Well, since its the 20th anniversary of the classic action game, GTA San Andreas, I figured I would re-do my previous review of the original game a bit for this occassion. I will also incorporate in some aspects of the definitive edition remaster of the game, which was a disaster on release in 2021 but has since been patched well enough.
So, with that said let's take another look at this GTA classic and see how it fairs 20 years later...
And here is the usual warning:
PLOT SPOILERS ARE AHEAD!!!
STORY
So, it all begins in Los Santos (based on Los Angeles) back
in 1992, when Carl "CJ" Johnson (voiced by hip-hop 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, Frank Tenpenny (Samuel L.Jackson) and Eddie Pulaski
(Chris Penn) into doing their dirty work for them, who work for the CRASH police program (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums). 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 (Peter Fonda) 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 kinky 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 named Zero (David Cross) 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 (James Woods) 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 worse, where Big Smoke rules the roost and has filled the city with drug addled gangsters and its to CJ to put an end
to it once and for all.
THOUGHTS
There is no doubt that
GTA San Andreas is a superb game and 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 and three
different cities. And its the game's scale, characters, combat and
overall fun experience that makes it one of the greatest GTA games and
indeed one of the modern greats in gaming.
GAMEPLAY
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. I will break down the different aspects of the gameplay in paragraphs below further.
GYM TRAINING
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! However every time CJ overeats, he will throw up and lose a bit of his health bar so he could die that way right enough!
MOVEMENT AND CHARACTER STATS
Unlike the previous main characters such as Claude and
Tommy (in GTA III and Vice City respectively) 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).
DATING
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. And if the date goes well then some idyllic,
romantic music is played but if it goes badly then rather amusingly we used to hear "Killing in the name of" by Rage Against The Machine play over the
cutscene! However since the original release, RATM's track no longer features on the soundtrack, so its just the usual romantic theme instead.
MISSIONS
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. Further to this in the Xbox 360 version of the game, the missions will also feature checkpoints, which is very welcome and more recently in the definitive edtion remaster, it also features checkpoints as well as an autosave feature after completing a mission.
GANG WARS AND TURFS
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 plays a crucial part later on
in the game when CJ returns to Los Santos as he must take over at least
35% of the gang turfs in Los Santos in order to activate the final story
mission (called The End of the Line).
VEHICLES
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.
VOICE ACTING AND MUSIC (Warning: this section contains strong language and spoilers!)
As for the voice acting, again things are
top notch with a great cast.
Starting with real life hip-hop artist, 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. Young Maylay, or to use his real name, Chris Bellard, did not get on well with Rockstar as he had a fallout with them after the game released and claimed he would never work for them again afteward.
Maylay also get's some great lines throughout
the game such as when he is driving and he bumps into someone and he
comes out with lines such as "Are you a professional moron, or just a
gifted amateur??!" or "Did you steal your licence???!".
Maylay
also has some great scripted moments in the game's cutscenes that
include the scene where CJ arrives at the empty garage in San Fierro,
which Catalina gave him the deeds for. And when he arrives he angrily
shouts about Claude "Mother-fucker! That mute asshole! That fucking
snake without a tongue!
Gave me this shit-hole instead of a pink slip? I must be the biggest
fucking idiot in the whole fucking world!".
Then there are the scenes where CJ is out robbing with
Catalina and he talks to her of her psychotic behaviour when they are
driving and he says to her "You're a great girl and all, but you've
gotta calm down! I know some cold blooded cats that wouldn't act the
way you do!". Or there is the moment where CJ and Catalina rob a bank
together and she tells him what to do crowd control and not to take any
"shit!" and CJ sarcastically replies "Yes, Miss Catalina, Miss!!".
Samuel L. Jackson as you would expect does a great job as the corrupt copy, Tenpenny, who uses CJ as his own personal puppet and forces him to do his dirty work throughout the game.
And to save time and making this post much bigger than it needs to be (than it already is!) I will mention one scene from the mission "Riot" where Sweet having met the wank obssessed English musician, Maccer (voiced by Shaun Ryder of The Happy Mondays) asks who he is.
