INTRO:
Grand Theft Auto III was a surprising entry in a series that had otherwise been known for open-world gameplay with a focus on wanton violence; it injected somewhat story-centric gameplay into the series, a change that was cemented with Vice City. San Andreas would appear to increase the sophistication and variety in gameplay further, while making use of the story development to introduce each next element in the gameplay designs.
PREMISE:
In San Andreas, the player takes on the role of Carl Johnson, or simply called C.J. by friends. He has just returned to his home in San Andreas from a stint in prison for a crime that was not elaborated on and apparently unimportant to the story other than to have him start from dirt-low.
To his dismay, C.J. finds that his home is under siege from many issues, from incursions by other gangs to the attention of corrupt and heavy-handed police. Worst of all, his mother has been rendered a casualty, though this is just an excuse to have him having the resolve to do something.
It is with this premise that the game has the player and player character thrust into the game proper, which involves plenty of exploration, deaths and odd-jobs.
GAMEPLAY – PLAYER CHARACTER:
Like previous Grand Theft Auto (GTA) games, the player has to take care of the well-being of the protagonist while having him work towards achieving his goals. There are the usual mechanisms that are used for the designs of a player character, such as a health counter, armor that reduces damage to health and the "walking armory" convention that allows the player character to carry many weapons at any one time.
Not unlike his predecessors, his default methods of movement are walking, running and sprinting, the last of which can only be done for a short while before C.J. tires out. He has some improvements over his predecessors though, such as being able to vault up low obstacles and scale onto higher platforms.
However, one of the game's biggest issues involves a few of the designs for the player character, which made him different from his predecessors. These designs involve C.J.'s obesity and muscle mass, both of which have impact on gameplay, and which would be absent in the later Grand Theft Auto titles, incidentally.
C.J. can restore his health by eating food, which was a proven gameplay convenience at the time. However, if the player resorts to eating too much, he becomes fat; this reduces his sprinting duration. Thus, the player has to have C.J. work the cardio machines in gyms to burn away fat, if starving him is not acceptable. However, these work-outs tend to be little more than quick-time events in which the player mashes away on buttons at the right time, which can seem dull.
C.J.'s muscle mass affects his melee attack; more muscles lead to greater damage. Muscle mass is also a factor in C.J.'s relationships with women that he is dating (which will be described later). To bolster and maintain his muscle mass (which will waste away over time), the player has to send him to the gym to bench-press, which is another quick-time event.
However, melee attacks are of very limited use in this game, as most enemies are better off being shot at. There are scenarios where C.J. has to use melee attacks only and these are when greater muscle mass would come in handy, but these scenarios are far and few in between and often shoe-horned onto the player.
Furthermore, there is a daily limit to C.J.'s exercise regime. This may seem understandable, but watching C.J. still very much running and jumping around after the game informed the player that he has reached his limit can cause some disbelief.
It should be mentioned here that C.J. needs to eat once in a while, or the game will reduce his maximum health. This only happens after a long while though. Furthermore, it is more than likely the player will have to have C.J. snarfing down something to regain health anyway, so making this game design difficult to appreciate.
It is also worth noting here that the player cannot resort to eating too much to restore C.J.'s health. Over-eating will cause him to throw up, which prevents him from gaining any health from further eating until some time has passed.
C.J. can use almost any vehicle in the game, either due to talent or after having been schooled in them (more on this later). However, to make full use of any vehicle, the player has to have him using it a lot, e.g. meet gradually increasing thresholds of distance travelled with it. Meeting these thresholds improves the speed and C.J.'s handling of these vehicles.
GAMEPLAY – STORY PROGRESSION & MAP SYSTEM:
Much like Vice City, the progression of the main story can be pursued at any time, or delayed without any consequence so that the player can follow other endeavours. To make it more convenient for the player to return to the main story or to track down side quests, there is the "world" map and mini-map system.
Most of the time, the player will depend on the mini-map to have C.J. move to where he needs to get to. For the most part, the mini-map gives satisfactory indications of the general direction of destinations and nearby conveniences, all of which are marked with icons or letters.
The mini-map also provides routes with high-contrast lines, but these only go along roads and not short-cuts that are more convenient. However, in the races that C.J. can participate in (which will be described later), these routes are more useful.
Accessing the "world" map puts the game on pause and brings up a 2-D overlay of the game world, along with markers. However, it is only useful for making references of direction with, as the player cannot place markers of his/her own on the map. On the other hand, it has some conveniences such as controls that let the player focus the view on important locations as well as visual indicators for other things, such as the territories of the gangs.
As for the story itself, it is separated into segments where C.J. receives direction from different people, friends or otherwise. There are no chapter titles or numbered acts to tell the player how far he/she has gone into the story, though there is a game completion percentage that also includes progress through the story, among other things.
METHODS OF MOVEMENT – LAND VEHICLES:
For short distances, having C.J. run and sprint about is adequate enough. However, for longer distances across land, vehicles are more convenient.
There are plenty of cars in the game. The most significant differences between them are their speed, handling and hitboxes. These are important considerations when choosing one. Early in the game, there are only a few reliable cars, such as the Regina station wagon; later into the story, there are faster cars, but these can be a lot more difficult to handle, such as most sports cars.
Convertibles are desirable if the player wants shorter car-starting or passenger-taking animations, as would-be occupants sometimes just vault over instead of bothering with doors. Then, there are the bigger and longer vehicles, like most off-road vehicles and the low-riders.
The off-road vehicles are better at getting around if the player does not stick to the roads, but their hitboxes, which are generally bigger than most cars, can be an issue when trying to avoid obstacles. The low-riders are generally fast, but their handling varies a lot and all of them have long hitboxes that can be frustrating to deal with.
Bikes have the smallest hitboxes, making them convenient for weaving about streets and roads. C.J. can also force bikes up to make a "jump" of sorts to clear low obstacles. However, they are difficult to handle, especially when turning. In fact, an inexperienced player would be wiping out more often than not.
