Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

[iBender]

This is my favourite out of all the GTA games.
I've played the PS2/Xbox and Xbox360 On Demand and my favourite platform to play this game on is the Orginal Xbox version.
On that version and that version only, you get your own hardrive as a radio station fully intergrated into the game.

Loved the game play/design and soundtrack.

 

[Canadave]

You can create your own radio stations on the PC versions too.

I like San Andreas, myself. The game map is very impressive, and I love how much there is to see. But the feel and plot I've always found somewhat disappointing. LA gang wars just seem like a much less inspired setting than the 80s Florida drug wars of Vice City, which is my personal favourite.

 

[BlobVanDam]

San Andreas is the only GTA I actually didn't like. In my opinion they made the big mistake of trying to put too much in there, and it just weakened the core gameplay. Too many little mini games and useless side quests to do with girlfriends and tapping a button for ten minutes to lift weights. And the map was too big for it's own good, with a lot of wasted space, and the gameplay progression was too slow. I played it for a week straight, hadn't even gotten off the first island yet, had barely any weapons beyond the basic pistol, and was just bored of it and gave up.
It's a shame, because it included some nice new features, such as swimming, climbing fences, knives etc. But the game never grabbed me.

Vice City is still my favourite despite its flaws, and if I'd played it more GTA 4 would probably be my favourite. imo it fixed all of the mistakes that SA made, while going in the right direction for it's new additions.

 

[Reverend]

San Andreas is my favourite too...but then that might be because it's the only GTA game I've played besides the original 2D ones.

I actually bought the full set (sans GTAIV) in a steam sale some time back but so far I haven't been able to get either GTAIII or Vice City to work properly.

As for SA, I honestly do really like it and actually managed to complete the main story. Getting off that first island is a bit of a chore (especially that horrible train mission) but once you're out things roll through at a nice steady pace. Learning to fly is a nightmare at first but once you have the skill it's very rewarding to be able to drive onto an airfield, steal a passenger jet, fly over where you want to go and just parachute out.

 

[Kronos]

San Andreas and Vice City are the high water marks so far for the series, GTA4 actually felt empty and dull compared to them.

IMO

 

[TheGodBen]

I've loved all the main GTA games since I first played the 2D original, but there were times when I think that San Andreas was too crazy for its own good, especially during the missions where you break into a secret military complex to steal a jetpack in order to rob an army train to acquire some extraterrestrial goo. That was a long way from GTA3 and Vice City's gangster epics. Hell, it was a long way from the gritty ghetto violence from earlier in San Andreas. I was glad that GTA4 chose to take a more serious tone after that.

 

[Reverend]

^ I never got on with the first game very well. It was fun for just messing around but I could never actually complete many missions. Mostly I'd just steal a bus an speed up and down the main roads, ploughing it through police roadblocks until the thing blew up.

As for San Andreas, I rather liked the crazy stuff as it kept things interesting as you progress with the different areas being more than just a scenery change. Each having their own distinct "personality" (for lack of a better term.) Plus you have to love James Woods as an insane government agent. The only real criticism I have is after you initially leave the first city, the plot basically just flies out the window and really doesn't come back until right near the end.

Also there's a bit early on with the fat guy and the paranoid stoner taking some car out of storage. It seemed to mean something to CJ and I assumed you'd end up stealing it or something, but (unless I missed something) it's never seen or mentioned again.

 

[Canadave]

As for San Andreas, I rather liked the crazy stuff as it kept things interesting as you progress with the different areas being more than just a scenery change. Each having their own distinct "personality" (for lack of a better term.) Plus you have to love James Woods as an insane government agent. The only real criticism I have is after you initially leave the first city, the plot basically just flies out the window and really doesn't come back until right near the end.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I wasn't super-interested in the gang war storyline to begin with, and once it disappeared to make room for... whatever it is it made room for... I quickly lost interest. So by the time it came back at the end of the game, I had no clue what was going on anymore. Contrast that with Tommy Vercetti slowly making himself the king of Vice City's underworld, and you have a much looser story.

I also have to agree with BlobVanDam on all the minigames. I've actually been replaying it recently (since before seeing this thread) and I'd forgotten how frustrating it can be at points. Right now I'm stuck in San Andreas, with the option between the train mission, a mission with a dancing minigame, and the lowrider minigame. That's like a frustration sandwich right there, with one mission where you have poor control over the outcome, and two more with poorly designed rhythm games.