So Sweet asks "What's with the weird Brit?" and CJ tells Sweet "What? Oh, Maccer! He got a little problem he can't control". And Sweet asks "What kind of problem?" and CJ awkwardly says "He can't stop, you know, giving himself a little bit". And Sweet says "What, you mean he likes to consult Professor Hans Jerkov?" and CJ says "Yeah regularly!" and Sweet says a few more crude phrases for masturbation such as "Spank the money" and "Take Palm-ela out??" and "Burp the worm??".
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 does well also in his role as Cesar Vialpando, although it has to be said that his semi raspy voice does get annoying after a while and when he says "Hey, Holmes!" he sounds like he is constipated!
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
plenty of good moments in the story although I will only mention a few
to save some time such as the one where Toreno finally reveals who he
really is after putting him through some racing exercises. And Toreno
warns CJ "Do not be a fucking smart-ass with me! I work for a
government agency.
It is not important which one. I will try not to confuse you. Yes, when
we last met, I was involved in battling threats in Latin America, by any
means necessary! That does not make me a drug dealer. Now, the money
that we raised, the friends that we won over, have helped us
immeasurably in our overseas interests".
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 "Got you again, Carl! You're half
asleep! I could have killed you in 9 different ways. Wake up and smell
the coffee!". And he let's CJ go who angrily says to Toreno "You
need to lay off the coffee!".
And later there
is also the scene in the mission "Vertical Bird" where CJ steals a jet
fighter at Toreno's behest and after CJ bombs some ships in the ocean
Toreno communicates with him over a radio. And Toreno says to CJ "You
see! Child's play!" which enrages CJ who shouts at him "FUCK YOU,
TORENO! I NEVER WANT TO GO THROUGH THIS AGAIN! I THINK I'M GONNA
HURL!". And after this Toreno teases CJ saying "Ooh, what a big whiner,
you want some cheese with that wine? Hey, you
were spectacular. You know what, I'm beginning to think my little Carl
is a double agent. Oooh!". And CJ shouts at him "Shut up, Toreno!!
Where do you want this thing?!" and Toreno says to him "What thing? I
don't know what you're talking about - you stole it. Got
nothing to do with me, I don't know what you're talking about. See ya
'round!".
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 "Black Project".
Fonda
also has some good lines of dialogue such as in his first exchange with
CJ over the phone as he says to him "Carl..." and CJ asks "Who's this?"
and Truth says "Its me. The Truth" and CJ asks "Who?" and Truth says
"Perfection! They said you were a moron!".
Another
example later comes in the mission "Wear flowers in your hair" which is
set in San Fierro, CJ and Truth drive around to recruit guys to help
build-up CJ's garage business. And during the mission, Truth spouts out
some weird conspiracy theories to CJ " Now what if I told you, we never
went to the moon, JFK lives in
Scotland with Janis Joplin and the only reason we've been in a Cold war
for the last 45 years was because snake-headed aliens run the oil
business??". And CJ sarcastically replies "I think you popped another
microdot!" and Truth says "Good! Keep it that way".
James Yaegashi is
also excellent as Wu Zi Mu or "Woozie" as he is known to everyone else
who is a mild mannered guy who just so happens to be the leader of a
group of Triads, the Mountain Cloud Boys. Woozie is blind but he
doesn't like it to be mentioned in his presence but despite this he has
highly attuned senses and he can still do things such as beat CJ at
playing video games but most of the time his men let him win at games.
And
in one of the cutscenes this is noted when CJ and Woozie are playing
blackjack and CJ checks Woozie's hand, which is a losing one and Woozie
annoyed says "
Damn. You're bad luck for me. You know, when I play the other guys, I
always win!". But in another cutscene as Woozie does some putting in
his office, one of his associates moves a glass into its path so he can
hole it but the associate moves the glass away when CJ tries to putt.
And CJ looks on incredulously and says "What the....?!" and Woozie
sensing CJ missed says "Aww bad luck!".
Yaegashi
also has some good lines too in the story that include the scene where
in the mission "Mountain cloud boys" CJ and Woozie are ambushed by a
Vietnamese gang who kill one of Woozie's Triad clan. And in the scene
Woozie shows another side to his personality as he becomes furious at
the deaths of his clan and yells at the gang "THE TRIADS MUST HAVE
VENGEANCE!! YOUR MOTHERS WERE SLUTS!!!". And after they kill off the
rival gang members, Woozie says to CJ "Thank you, Carl, you saved me
from having to kill them all myself!".