A player may notice that C.J. does not take a lot of damage from wipe-outs, or hurtling himself out of vehicles for that matter; in fact, the damage inflicted is a lot less than that inflicted in Vice City. This is convenient, as bikes are involved in mini-games that will be described later.
Bicycles are peculiar forms of bikes, as gameplay-wise, they are an extension of the walking/sprinting mechanic, albeit with less stability than one would get from having C.J. on his own two feet.
If the player wants something that brushes other vehicles aside, there are industrial vehicle for that. They are massive enough to push aside lighter vehicles without slowing down much, though doing so in the sight of the police is more than certain to raise an alert. However, most industrial vehicles are slow, difficult to handle and terrible over rough terrain.
The controls for land vehicles are similar to those in previous games. They would seem competent, but are otherwise unremarkable.
METHODS OF MOVEMENT – AERIAL VEHICLES:
Although aerial vehicles like helicopters had been in earlier Grand Theft Auto games, San Andreas' range of aerial vehicles was the most extensive in the franchise during its time.
Being able to fly and circumvent land traffic with aerial vehicles is a huge convenience. However, many aerial vehicles, especially the planes, are difficult to take-off and land, which is perhaps a believable limitation. More importantly, they only spawn at specific places, namely landing pads (for helicopters) and airfields (for planes).
The take-off procedures for planes are difficult to pull off, though perhaps understandably so. A plane has to be accelerated to sufficient speed before it can lift off, with the bigger ones requiring airport runways instead of just a stretch of land. Hitting anything slows the plane down, and the player may have to restart the taking-off procedure again. Although planes are fast, most of them cannot hover and cannot turn on a dime.
Landing is not easy either. If the player cannot find a stretch of land that is long enough to descend on, he/she would have to simply jump out and parachute, leaving the plane to crash, which can seem callous (though the game will not register this as a crime). Parachuting down can also be a bit slow (though perhaps fun for some people).
These designs make for physical authenticity, but not gameplay convenience. They also render planes as one-way modes of transports, which prevent them from being used as preferred choices of travel methods.
(However, there is one plane in the game that may be a lot easier to land and take off, as well as being conveniently armed. On the other hand, like the other planes, it is too huge to be parked like a land vehicle.)
Helicopters are a lot easier to use than planes as they can fly vertically, but they are a lot slower. However, like planes, they have parts with huge hitboxes. This prevents them from being landed in areas with high density of small buildings, like the suburbs.
The heavier helicopters have winches that allow the player to carry large packages and vehicles over long distances. However, doing so adds a lot of heft and weight to the helicopters, making them even harder to control. There are only a few scenarios in which the player has to winch and transport massive objects around, fortunately.
In addition to the aforementioned vehicles, there is an in-game device that is more sci-fi than believable. There won't be detailed elaboration for this here, but it should suffice to say that it is a lot easier to control than aerial vehicles. In fact, it is perhaps the most convenient of travel methods.
However, observant players will notice that it is practically a device that disables some gravity- and inertia-related physics as well as animations. This can be seen when C.J. takes to the air with it; his model becomes stiff. This suggests that the developers have not put much effort into designing this device.
METHODS OF MOVEMENT – WATERCRAFT & SWIMMING:
Being a sandbox game with bodies of water, it is fitting that San Andreas has vehicles that allow movement over water. They are mostly boats.
Although boats bob on the water, but they do not drift across it; as long as their momentum has been spent and nothing else bumps into them, they will stay where they stopped. This is a convenient game design, as it allows the player to park boats anywhere without having to drop anchor or tether them to piers, but it is far from authentic.
The game world is made up of large islands, so boats may help if a desired destination is close to the shores of the islands. The routes may be longer, but there are fewer obstacles on the water than on land. More importantly, there isn't much in the way of bad weather to make travel over water hazardous.
The types of boats to be had are mostly sleek motorboats with varying degrees of maneuverability. Some of these are armed, though one of them, the launch, has a broken minigun that cannot be interacted with, at least in the launch version of this game.
C.J. can swim, and does so for a surprisingly long time without tiring, as long as he does not run out of breath. His breath capacity can be improved by having him swim a lot or collecting pearls, which are collectibles that are located in the seas around San Andreas.
There are not many bodies of water in the game world other than the seas around San Andreas, but where there are, the player may find that diving underwater is a good way to lose pursuing enemies, provided that the water is deep enough, beyond the thresholds of detection that the A.I. scripts for enemies have. However, for purposes of movement across large bodies of water, the player is better off using watercraft.
The bodies of water also highlight limitations in the A.I. Almost all enemies will not pursue C.J. onto the water either (though the Coast Guard will, if the player raises an alert). Most NPCs, except those that have been designed for inclusion in beaches, are rendered helpless when they enter water, due to lack of any path-finding scripts that have them swimming to shore.
GAMEPLAY – VEHICLE DAMAGE MODELLING:
The modelling for most of the vehicles in San Andreas, which include all cars and other similarly ubiquitous land vehicles, seems to be an extension of the one seen in Vice City, at least for the purpose of simulating damage.
As cars take damage, they slowly lose parts such as their fenders and hoods, eventually smoking and burning; this is a visual cue to abandon the vehicle as it would imminently explode. Similarly, other vehicles in the game may lose parts as they take damage, such as covers peeling off helicopters.
Some of these changes are merely cosmetic. However, land vehicles, with the exception of treaded ones, have tyres that can be damaged. Damaged tyres hobble a vehicle; damaging them some more has them detaching, possibly stopping the vehicle. Windshields on vehicles can be broken, though it is worth noting that a windshield can absorb at least one bullet, unless it is part of a vehicle that is considered armored.
To facilitate exit from a doomed vehicle, the player can have C.J. diving out of the vehicle without having to perform some slow (and less amusing) animations.
As mentioned earlier, different vehicles have different handling. The difference in heft between them is quite believable and apparent, such that most players would be able to learn which ones are worth getting into soon enough.
It is worth noting here that driving is not just a simple matter of moving forward, backwards or turning. The designers have given some thought to the controls, such as incorporating handbrakes that allow players to make hard, skidding turns.