 

[Reverend]

Yeah the rhythm mini-games are easily the worst part of SA. The only reason I even bothered with the girlfriends was to unlock some nicer cars...unfortunately the monster truck was a bit of a let down.

 

[TheGodBen]

^ I never got on with the first game very well. It was fun for just messing around but I could never actually complete many missions. Mostly I'd just steal a bus an speed up and down the main roads, ploughing it through police roadblocks until the thing blew up.

I wasn't that good at GTA1 myself, I only got to the second part of San Andreas and had to cheat in order to get to Vice City. Most of the time I just got into car chases with the police and ran over Hare Krishnas. I was a little better with GTA2, I managed to get to the third district (where I worked for the Hare Krishnas and ran over the Elvis impersonators), but I still never completed the game. But that never felt important since those games had no stories.

As for San Andreas, I rather liked the crazy stuff as it kept things interesting as you progress with the different areas being more than just a scenery change.

The crazy stuff in San Andreas was an awful lot of fun, and I absolutely loved the game, but I feel that the game lacked the focus that GTA3 and Vice City had. I mean, Just Cause 2 is a game that completely out-crazies San Andreas and I love it for that, but Red Dead Redemption was a better experience because it had a focus and attention to detail not often found in games.

Also there's a bit early on with the fat guy and the paranoid stoner taking some car out of storage. It seemed to mean something to CJ and I assumed you'd end up stealing it or something, but (unless I missed something) it's never seen or mentioned again.

In one of the early missions, Sweet informs CJ that their mother was shot by some Ballas that were driving a green Sabre, so when CJ saw Tenpenny, Smoke and Ryder with the green Sabre he figures that they must be working with the Ballas. I didn't understand it myself the first time I played it.

 

[Reverend]

The crazy stuff in San Andreas was an awful lot of fun, and I absolutely loved the game, but I feel that the game lacked the focus that GTA3 and Vice City had. I mean, Just Cause 2 is a game that completely out-crazies San Andreas and I love it for that, but Red Dead Redemption was a better experience because it had a focus and attention to detail not often found in games.

I can't speak to most of that since, as I said, I can't get GA3 or VC to run and I don't own either JC2 or RDR. I do agree though that the plot was very unfocused at times and each "chapter" (for want of a better term) was more or less self contained and none of them felt like they had any connection to each other.

In one of the early missions, Sweet informs CJ that their mother was shot by some Ballas that were driving a green Sabre, so when CJ saw Tenpenny, Smoke and Ryder with the green Sabre he figures that they must be working with the Ballas. I didn't understand it myself the first time I played it.

I completely missed that connection. Probably another symptom of the game's lack of plot focus. Other than that, I think the fact that it was a *green* sabre that threw me. Because green was the grove street gang colour I guess assumed the car had some special significance to the gang.

 

[TheGodBen]

I can't speak to most of that since, as I said, I can't get GA3 or VC to run and I don't own either JC2 or RDR. I do agree though that the plot was very unfocused at times and each "chapter" (for want of a better term) was more or less self contained and none of them felt like they had any connection to each other.

The plot was definitely unfocused, but I also feel that the game was unfocused in a broader sense. The game introduced things such as girlfriends and gang wars, then five or so missions later you'd leave Los Santos and those aspects were gone. (Okay, girlfriends were still around, but the girlfriend you had just been introduced to was gone.) The game would introduce new features in a mission, such as dancing or the jet-pack, and then not use them in the rest of the story missions.

One major example: At one point, in order to do a mission where you swim out to a boat, you first have to swim underwater for a time to build up that stat. The thing is that, other than collecting some clamshells, the game gave you nothing interesting to do underwater, so every time I've played the game I always spent ten boring minutes swimming underwater to get that stat up, all so that I can start that one mission. That just feels like bad game design.

San Andreas had tonnes of features, which is why it was such a great sandbox, but the game would only scratch the surface on these features before going back to standard driving and shooting missions. GTA3 and Vice City had far fewer features, but they seemed to be integrated into the game better.

 

[Canadave]

^ And the grinding required to master any skill in SA was just ridiculous. No game should ever force you to do something pointlessly for 10 minutes.