MC Eiht is
also pretty good as Ryder, one of the Grove street gang that
(SPOILER!!) ends up betraying CJ and Sweet and is part of the Loco
syndicate. Eiht has some good moments too and Ryder's character always
seems to enjoy putting CJ down about his driving and he also spends
quite a bit of his time high on marijuana.
And Eiht's
good scenes include the one where CJ pays Ryder visit when Ryder is high
as a kite on marijuana. And Ryder, stoned, says to CJ "
Hey, CJ, tell me why I didn't finish high school" and CJ offers a few
joky explanations and Ryder laughs and says "It's cause I'm too
intelligent for this shit. I am the real deal fool, oh, yeah. A
genius!".
And in another scene during a mission when
Ryder slags off CJ for his driving as they get and drive off, Ryder says
to CJ "You drive, CJ - seein as you "Mister Driver" an all and CJ says
"Aw not your shit again, don't give me a hard time about my driving, I
ain't got the energy fot it!". And Ryder says to him "Well don't roll
the damn car over and blow us all up in flames then!" and CJ says "Aw, I
ain't risin to your shit, man!" and Ryder says "Good! Means you'll
concentrate on the road then!". So CJ says "You love givin a homie a
hard time" and Ryder says "Just tryin to keep my soldiers alive, nigga!"
and CJ says "By naggin them to death???" and Ryder shouts "Watch the
road, motherfucker! Watch the road!".
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 is keen to just get rid of CJ as fast as possible despite Tenpenny insisting on using him.
So, I will mention just one mission of Pulaski's, which is the final one he appears in "High Noon" where CJ is forced to chase down and kill Pulaski as he flees the scene where CJ and Officer Hernandez were both to be buried.
So, in the mission, CJ chases Pulaski and as they drive on the road, CJ shouts out to Pulaski "Hey Eddie, you know Tenpenny gonna rub you out too!" and Pulaski shouts "Carl, you got it all wrong, pal! Tenpenny was the one saving your ass! Every time I wanted to get rid of you, he found some excuse to keep you around! How's sister?! You know I always had a thing for her! Me and my friends got some picture of her and her Barrio boyfriend going at it like a pair of horny chiwawas! Best stakeout I ever done!". CJ then warns Pulaski "I know what you're trying to do, so don't get into my head!" and Pulaski then provokes Carl further "Carl, you shoud have seen your mum's body, she was a real mess!" and CJ warns him "Don't talk about my moms!" and Pulaski taunts him "Most of her face was hanging off! The boys were touching, joking around and shit!" and CJ finally snaps and shouts "FUCK YOU, PULASKI! FUCK YOU!!".
So, after CJ manages to shoot Eddie, in the final cutscene CJ stands over Eddie who is dying, CJ asks him "Any last
requests?" and Eddie says "Yeah, can I fuck your sister??". And this
prompts CJ to say, disgusted by Pulaski "You're an asshole to the end.
Punk motherfucker!" and he finishes him off.
Jas Anderson is
also quite funny as the annoying, talentless rapper and wannabe
gangster, OG Loc who at one get's Carl help to get his rap career on the
go by discrediting a popular rapper named Mad Dogg (played by the
rapper Ice-T).
Loc has some funny scenes that involve
things such as getting revenge over a former hispanic cellmate, who is
pretty camp and says that OG "dropped the soap" when he was in prison.
And later after they kill off the cellmate, CJ drops Loc off at his new
job, which is working at a burger joint as a "hygiene technician" and
how it is "just a stepping stone to greatness!" as Loc plans long term
to become a famous rapper. So when CJ drops Loc at the joint, CJ says
to Loc "I'll see you around" and Loc says to him "Like a quarter pound!
Later!".
However Jas's funniest moment as Loc comes
when Loc quits his job at the burger place and he turns back and shouts
at them from the door "Man, fuck you! And I don't care what you heard, I
ain't
nobody's ass technician, BITCH!".
Next up 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 Dyer has some funny bits of dialogue in the game such as when Kent
and Maccer are both rescued by CJ in the desert as they are both feeling
worse for wear after taking some peyote. So as CJ finds them out in the
desert, Maccer complains "I can't feel me legs, our P! I've wanked the
use out of em!" so Paul with disgust says "Just stand up, you soppy
cunt! We go through this every weekend!". And as CJ picks them up and
they are chased by rednecks in a truck from a snake farm, Maccer says to
Paul "This is a very stressful situation!" and Paul shouts "You're
fucking tell me it is??!!".
