Well, here it is: This newest installment of the GTA series is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the biggest living worlds ever comprised in a video game. It's great fun, and several much-needed tweaks have been made to the gameplay. Yet, the game's sheer scope begs the question: When does "more" become "too much?"
San Andreas nicely wraps up the GTA "trilogy," even going so far as to provide some special cameos that will be sure to bring grins to the faces of longtime players. Taking place after Vice City and before GTA 3, San Andreas's theme centers on the racial tensions of the 1990's. As such, the game takes place in three West Coast flavored cities, each of them bigger than Vice City.
You wouldn't think that such serious topics as gang warfare and police brutality would lend themselves to Rockstar's satiric narratives, but San Andreas does a good job of not getting too serious about things. The story starts off on a grim note, with the main character returning home to bury his mother, a victim of a drive-by shooting, but soon after that, the usual GTA humor helps break up the proceedings. Make no mistake about it – San Andreas may be a bit darker in tone than the earlier titles, but it is also the most hilarious GTA game to date.
While some may find the soundtrack to be a bit random when compared to Vice City and GTA 3 (and as a whole, it does feel less focused than the music in those games), most of the music fits the game quite well and is enjoyable to drive around to. Most notably, however, the commercials and talk radio are back and better than ever. This time around, the segments are far more lewd and outrageous, but never in a way that seems to be done for the shock value alone (although there is plenty of that). Even more so than before, GTA is a very well-written game.
The voiceovers in San Andreas are great, and the game features a respectable amount of A-list talent. Even more than Ray Liotta's portrayal of Tommy Vercetti, rapper Young Maylay does a great job of giving main character Carl Johnson a great deal more depth than you'd expect from a video game, let alone a video game about gang warfare. Samuel L. Jackson does a decent job as Carl's nemesis, the corrupt Officer Tenpenny, though his performance here isn't as inspired as you'd think. Several B-list TV personalities like Andy Dick and Charlie Murphy round out the list, and for those wondering, yes, Lazlow returns, albeit in a limited role.
San Andreas is the best looking GTA game to date, but truthfully, this has more to do with the sheer amount of activity going on in the world and the "feel" of the game as a whole, rather than any sort of graphical prowess. It should be noted, however, that aside from the massive load time at the start of the game, GTA is a nigh-seamless experience. Framerate issues do rear their ugly heads when the action gets intense, but given the scope of the game, it's hard to take issue with the visual presentation.
Getting to the gameplay details, you'll find that San Andreas plays a lot like Vice City and GTA 3, but with several fine adjustments. Some of these, like the Manhunt-style targeting system and the ability to swim (!), are much needed additions that help address some long standing complaints with the series. Other improvements are less crucial, but still help to enrich the overall experience. You can now bring up to three gang members into a vehicle with you, and allow them to do the drive-by duties as you navigate. The motorcycles feel a lot less fragile this time around, and you can now climb over walls. Since the previous games were so well designed in the first place, the fact that San Andreas is more of an improvement than an evolution is far from disappointing. In fact, it is the tightest controlling GTA game to date – this time around, you'll actually look forward to shootouts with waves of enemies.
Missions in previous GTA games were largely simplistic affairs, usually taking the form of a fetch quest, race, or kill-the-target type scenario. The missions in San Andreas are still very much simple at heart, but they feel more complex because of the way they chain together many gameplay elements into each task. For instance, one mission requires you to assassinate a driver so you can steal a limo. You must then race to pick up his client, and finally, dump the speeding vehicle into a river before the client's security team can waste you. After the mission, you must "clean up" by taking down any bodyguards that actually witnessed the disposal. Multi-tiered missions like this are the norm for San Andreas, adding significantly to its depth.
While it can safely be said that the missions in San Andreas succeed largely by being more than the sum of their parts, there are some impressive new mechanics introduced in the game, adding to an already lengthy list of things to do. Pimping, home robbery, tagging (think Jet Set Radio without the skates), parachuting (!), stealth missions, drug dealing, clothes shopping, getting a haircut and/or tattoo, two-player rampage missions(!!!), dating, working out, playing arcade games, playing basketball, shooting pool, dancing, and lowriding are just some of the things you can do in San Andreas, in addition to the traditional vehicle-based minigames like vigilante and taxi driver. This is not an all inclusive list by any means, and to be honest, the amount of variety in the game can be downright daunting at times. The wide variety of things to do ensures that you could play for well over 150 hours and still not see everything.
However, this does lead to my one and only complaint with the game – some of the mechanics, like working out and lowriding, feel more like chores than enjoyable minigames. While Rockstar made the prudent decision of making most of these things non-crucial to the main quest, caution should be exercised when adding additional variety in the future, as to ensure that new installments of the series do not suffer from "Tony Hawk syndrome," best described as a falling away from what made the game fun in the first place.
Largely though, that's a more of a cautionary statement than a complaint. The fact is that there are enough things to do in San Andreas that you can safely ignore those you find lacking, and instead focus on those you enjoy. Meanwhile, hardcore players will have quite a task in collecting and experiencing everything the title has to offer. The verdict is clear – San Andreas is the most fully realized game in the series thus far, and one of the most (successfully) ambitious video games ever made.
-George
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