GTA San Andreas is not teh best game out there on the PS2, but it comes close.
What is the one thing this game has that no other game has, violence yes, sex yes, cursing; definatley yes, but those don't make GTA GTA. Its the amount of freedom you have, roaming place to place, doing what you want when you want. The amount of possiblities are endless. You can go to the gym, restaurant, on a date with one of 6 possible girls 8-), you can also of course choose to go insane and kill as many as you can.
This game does have its flaws. The graphics are sorely lacking, even by ps2 standards. There are jaggy edges, and in cutscenes, you can see that they are very vague and blurry. But I guess from the amount of scenery and things they had to put into this game had to take out of somewhere.
The areas are vast and exploring could take literally an hour just to go from one place to the other. There are accurate structures that imitate real life counterparts such as the San Fierro bay, imitating San Franscisco's bay. The sound is amazing, voice overs are funny and informative at the same time. They are also well done fo rthe most part as far as dubbing. Controls are great and pretty much generic to the ones in VC! Now you can swim so no more dying on accident by tipping you car into the water.
This game is great, not the greatest but great. Buy it if your in the mood to take an 'adventure'