Furthermore, certain vehicles have apparent fuel inlets that can be shot at to immediately blow them up. These targets are small, but nevertheless reward finesse (or luck) on the player's part. It is worth noting though that when C.J. is in a vehicle with such an embarrassing weak point, this vulnerability is conveniently suspended. Otherwise, shooting the rest of the vehicle damages its hull, regardless of the location hit.
Boats can be damaged by running them aground, especially into the rocks that are around the islands in the game. This can be convenient as there are a few moments in the game where C.J. has to chase down some enemies that are travelling in boats, because the A.I. isn't particularly good at navigating narrow gaps.
Different vehicles also have different durability, though generally speaking, police and National Guard vehicles are exceptionally tougher than the civilian sorts. However, getting these vehicles are understandably difficult and risky, as will be described later. They also do not benefit from visits to the Pay-'N-Spray shops.
ADVANCED TUTORIALS – SCHOOLS:
One of the most appreciable features of San Andreas is the presence of schools that teach the player how to drive, pilot or sail vehicles around. At certain points in the main story, C.J. has to enrol in these schools.
They offer several courses, starting with those for novices. Completing these unlock the more difficult ones, which teach the player more advanced techniques. However, in terms of user-friendliness, only the driving schools provide pre-scripted animations of successful course trials; the others only provide text prompts on what the player should do.
Completing all courses with flying colours unlock special vehicles that spawn at these schools. These tend to be high quality vehicles that are fast and easy to handle, as well as having allure that is useful for C.J.'s dating activities.
However, the contribution of the schools to the story can seem underwhelming. Despite C.J.'s apparent talent for vehicles, he is not enthusiastic about learning to use unfamiliar vehicles. He is also nonchalant or cavalier when other characters remark on how unexpectedly skilled he is at using them.
There is a minor bug concerning the airfields though. Sometimes, hangars fail to spawn planes when C.J. comes around to them; this problem has to be fixed by closing and reopening the hangar doors, again and again until planes are spawned in them. This can cause some disbelief.
GAMEPLAY – GUNPLAY & WEAPONS:
Being a console port, San Andreas for the computer platform has aiming aids that allow the player to lock onto enemies and cycle between targets. Another aid is a visual indicator of the target's health, as depicted by the colour of the targeting cursor. This can seem to make combat a bit too easy, however. That the enemies in this game are mostly not bright makes things even easier too; there will be more elaboration on this later.
The player can opt for manual aiming; for this, the game designers have at least included scripts to have the game support the use of the mouse. However, this is at best only useful for shooting at specific parts of vehicles and going for headshots on tougher enemies.
Crafty players would likely resort to both aiming modes; having the automatic lock-on feature to have the camera focusing on an enemy, and then using manual aiming to go for a headshot, which can be done with just an upwards nudge of the mouse, can be convenient.
Some weapons, understandably enough, can only be used with manual aiming, such as the sniper rifle and rocket launcher.
Most of the weapons in San Andreas are hold-overs from previous Grand Theft Auto games. There are the usual pistols, submachine guns, assault rifles and such, as well as heavy weapons like rocket launchers and miniguns. There are not any new weapons that would surprise a veteran of Grand Theft Auto games. There are a few firearms that can be considered as worthless though, such as the simply-named "Rifle", which has a low rate of fire and unimpressive damage output.
C.J. can gain experience from using these weapons, eventually attaining discrete skill levels with discrete benefits, such as being able to dual wield most handguns when he is at the penultimate skill level with these. Such statistical developments in C.J.'s capabilities make the fights in the game, of which there are many, quite worthwhile.
There are melee weapons too, but they are not used as mere bludgeoning or slashing weapons as in previous Grand Theft Auto games, which had the player swinging repeatedly away at enemies. Perhaps taking a leaf from Manhunt (another Rockstar game), the player can perform stealth kills on unsuspecting enemies from behind, though it is generally difficult to creep up on enemies in San Andreas than in Manhunt due to the lack of shadows that C.J. can hide in.
The most convenient sources of weapons and spare ammo are those taken from fallen enemies, though many of these tend to be rather ubiquitous guns such as pistols, especially if the player has been killing common enemies.
If the player wants more reliable but more expensive, sources of weaponry and munitions, there are the Ammu-Nation stores. However, not all weapons are available for purchase from the start of the game; new ones are revealed as the player progresses in the main story. The stores also do not sell heavy weapons, which is perhaps an understandable limitation.
It is also worth noting here that the Ammu-Nation stores also offer target practice sessions, which help the player familiarize himself/herself with new weapons, with the exception of heavy weapons of course.
The player may also come across weapons that are floating around in various locations throughout the game's three cities. These tend to look preposterous, such as a minigun that is located at the top of the trusses of a bridge, but they do reward players who spend time to explore the environs. That said, these locations replenish their contents whenever the player reloads or saves the game, which allows for some cheesy farming.
The launch version of this game has a cheesy exploit with the weapon-switching animations; the player can skip the reloading animations of a weapon by switching to another and then switching back. Of course, the switching animations still take time, so this exploit is only useful for weapons with lengthy reloading animations.
HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT & STEALTHY SNEAKING:
There are hand-to-hand combat moves in San Andreas, but to unlock them, the player has to find trainers in gyms and defeat whoever they pose as challengers.
However, this is at best just a novelty, as it is a lot more convenient to just gun down enemies than engaging them in melee. Besides, these moves require some button inputs that are a hassle to perform while in a fight involving fire-arms.
Yet, the game has more than a few scenarios that shoe-horn the player into hand-to-hand combat, such as a scenario where firing a gun will automatically lead to a game-over. Therefore, if the player has not been practising hand-to-hand combat, he/she would be quite frustrated during these moments.
There are takedown moves in the game, but these are mainly used for segments of the game where stealth-sneaking gameplay is forced on the player.
The stealth gameplay is not as well-done as that in Manhunt (which is another Rockstar-branded game). In fact, the stealth sequences resort to using simple patrol paths and long pauses where guards stand still to make it convenient for the player to have C.J. sneak up onto them from behind, or even have them doing silly things such as facing a wall at the dead-end of a corridor.