 

[Aldo]

I enjoyed San Andreas till I made it to San Francisco (ok I know it's not really San Francisco, but the in-game equivalent) whereas I had to save up 20 g's in order to purchase some dude's hideout in order to progress the storyline. Since I had very little money at this point in the game saving up that much seemed like a chore, and after many days of trying, I wasn't even close so that basically killed my interest in the game.

BTW, it could have been 200 G's, I can't remember.

 

[Reverend]

^I found the best way to raise the cash was to first do all the car stealing assignments. It's also a good way to familiarise yourself with the different types which comes in useful when selecting the best getaway car. I did the same thing on Saints Row 2 and it worked quite nicely.

The plot was definitely unfocused, but I also feel that the game was unfocused in a broader sense. The game introduced things such as girlfriends and gang wars, then five or so missions later you'd leave Los Santos and those aspects were gone. (Okay, girlfriends were still around, but the girlfriend you had just been introduced to was gone.) The game would introduce new features in a mission, such as dancing or the jet-pack, and then not use them in the rest of the story missions.

One major example: At one point, in order to do a mission where you swim out to a boat, you first have to swim underwater for a time to build up that stat. The thing is that, other than collecting some clamshells, the game gave you nothing interesting to do underwater, so every time I've played the game I always spent ten boring minutes swimming underwater to get that stat up, all so that I can start that one mission. That just feels like bad game design.

San Andreas had tonnes of features, which is why it was such a great sandbox, but the game would only scratch the surface on these features before going back to standard driving and shooting missions. GTA3 and Vice City had far fewer features, but they seemed to be integrated into the game better.

I agree the swimming was pointless (besides as a means to get to shore after blowing up your boat in a police chase) and other features like learning to fly didn't feature much at all in the story missions. I think part of it may have been that the developers were just giving the player toys to go play with in the sandbox on their own, but yeah, the execution could have been better.

Likewise the stat building probably could have been better. While it make sense that running a swimming make you fit while porking out of junk food makes you fat, as a gameplay mechanic I thought it punished the player far too much early on. Especially when you find one of the girlfriends won't even consider you until you're overweight.
The SR2 approach of just paying a plastic surgeon to do it the quick way was far more suitable.

 

[iBender]

^ And the grinding required to master any skill in SA was just ridiculous. No game should ever force you to do something pointlessly for 10 minutes.

I cackled when I laughed; just then, but that's a good point.

 

[Aldo]

This thread seems to have evovled past San Andreas so I have no problem bringing this up:

I've been getting into Vice City recently and I'm not liking the aiming controls. Years of playing FPS and GTA4 and I'm not liking the aiming being mapped to the left thumbstick, I cannot get past an early mission because of how used to aiming with the right thumbstick I am.

 

[BlobVanDam]

This thread seems to have evovled past San Andreas so I have no problem bringing this up:

I've been getting into Vice City recently and I'm not liking the aiming controls. Years of playing FPS and GTA4 and I'm not liking the aiming being mapped to the left thumbstick, I cannot get past an early mission because of how used to aiming with the right thumbstick I am.

I can't even play the console version of GTA:VC on our PS2 because of the aiming. You can't properly aim while walking around like you can with the PC version (which I have played to death).
It has that lock on thing, but in a real fight I've found that almost useless. I really struggled with even early missions because I found I couldn't just point at a guy and shoot.

The worst part is that I haven't figured out how to aim the minigun up/down. Why did I go to all of that trouble earning the minigun when I can't even use it to take out the police helicopters?! (if there is a way, I don't think I ever discovered it).

 

[Kadratis]

San Andreas is the only GTA I actually didn't like. In my opinion they made the big mistake of trying to put too much in there, and it just weakened the core gameplay. Too many little mini games and useless side quests to do with girlfriends and tapping a button for ten minutes to lift weights. And the map was too big for it's own good, with a lot of wasted space, and the gameplay progression was too slow. I played it for a week straight, hadn't even gotten off the first island yet, had barely any weapons beyond the basic pistol, and was just bored of it and gave up.
It's a shame, because it included some nice new features, such as swimming, climbing fences, knives etc. But the game never grabbed me.

Vice City is still my favourite despite its flaws, and if I'd played it more GTA 4 would probably be my favourite. imo it fixed all of the mistakes that SA made, while going in the right direction for it's new additions.

I feel exactly the same.