Las Venturas
The third and final city in the game is modeled on Las Vegas, with casinos aplenty. Wu Zi has situated himself at the head of a Triad-run casino, with a convenient save point outside, so you can use it to increase your bank to an obscene amount, if you’re willing to put a little time into it.
Two games here are worth mentioning. The first is video poker; you can find numerous banks of these machines just inside the entrance to the Four Dragons casino. Save your game before playing, but when you do play, head straight for the highest-paying machine you can afford. There are $5000 machines and $10000 machines, and you can enter five coins per hand, letting you wager up to $50000 a hand. We’re not going to lie and say that this is an easy way to make money - you’ll lose more often than not - but if you’re willing to sink in some time and wait for a big payday, you should be able to increase your bankroll quite a bit with minimal effort.
In essence, all you can really do in video poker is hold any pairs on your opening hand and hope for trips. A three of a kind will get you back three times your bet. If you don’t have a pair in your opening hand, hold any face cards and hope for a pair - a pair of jacks or higher will win you your stake bet, effectively making the hand a wash. If you have no pairs, faces, or four to a straight or flush, ditch the whole hand and hope the second hand is better. This might not be correct video poker technique - people actually write books about how to beat these machines - but since you can reload your game at any time and get all your cash back, just go for the easy money. You can find more tips and percentages in the Extras chapter below.
After you get a big bank, you’ll be able to play roulette for insane amounts of money. You can’t just walk up to a roulette table and bet a million bucks your first trip to the casino, though; you have to increase your gambling skill first. Video poker will increase it, so if you want to play that for a while, then save your game and bet your entire stash of money on black or red. You can eventually unlock the million-dollar table, which will let you make a million bucks in just a few seconds, and you can do it as many times as you want. If you lose a round, just reload your game and try again.
Two other things to take note of: first off, you can grab body armor from the parking lot across the street from the save point outside Wu Zi’s casino. Secondly, you can find a pair of rocket launcher pickups in the parking garage behind the Emerald Isle casino, on the northern end of the strip. There’s one on level eight of the garage itself, and another on the roof, which you can reach by taking the stairs from level ten.
Wu Zi
Fender Ketchup
The easiest way to get the snitch to talk is to take him back out to the Strip and drive on the wrong side of the road, weaving in and out of traffic, but without making contact with oncoming vehicles. When you’re ready to turn around, make a hard handbrake turn onto the opposite side of the road and repeat the process. The rate that the Scare-o-Meter increases will decrease as it nears the end of the bar, but just keep up the scares and the stoolie will spill the beans soon enough.
Explosive Situation
Gotta hand it to CJ; he’s becoming quite the psycho. Even before you have any definite plans to strike back against the mob families that are roughing over Wu Zi’s casino, he’s gonna go out and find some explosives to do the dirty work with.
To begin with, head down to the quarry. You’ll have to bust the cases of explosives open with the big old truck there, and don’t worry about the workers; you can run them over simultaneous. After each crate of explosives is busted open, though, you’ll have to jump out of your truck and grab the dynamite, then repeat the process for the next load, and you’ve only got a couple of minutes to work with, so keep a move on.
After the dynamite’s been collected, a twist is thrown in in the form of quarry security, who’ll block off the main exit from the mine. You’ll need to follow the very specific path laid out by the red path markers until you hit a hill that’ll get you out of the quarry.
Architectural Espionage
You can find this mission across the way from Wu Zi’s office; it’s shown on your map with a cash icon, which is listed as a Robbery icon in the map legend. Before you can knock over Caligula’s Casino, you’ll have to photograph the plans for it.
After you exit the Five Dragons, you’ll need to grab a camera. Head up the strip a bit until you find the tourists (their icon may be obscured by the North marker on your mini-map), then kill the cameraman and grab his Leica.
The City Planning building isn’t difficult to infiltrate; just respond positively to the secretary, and she’ll let you through. The plans are impossible to photograph due to the guard nearby (though they have been thoughtfully tagged to the wall), so you’ll have to return down to the third floor and destroy the air regulators. This will cause a fire, which will get you enough of a distraction to photograph the plans, but will also tip the guards to your presence, meaning that you’ll have to fight your way back to the ground floor, out of the building, and back to the casino, all under a three or four-star wanted level. This is going to be difficult, needless to say, so ignore the cops and get into a vehicle ASAP when you’re out of the building.
You’ve Had Your Chips
This is a toughie, so get body armor and a whole lot of ammo from the Ammu-Nation near the casino if you’re running short. If you still have the M4 ammo you picked up from Fort Carlson, that should suffice, but you’ll definitely need 300-400 rounds if you want to successfully complete this mission.
When you’re ready, head on over to the plastics factory and head through the entrance. You’ll get a pop-up warning you of the goons in the car, so take a left, then work your way around to the back of the factory and sneak in from the car’s backside; you’ll know you’re in the right place when you spot the chainsaw. If you manage to sneak in, you’ll still have to deal with a factory full of baddies, but they’ll come in waves rather than all at once. It’s best to hang an immediate left when you reach the factory and clear out everyone in the open corner of the building, then just wait there for the rest to come to you. The machines can confuse your targeting, though, so keep CJ facing towards the center of the building.
As mentioned, you’ll have a few waves of bad guys to deal with, but you can eventually clear the place out. After that, you have to get down to the business of destroying the plastics machines. These things have a lot of health, and explode if you try to destroy them with melee weapons, so the only way to detonate them safely is to use your weapons at a distance. Do so, then make your way back to the casino to get your reward. Watch out for enemies on the crates outside the factory as you exfiltrate, though!