The Burglary mini-game is the only mini-game that makes use of the stealth gameplay, which in turn makes it one of the most bothersome mini-games. In this mini-game, C.J. has to break into houses and carry out stuff to be stashed away in a special truck; it may take more than a few trips to empty a house. The mini-game is also tied into the game's mechanism for the time of the day, as it can only be triggered at dusk and immediately ends at dawn.
GAMEPLAY – ENEMIES:
If the player is looking for enemies that are clever in this game, he/she would be disappointed. In fact, they are not much of an improvement over the enemies in the previous Grand Theft Auto game, which can be quite the disappointment considering how much improved San Andreas is in other aspects.
Most enemies are not good at aiming or taking cover. They also hardly shoot on the move, if they are on foot. They are even easier to eliminate if they are not equipped with firearms.
Most of the challenge from enemies comes from their spawning scripts. Enemies often appear around the corner or from faraway alleys, or come careening over on vehicles. This can cause some frustration, as well as the impression that the game can only beat a competent player through attrition. This seems the case when the player is trying to ward off the attention of law enforcement while at a high number of stars.
Of course, one can argue that the game may be trying to suggest to the player that he/she should not be staying at just one spot, or at least find a more defensible one. However, such simple-minded enemies and their spawning routines still make combat quite rote.
There are some fights with much more competent enemies, but these are often scripted enemies that the player will have to fight as the story progresses. To describe the measures that they take would be to mention spoilers, but it has to be said that they are aided by goons that are not much smarter than regular enemies.
GAMEPLAY – COMMITTING CRIME:
Committing crime willy-nilly has been one of the main appeals of the franchise, and San Andreas is no different.
Perhaps the most common crime that the player will have C.J. committing is stealing vehicles. In this game, it is easier to just steal a parked vehicle or rob a motorist of his/her vehicle than to stick to just one vehicle for purposes of transport.
Stealing an empty car is an automatically successful action. In the case of hijacking cars, the former occupant may attempt to take the car back, which can be amusing albeit unpleasant surprise the first time around. If they are armed, they start shooting too.
If the player character is spotted by policemen who are passing by while robbing a vehicle, an alert is automatically raised and the law will be on the player's ass. This can be a significant hassle if the player wants to get somewhere quickly, so he/she may want to keep an eye on the mini-map for any cops that are passing when stealing a vehicle.
Having obtained a vehicle and driving it does not guarantee continued possession of it. Rogues, like other gangsters, can attempt to oust C.J. from the vehicles, as do pursuing policemen.
On the road though, the player can violate traffic laws left and right, provided that the player avoids running into other vehicles or people, which will attract the attention of the law if any cops are around.
Another way to attract the attention of the law is shooting in public. Although C.J. can brandish any weapon in public, firing them, even at enemies, in the presence of police will raise alerts. On the other hand, the police will also fire at anyone else in the scene that has fired guns, so attracting the attention of a third party (namely the police) to a battle with enemies may be a convenient tactic.
On the other hand, getting arrested during alerts with low stars may be desirable if the player wants to get somewhere close to the nearest police station quickly without spending real time getting there. However, some in-game time would have passed and all collected weapons are lost.
GAMEPLAY – LAW ENFORCEMENT:
As in the previous Grand Theft Auto games, law enforcement descends on the player character if he does things that are obviously callous, the most common of which is running down civilians in a vehicle or stealing a vehicle. The game does not inform the player on which actions are crimes and which are not, so the player has only his/her sense of what are crimes in the real-world to guide his/her decisions, yet sometimes the game's designs do not reflect this.
For example, the game has very lax traffic regulation. Although the game does have most NPCs on the road (but not all – sometimes even the police flout traffic rules) observing traffic rules such as stopping at red lights, the player character does not need to heed these, even if police officers are nearby.
Anyway, the first response from the law is the usual despatching of a police car, heading straight towards the player character's last-known location. Updates on this occur when C.J. is spotted by any law enforcers. Also, every nearby law enforcer before the alert becomes hostile.
Perhaps a noteworthy change in the response of police to alerts over the previous games is the absence of spike traps, which were randomly spawned onto roads when the player has roused the cops' ire. This means that the player can move about a bit more freely on the roads during alerts than in previous games, but it is still in the player's interest not to anger the law unless he/she wants to, as they retain the rest of their tricks, such as spawning roadblocks along stretches of roads.
On the other hand, brushing with the law provides some rewards; this makes for a very amoral game design, but gameplay-wise, attracting law enforcement and then stealing their hardware can be an attractive endeavour. For example, attracting SWAT teams or nastier enforcers and then getting rid of them allows the player to restock on ammunition for high quality weapons.
However, of more lucrative appeal are their vehicles. The SWAT team comes in a truck that holds unlimited armor refills, which can be stashed away in one of the player's garages so that the player can conveniently refill on armor if C.J. happens to be close by.
One feature of particular usefulness when running away from pursuers is the ability to shift the camera briefly to show what's behind C.J.'s ride. The camera can be easily reverted to the default perspective.
It is worth noting here that the presence of police officers appear to be denser in San Andreas than in Vice City. However, this is not just to complicate things for the player; the police now actually go for NPCs instead of just the player character. The player may see police officers chasing down random people, or he/she may come across shoot-outs between criminals and the police. In fact, the player can lure a bunch of them over into the territory of rival gangs and sneak away while they shoot the hell out of each other.
Such occurrences contribute to the atmospheric appeal of the game, though the player might get a rude shock when trouble comes his/her way, especially in the case of said shoot-outs.
As in the previous Grand Theft Auto games, there is a meter with star icons that represent the state of alert, or more precisely, the amount of trouble that the player is in. As the number of coloured stars increases, the elements of law enforcement that would come become nastier. At first, there are police officers on the beat, but eventually SWAT teams come over, followed by FBI teams and finally the heavily armed National Guard.
If the player wants to reduce the heat on him/her, he/she can either return to a safe-house, though the nearest one may be a bit too far away. A more reliable way is to get into a land vehicle and drive it to the nearest Pay-'N-Spray shop, which will be elaborated on later.
