"Let's just face it - this game is one of the best ever made."

Introduction

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was one of the most highly anticipated games of all time, arguably THE most anticipated. While many older gamers watched with mild interest or disdain, the game, riding on the success of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and the massive hype surrounding it, created a ruckus for younger gamers who simply could not wait for the release date. A kid could probably have gotten only this game for Christmas and been satisfied. Okay, so he or she might not be the advised age, but I'm not going to go into how games influence people or all that malarkey, that's not my problem, it's not your problem. And it doesn't deserve a place in this review.

…Let's get one thing straight – San Andreas is one of the best games ever. I don't see how anyone could deny this having played it to death, and the only people who would tell you otherwise are bitter fanboys of other series or Vice City itself, or simply elitists who don't bow down to a game that appeals to the masses. So you don't need to listen to their biased opinions, just read on to find out what good things, and bad things, await you in this phenomenal game…

Story – 8/10

The story is possibly one of San Andreas' weakest points, seriously. No, it's not because I hate all this gang stuff and ‘reppin the hood', and of course the constant swearing. In fact, if you're willing to embrace such an attitude, then you might find it quite humorous. While you may think different, CJ and company DO act quite like humans, and they DO have human emotions. They're not perfect, they've just been influenced by how they grew up. They're believable. The whole first part of the game, set in Los Santos, is fairly believable. I love Ryder (‘it's like World War VIII!'), I love this Grove Street versus All motto we have, and I love the prospect of bringing this failing gang back into the bigtime. The final mission in Los Santos, ‘Reuniting the Families', is one of the highlights of the game, both story-wise and gameplay-wise.

But it goes all a little shoddy from there. Not only does all of your work go down the gutter after a large, for some reason feeling forced, plot-twist, but you're thrown out of Los Santos and into the countryside to the west, where you play the role of lapdog for the admittedly brilliant officers Tenpenny and Pulaski. And then you work for some drug-mad hippie named The Truth…uh, ok. Then we move onto a cousin of a hateful (that's just me, for some reason many people idolise this guy) friend of CJ's named Catalina. She's pretty funny and helps the story along quite nicely, but it's hard to not feel that the original realism and atmosphere has been long forgotten.

Next we move onto San Fierro, which is really one of the dullest points in the game and to be honest, I think many of the missions here are filler, as CJ's friend and his sister plan on making a garage into a thriving business, something talked about a lot but never does actually happen. It's still the same old crappy garage by the end of the game. There's a little investigation into the plot-twist near the start, but CJ willingly performs missions that really don't have much relevance to the original atmosphere, again this is why I feel the whole town is filler. Only the climactic mission of this area, ‘Pier 69' stands out in my mind, but only because we get rid of some people who have been deterring CJ from his original goal in the first place.

There's a small section after San Fierro in the desert where CJ is forced to perform missions for a very cool guy, again a very impressive character rivalling Catalina's impact, only he stays for a lot longer. He makes CJ do completely irrelevant and never-explained missions in the promise that he will help CJ with something close to his heart and original goal. But why can't CJ do this thing himself? Oh yeah, because it would end the game pretty quickly. These missions again fall into the category of filler.

And then we move onto Las Venturas, which I really looked forward to as I would love to visit Las Vegas someday, but damn, the missions are dull and boring, and sometimes difficult and tedious. As usual, they're completely irrelevant to CJ's original goal as we find ourselves in the middle of a casino-feud with dull and plain missions. By now, you'll have realised that the story is not San Andreas' strongest aspect.

Finally, we return back to where it all started – Los Santos – for the final missions. I'll admit, these are great and finally revert back to the original story, even if some of the starting thunder has been long gone. And yet still, the ending feels plain, bland, even predictable. There is no shock ending, no surprise deaths, and a lot of what this game was all about originally is only referenced occasionally by now. The story is admittedly a little ‘blah'.

