Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Review

Reviewed by: Doctor Gonzo

Platform Reviewed: PS2

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is also available for Xbox

Grand Theft Auto: What’s happening?

Rockstar has released another addition to the GTA series and this time you’re taking it to the mean gangsta streets in places that resemble L.A., Las Vegas, and San Francisco. In this installment to the Grand Theft Auto legacy, you play as Carl “CJ” Johnson, who returns to the city of San Andreas after his mother’s death. As the game takes you through a series of plot twists (that I don't want to disclose for fear that I would ruin the great story this title has to offer), Rockstar manages to seamlessly integrate a linear gaming experience with a seemingly infinite universe you explore at your own discretion. You could probably blow through Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on a twenty-four hour binge if you only want to complete about fifty percent of the side missions, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Aside from cheating yourself out of a slew of misadventures and several hours of memorable playtime, you’d be lucky to leave the vicinity of your television without some seriously Clockwork Orange-like symptoms to pay for your hours of beating up crack whores, rival gang members and especially for dropping down via the jet-pack and slapping a police officer in the face with your purple, chainsaw-dildo and flying away leaving him confused, angry, and severely unsatisfied.

Where’s the Beef?

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas packs a hefty punch in several areas, but the most unique attributes that are new to the series in this game are your abilities to enhance the physical capabilities of your rough and tough street soldier. That’s right, an almost RPG element was added to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which means, for example, that if you practice holding your breath underwater long enough, you get better at it. In similar regard, you can train yourself to run faster, jump over walls that stood in your way at first, and yes, you can even “gat bitches” with a heavier vengeance than ever before. When you first start the game, you throw punches and kicks like a punk and shoot your side-arm like some eleventeen-year old suburbanite – who, by the way, is not the intended audience for this game. With that sidebar my conscience is severely unburdened and if you want to kill the maximum number of people, see how many glocks you can accumulate throughout the game, or simply pick another weapon and kill as many people as you can with it. It really doesn’t matter who you kill, or for what reason you do it, just so long as you don’t get caught. In no time, you’ll find yourself learning new tricks, like distance targeting capabilities, running and shooting at the same time (which is no more safe than running with scissors), and with certain one-handed weapons you may even learn to dual-wield. I recommend you treat yourself to the machine gun for this trick. Eventually, the police will want to “talk” to you. I advise you to knock somebody out of their vehicle and hit the bricks like O.J. Simpson as soon as possible.

The Doctor’s Orders

This game will probably inspire you to alienate your family, friends, school, work, and life-long ambitions. You should pick Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas up as soon as possible, but set your children up with a good adoption agency ahead of time, because letting your kids play this game, playing this game with them, around them or in the same state as them will rack up therapist bills that even Bill Gates couldn’t afford. If you have the option, I would recommend the recently released Xbox version of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas as it seems more capable of handling the demands of the graphics. I mean, when you’re poppin’ lead with your nine and you got them Smokeys on your tail, do you really think you want to worry about frame rate issues? It doesn’t stand in the way of the gameplay, but every bit helps the overall experience. The game isn’t all shoot ‘em up belligerence, but when you run out of missions to further the story or get tired of failing miserably at one mission for three hours, there’s plenty of belligerence to go around. In any case, try not to emulate anything you see in this game… unless it has to do with the aforementioned police officer and a slightly modified chainsaw.