The most unreliable way to relieve heat is to retrieve one of the star power-ups that may be floating around. Not only do these cause disbelief, they are also too rare and of little benefit to be of much use.
If the alert level is only at one or two stars, the alert level will diminish on its own as long as the player can hide C.J. away somewhere convenient. However, if three stars are gained, there can be no more hiding as the A.I. is always updated on C.J.'s location.
It should also be noted here that if C.J. is caught trespassing into, which includes flying over, restricted areas, the alert level immediately increases to four or five stars. In the case of a certain very sensitive area in one of the cities, the player may have warplanes coming after him/her as well.
GAMEPLAY – 'DYING' & SAFEHOUSES:
Being slain during a session does not mean a trip to the game-reload screen or main menu. Although the game has the camera panning out on C.J.'s pathetic state as he lies on the ground bleeding, the game places C.J. in front of the closest hospital afterwards, with a reduction in the player's money counter; it is also more than likely that all weapons and ammunition are lost too, which is a certainty if he has been taken down by the police.
However, if this occurs during a mission or job, the mission or job is automatically failed. The player can restart them from scratch, albeit with reduced money and perhaps lost weapons; this can be infuriating. Moreover, as the player character may be placed at a hospital that is far away from the mission location, the player is likely to just reload a saved game.
Speaking of saved games, this aspect of the game suggests that the computer version of San Andreas is just a typical console port. Instead of being able to save anywhere, the player has to find and interact with floating disk icons to make a game-save, usually in safe-houses; some icons are in the outside, but they work all the same. In addition, the game advances the time of the day by several hours, which may or may not be desirable.
On the other hand, game-saving has some designs that may be of benefit to the player. For one, C.J. regains all of his health, and any alerts that have been raised are immediately lowered.
Yet, these benefits also reveal a major bug that can be exploited. If the player can have law enforcers trailing C.J. all the way back to a safe-house, have C.J. enter and then save the game, the law enforcers will still be outside when C.J. exits. However, they will not be in a state of alert, meaning that the player can attempt to hijack a vehicle without being under attack already. This can cause some disbelief too, as it would be inexplicable for them to stay outside and do nothing for several hours.
Some safe-houses are not immediately available for the player's use. This is where the game's take on buying landed properties plays a part. Throughout the game, the player would accumulate assets that generate income and provide other benefits, but the most useful are assets that provide game-saving opportunities.
GAMEPLAY – VEHICLE SHOPS & GARAGES:
A short time into the game, the player is introduced to the convenient Pay-'N-Spray garages, which inexplicably has no issues in helping people like C.J. operate outside the law when it comes to hiding and laundering land vehicles.
If the player is being chased by cops while on land and in a land vehicle, he/she can have C.J. drive it into a Pay-'N-Spray garage to give it a quick paint job. As long as the police did not see this, he/she can have the vehicle out of the garage and sitting pretty while the police pass by; after a short while, the alert is over. However, if the player does anything overt, like bumping into another vehicle or spooking a person on the road, its cover is blown.
Regardless, the Pay-'N-Spray shop fully repairs the vehicle, despite the unbelievably short time that it spent in the shop; the player pays a small fee in return. These designs make visits to these shops worth the brief hassle of parking into their garages, which have varying sizes from generously spacious workspaces to small workshops that cannot accommodate anything but small cars.
There are also special garages that provide upgrades for land vehicles, such as nitro boosters that allow the player to gain sudden bursts of speed, and more powerful lamps. However, before the player can peruse them, he/she has to perform certain jobs to unlock them, upon which the game shows a brief cutscene of where the garage is in its associated city. These garages are simple to reach, but there is just one for each city, which is inconvenient.
However, only a few upgrades are practical, some of them have very small benefits, such as convertible roofs for open-topped vehicles, and the rest are just cosmetic.
GAMEPLAY – MINI-GAMES:
There are mini-games that are associated with certain vehicles; perhaps the most entertaining of these is the mini-game that is associated with the police and National Guard vehicles.
C.J. can hijack police vehicles to access the Vigilante mini-game; it is preferable to do this when they are not occupied, though coming across one is a rare occurrence. Outside of alerts, National Guard vehicles won't even be found anywhere but military bases, which are restricted areas.
After C.J. gets into any police or National Guard vehicle, an on-screen text prompt appears for a while to inform/remind the player of the option of triggering the mini-game.
Upon starting the mini-game, the player is informed of armed criminals in a vehicle that has been spawned into the game world, often on a nearby stretch of road. The player then has to chase them down and kill them; destroying their vehicle is optional. However, killing criminals attracts attention from the law anyway, so the player will have to contend with balancing the chasing down of criminals against removing the heat.
Due to the rigours of this mini-game, a wise player would realize that the best vehicle for this mini-game is the only armed National Guard vehicle, which is of course a tank, or the only armed helicopter in the game, which is even more convenient to use.
A (generally) less hazardous mini-game and one that challenges the player's knowledge of the maps is the Taxi mini-game, which can be triggered after getting into any taxi vehicle, of which there are two (which is perhaps an improvement over the only one in previous Grand Theft Auto games). The player has to stop at places where customers are waiting, as will be indicated on the mini-map, pick them up and then ferry them over to their destination under a time limit and without spooking them out with too much rough driving.
Every successful fare leads to one more trip with a longer travel distance, thus increasing the challenge.
The rewards are minimal, but if the player wants to practise getting around in cities and earn a buck while doing so, the taxi mini-game is not a waste of time.
Another mini-game is Fire-fighter, which has to be triggered while C.J. is in a fire-truck. The fire-truck is a fast heavy vehicle, but it has some of the most cumbersome hitboxes for vehicles in this game. This can be a problem when trying to get to cars that are on fire. The designers do attempt to accommodate it by having most of them spawning along main roads, but the risk of attracting the ire of law enforcement by jostling with other vehicles on the road is still present. Moveover, the mini-game also highlights a limitation of the aging game engine; there are no burning buildings to be saved.
