OK time fer another post, and yet again I have chosen to look at another GTA game, so this time I have gone for GTA San Andreas, the hugely successful follow up to Vice City, which came out back in 2004. GTA San Andreas once again expanded on the world that we saw in Vice City as it no longer covers one city, it now covers an entire state, so it sees the series take on a much larger scale than before. There are also a number of new features and upgrades in terms of gameplay mechanics but I'll get to them later, first up let's do the usual look at the plot....
So it all begins in Los Santos (based on Los Angeles of course) back in 1992, when Carl "CJ" Johnson (voiced by real life rap-artist Young Maylay) returns back to his home to attend his mother's funeral. CJ goes back home to his neighbourhood where he meets up with his brother, Sweet (Faizon Love), and his gangster friends Ryder (MC Eiht) and Big Smoke (Clifton Powell). Together they go about trying to re-establish themselves as the main gang in Los Santos, and they also hijack shipments of weapons, and starting turf wars with their main rivals, the Ballas and the Vagos. CJ is also along the way also forced to help two corrupt police officers, Tenpenny (Samuel L.Jackson) and Eddie Pulaski (Chris Penn) into doing their dirty work for them. CJ manages however to maintain good relations with his brother and his friends, as well as earning respect in their neighbourhood. But its not long before things start to turn sour again as CJ receives a tip from Caesar Vialpando (Clifton Collins Jr) who is his sister's boyfriend. Caesar meets with CJ secretly under a bridge where they spy on Big Smoke and Ryder coming out garage with a green sabre, the car which was seen during the drive-by hit on CJ's mother. CJ realises then that Sweet, who is going on a gang mission, that he is walking into a trap set up by Tenpenny. CJ arrives too late on the scene to prevent the ambush, and Sweet is injured by a gunshot, and after making a last stand, the police arrive and CJ is arrested, and taken out into the San Andreas countryside by Tenpenny.
Tenpenny wants CJ to assassinate a witness who is a threat to him and his partner Eddie, and with little choice CJ does the hit. CJ soon after is also called up by a stranger called the Truth who was recruited by Tenpenny as well to prepare in discrediting a district attorney. The Truth is an old hippie and marijuana farmer, who naturally pretty spaced out, and sends CJ to do different missions. CJ also is set up to meet one of Caesar's cousins, the crazed Catalina (Cynthia Farrell) who he does some robberies with, and also engages in some rather dirty sex (we hear it rather than see it!). CJ through Caesar also hears about some underground street races out in the country, and he ends up racing against Catalina, and after winning the race, she hands over the deeds to a garage she owns in San Fierro (the equivalent of San Francisco). CJ along with Caesar, and his sister Kendl (voiced by rapper Yo-Yo) and the Truth all travel out to San Fierro, however they find the garage to be empty and deserted, which angers CJ. Kendl manages to persuade CJ to turn it into a business, and he ends up recruiting a couple of mechanics and an electronics whiz in order to do so. As the business starts to turn a profit, CJ also befriends a Triad leader, the blind Wu Zi Mu "Woozie" (James Yaegashi) and does some business with him as well.
Eventually CJ also travels out to Las Venturas (based on Las Vegas) where he meets up with some more business associates. Along the way however he is intercepted by a secret government agent by the name of Mike Toreno, who asks him to do some work for him, and in return he will secure Sweet's release. And to cut a long story short, its not long before CJ eventually makes his way back to Los Santos, where things have gone from bad to badder, where Big Smoke and Ryder rule the roost and has turned the city filled with drug addled gangsters, and its to him to put an end to it once and for all.
There is no question that San Andreas is a great game, its ambitious scale alone makes it a very worthy gaming experience. The transition to not only a new city, but a new state also expands on the game's appeal considerably, as now the main character can travel from place to place over a vast area. The gameplay mechanics have also improved quite a bit as well, as now with the main character, CJ, he can also sorts of things such as learn new differet styles of attacks such as boxing, martial arts as well as dirty street fighting. CJ can also do something about his physical appearance as he can work out at the gym, and either build up his body by lifting weights, or build up stamina and endurance on an exercise bike or a treadmill, and he can even put on weight by eating too much! Apparently there was even a rumour going around that CJ could eat too much and become so overweight that he would eventually keel over and die, but I tried stuffing CJ full of food for ages and it never happened! And unlike the previous main characters such as Claude and Tommy, CJ now has the ability to swim and climb over fences, as well as to crouch while moving. CJ can also even get a new haircut as well as get tatoos, and in addition to the pre-determined outfits you get from Vice City, here CJ can go into cloth stores and chose his own gear, which can also add to his sex appeal (which is shown as bar meter along with his other aspects such as muscle, stamina, fat and weapon skill). CJ can also go out on dates with girls and there is of course a progress metre for that as well, and CJ can pick up different girlfriends in the different locations in the game, all of whom have different tastes for food, bars, events etc.
