Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - Limited Edition (PC DVD)

For a start San Andreas itself is not a city but a whole fictional county, containing the San Francisco-esque San Fierro, the Las Vegas style Las Venturra and the Los Angeles inspired Los Santos. You can drive anywhere else you like in the countryside, between making the game four to six times the size of Vice City.

You can also now start up your own gang in the game, recruiting members and claiming territory--you can even build and operate your own casino once you get the necessary moolah. You can't just sit around and wait for the money to roll in, though--eat too much junk food and your character will grow fat and have to work out at a gym, as well as keep an eye on a new stamina meter.

The list of other additions and refinements are almost endless; above and beyond the usual claims of an improved aiming system for weapons you can now swim, ride bicycles, get your hair cut, take part in random break-ins and robberies... pretty much anything you were ever told not to do as a kid (except the getting a haircut bit). --David Jenkins

If Vice City was Scarface, then San Andreas is Boyz N the Hood. Set in 1990-ish, the game follows Carl CJ Johnson who just returned from Liberty City (gta3) to Los Santos (one of the three cities in SA, SA being a state), after finding out his mother was killed. Immediately after landing he's framed for the murder of a cop, by corrupt Officer Tenpenny. I won't go into any more detail about the plot, but suffice to say it twists and turns, and carries the game very well.

San Andreas follows the traditional GTA formula - you have to work through a series of missions in a large (very, very large) city, working your way from small time hoodlum to big cheese. The first thing you must do after setting down in grove street (your home), is to get your name back on the map. You do this by mostly attacking other gangs and things like that. The first third of the game is just a big gang war pretty much, it's not until you leave Los Santos that San Andreas starts to feel more like Vice City.

Like all previous GTA games, the missions are the central focus of the game - and San Andreas has some great ones. The first few missions teach you how to play the game, how to shoot, how to drive, how to spray paint, fight. Things like that. But in no time you're stealing crates of guns from an army base, burning a marijuana field before the authorities arrive or chasing a high-speed train down its tracks to kill some of its... less pleasant.. passengers. There's definitely much more variety here.

Where the last two previous gta games have taken place in a city each, San Andreas is an entire state here, with 3 large cities and lots of farmland and small villages in between. The much improved city size completely removes the I've-driven-down-this-road-fifty-thousand-times feeling of advanced deja vu from previous games, as well as making the world feel much more worldly, which helps the feel of the game a lot.

The music has always been a large element in the gta series, and every gta game so far has had great music. SA is mostly rap-centric, things like rap, hip-hop and soul. I really don't like this type of music, but we also have a nice alternative radio station, a decent rock station and a great talk radio station, so there is plenty of variety here. There are many nods to previous gta games, including an hilarious scene with the "exploder" star, and a nice cameo by lazlow.

A sort of pseudo-RPG skill system has been added, for everything from swimming to shooting, you have a skill rating that improves the more you do. You also have stats for personal attributes such as sex-appeal and muscle. These stats could easily have come to dominate the gameplay, but rockstar intelligently decided to make them a very subtle feature. You barely notice them, which is great. But they serve a useful purpose for balancing reasons.

Sit down and make a wish list of stuff you wanted in vice city. Guess what? It's all in San Andreas. One of the big ones (for me, anyway) is the ability to give fellow gang members dawg commands - er, dog commands (stay, follow, etc), Ahem - which gives way to some excellent gang wars which were sadly lacking in Vice City. Bicycles are also in the game at last, they are really cool! Oh, and you can finally, finally swim. The ability to own buildings like in VC is back and better, and you can actually break into people's houses now for night time burglaries

For those of you who managed to wait for the PC version - you've been richly rewarded, Rockstar develop their games using high resolution textures and then scales them down to meet the needs of the machine, the pc has all the high resolution textures in all their glory, along with an intimidating draw distance and none of those silly frame rate stutters a certain console gets. In short it looks much better and it runs much better. This is the definitive version of the game.

The SA mission arc is quite long and eats up a lot of time, but when the missions are over, the game is only just begun! There's so much in the world you can see and do, it could've been frustrating, confusing and intimidating. But again rockstar have implemented their ideas excellently. There's so much to slowly discover, but most of it is stuff you don't even need to concern yourself with if you don't want to. Suffice to say you could easily spend 300+ hours playing SA without seeing everything it has to offer.

The Grand Theft Auto games have all been amazing (except GTA London!!), from 1998 to 2005. And now in San Andreas we have what is not just the best GTA game yet (until the next one, anyway), we have a game which is so much better than most other games on the market that you can't even compare them. If you're looking for a game which features awesome gameplay, an intimidating lifespan, some fantastic music, great visuals and a game which is so much more than the sum of its (awesome) parts, look no further than Grand Theft Auto San Andreas.