And Shaun Ryder also makes a brief cameo
as the perverted musician, Maccer, who can't resist giving himself a bit of "hand comfort" infront of other people!
And Shaun does have some prettu crude lines of dialogue that include
the one where he mistakenly asks if Rosie (Rosenberg the lawyer that
appeared in Vice City) has great tits. So, Maccer asks Paul "What kind
of tits did this Rosie have? Small tits? Big tits? Or tits like a beanie
or a saddlebag?!" and Paul exasperated shouts "Rosie's a man!!". Maccer then continues to tease Paul by saying "You look a pale as a drowned baby, man!" and Paul groans and Maccer says "P, what you need is some food down ya!" and Paul groans "I think I'm gonna chuck!" and then Maccer says "A fried egg with mayonaise will sort it" and then "What about a pickled egg?" and Paul has had enough and says "Pull over NOW!" and he get's out the car and vomits if you let CJ pull over.
Later on of course during a recording session with Madd Dogg, Maccer is
at it again as he chugs off in the booth much to the disgust of the
others. So, Paul tries to dissuade Maccer from wanking again by saying
to him think of Maggie Thatcher, which doesn't even work! So, in the
scene as Maccer is doing it he shouts "I'M LOVE YOU, MAGGIE!! I LOVE YOU, MAGGIE!".
Oh God! (sick bags at the ready!).
Cynthia Farrell also makes a great
return as 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 with in style.
As for a few examples there is a
line when they rob a bank and Catalina shouts at the staff "Hand over
the cash or I'll blow your fucking face
off!! Leave the panic button, or I'll kill your children too!". And as
the clerk sets off the alarm, Catalina shoots the clerk and yells "I
warned you, you stupid bitch! Stupid fucking bitch! EAT MY SHIT!!!".
In
one of the other missions "Gone Courting" Carl arrives at Catalina's
hideout and calls on her and we hear her say "In here, mi amor" and he
says "Ai'ght come on, let's go!" and she says angrily "You get your
sorry ass in here, Carl Jonhson, or I will shove a fucking
hand grenade up it!!".
Another example is when they
drive to commit another robbery, Carl asks Catalina "What's wrong?" and
Catalina says "Nothing. I just hate men!" and Carl says to her "Well
give me a break!" and Catalina says to him "Here's your break, you being
at my barbacue and not being eaten!" and CJ says "Well that's one way
of looking at shit I suppose!".
Cataline also taunts CJ
about his manhood and
his ability (or lack of it) to sexually please her throughout their
missions, which prompts more putdowns such as "Tiny balled idiota!" and
my favourite "You are a waste of good balls!". And after they split up
she seems to have a hard time dealing
with it and she keeps calling him over and over!
Charlie Murphy (the
older brother of Eddie Murphy) is also pretty good as the pimp, Jizzy,
who CJ briefly works for but is really spying on him to find out about
the Loco syndicate. Murphy also get's some good lines as Jizzy such as
in the mission "Mike Toreno" where Jizzy tries to calm down a hotheaded
T-Bone Mendez by saying "T-Bone! Pump your brakes, baby. Take a chill
pill, and just lay back and let the red mist fall, brother!".
And
lastly there is the mission "Outrider" where Jizzy calls CJ to meet up
with T-Bone and says to him "Well, my business associates, they need a
little assistance. And I
thought of you, friend. Meet T-Bone at the gas station next to the docks
at Easter Basin. He's waiting for you in a 4-door sedan. Excuse me,
partner, I got a call coming in. Arrivederci!".
Kid Frost is also good in his role as the hotheaded drug dealing associate with the Loco syndicate, T-Bone Mendez.
Frost's
best moment comes in the mission "Outrider" when CJ is set to meet with
T-Bone in a Sedan car but CJ can't see him anywhere so he get's into
the car only to find T-Bone spring up behind in the backseat and he
holds CJ at gunpoint. So at gunpoint T-Bone threatens Carl saying "
Hey, you a pinche jura or what?! You think you can mess with me?!! I
will blow your head off, and rape and
kill your family, you snake!! You think you can fucking bullshit me, and
fuck me over?! I know your fucking game, ese!". T-Bone then grills CJ
further and yells "Who you working for?!" and CJ struggles and says
"NOBODY!" and T-Bone let's him go and says "I almost had you, man. I
almost fucking had you. Guacha! You gotta be careful in this business,
man, you know that".
