This game can't be missed, and is an amazing achievement in the long running Grand theft auto series
In San Andreas you play as Carl Johnson or CJ for short and you pick up as he is returning back to his hometown (los Santos) after being away for five years residing in liberty city, he left Los Santos after being blamed for the death of his younger brother by his older brother (sweet). And that isnt all that’s gone wrong in CJ's family, as he returned to Los Santos to attend the funeral of his mother but his gang the "Grove street families" prompts him to stay. As the story pans out there are numerous little twists and turns that happen that will keep you entertained within the story but it doesn’t get too complicated, During the main bulk of the story during the period on the first island Ryder and big smoke are working for a crooked cop, Officer ten penny voiced by the great Samuel Jackson and the grove streets gangs local enemy the Ballas. Smoke and Ryder ambush sweet and he gets thrown in jail and throughout the main story it is basically you working for a number of different people trying to get information on how your brother is doing and how to get him out of jail.
The characters in any Rockstar game for me are one of the main highlights of the game and san Andreas is no exception, it constantly throws fun and interesting characters at your feet for you to interact with and do missions for. First of all you have the members of your gang the Grove street family, there is sweet your older brother who takes on the role of the leader in the gang, then threes big smoke, he is a very wise person and amused me a lot during the starting missions as while a full scale war was on he was still eating his meal in the car, then finally there is Ryder, Ryder is constantly high by the looks of things and also is completely mad when it comes to gang warfare. Strangely enough thou one of the characters I think they could have developed more was CJ as I found that compared to Claude from GTA 3 and Tommy Verccetti from Vice City was too nice in comparison and not really a ruthless killer like the previous two lead characters. San Andreas also brings back some old characters from previous games, like Catalina and Claude from GTA 3 as this game happens before GTA 3 but after Vice City, also brought back is Kent Paul and Rosenberg from Vice city, there is also a few more characters that return but I don’t want to spoil the game so you’ll have to find out for your self.
There are a lot of new features in San Andreas firstly im going to talk about the bicycle, this is one of my favourite additions to the vehicle's as it is just incredibly fun to ride, simply just pull the right trigger on and of to increase the speed of the bike and if you hold down the a button you can bunny hop over things, which is quite cool, you can also do your standard stoppies and wheelies in it but this is where it gets interesting regarding on your bicycle skill level varies how far you can jump in the bike, or how fast you can go, as now they have added an attributes bar to the game giving it a sense of role playing in a way as now as you drive, fly, or cycle there are skill bars that when you travel in them for long periods of time your skill bars will increase making you better at handling or using that vehicle.
Also to this they have added the attributes system to your character as well, in previous games the eating food has just been pointless in a sense as you really only used it for desperate source of health, now you as you eat in your fat metre will increase as the more amount of food that you eat (keep in mind if you eat 11 things at once you will throw up, and the more that you eat the fatter your character gets and will eventually be at high risk of getting a heart attack so watch out), also it is vital to eat a balanced diet as there is now a gym and inside the gyms there are various pieces of equipment that you can use to upgrade your character, such as a treadmill and a cross trainer to increase your stamina, also there is a bench and some dumbbells to increase your muscle, as you increase your muscle and stamina you will be able to hit harder, take more damage and be able to run faster and for longer periods of time. Also in the various gyms scattered around the cities are the gym leaders, if you challenge them to a fight and win you will be granted with a new style of fighting and some new moves that you can use.
There is also a respect attributes and sex appeal attributes, the respect meter will grow the more missions that you complete for people and eventually you will be able to have more and more people in your gang follow you round, as for the sex appeal one, its basically regards how you look, like what type of clothes you are wearing, what hairstyle you have, whether your in shape or not will effect this meter and whether you attract the opposite sex.
