"Oh Yes, There Will Be Cars"

Speeding through Los Santos on a police motorcycle. The cops are after me and I have Ballas shooting at me from the sidewalks. I take a detour through an alleyway and get off my bike. I pull out my rocket launcher and blow the Hell out of the cops.

That is an example of what you can experience by playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The game is so promising and such a great Grand Theft Auto game that it's almost freaky. It's got some of the characters from the other games, which I can't tell you who in order to avoid spoilers. It's got some really difficult missions, really easy missions, and missions that are just so cool and entertaining that your jaw will drop through the floor and hit the old lady under you.

You're Carl Johnson. After living in Liberty City to get away from the death of your little brother, you finally return to your hometown of Los Santos. When you return you find your hood, Grove Street, to be in way worse shape then you left it. The Ballas (the rival gang) have taken over most of the city, your brother is stressed to the limit trying to get the homies back together. So, you promise to stay to help fix the hood's problems. This leads you into a huge conspiracy that goes past the street gangs of Los Santos. It's a game about betrayal, action, and has refreshing jokes and funny characters in the middle to keep the story going and keep the Grand Theft Auto feel.

If you've played any of the other Grand Theft Auto games, you know that they're the funnest games in the world. I never thought any game would beat out Grand Theft Auto III though, but San Andreas has proved me wrong.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City had a lot of add-ins to upgrade from Grand Theft Auto III, but it was too short. San Andreas offers new stuff, a better story then its predecessors, and is pretty lengthy, which is a good thing. And even after you beat the initial storyline there are a ton of side-missions available to keep you hooked on the game for month.

Some of the new add-ins from the previous games is the ability to play multiplayer. You can find little red floating icons that show two people next to each other. Walk into it and hand whoever is with you a controller. This makes the game extra fun. One of you can drive a car while the other shoots out the window. Plus you can do other stuff. This makes the game just that much better.

There is also the ability to go into more stores and stuff. I hope they'll make a Grand Theft Auto game where you can go into every building on the map. I doubt that will happen, but I can dream. You can venture into the Police Station and find some interesting weapons in the shower...

Another great addition is you can customize your character more freely. Like you can make him fat, skinny, muscular, among other things. And if you don't eat then you can die. You can also upgrade stuff like your weapon skill with certain weapons, your lung capacity, and your maximum health upgrades as you go through the game.

You can also get girlfriends in the game. The girlfriends give you a more interesting and funny storyline to live through. They can also be a refreshing break if you're trying to beat a really difficult mission.

A lot of people bash this game. WHY!? This is one of the best games ever made and anyone who bashes it, is not a true gamer. Or they just don't have good taste. I've read reviews where people bash it because of its graphics. Graphics don't make a game funner or more boring! I've read when people bash it because you're just in a pathetic gang. Once again, does that make the game less fun? The game is extremely fun and bashing it because it's more original then the other two (on the current generations) is just dumb.

There is a lot of little cameos in the game from the previous games. Like there's posters of Love Fist (the band from Vice City) and other little things. Have fun finding them all!

Hot Coffee. The mod that brought this game to its knees a few months ago. The new release of the Special Edition got rid of it, and made the game actually able to find! The game contains a ton of profanity, violence, blood, gore, and countless other things. So "HA!" on all you parent people against video games! Go Rockstar!

Seriously though, the game has been cleaned up a little bit (not a lot) but a little bit so you can find it. When the game went from M to AO, it was nearly impossible to find. My video store took it off it's shelves and I was left playing the older games. Then it came out for the Xbox and then the Special Edition (it's not really special, just pretty much the Hot Coffee mod was removed), came out, making the game easy to find and my video store brought it back. I was so happy the day I walked in and they had it! I would've gone on my knees and cried if people weren't there. Ha, but seriously the game is THAT good.

This will probably be the game that will drive you to make a hole in your wall the shape of a controller. At the beginning the missions are pretty easily beaten, then you get a little farther and they go on a about medium difficulty, then go back to easy. Then it will get extremely difficult, so on.

After a really, really hard mission, the game will put an easy mission in there for you so you can relax a bit. This makes the game playable without losing your mind.

The missions that will probably give you the most trouble are the missions where you have to fly planes. I hate the planes in this game! I spent hours yelling and cussing at my TV because of "Flying School".

How fun is this game? Do I even have to include this session? Well, I will anyway. This game has got to be one of the best games of the current generation game systems.

The game is pretty easy to control. Most of the controls are the same as the previous games, except a few minor changes. So, any Grand Theft Auto veterans will be able to get use to the controls really easily.

The only bad part about the control system is controlling the planes. I hate controlling those planes! You have to press the shoulder buttons to make them turn left or right and it's annoying and becomes a pain in the ass when you're trying to fly to stuff.

The entertainment value of the game overshadows that though. The game is still able to grab a ten, mostly because it's the best Grand Theft Auto game ever (so far).

The game's graphics is alright. The characters sometimes look fake, but who cares! It's a video game, you can't just give a game a bad score because of its graphics. Graphics do make a game look better, but a game should be graded on how fun it is. So, that's how I'm doing my review. I played the game on my friend's Xbox and the graphics are better on there. So, if you own both systems buy the Xbox version if you really care that much about graphics.

The sound is fantastic. The voice-acting has got to be the best voice-acting I have ever seen in any game. Do you remember how bad the voice-acting was in the original Resident Evil for the PS? This game is the EXACT opposite of it. The actors make you believe this is happening and it makes you feel something.

The game is really long. It depends on how long it takes you to complete each mission, actually. If it's your first time through, then it should take you a while. Sometimes games get old after you play them for such a long time, but not this game. Grand Theft Auto games always leave us wanting more. And that's exactly what I want right now. More GTA. Hopefully the next game (Liberty City Stories) will be as good or better. I don't know, this game would be pretty hard to beat. I doubt any of the next GTA games will match it's power. Hopefully I'm wrong, though.

This game has a ton of replayability. You can find all 50 of the Hidden Packages, you can find all 50 horseshoes and all 50 oysters. There is also a ton of side-missions that are available and a bunch of little mini-games you can find laying around San Andreas.

This game is definitely a buyer. The reason you should buy it is because it'll take you more than a week to beat it (probably) and there is such replayability. Plus, you wouldn't want to give it back after you've dealt so much of your time into it. There is also the multiplayer factor that makes the game better. Maybe next time (if they include multiplayer again) it'll be able to go split-screen. We can only wait and see.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 02/27/06