advanced graphics features, I certainly choose the latter. And, if you have a somewhat powerful rig, the game should run well for you (although, it bears mentioning that there are a couple missions involving lots of smoke and fire, and the game bogged down to single digits for longs period of time).

“Technologically speaking, this game looks beautiful - but maybe two or three years old.”

The character graphics don't fare as well as the environments. While the animations (such as your various pals' body language) are uniformly stellar and life-like, the character models themselves are definitely rather ugly (complete with expressionless faces and block hands), which is a shame since it's becoming very difficult to even see polygons in character models in many of today's games. Character models have never been a strength of the GTA shop, but it's really a shame they haven't improved this. Overall, the graphics get an 8, but those expecting the technical dominance that comes along with the territory with most prime PC games are in for a rude awakening. A similarly looking game with lesser amounts of terrain and sheer atmosphere would probably get a much lower score.

That's a toy plane, but you can fly a real one, too.

SOUND
No game approaches this one in terms of sound, period. The voice work is, bar none, the best in a video game, ever. The game is filled with memorable characters, who are expertly voiced by an interesting combination of Hollywood talent (Samuel L. Jackson, James Woods, Peter Fonda) and rappers (Young Maylay as CJ, Ice T as Madd Dogg). A-list talent is nothing new to GTA (Vice City featured Ray Liotta, for example) but the insightful and simply excellent dialogue this time around makes a huge difference, as opposed to the previous games. I sometimes felt embarrassed that such good actors had to say such dreck. Also astounding are the sounds of the city (and country), wherein random passers-by have whole conversations with each other, without ever becoming repetitive. Your friends in the 'hood frequently comment on your clothing or haircut or even musculature. Even CJ himself keeps the routine slamming into cars and pedestrians amusing as opposed to impersonal, with such remarks as "Did you BUY your driver's license?" and "Does anybody in this state know how to drive?" (The irony of such a remark is palpable after driving the wrong way on a freeway for a few minutes).

“No game approaches this one in terms of sound, period.”

Then, of course, there's the radio. In keeping with the early 90s theme, about half of the stations involve rap. I'm not a huge fan of rap, but I still have to admit that Rockstar North have outdone themselves on the radio front, yet again. There are twelve stations, most featuring well known music of the era, by artists such as N.W.A., Ice Cube, Soundgarden, Faith No More, and dozens more. The trademark caustic commercials and talk radio are as bitingly funny as ever. In addition, this PC version of the game includes the feature from Vice City that allows playing your own audio files as a special radio station. An extra touch of detail comes from the fact that the various vehicles have different sounding stereos; for instance, a motorbike's sound is tinnier than other vehicles'.

Overall, despite a rather annoying bug where certain sounds entirely disappear for a time (for me, it often happened when it rained), it would be simply ridiculous to give this game anything but a 10 on sound. (However, I'd advise you to wait for the developer to release a patch for the game before buying.)

Memorable characters and story await you.

REPLAY VALUE Since San Andreas features easily the biggest GTA game world so far in terms of area, and the map is still chock-full of icons representing things to do, and almost each one of those things is tons of fun, it's not surprising that replay value is a definite strength here. Sure, some of the mini-games are pretty simple (dancing, for instance, involves pressing arrow keys in sequence, as indicated on the screen), but no one's forcing you to do all of them. It's hard to imagine an action fan that won't find at least 60 hours of gameplay here. The game's main plot missions also do a fantastic job introducing the player to most types of side missions, so it's a trivial and natural thing to take a break from the main story and go do something different at any time. And if you're a completist, this is the game of your dreams (or nightmares, I suppose), because of the sheer number of challenges that await you. Again, anything but a 10 here would be a mockery of Rockstar North's efforts.

BOTTOM LINE
The San Andreas experience is tough to sum up in words. I've described many of the things you get to do and see, but that might be missing the point. This game is more than a game, and it's also more than a movie. It's a virtual playground, true, but its characters and main protagonist are human and real--albeit living by an extremely warped version of the conventional system of morals. It's a world in many ways realistic, but also one that never loses sight of the point of a video game: to be fun. It's brutal and visceral, but never impersonal, and often quite poignant. In fact, it's surprising that a series known for its in-your-face and unapologetically "positive" depiction of a criminal lifestyle can feel so human. The previous entries in the series have been robotic and emotionless much like their protagonists, but the world of San Andreas is a whole different animal. Let's hope the rest of the game industry watches and learns. Unless you lack a good PC, or already have the PlayStation 2 version, or absolutely demand the latest graphical bells and whistles, this is the game for you. 9.5/10

“Let's hope the rest of the game industry watches and learns.”