The GTA gameplay is starting to show some age, but aside from a few rough spots, Rockstar still shines through.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas takes place in the entire state of San Andreas, which is a substitute for California. You play the role of CJ, a young man who got out of gang life only to return to his hometown for his mother’s funeral. He’s also searching for her killer with the help of some of his old friends. Not only that, he’s being hounded by some corrupt policemen, headed by Samuel L. Jackson and the late Chris Penn if I’m not mistaken. Anyway, your old gang has lost almost all its influence in the hood, and if you want to find out who killed your mother, you’ve got an uphill battle ahead of you, true to Grand Theft Auto fashion. The core gameplay remains the same, and its starting to show. Run around killing people or do the missions, but there are enough new features to keep you satisfied. Unparalleled control over your character for one thing. You can make him fat, muscular, level him up even. Maintaining a balance over CJ’s appearance is important even to several missions. CJ can have a social life outside of cutscenes by having girlfriends. Some will only respond after his body looks a certain way. Swimming is another great addition to the series, and one of the most annoying inclusions from editions past. The camera stays the same, and so do the inclusion of unlockables, which aren’t necessarily a bad thing. The levels aren’t as strong, on the whole, in this game than in Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City. Several of them are just as good, and some, especially the stealth mission with the Japanese sword master guy, shine especially bright. Then you have missions like Supply Lines. Supply Lines dampened the entire game for me for a long time, and I put off playing it for God knows how long, kind of the like the Insane Asylum section of Indigo Prophecy. Luckily for me, after I won the level, I didn’t have too many hitches after that. Another somewhat dubious inclusion is optional multiplayer. Sometimes you can do it and sometimes you can’t. I like it in the game, but, as director David Lynch says, don’t do anything middle of the road or it will all fall flat. They could have even done a Mario Bros. style multiplayer. That would have been better if they had to include options. Co or Counter –op? That sounds great to me. But on the whole, with the new additions and the tongue-in-cheek humor Rockstar brings to all its projects, gameplay seems anything but stale.
The graphics have improved, but still leave some to be desired. The programming errors are less obvious in San Andreas, but they’re still there, and still need to be hammered out. With that out of the way, the designs are catchy, and the motion capture second to none. San Andreas looks a little less cartoonish than Liberty and Vice Cities, but still aren’t Metroid Prime.
The sound continues Rockstar’s exemplary skills in the area, for the most part. San Andreas is as alive as a fictional world can be, perhaps the effects are even better than in the other games, but the music fails to set up the mood as well III’s flashy post-modern and Vice City’s memorable 80s cheese-fest. Sure Nirvana and Depeche Mode are great to listen to, but maybe San Andreas’ seemingly something for everyone mentality falls a little short in the end, because some songs fail to catch the spirit of the age as well as others do, or as well as the previous games.
In the end, San Andreas is another wonderful game in a long line of them. It maybe doesn’t shine quite as bright as the series did in the last two games, but it should be played, and don’t let the Jack Thompson blowup of Hot Coffee (I’ve seen more in PG-13 films) scare you away.