One of the hardest mini-games is Paramedic, which is triggered after getting into an ambulance. The mini-game can be considered as being somewhat similar to the Taxi mini-game, but the player has to drive the ambulance, which is a fast but ungainly vehicle. Furthermore, in addition to worrying about the usual traffic rules and a timer, the player has to avoid crashing the ambulance into objects too much, or the patient/passenger dies from the trauma.
Another mini-game that involves a vehicle is the low-rider competition, for which the player needs a low-rider. It is essentially one of the few rhythm mini-games. Bumping the car to the music, and to the often amusing remarks that characters make as the performance goes along, can be quite entertaining the first few times around.
One of the earliest mini-games concerns tricks that can be performed using bikes. By doing stunts like wheelies and stoppies, which can take some getting used to, the player is automatically and inexplicably awarded with small amounts of cash. It is a cheesy but otherwise safe exploit that can be used to garner cash early in the game.
There are also gambling mini-games, which are typically luck-dependent. If the player is patient enough, he/she can exploit the game-saving system to get and keep strokes of good luck in order to farm money with high stakes.
There is a competition that has the player driving a car to get to various spots in an arena, while fending off other participants that are trying to do the same, all within a limited amount of time. There can be quite a bit of fun crashing into other cars and dashing towards said spots, as well as watching the somewhat competent A.I.-controlled participants jostle with each other.
There are also mini-games that have C.J. driving bikes around obstacle courses to score points with tricks, which can be appealing to people who like doing virtual stunts.
The valet parking mini-game is probably useful to players who want to practice parking vehicles neatly and quickly, though it is a lot more convenient to just leave vehicles where they are regardless of traffic as there is no consequence for being so callous.
Some of the mini-games not only contribute to completion percentages, but also provide permanent and desirable benefits. For example, completing all of the challenges in the Paramedic mini-game raises C.J.'s maximum health to 150.
GAMEPLAY – GANG WARS:
Making full use of the game's morally dubious premise, the designers have included gameplay features that involve conflicts between the armed gangs of the three cities in the game, either thematically or directly.
The player can make "drive-bys", which have the occupants of a vehicle, including the driver, shooting out from the sides of the vehicle without losing too much control over the vehicle. Drive-by gunfire can only be performed with one-handed weapons.
However, the drive-bys are of limited effectiveness at best, as even the weakest of characters, including civilians, can take at least a few bullets before they die. The player will need a few drive-bys if C.J. is on his lonesome, though a car full of homies can deliver enough volume of shots to bring targets down.
The player can initiate a turf battle with a rival gang, but before the player can do this, he/she has to consult the "world" map to know where the borders of rival gangs' territories are. Then, he/she has to have C.J. shuffle over there to shoot up some rival gangsters, whose deaths will summon several waves of other gangsters over to the current stretch of territory. To win that territory, the player only needs to eliminate these waves, though this is of course easier said than done.
Due to the large amounts of enemies that the player will face in these confrontations, it is perhaps in the player's interest to bring along C.J.'s homies, if only for use as additional firepower and meatshields. Nearby homies will automatically get into C.J.'s current vehicle if there is space, so the player can utilize this A.I.-controlled behaviour by bringing a huge transport vehicle, like a bus, to collect as many of them as possible.
Waiting for them to fill a bus can take a while, but the A.I. is generally satisfactory at having NPCs get into a vehicle quickly, especially if it has multiple entry points.
Territories under the control of C.J.'s gang generate income over time. However, the money is not automatically credited into the player's account; instead, it accumulates in front of C.J.'s familial home, so the player has to spend time to return there and retrieve the proceeds.
GAMEPLAY – RACES, SECONDARY MISSIONS, JOBS & COLLECTIBLES:
Continuing the tradition that Grand Theft Auto III started, San Andreas offers a bunch of races, which highlight the physics-scripting of the various land vehicles quite well. However, San Andreas' races also highlight how unpredictable the traffic can be, as well as how impractical some land vehicles are for racing.
Although some races have the player using reliable vehicles, some others require the use of fast but awkward vehicles, such as the long low-riders, which can be difficult to swerve around corners without hitting something.
Also, as most of the races are not exactly officially sanctioned by the government of San Andreas and actually take part in the streets and roads, the player has to contend with traffic, which can be quite unpredictable. In one race, the roads are populated by slow and small civilian vehicles, whereas another has huge, unpredictable trucks. The shapes and temperaments of competitors also change from race to race.
Of course, one can say that such designs make each attempt at a race refreshing. Races that are held in closed circuits are a lot more manageable.
If it were only these minor flaws, the races in San Andreas would seem competently designed and show off how versatile the gameplay can be. However, the A.I.-scripting for the NPC participants is not entirely capable of handling the rigors of the races. For example, there is a bike race that has a particular spot in its circuit that can have A.I.-controlled participants wiping out almost every time they come across it.
There are repeatable missions that can be triggered via receiving phone calls from certain characters. For example, one of them informs the player of drug couriers who can be robbed for some cash. These are much like the mini-games, except that they do not contribute to the completion percentage and they do not unlock any rewards.
After their significance to the story has lapsed, these repeatable missions are just there as a source of cash. However, considering the rewards those mini-games and other kinds of side endeavours offer, the player is better of pursuing these instead of the repeatable missions.
Secondary missions have some story-based elements, but are optional as they do not progress the main story. However, it is still in the player's interest to pursue them as they unlock assets for C.J.'s use, such as buildings that generate income. These missions also tend to be among the most outrageous in the game, such as missions where the player has to use heavily armed remote-controlled toys.
One of the jobs that C.J. can perform is to steal cars of peculiar make and send them over to a dubious import/export company. These jobs require the player to deliver the cars in an undamaged state, but the player can also stop by Pay-'N-Spray shops to repair them on the way. These jobs can be considered so easy and rewarding to the point of cheesiness.
Another set of jobs involve work in a quarry (though these jobs are unlocked after performing some shenanigans in the very same quarry). Quarry jobs have the player using very ungainly industrial vehicles, which is in contrast to the other vehicular mini-games.