William Fichtner who
reprises his role as the neurotic drug addled lawyer, Ken Rosenberg,
who was Tommy Vercetti's business partner in GTA: Vice City and he does a
fine job here again.
And to quote one of Fichtner's good scenes, there is one in the mission,
"The Meat Business" where Paul gives Rosenberg a few lines of cocaine
to get him fired up again. So, after Rosenberg snorts a line, he shouts
excitedly "Oh, ha ha ha ha! Baby, I'm back, I AM BACK! Let's get this
show on the road!". So, Carl asks Rosenberg "So everything is ok now?"
but Rosenberg says "No! Absolutely not! I'm still screwed! Absolutely
screwed, but at least now I'm in the right frame of mind. What the fuck
are we going to do? Any minute now, some Mafia bullet is going to
splatter my brains all over the wall! My wall, my beautiful wall...".
So as CJ and Rosenberg drive to a meeting with the Mafia at the meat
factory, Rosenberg expresses his desire to lead an ordinary life. So,
Rosenberg tells CJ "I want to do something safe and legal and boring,
with people that like me. And have a wife and some kids and get divorced
and fight for weekend access, like everybody else!". So, CJ tells
Rosenberg "OK, I'll see what I can do" and Rosenberg says while snorting
coke "Thanks, I'm just so tired of all this life or death bullshit.
(sniff) Oh, shit, shit's all down my (sniff) damned shirt, and
everything. Oh, that's my best shirt too, doesn't this shirt look good
on me?!".
And last but far from least is Frank Vincent (who sadly passed away last year) who
is great as the mob boss, Salvatore Leone and he is very much at home
playing mob guys so he does a fine job here again in that role.
And Frank has some good lines of dialogue but his most notable ones come
not long after CJ has robbed Leone's casino and a furious Leone calls
up CJ and threatens to kill him. So, Leone yells at CJ "You two-faced backstabbing piece of eggplant shit!" and CJ sarcastically says "Mr Leone, nice to hear from you too". Leone then furiously yells "You're dead! I'm
gonna fuck you up, your brother and sister! You're whole family!!! You're
ALL dead!!". CJ however is not worried and casually says to Leone "I'm
sorry, Mr Leone but I've got some money to spend on some expensive trash!".
SOUNDTRACK AND RADIO STATIONS
As for the game's soundtrack, well while it isn't
as strong as Vice City's diverse soundtrack there are still plenty of great tracks to
chose from here, and there is a big variety to chose from, and
different genres such as rock, funk, rap, pop, metal, raggae and
country.
And 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
caught 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 radio station for chat radio but there are several
radio programs that feature on the station. It also has to be said
that the radio shows themselves are a bit hit and miss but some of them
are still funny and they also feature the recurring
DJ, Laszlow, who has a funny interview with OG Loc, who get's very angry
with Laszlow as they talk at cross purposes.
Its also worth
noting that some of the tracks were removed from the Xbox 360 version of
the game such as Rage against the machine's "Killing in the name of" on
Radio X, Tom Petty's "Running down a dream" on KT-DST and Utramagnetic
MC's "Critical Beatdown" on Playback among others. This is a pity as it
would have been good if the full original soundtrack list was kept in
this version but I'm guessing it was for copyright reasons.
GRAPHICS
Moving
onto the game's graphics well they are for the most part fairly good
but the game does however suffer from having subpar looking character
models as the characters look blocky and under-developed in their
appearance yet in GTA Vice City the characters models looked a lot
better. However I think this might have come down to the fact that the game
itself is so big and has such expansive environments that the
quality of the character modelling had to suffer.
However
despite this, the game's graphics are still quite impressive when it
comes to its environments, which look good and are pretty varied given
the game is set in three cities, it covers a lot of ground indeed. The
game also makes good graphical use of its HUD (heads up display) for
CJ's health bar as well as the stats for his stamina, muscle, sex
appeal, body fat etc which in itself is a unique feature in the game.
Its also worth noting the game's environmental effects are also pretty
good as it makes good use of its colours for sunsets in the evening or
even the rain and storm effects are well done.