And yet the characters, most of them, remain believable and interesting to watch, in fact they keep the story going. Be it Catalina or Ryder, there's always some form of entertainment as the script is also wonderfully written, and impressively acted. There are one or two cliche characters (Cesar, CJ's friend, immediately comes to mind) that may well get on your nerves though, but how about you turn the volume down and close your eyes when those people are speaking, eh? It's all a matter of which people turn you on and which people turn you off anyway. Even though people complained about CJ being too sensitive, or a guy that bows down too often to too many people, I found him a welcome change from Tommy Vercetti's somewhat cold and inconsiderate ways, and he did offer a nice change in perspective from not only a lead character, but also a typical gang member. But hey, that's me. I can't and won't tell you what characters I thought were beneficial to the story, as they will probably differ from what you think, but at least Rockstar has shown the thoughtfulness to portray a wide variety of characters from all walks of life, and that does count.

Yet I just can't help but wonder what might have been if the story had been concentrated on a little more…Of course, this sadly is not what the public in general are aiming for – Rockstar knew this, so they're not going to pander to those few who do know what makes a game more enjoyable. It's unfortunate, but it's necessary. Just look at those games which have a wonderful story but no clue as to how to appeal to the clueless mothers and over-eager kiddies – what happened? Most of them failed.

Graphics – 8/10

The graphics of San Andreas are to be honest quite average. I could leave it there, but let's go into why they are pretty bog-standard.

First thing that comes to mind is how dark the game seems…not in mood, but in setting. Sure, this could be improved by changing the brightness in the menu, but I actually miss the sunny skies and shining sun of Vice City, the perfect blue sparkly sea…I could go on, but I'm just going to have to say San Andreas is just dull, plain and simple. The countryside and desert are bland, let's face it, and the cities, while having some pretty areas and nice little places, can be fairly humdrum too. Las Venturas does disappoint. At night I expect to see neon lights everywhere, flashing casinos, and I do get these, but only on the ground, not in the sky where they would prove more effective. Not only this, but the casino lights seem a little blocky – they aren't smooooooth.

Character models are admittedly impressive, I like the animation, I like the cutscenes, I don't have any complaints in these parts, especially when you have a game as big as this. It's just the textures and the setting that tend to bring the game down; don't get me wrong, there are some really beautiful areas (top of Mount Chiliad, anyone?), but you'll be spending a lot of your time in the game away from these.

There are also some nice little effects, such as bloody footprints (although there is a notable absence of wet footprints, I've noticed, when it is raining or when you've emerged from a good swim), but there are many visual glitches. Again, I can't complain too much because the game is so vast, but there are a lot and you'll stumble upon more than one in your travels that are just frustrating and can ruin the mood. Also worth mentioning is the marked improvement on fire effects, far different and more realistic than Vice City's pink fountains. This is immediately noticeable and one of the more welcome visual effects.

I can't go through the graphics without mentioning the vehicles. Uh, most seem to be quite bland. Their interiors are pretty nice looking, and the cars themselves are smooth, but many are just one or two colours and that's it. I would have liked to have seen at least a few more outrageous cars. Even the car customisation options are a little tame. For a game often centred around cars and carjacking, I can't name any stand out vehicles in the visual department. That isn't good.

So overall, the graphics are good and respectable for a game of such a massive size. However, the countryside and desert, even the cities and vehicles, suffer from a strange blandness and the game in general always seems to be so murky, which really does bring down a lot of the original charm that made Vice City so successful. It's disappointing, to be honest.

Sound - 9/10

We can't always have what we want. If that weren't so, I'd have a punk station in this game that blasts out Green Day's early Kerplunk! Tunes and the then-modern tracks of Dookie. But that wasn't going to happen. Considering the varying musical tastes of all of the gamers in the world, Rockstar have done well to include a wide variety of classic tunes from all sorts of genres. There seemed to be an early worry about the game including too much rap, and while there is a lot of that stuff (although many of course appreciate it), it's balanced out by alternative or classic rock stations. The country station, K-Rose, was a pleasant surprise that REALLY adds to the atmosphere of driving around the countryside.

