Walk-Through
As with previous GTA games, San Andreas will see you obtaining missions from a number of different individuals. These will come in fits and bursts; occasionally you’ll run out of missions from a character, only to get more later on. For simplicity’s sake, we’ve listed each mission under the character that gives them, even though you usually won’t be able to run through all of a character’s missions in one go.
Los Santos
As with the previous GTA games, San Andreas begins with your character at a low point in his life. Your mother’s dead, crooked cops are hassling you, and you can feel the pull of the gangsta life that you left Los Santos to escape. Luckily for you, there’s nowhere to go but up, so get out there on the streets and start gettin’ paid.
After the initial cutscene, you’ll have to make it back to your home before you can start taking missions. If you want to go by the book, grab the bike near you and pedal it back; knowing how to use it will come in handy shortly. If you’re in a hurry, though, jack a car from the road nearby and head south until you hit the CJ icon. When you reach your house, get out of your vehicle and head into the red mission icon to head out to your Mom’s gravesite.
Big Smoke
Your first real mission here is to escape from the Ballas gang members that are trying to gun you down while you bike away from the graveyard. Certainly not a proud moment in CJ’s life, and it can actually be a difficult task compared to some of the previous starter missions, so stay frosty! You’ll have to be conservative with your sprint, both because of the fact that you can’t pedal quickly for too long before you get tired, and because you have to make sure that you stay behind Sweet or Ryder as they lead you back to the hood. The Ballas are more trigger-happy than anything, so they won’t try too hard to run you down; just stay clear of the sides of their car and you should be able to avoid most of their gunfire.
When you get back to CJ’s house, the mission will end. You can now enter the house to save your game and start with the game’s core missions, but you’ll want to outfit yourself before you do so! There isn’t a whole lot of equipment within easy walking distance, but you can grab a couple of submachineguns if you look around. The first is atop Sweet’s house; if you jump to the top of the wall that the basketball rim is attached to, you should be able to spot it and jump from there. The second is obtained by jumping down into the canal behind the houses and walking south a bit; the gun is located beneath one of the bridges. Between the two of them, you should be able to net 110 rounds of ammo each run, and they’ll respawn each time you exit CJ’s house, thus giving you an easy way to stay strapped in the early game. Try to get the gun atop Sweet’s house first, then pick up the one from the sewers, as the MicroSMG in the sewers is the superior of the two weapons, and you can no longer grab the ammo from a pickup without getting the gun itself.
Now that you’ve got a place to hang low, you can start taking missions, or start exploring the game world. The early missions are given by the other leaders of the Grove Street Families, namely Sweet, Big Smoke, and Ryder.
Your primary objective in Los Santos is to return your gang, the Grove Street Family, back to prominence in the city. Of course, you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, and there are plenty of eggs looking to get broke, mostly members of the other street gangs that have expanded their influence while C.J. was out of town. To that end, you’ll have to follow the lead of the other gang members in setting a course for the rest of the soldiers.