Go on, roll the dice...   June 23, 2005
Shandy (Los Santos)
19 out of 21 found this review helpful

The graphics are nothing special compared to many recent games, the sountrack is alarmingly rap-heavy, the script is littered with obscenities that would make Eminem blush, the gameplay fiercely immoral, and most of the game's characters utterly reprehensible. In short, San Andreas ROCKS. Once you're in, you're in. There is simply no way on earth you can stop playing this game once you've started. There's just so much to do, so much to see, so many people to kill...
I'll freely admit that I've not yet unlocked most of the game, as I've spent far too much time exploring Los Santos (where you'll start), but that just points to the sheer depth of the experience. Even the very first mission is cleverly designed to showcase the sheer immensity of the game. You hit the ground running (well, cycling), and after a few breathless minutes you've dashed halfway across the city, dodging hoods and catching blink-and-you'll-miss-'em glimpses of the streets you'll soon call home (and fingers crossed own, one day). After this, your exploits will get progressively more outrageous/violent/imaginative/all of the above, but it's the little things that make the game most rewarding. Go play a game of pool, spar in the gym, bet on the horses, take out a nice lady, get that 'Mum' tattoo you always wanted, or just go for a drive(-by) to ease the strain of taking over a city. There's just so much more going on in Los Santos than there ever was in Vice City, and it's all your playground - from the ghetto to the stars.
Indeed, SA is so much larger than any of the previous games, that it all seems a little daunting at first. Fortunately, it's also much more tightly scripted and the game world unfolds at a pace which never feels rushed - you're introduced to both town and country through a series of missions that allow you to appreciate the finer gameplay points of each habitat. After a while, you'll find there's nothing more satisfying (after a tough day's smokin' the hood) than taking a leisurely cruise through the mountains, and finding some large-eared hillbillies to punish for their sins. You can almost feel the fresh air screaming past you, and imagine the bugs/locals (delete as appropriate) hitting the windshield.
I loaded this up with a fair degree of apprehension after hearing all of the worries re. sound/glitches, etc, but have not had any problems that the technical support line were not able to fix in a jiffy. Now, I know that's not ideal, but it is good to know that there is quality support there should you need it. I can appreciate why a few people are waiting for patches and so on, and I'd be mighty fed up had I not been able to run the game properly. It's the trade-off we PC gamers have against console jockeys - we certainly have the better game (by the time it hits us), but they don't have any worries with compatability/performance and so on. It's a gamble really, but I promise you that if it comes off, you'll be grinning from ear to ear for months.
I'm only ditching the game a star because I've not got far enough into it to award it 'legendary' status. Perhaps it all goes downhill as the game goes on? I doubt it. Fans of GTA, rejoice - this is the one to rule them all. If you're new to the series, what took you so long, fool?
Anyway, enough of this - I'm off to do a little set trippin'...


Fantastic for so many Reasons!   October 16, 2006
A gta fan
18 out of 22 found this review helpful

I am a great fan of all the games in the GTA series and San Andreas is without a doubt the best one yet!

The style is essentialy the same as the first two in the series (GTA3 and Vice city)and is easy to get to grips with if you are getting the game without having played any of the other GTA titles.

The best things about this game are;

1. HUGE area in which the game is set (unlike the previous GTA games it is based in an entire state) there are 3 very large and very detailed cities, numerous small towns and miles upon miles of countryside consisting of forrests, lakes, rivers, deserts, farms, Huge mountains (The game even has its own mountain range!),and large areas of ocean. If you have played games like Eldar scrolls oblivion or Far Cry you will find San Andreas very similar in size

2. Hours of gameplay, I spent months only on the main storyline, but there are also numerous things to do outside of the initial story. Police missions, Taxi missions, Firefighting, Earning a piolets liscence, valet missions, trucking missions, biking challenges (both BMX and cross country), burgalry missions,EVEN PHOTOGRAPHY!

3. Something that I feel hasn't been previously mentioned and I think is important is that San Andreas has a really excellent storyline. Many people I speak to are put off the GTA games as they feel there is no story you just go round pointlessly killing people. This may have had a hint of truth for some of the earlier GTA releases but San Andreas is certainly different. There are numerous in depth characters who you will often find yourself becoming strongly attatched to or loathing. The plot is a leviathan of twists and turns taking you on a rollercoaster ride through the deceitful and scary world that is San Andreas, often leaving you in moments of both joy and despair. I personally think that San Andreas is one of the best rpg games I have ever played when it comes to the storyline and the characters in it. (Other rpg games I have played being Pirates of the Carribean. Morrowind, Oblivion and Knights of the old republic)

4. Also the game gives an excellent representation of the time period in which it is set (early 90s) with fantastic attention to detail as to what things were like then and what attitudes were held by people and the goverment. The radiostations (of which the are many) are all completed with music from the time.

The graphics in the game are also pretty impressive for its time although rather outdated now that games like Oblivion that are up to Xbox 360 standard are being released. The physics are alright but not fantastic.

You should also note this game contains scenes of strong violence, bad language, drugs and sexual refrences so is inapropriate for some

Overall San Andreas is in my opinion a fantasic game which I personaly will not regret buying.



GTA SAN ANDREAS   January 3, 2006
16 out of 17 found this review helpful

GTA SA is an awesome game. Its enthrawling missions build up your respect and money. Watch as Cj the main character whom you play become a criminal king pin. You can spend you ill gained cash on anything from cars to guns. New aspects of the game mean that Cj needs to eat, if you just give him fatty foods then he becomes fat. The graphics in the game are some of the best i have ever seen and the ai is amazing. If you ever get bored of missions then do something else like: race cars, go to the gym, side missions, play basket ball and loads of others but if all else fails then do a classic gta killing spree and just kill everyone in sight with a huge arsnel of weapons from knifes to shotguns, uzis to rocket launchers,sniper rifles to grenades and many more. This game is a brilliant buy!!!!