Live the gangsta life homie and if you play right you wont regret it!
From the get go you are consumed by this rich vibrant world laying in front of you, you truly believe that you are now set back to the mid 90's where gang life was rampant around america. Brought back due to the death of his mother Carl Johnson or CJ goes back to his roots as a gangsta to figure out the circumstances leading to her death and the changes that have happened since that fateful day. Thats the prologue but there is simply so much story to sift through it will take ages simply to write up so a quick summary would be youor a gangsta and you must do what gangstas do best.
moving from the story to the gameplay, this to me personally is a mixed bag, yes the gameplay is so immersive and amazing, but the simple fact is most missions are simply go here and kill so and so, 70% of missions are of this variety and other missions arent big changes from this formula.
however getting to that location is where gta truly takes off on its own, with so many different routes and vehicles and matters going down at once it truly is such an incredible gameplay that not many other developers have managed to nail down yet.
Going back to what i said before about content there level is simply HUGE. Its amazing just how much geometry is really there and not a load screen in sight (unless you go indoors but thats more then acceptable) this game will take at least 50 hours to complete and god knows how many if you want every secret.
gameplay is simply perfect with a great paced story that you can pick up whenever you want to. 1 minor gripe i have is that the controls for gun fights can be a bit stiff and sometimes wont acknowedge that you have pressed the button. Still nothing that would wreck the experiance.
Sound is where this game shines, like halo 2 the sound is what sets this game apart from the rest and elevates it to masterpiece status, every car every weapon every character sounbds so realistic and true and no signs of b-grade actors. The in-car radio is simply a brilliant mix of awesome tunes and hilarious radio, wctr channel ex[pecially is a real laugh out loud station keep an ear out for the actor movie part.
so if this game is so perfect in every aspect then why havent i given it a perfect 10? well a few things bring this game down for me. 1 is the repetitive gameplay and while some will disagree the fact is most missions are simply "get to point a find weapon then go to point b use weapon" of course the way there is up to you, but the missions could still be more varied. The other issue is simply the graphics, while it is understandable given just how much land there is and no load screens, the fact remains the characters and the environments look downright ugly at times, textures take alot of time to load and sometimes dont load at all, a few collision gltiches as well strengthen my view on this matter. i have noticed that not many publications mention the graphics in gta:sa i wonder why! Whhile in halo 2 there are pop-in textures too, they are no way near the level of gta and even at low res their textures look better!
gta truly is a masterpiece and has lived up to the hype, if you havent bought this game yet you are truly mad.