However as the Definitive Edition remaster released in 2021, this sees San Andreas get a massive visual overhaul and for the most part it looks very impressive. There of course some issues with the graphics still with some clipping issues and minor glitches as well as some of the character model choices (e.g. Carl's Grove Street girlfriend, Denise, still looks a bit weird!). However all that aside, the remaster definitely remains the best looking version of the game and it also recently got a nice update where you can use the classic lighting from the game, which really does add a nice touch and a neat throwback to the original.
FLAWS
As for GTA: San Andreas's flaws....well yeah despite it being a great game there are still a fair few to be found.
So for starters, I felt that the countryside missions can take an
inordinate amount of time for CJ to
get to his eventual destination especially when 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. This
however is partly mitigated by the emastered version's automatic checkpoint
saves after finishing a mission.
Another slight issue with the gameplay is to do with the game's targeting system for weapons and you can find
at times that CJ occasionally gets stuck or faces the wrong way when
he auto-aims his gun at a target, which means you need to target them
again. This to be fair however isn't a big deal but it is still slight a slight annoyance that is worth mentioning.
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-ass! 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 as they leave behind
$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 barrel roll, which NEVER comes in handy
during the actual gameplay!
So, this brings up one of
the game's most
infuriating missions, "Vertical Bird" where Mike Toreno puts CJ on a
mission which involves flying a harrier jet, and it is a
nightmare to control the jet, and more often that it is far too easy to
crash the jet into the water! This level itself is often cited by
gamers as one of the most difficult in the series. However on repeated playing, this mission isn't too bad to be fair once you get used to it.
And
for me one of the most frustrating and annoying missions in the whole
game deserves its place here, which is "Interdiction" where CJ has to do
some dirty work for Toreno as he is to protect a chopper carrying cargo
from enemy choppers that circle it. And in the mission CJ needs to
shoot them down with a rocket launcher but the cargo chopper can too
often get caught in the crossfire which makes this goddamn mission a
massive pain in the ass and I've lost count the amount of times I've
had to redo over the years!! And by the time I'm done with it I'm ready
to punch Toreno myself never mind how CJ must have felt!
Ahhh
but wait for it (and I apologise for this next bit).......there is
another mission, which makes "Interdiction" and "Vertical Bird" appear
like a picnic and THAT mission is "Cop Wheels". Now to say I hate this
mission would be a total understatement but that simply does not do
justice as to just how infuriating it is! Its just a maddening pile of crap!
Words fail me
on how annoying this one is and the premise is fairly simple enough, CJ
has to steal four cop motorbikes in prep for their robbery on the mafia
casino and get them transported onto a car packer on the very busy
freeways of Las Venturas. Now this might sound relatively straight
forward but believe me it isn't and you only have 12 minutes to get all
four bikes onto the packer or you fail the mission. Why ONLY 12
MINUTES???!! I mean why don't they allow for a full 15???!! I mean
that would help to give you a bit more time to get things done!
And
not only that but your problems in the mission are compounded by the large
distance between each of the bikes and also the big distance between you
and the packer on the freeway, which is miles away. Combine this with
the police always on your ass for stealing the bikes and also carelessly
but unavoidably crashing into cars or lamp posts or walls, it eats into
your time too much and before you know it you are out of time, well
either that or got arrested!
I'm sure there are other
missions beyond this one that will also cause some major frustration
(Vertical Bird for sure) but none as worse as this. Cop Wheels is one
of the worst missions in the game for sure and if you have any sanity
left and enough patience you might just get through it!
OK rant over!
Another problem I have with the game is how you cannot gain
access to the Ammu-nation stores from the start of the game, as you can
only get a crappy 9mm gun from the old guy, Emmett until a specific
mission later on in the first Los Santos part of the game. This is a
pain as you think it would be better if CJ could just go to the gun
store and make his life a bit easier rather than rely on the most basic
handgun in the game! You can of course kill other enemies such as the
Ballas or other gangs to get slightly better weapons such as Tec-9's or
shotguns but that's about it.
Then we have a similar issue with the clothes stores as you need to wait quite a few missions before you get a call from Cesar, who tells CJ that he needs to get himself some gang colour clothes. Now, its funny he says that because you cannot get the Grove Street outfit from ANY of the stores in the game! I mean you can get some similar green clothed items, such as the green hoody from the Binco store but you simply cannot get the actual gang outfit anywhere, which is a bit daft if you ask me but hey ho.