One of the things that plays a big part in the GTA games obviously is the weapons, and San Andreas is no exception, there are loads of weapons to choose from and are now categorized into classes, like driving or going to gyms there is also a sense of Role playing with the guns as well as the more that you fire and kill more people the higher your weapons skill for that weapon will increase, eventually you will reach hit man level and with some more powerful guns this will grant you better aiming and being able to walk and shoot at the same time, and for guns such as the pistols and the saw of shot guns it will grant you with the ability to handle two of those guns at the same time. The weapons feel in this game is exactly on and you can get a variety of weapons from the standard issue pistols, to Uzi’s, to AK 47's.
As you probably already know apart from the story is the option to free roam whenever you want, the three cities are massive and are incredibly detailed and different from each other. During your time away from the story you can be building up your character, taking out your girlfriend, buying new properly, new clothes, kitting up your cars, racing, dancing, killing rival gangs or just blasting the hell out of pedestrians. This game is massive and I have nearly completed the story and ive played it for 54 hours and completed 52 %, it will take you ages to complete it fully.
Also in san Andreas there is a load of new vehicles at your disposal, there is an increased amount of cars, bikes, boats and planes one of my favourites is a plane that is based on the Boeing 747, its is huge and can go higher than any other plane in the whole game. Another cool new feature in San Andreas is that if your plane is about to explode you can simply just abandon your wreck and parachute out.
As of a gameplay point of view San Andreas isnt at all that different from previous GTA titles, it still plays incredibly well and is always fun to play.
The Graphics in san Andreas for the shear scale of the game are amazing, and there has definitely been an improvement over the PS2 version, the textures in the game are amazing, and the car models are highly detailed, also the facial animations are second to none and incredibly realistic. Also all of the three cities are beautifully rendered, you will go threw amazingly detailed built up cities, to posh outer city locations, to the open ended deserts, one of the features I liked in the deserts is that on the odd occasions sand storms will brew up and is a cool little feature to the game, as it makes flying even more difficult as not only you have difficulty seeing but it rocks the plane.
San Andreas is an amazing game but does have some faults, such as texture pop ins, this can be a problem when driving at high speeds as you will sometimes drive into an area and be left with some ugly looking buildings, until finally they load, also the draw distance can sometimes be annoying usually when flying, you will sometimes just crash into a building that has just appeared right in front of your path and you couldn’t avoid it or you just crashed into an oncoming car as it just popped out of no where, these little bugs don’t decrease the fun of the game as they could not be avoided due to the scale of the game. Also I thought that instead of just throwing in stuff like graffiti and hidden packages I think for future reference they should just add more depth to the story and broaden that out a bit instead of just throwing in stuff that you may not be bothered top do.
One of the things that surprised me about this game was that there is multiplayer in it, there are certain areas where if you have a friend can both play out the same street and go about terrorising the town or go and play one of the games many other attractions, it plays incredibly well but the only problem is that the camera can be a bit iffy in places as it plays on one screen you both need to be on screen at the same time, so if one player wonders of the camera can get a bit erratic.
The music as usual is one of the many highlights of this game, it has from 90's rap like too pack to dr dree to classic rock such as the likes of Faith no more Alice in chains and guns and roses, also guns and roses lead singer Axil Roses loans out his vocal I say "talent" for his self titled radio station K rose. And as usual the advertisements are as humorous and as strange as ever. One of the ways that this differs from the ps2 version is that you can play your custom soundtracks over the radio, which is a cool option if you’re bored of listening to the standard in car radio that’s in the game.
My Most favourite part of everything in this game thou is the voice acting, you cant get any better than this, it is just amazing. Samuel Jackson plays the part of officer ten penny, the amazing Chris Penn who sadly passed away earlier this year played an amazing part as Officer Eddie Pulaski, and also the likes of Ice T who plays the rapper Mad dog and the game who plays Mark 'B-Dup' Wayne also adds to the amazing all star cast.
San Andreas is a wonderful experience that just cant be missed. It has a great story line, interesting characters, lasts ages and has amazing voice acting talent and lastly plays amazing that will keep you coming back over and over again.