GTA:SA is just more of what made the other games in the series so succesful. Running, driving, shooting, blowing stuff up, and picking up hookers. But this time - we've got a game world three times bigger, a few new RPG like variables thrown in, and an African American main character, who can has the amazing ability to change his clothes, and go on dates! Anyone familiar with the GTA series will already have a basic understanding of how this game works. Basically, you run around the cities doing tasks for different people, and progressing the storyline. As you progress, you open up more of the 3 city map, acquire properties that let you save and stash cars, and on occasion pick up a business that will make you some cash. You generally have two or three sources of missions that will progress the game, a couple sources that just add flavor, and collection based and vehicle based missions you can do whenever. Moving on to new cities opens up new characters to obtain quests from, and thus continues untill you have no more left to complete. The added spice in San Andreas comes in not only the vastness of the new map, but in the addition of a few new game elements. The main character, CJ has several stats you can control by doing different things, which will effect his performance in the game. You have 4 primary stats - Fat, Muscle, Stamina, and Respect, along with Sex Appeal, that changes how your character acts and how people respond to him. A fatter CJ will be slower then a leaner one, and the more muscle you have, the more damage your punches will inflict. Higher stamina gives you more time to run before you get tired, higher respect lets you recruit and command a gang, and sex appeal can allow you to obtain girlfriends which will unlock bonuses for constantly dating them. All these attributes have different factors that can modify them. Eating will get you fatter, working out at the gym lifting weights will get you more buffed up, cycling and running a lot will increase your stamina, doing missions or aquiring gang turf will raise your respect, and dressing nice and driving a hot car will raise your sex appeal. Along with those base statistics, are many more values that change your skills with the various weapons and vehicles. Driving bikes a lot will raise your skill with them, and make you less likely to fall off. Using a certain weapon will generally increase your accuracy, and depending on the weapon allow you to strafe while using it, or weild it in dual form. You've also got a luck statistic, progress bars for any girlfriends you acquire, and several other stat progression bars that represent how long you can hold your breath, maximum health, and more. Now that i have the general gameplay out of the way, let me get down to the good and bad points in this game. The Good: Compaired to PS2 and Xbox, the graphics are much better. They're also signifigantly better then the previous releases. Draw distance is much further then the PS2, as well. All the new features are sure to keep a player busy no matter what part of the game they're at. Dating sidequests, driving missions, and collectable items adds to the depth and replayability of the game. Controls are well done for on foot and in car, aiming with the mouse is excellent, and using it to look around corners while you turn is a nifty feature that signifigantly reduces the number of crashes you might get into while turning. Samuel Jackson and some other well known actors lend voice talent to the game, and almost all the voice overs in the game sound extremely well done - no poorly delivered lines at all, all the character talk can really pull you into the game. Mods. There's already several mods out at this point, only a few days after the release. There's likely to be many more that will add to the replayability of the game and generally make it more fun. The Bad: PC gamers will be a bit miffed that the console save system is still being used. When you want to save, you have to return to one of your safehouses or one of the few save points thrown about the massive worldmap. No mid mission saving - screw up and you have to start all over again. There's no support for SLi. As of right now, any SLi using gamers will have to disable SLi rendering to play. Also, a good deal of ATI cards in general have been experiencing glitches with video. A patch might be released soon to fix this, but as of right now its a serious downside of the game. Even with a powerful rig, there can be some serious lag. Set off a bunch of detonations at once, or fly through a cloud, and even with a cutting edge computer, you'll still see lag. Like my last gripe, this may or may not be fixed through a patch later on, but as of right now is a bit of a pain. Overall, the graphics are very dated for a computer game. Essentially, the graphics engine is 5 years old. By no means does this retract from gameplay, but during the cutscenes, seeing your hand and realizing you really dont have any fingers takes away some of the immersiveness. Some missions will have you pulling your hair out, retrying dozens of times. Keyboard and mouse controls can be overly-sensitive for flight and motorcycling. Flight on the keyboard will take lots of practice, and in some cases you almost need a gamepad to complete different school tests. Conclusion: GTA:SA is a great game, only being held back by its own console roots - dated graphics, console style saving, a few control quirks, and missions that can drive you insane trying to complete. For the most part, though, the gameplay makes up for it. The addition of new elements like the gang war and the huge game world keeps this game above standard, and well worth any gamer's hard earned "paper".
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