Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
review by: rendina
GTA franchise has always been among the most ground breaking of games in this console history. If you weren't thrilled by the choas and carnage of the GTA 3 your were enthralled by the 80's feeling of Vice City. RockStar has always captured the underwold of America very well, and now it has set its eyes on the 90's gang banging era. Let it be said that RockStar does this extremely well, but falls short in what the game is known for-- fun.San Andreas can be considered a vast improvement over earlier installments, with better graphics (which arent that bad, but still not top notch), more sub quests, and larger area. But the large area also becomes its weakness. During a mission you may be expected to travel almost across the state to pick up a person then bring them to the other side of the state only to fail the mission by a simple error and then have to go all the way back and start over. I've wasted countless minutes failing missions (the difficulty is much harder this time around) and traveling between points. Aside from this aggreviance I must say that San Andreas does fill every inch of the game with something to do, whether spray painting tags or collecting a meriad of pointless things.
As always, GTA: San Andreas is very, very funny. If you're not laughing at the conversations between characters or the Cj apologizing to his mom for picking up a hooker, youll roll over listening to the radio talk shows. Speaking of radio, the music gathered for this entry tops that of Vice City. Featuring songs from Snoop Dogg to famous country singers, youll want the sound track almost as much as the game itself if not more.
The biggest change to the series is that it incoporates rpg elements, and it is alot more than most people probally expected. To build muscle, you have to work out at the gym, to build stamina, you need to run. But your driving skills and weapon abilities are affecting. Continue to build your ability to use a Tec 9 and youll be able to dual wield, which I think is incredibly cool aspect of the game. However it doesn't work out quite so well with driving. It takes a long time to build your driving skill up and that can mean hours of aggrevation. Trying to win a race in a car that spins out is not fun. And piloting a plane is much much worse. I was ready to kill someone after trying to pilot an RC plane that was impossible to control. I was forced to give after an hour and try again later. Thankfully, RockStar added schools that you can go to in order to help you out to get started, but I want to kill stuff, not go to school!
RockStar added a lot of things that are great ideas but not fully realized. The biggest offender is the stealth/sneaking missions. While we all love sneaking up on people and making stealth kills, it is very much like RockStar's Manhunt (a game I liked but admit it sucked at stealth) in that you can hide in a shadow in plain site and not be spotted, and even if you do get spotted all you have to do is kill the person and you can continue the mission. In fact I usually ended up just going around shooting people without worring at all about sneaking. It is a cool element and definetly something that RockStar should build on in future GTA games.
The gameplay is were I have the most problems. The targeting system is changed so that whenever you lock on a target the camera changes to a back view for every weapon. Remember that Vice City had three different targeting set ups, the original GTA3 set up for pistol and mini SMG, the back view for SMG and Colt Revolver, and the fps for the M4 and AK. I thought that gave players the ability to play how they liked, but San Andreas switched all that to one back view for all weapons (except the sniper rifle of course). Some may like the targeting this way, but I for do not. Put that on top of the inability to drive or fly for the first couple of hours and you have a formula for failing MANY missions which equals frustration when you have to travel 5 minutes to start over!
What RockStar did very well was the character and car custimization. I spent hours shopping for clothes, something that I dont even do in real life. I was always looking for the next shop to become avialable so that i can raise my sex appeal and look just plain phat. And with cars... well any gear head will appreciate that ability to modd just about any car at the garage. The GTA series always had a problem with the character having too much money without enough to spend it on. San Andreas definetly solved that issue.
Like i said -- When two rights make a wrong. Bigger is a good thing and incorporating rpg elements is a good thing, but somehow the came together to frustrate my life.