As
for some plot niggles I felt that some of the Truth's missions were a
bit pointless and left things unexplained such as the missions "Black
Project" and "Green Goo" where in the first one, Truth has CJ steal a
jet pack to later use it to capture some green goo from an US army
train. Now, OK I get the jet pack part at least but its not explained at
all why Truth wanted CJ to steal the green goo or what he intended to
do with it for that matter either! So for me this mission is pretty
pointless and its basically an excuse for CJ to get his hands on the
jet pack later (but don't get me wrong it is one of the cooler gadgets in
the game!).
I also felt the same thing about the mission in San Fierro where CJ
recruits a couple of mechanics for his garage and during the mission,
Truth makes CJ stop and wait for fed cars to go by or wait outside a
hospital for some unknown reason. Its the vagueness of the Truth's
mission is what makes them a bit annoying at times.
Also even though Truth in their first call, insults CJ by calling him a "moron" it has to be said the Truth isn't always that bright himself! This is especially true in the missions "Are you going to San Fierro?" where Truth lights up a joint and asks CJ if he wants some but CJ rightfully turns him down because otherwise he might crash the Truth's van! I mean CJ was already feeling the affects of burning Truth's hash fields, so he is not going to feel much better taking a spliff when he has to drive, so, yeah smart move, Truth you knob!
Last of all, on a personal note, I
have to say I really didn't like the racing missions in the game either
as they are a real pain in the ass. I say this because during the
racing, its all too easy to crash your car into say a lamp post, which
would delay your progress and you will lose your place in the race,
either that or spin the car out of control and derail it off a cliff and
into the water!
And for me I think the worst
racing mission of the lot is "Farewell my lovely" which is where CJ has
to race against Catalina's new lover, Claude (the silent main character
from GTA III) and it is far too easy to derail your car off the road in
this race, which makes it a major pain in the ass to finish! So I think
its safe to say whenever I play this mission I can't wait to skip it
and not only that if you do fail the mission you usually find you have
one hell of a long trek back to the starting point again! Again however
in the remaster version, this is solved by the use of checkpoints, which
is a relief!
In
fact further to this its worth mentioning in the mission "Photo
opportunity" where CJ and Cesar drive out into the country to spy on the
members of the drug syndicate named "Loco" after the mission is over,
Cesar suggests they split up and he leaves CJ to make his own way back
to San Fierro, which is a LONG way off!! So that means that CJ has to
jack another car simply because Cesar can't be arsed to give his buddy a
lift! Ces, you are a dick, mate!
Also further to this
(and this is my last point on Cesar honest!) another REALLY annoying
aspect of the game are the constant calls CJ gets from Cesar about
pursuing Smoke's couriers that are transporting drugs or "yay" as CJ
calls it. These calls feature way too often in the game and if you
accidentally or even agree to pursue the couriers, it takes AGES to
reach them as they go cross country! Also when this happens you cannot
save the game at a safe house if you make the mistake of agreeing but
this also happens on the first call you get about the couriers, which
makes it unavoidable first time round. So, I would totally recommend to
ALWAYS turn down Cesar when he calls about this otherwise you are in for
a real pain in the ass of a time to get these guys.
And last of all is an issue with the whole idea of CJ and Woozie robbing
a Mafia casino and thinking they would get away with it! I mean its the
Mafia after all! And later CJ even gets an angry call from Salvatore
Leone, who is furious with CJ and spouts a bunch of death threats at him
and how he will kill him and his family and CJ smugly tells Leone that
he has a lot of money to spend and has to go. Now, does CJ really believe
he will be able to get away with robbing a Mafia owned casino??? I
don't think realistically he would have a chance against them and after
the end of the game he is bound to get whacked!
Anyway that's it for the flaws.
SUM UP
So
to sum up, in replaying GTA: San Andreas, its still a terrific game overall, as its gameplay is
varied and tremendous fun, it also features a superb cast, who all give
great performances and again it features a very solid soundtrack with
plenty of radio channels and tracks to listen to. It
may have some minor flaws and some deeply infuriating missions however
for the most part, the bad points are outweighed by its good points and
even after all this time it still remains my favourite of the GTA
series.
So, I will give GTA San Andreas a rating of:
10 out of 10
So, that's it for now and I will try and be back soon with another posted before Christmas, so until its bye for now!
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