Next most important on the sound agenda is voice acting. I can't complain. None of it is ever awkward, Samuel L. Jackson is brilliant as Tenpenny, Chris Penn was memorable as Pulaski. There's a lot of explicitness and swearing, but if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Or just turn the volume down. But seriously, I can't fault the game on voice acting as the lines are uttered so convincingly, sometimes so humorously (again, Ryder's ‘It ain't me, foo!' charm comes to the fore), and always delivered near-perfectly.

Then we come onto sound effects. These were a little meh, shall we say. In fact I found some of the gun noises to be quite annoying, and the constant noise of the jet plane Hydra's engine can really break down the atmosphere, even if it is for the sake of realism. Although I do love the Minigun's rumble, you can't fault that. The explosions are made satisfying by the blowing-up sound that never gets old. Yet for every good sound effect, there's a bad one. That's just the way the cookie crumbles.

Longevity - 10/10

What more can I say? There are over a hundred story related missions that are mandatory to complete the game, they'll take a few weeks, I'm sure. But then, there's that goal of getting 100% in this ginormous game. And to do that, you'll have to complete all manner of minigames and extra missions, some enjoyable, some not so, but all will eventually clock up the hours. How about delivering some drugs in the courier missions? Buying out all of the clothes shops? Satisfying all seven of your girlfriends? Many of these can be completed, but then you can try again, so there's no dead-end stuff that is typical of games like Final Fantasy. In fact these minigames, it could be said are ‘games within a game', some of them are so deep. There's even little Easter Eggs you can go looking for, hidden events such as the two triathlons that are there simply to test your mettle.

Yet, even with all of these minigames, there's one thing that defines Grand Theft Auto as a series. It's an open-ended sandbox game. This provides near-infinite gaming time for the dedicated and imaginative as you set yourself challenges or simply piss around for hours on end. How about seeing how long you can last against the dreaded FBI, or even the Army? What about getting in a Hydra and seeing how many others you can shoot down? And of course the great killing sprees you can go on. The possibilities, are, for once, literally endless. That is one of the game's key selling points, and one of it's key enjoyment points. Not many games can do it better.

Gameplay - 10/10

It all comes down to one thing in my mind, especially for a game like this – gameplay.

First, the controls are pretty good and the camera angles can be modified, even to the welcome cinema angle which can provide some pretty memorable moments (even at the expense of the control of your vehicle). You'll never find yourself happy stumbling about haplessly as police surround you on all sides like in Vice City – shooting is quick, sharp, and accurate, and thanks to this, very few are short-lived, a definite improvement over VC.

As mentioned before, you'll almost always find something to do to improve your enjoyment of this game, but the missions, while most of them being story filler, are often most memorable. The aforementioned ‘Reuniting the Families' mission stands out as one of the great gaming moments as all of Grand Theft Auto's trademarks come to the fore – driving, shooting, drive-by shooting, and pure explosive action. Nobody can create such a spectacle as Rockstar have in this epic game, and you'll find yourself wishing you can play certain missions again just to experience the magic.

Gameplay is always a key element in any game, and Rockstar have certainly made sure almost everything is enjoyable as possible. Everything just works, how CJ moves and drives, how the missions are constructed, the sort of things you can do and how you can do them. It's nearly infinite.

Conclusion - 9/10

Why the 9/10, I hear you ask? Considering I've just praised the Longevity and Gameplay as if they were God himself, you might have forgotten that the graphics and story are not perfect, nor will they ever be perfect. It's just impossible for a game of such size to be perfect. And yet Rockstar have done a damn good job where other companies have failed miserably. If anyone says this game is bad, you can safely forget the credibility of every other thing they have to say about games.

San Andreas is the defining game of this generation, no doubt about it. One of the best selling games of all time, and also one of the best games of all time. It's often impersonated, but never emulated. Nothing can. It's just magical.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/06/06