Other jobs that involve ungainly vehicles have the player delivering cargo to various destinations in durable but slow rigs, under increasingly difficult conditions. The last few deliveries involve delivering illicit cargo that has the tendency to attract dangerous attention from the law.
Some others are just there to show off the variety of gameplay and other physics-scripting in the game, such as delivery jobs involving trains, which are difficult to accelerate and decelerate (and the gameplay for which involves mainly timing).
San Andreas is not above implementing the game feature of collectibles, though it does so in a cleverer way than most games.
One kind of these collectibles involves walls that can be sprayed over with graffiti, an activity that is simply called "tagging" and which is introduced early in the game. Spraying tags is considered as a misdemeanour, however, so considering that tags do not really have much in the way of gameplay-related benefits, this risk not well-compensated for. If there is any amusement to be had from tagging, it is that it provides the spray-paint "weapon", which can be used on people to have them gagging and coughing.
Other collectibles include photo-shoots of locales and objects in San Andreas, which grant a bit of cash each when taken. Some are silly collectibles like Golden Horseshoes, which float above the ground like tantalizing power-ups are wont to do, but which also happen to be surprisingly difficult to locate.
Of course, these things are mainly there for the completionists. They are not too frustrating to get, but there are a lot of them, which can take a long while to collect.
GAMEPLAY – DATING:
Throughout the game, the player comes across women that C.J. can date, though he often gets to know them through troubling events. Once they are safe and sound, the player can have C.J. picking up any of them for a date once in a few days in game-time. There are no consequences to dating multiple women at once.
Each different lady has different preferences for C.J.'s choice of vehicle and clothing, as well as the places that he would take them to on their date. Getting a high approval rating for each date advances the relationship, eventually leading to recreational activities of the adult sort, as well as gameplay bonuses, such as waivers of hospitalization fees if C.J. was to end up incapacitated.
However, dating is also where Rockstar may have made dubious designs for San Andreas. The launch version of the game had suppressed adult-oriented mini-games (complete with voice-overs and animations) that could have been performed after reaching past certain thresholds in the relationships. The suppression but not complete removal of these adult mini-games is a disappointment, as it is evidence of the game designers' less-than-satisfactory quality control.
GAMEPLAY – THREE CITIES:
The locale of San Andreas is actually a fictional state in Grand Theft Auto's fictional version of the United States of America. It is a small state, if compared to actual real-world states in the real USA, but it has more than enough land (and water and airspace) to make it seem really big, as far as sandbox game designs go.
The state of San Andreas is represented by three cities, each having differing levels of development: Los Santos (C.J.'s home city and the least developed), San Fierro (the most metropolitan of them) and Las Venturas (the most ostentatious). Incidentally, these three cities were based on real-world cities that are very far from each other and a little culturally different.
The story has the player moving from one city to another as it progresses, thus providing a change of scenery, though not much in the way of gameplay differences. Every city will have the usual amenities, such as the Pay-'N-Spray shops and food outlets.
The three cities are practically islands that are connected to each other via long bridges, either natural land bridges with highways or long bridges over expanses of water. These are, of course, segments of the game world that hide loading times for the actual three cities. Few if anything that is momentous occurs in these places, neither do they disguise such convenient but cheesy designs.
Fortunately, the game does offer options to skip very long trips to somewhere if C.J. is being driven to said somewhere by someone else, especially taxi rides. Time will advance and taxi rides cost some cash though, but a convenience is still a convenience.
The three cities have different terrain designs, such as San Fierro having quite a lot of hills, whereas Las Venturas has the most flat land. The different terrain has tremendous consequence on the difficulty of challenges and mini-games that require a lot of driving around, such as Paramedic and Firefighter. This means that most players are more than likely to avoid doing these mini-games in certain cities.
STORY-WRITING & CHARACTER DESIGNS:
As to be expected of a Grand Theft Auto game, San Andreas has the protagonist starting in the figurative pits, working up to gain the resources and connections that are needed to get ahead in his life as well as achieve whatever goal that he has. It is a well-worn trope by the time of this game, but it does make for a very effective excuse to have a gradual build-up of challenges.
The story is typically filled with scenarios that a person who prefers a stable life would prefer not to experience. However, it does make for plenty of opportunities to meet the characters in this game, all of whom are quite different from each other, with the only similarity among them is that they are all mouthy and will get C.J. into trouble that escalates in outrageousness (and difficulty) as the story progresses. Thus, it is little wonder that C.J. himself is often quite reluctant to put up with what others demand of him, though less so with his homies.
The first several side characters are people who live in the ghettos, which are less-than-affluent suburban places that are prone to crime and other dubious activities. Soon after, the main antagonist of the game is introduced; he is certainly difficult to like, though he is voiced by a very famous and popular Hollywood actor.
Eventually, the game introduces characters that subscribe to certain character tropes, such as a hippie that is deep into the cultivation of "herbs" and other dubious substances, and a paranoid and meticulous government spy. It is unfortunate though that some of the more interesting ones are not long-term secondary characters.
During some parts of the game, C.J. has to get into a vehicle driven by an NPC. For the most part, these rides are surprisingly smooth and there were no hitches in the routes taken. One can see this as exemplary A.I. design, except that closer observation reveals that the surroundings have also been scripted too, in order to ensure an uneventful ride or at least an on-rails experience if trouble comes.
However, the A.I. scripts for friendly NPCs that are helping out the player in combat are terrible. In fact, they are little smarter than regular enemies. They are often unaware of where the player is firing at and can easily wander into the player's firing line.
If there is a complaint with the story-writing, it is that San Andreas doesn't try to do anything different from Rockstar's "M"-rated titles on how its protagonist handles problems: C.J. often resorts to violence, a lot of crime and nonchalantly performed murders. However, these heinous acts are delivered with such hilarious lines that the amusement to be had would outweigh the rote brutality.
MISCELLANEOUS GAME DESIGNS:
In addition to the game designs above that can be conveniently lumped together under sections of their own, San Andreas has a few other nuances that may be of occasional convenience. For example, there are fast-food outlets that have drive-thru services that allow the player to restock on health without having to exit a vehicle.