Again there is a huge variety of missions here as well, with CJ having more than just the option of playing the story missions (which are really varied as it is!) but he can also play minigames such as burgalries, go on trucking missions, take lessons at an advanced driving school, get involved in street races, and also playing pool, arcade games and basketball. Another key factor in the game is also the gang wars, where CJ will have to take over different turfs in the city, owned by other gangs such as the Ballas, which is done by killing a few gang members, which sparks a gang war, after which CJ must survive a wave of attacks from the gangs, after which he takes over the turf. This play a crucial part later on in the game when CJ returns to Los Santos. In addition to this, there are also a large variety of vehicles to use, as in addition to the usual cars, there are bicycles, a combine harvester, a trailer, street sweeper being some of the more novelty type modes of transportation. There is also the inclusion of planes and helicopters as there is a variety of these two, although CJ's necessity to learn to fly prompts one of the game's most frustrating missions, which I will say a bit more about later.
As for the voice acting, again things are top notch, with the rapper Young Maylay putting in an excellent performance as the central character, Carl "CJ Jonhson, who returns to Los Santos after five years and makes a name for himself again. CJ is a pretty likeable character despite all his crimes, most of them are done out of either survival, necessity or being purely manipulated, but as a character he nevers get ahead of himself, and he carries that way till the end. Samuel L. Jackson as you would expect does a great job as the corrupt copy, Tenpenny, who has CJ's nuts in a vice (so to speak!) and forces him to do his dirty work throughout the game. Faizon Love as Sweet, CJ's brother, is also excellent, and he stands as just about one of the only old school gangsters around, as he is sickened by all the drugs that festers his neighbourhood. Clifton Powell is also very good as Big Smoke, as his gruff voice adds well to the character, as Smoke gives off the idea that he is an old school gangster, who is not into pushing drugs, but instead he reveals himself to be just that, as he takes over the gangs in the middle of the game. Clifton Collins Jr is probably however the weak link here as Caesar Vialpando, and while his performance isn't bad, his semi raspy voice does kind annoy me as I sometimes think he just sounds constipated!
There are several noteworthy voice acting roles in the supporting cast, starting with James Woods, who is generally great in anything he does, and he certainly is here as the secret government agent Mike Toreno, who manipulates CJ into doing work for him. Woods has one of my favourite exchanges of dialogue in the game with CJ, as Toreno grabs CJ from behind by the throat and tells him "I could have killed you in nine different ways! Wake up and smell the coffee!" to which CJ replies "You need to lay off the coffee!". Peter Fonda is also very good as the aged hippie, the Truth, who is pretty spaced throughout the whole game, and he also makes some weird prophecies too, and at one point gets CJ to steal an advanced jetpack from a military airbase, which is one of the game's most enjoyable missions. This mission is also very funny because of silly announcements made over the tannoy when CJ invades the base, and we hear a woman over the PA say "anyone who forgets their ID badge on the base, will not be invited to the staff night out!".
Other notable voice actors include Chris Penn, the late brother of Sean Penn, who gives a fine performance as the corrupt cop, Eddie Pulaski, who it reveals always had a thing for CJ's sister, and in his final mission, where CJ stands over Eddie who is dying, CJ asks him "Any last requests?" and Eddie says "Yeah, can I fuck your sister??". On the comeback side of things, we have Danny Dyer who makes another welcome appearance as Kent Paul, the British record producer who get's lost in the desert out in Las Venturas, and Shaun Ryder also makes a brief cameo as the musician, Maccer, who is with Paul as well, and he gets some funny lines as you would expect. Cynthia Farrell also makes a great return the psychotic Catalina (who was one of the main baddies from GTA III) and she get's some of the funniest lines of dialogue and delivers them great, such as "hand over the cash or I'll blow your fucking balls of!!" and "get your ass in here, Carl Jonhson, or I will shove a fucking hand grenade up it!!". Cataline also taunts CJ about his manhood and his ability (or lack of it) to sexually please her throughout their missions, and after they split up she seems to have a hard time dealing with it! And finally William Fichtner also makes a welcome return again too as Ken Rosenburg, the burnt out lawyer from Vice City, who by now just wants to escape his life of crime altogether, and CJ helps him fake his own death.