There are stores that allow the player to switch out C.J.'s default singlet and pants for other articles of clothing, as well as change his hairstyles (even if he had less hair before the make-over). Different clothes and hairdos have little impact on gameplay beyond the dating features, however.
There are other distractions on the side, such as triathlons that a fit and muscular C.J. can participate in for some cash and for doing something different once in a while.
MISCELLANEOUS COMPLAINTS:
Scripted events often play out in the same way, if the player bothers to replay them. This is to be expected of scripted events, of course, but where the player is given control, he/she can exploit loopholes in the scripted events to pull off convenient solutions, which in turn may cause disbelief.
For example, there are more than a few chase sequences in the game where targeted NPCs abscond in the same direction regardless of how many times they are attempted. Therefore, a crafty player can exploit this behaviour by putting obstacles such as vehicles in the path of the person that is trying to escape.
The game attempts to implement some form of fire and ways to extinguish it in the game, but their contribution is mainly cosmetic; gameplay-wise, fires are just hazardous obstacles that can be a hassle to remove.
After in-game cutscenes, the game replaces models for characters in scripted places, but does not consider obstacles that may be in the way, such as those that the player may have unwittingly placed, e.g. vehicles that are parked nearby. This can result in said characters – including C.J. himself – being spawned into these obstacles, effectively rooting them to the spot and stymieing progress in the game, unless the player reloads a game save (which resets the game world).
GRAPHICS – TEXTURES, PARTICLE EFFECTS & DECALS:
San Andreas uses an updated version of the game engine that was used for Vice City, so the graphical designs in this game are better than those in Vice City, but certainly not cutting-edge during its time.
The blood in this game is indicative of that. Blood spatters are simple particle effects, whereas blood pools are flat decals that appear where slain characters fell. The latter effect for blood is especially apparent when characters die on uneven ground, such as where the sidewalk meets the road. (Their models also happen to lie flat, without any accommodation for the uneven ground.)
The textures for the faces of characters are quite plain; they are just sharp enough to make out facial features with, such as noses and mouths, but these are mostly static textures and not actual sub-models. These limitations are highlighted in a particular mission where the player has to obtain mug-shots of certain characters.
Other textures in the game are generally simple, but objects in the game use many textures to portray a semblance of visual sophistication in order to compensate.
GRAPHICS – ANIMATIONS & MODELS:
The most amusing animations are perhaps those for vehicle-hijacking. For example, characters grab and toss off other characters on bikes when approached from the sides or rear, or kicked off bikes with a swift jump that removes the need for mounting animations.
Facial animations mostly concern the lip-synching for characters' voice-overs; the rest of the characters' faces are static, with the exception of some changes for the textures of characters' eyes during more emotional moments in the story.
The game tries to compensate with body language. In in-game cutscenes, no character stays still. Characters emote via gestures and body movement, but the latter sometimes betray how simple their models are. For example, when they raise their arms above their heads, their armpits are stretched in unbelievable ways.
The models for characters have sufficient parts to portray poses, such as C.J.'s idle standing animation. However, the limitations of these parts and their associated animations become apparent when they move along any terrain that is not flat and level; they appear to float above uneven terrain or are perching on it with not all of their feet touching the ground. They also sometimes clip into objects, especially their corpses.
All these are graphical flaws that have been in games for a long time of course, but they are no less excusable. On the other hand, one can argue that the developers have spent much of their effort on something else other than graphics.
Most of the characters wield their guns as humanoid characters are expected to wield guns in video games, but a set of gun-wielding animations that is worthy of mention is those for one-handed SMGs, which are held sideways. However, this noteworthiness is detracted by the fact that every character in the game uses the same animations.
Vehicles in San Andreas are convincingly animated, with wheels spinning in satisfactorily believable ways and trailing dust and burnt rubber. Damaged vehicles are more amusing to watch, for reasons that have been mentioned earlier.
SOUNDS – VOICE-OVERS:
Voice-overs are among the best appeals of the game, especially for fans of films such as those by Quentin Tarantino. Of course, this means that many characters are tart-mouthed.
C.J. sounds callous and belligerent, not unlike his predecessors in Vice City, but he is more likable because he sometimes shows a convincing lack of wit as well as disbelief at his current situation.
Many characters in the game are voiced by voice-actors of known calibre, such as Samuel L. Jackson and Chris Penn, so the player can expect lines that are delivered with appropriate tones. There are also celebrity musicians (typically rappers and disc jockeys) that contribute to the voice-acting, though their characters are typically much like themselves, if only for the sake of authenticity and convenience.
It is worth playing the game to progress in the story just to listen to these voice-overs, though after the player has exhausted all possible story-centric missions and side missions, there would not be more to listen to.
SOUNDS - MUSIC & SOUND EFFECTS:
Most of the music in the game is licensed from the "underground" music scene. Many of them are obscure songs and soundtracks, but would be refreshing to players who are tired of the mainstream. Alternatively, the player can insert in his/her own favourite tracks into certain game directories, and they can be played via the radio device on vehicles.
Speaking of radio devices, most of the music in the game is played through these; when C.J. is out and about on foot and away from a source of music in the game world, there is no music to be had. However, cutscenes do have music, so at least they are somewhat cinematic.
Vehicle damage has satisfactory aural portrayal. Blown tyres make ominous noises as they roll across land, whereas vehicles that have lost them altogether scrape noisily as metal meets pavement. Then, there are the dramatically loud explosions of course, accompanied by flaming wrecks flipping into the air.
The guns in San Andreas are based after real-world guns, so the player should not be expecting anything that is remarkably refreshing. The outrageously huge minigun is perhaps an exception though.
The ambient sounds can be a bit disappointing, because they are not dense enough to give a convincing atmosphere of urban life. However, San Andreas is an improvement over the more muted city in Vice City.
CONCLUSION:
Overall, one can consider that San Andreas builds on what Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City has done, and of the three, it is perhaps the most expansive and sophisticated.