Soundtrack wise the game while isn't as strong as Vice City was, there are still plenty of great tracks to chose from here, and thers as usual a big variety to chose from, and different genres such as rock, funk, rap, pop, metal, raggae and country. Some of my favourite tracks appear from the radio stations Radio X, in which they play alternative rock from the early 90s, including tracks from bands such as Helmet (again GTA introduce me to them, still one of my favourite bands!) "Unsung", Jane's addiction "Been caughting stealing" , Depeche Mode "Personal Jesus", Faith no more "Midlife crisis", Rage against the machine "Killing in the name of", Ozzy Osbourne "Hellraiser" and Soundgarden "Rusty cage". Some of the rap tracks, which are naturally befitting of the period setting, are pretty good such as on Playback FM, which is hosted by none other than Chuck D of Public Enemy, who even plays a PE track "Rebel without a pause", as well as other tracks such as Kool G Rap & DJ Polo's "Road to the Riches" and Ultramagnetic MCs "Critical beatdown". K-DST, which plays some classic rock is also a really good channel as you get a choice of songs from bands such as Creedence "Green River", Heart "Baracuda", Kiss "Strutter", Foghat "Slow ride", The Who "Eminence front", Boston "Smokin" and even David Bowie "Somebody up there likes me". And another pleasant surprise on the radio channels was the K-Rose channel, which has probably one of the catchiest songs of all time on it, which is Jerry Reed's "Amos Moses". Just class. On the downside the there is only one chat radio show and its not as funny as the previous games radio shows, with the exception of the series recurring DJ, Laszlow, who has a funny interview with one of the in-game characters, the talentless rapper and gangster, OG Loc.
On the flaws of the game, well the main one that could be levelled at it is the graphics, as graphically it is the least good looking of all the GTA games (except I and II of course, its better looking than them!). The character models all look rather basic and poor, and are almost like a throwback to PS1 technology at times, especially considering the chracter models for Vice City, where while not amazing, were good for their time. But this might also atttribute to the sheer graphical scale of the game, as it is a much bigger game in size than probably GTA III and Vice City put together, so perhaps in a way they had to scale down the models. But it does make the game look somewhat crude and primitive at times, especially next to its previous ones, despite that some of the environments still look good, especially the countryside areas and San Fierro. You could also say that during the countryside missions that it feels like it can take an inordinate amount of time for CJ to get anywhere, especially as he travels to meet with Catalina, he has alot of ground to cover from his original save point. One of the ways around this is of course to buy one of the properties as a halfway house between missions, but that depends on how much money you have. The movement also while it is an improvement on Vice City, you also can find at times that CJ gets occassionally stuck or facing the wrong way when he auto-aims his gun at a target, which means you need to target them again.
Another frustrating aspect early on in the game is the lack of money, especially in Los Santos where CJ has to make his way up again in the hood, and for all the missions he does with his homies, they don't even give him much if any money, especially Ryder, who is a real tight git! Its not until the turf wars start to rear their ugly heads, that is when the drug dealers pop up on a every street corner, then you can make money by shooting them, they leave behind about $2000 each time. And its only really when CJ leaves Los Santos, when he meets up with his new associates that he finally starts to make money. Another annoyance in the game is as I mentioned earlier on, the mission where CJ has to learn to fly, on the orders of Mike Toreno, and you have to undergo some training missions on how to take off and lane a plane, fly it through the sky, parachute from it successfully and most frustrating of all, do a bloody barrell roll, which NEVER comes in handy during the actual gameplay! Which brings up one of the game's most infuriating missions, Vertical Bird, where Mike Toreno (once again!) puts CJ on a mission which involves flying a harrier jet, and it is a nightmare to control the jet, and more often that not I ended up crashing it into the ocean!
But despite all that GTA San Andreas is yet another terrific installment in the highly successful series of games, and once more Rockstar provided the public with another really enjoyable and above all addictive game, which will last for hours and hours. The game also again features an excellent story, a pretty good soundtrack and and a great voice cast.
And after that rather exhaustive post, I think I might have another game!
Bye the now.
No comments:
Post a Comment