San Andreas is an absolutely revolutionizing entry in the gaming series that is: Grand Theft Auto. From the ...
The video game then introduces you to a new vehicle concept- the bicycle. It tells you how to move faster, to do bunnyhops, etc. CJ ends up at his mom's old house, and meets up with one of his good childhood friends, Big Smoke. He isn't called "Big" for nothing, either, as he is by by far the WIDEST of CJ's homies. You then meet the leader of the Grove St. gang, Carl's brother, Sweet Johnson, and he is not thrilled with CJ's return. He still blames CJ for his younger brother, Brian's death. You then meet the last of CJ's friends, Ryder. Ryder is agressive, takes heavy drugs, and seems to always lose his temper.The game also introduces a very interesting new gameplay feature- the 4 person drive by. You recruit 3 Grove St. Families members, get a car, drive into enemy gang territory and watch what happens. Suddenly all your homies start popping in and out of every window and start shooting at the enemy gang. There's no button to press either, they just do it whenever cops are on you or when they see another gang. Just one word for this image- astounding. CJ then starts his long trek across Los Santos, and it comes to an ubrupt halt when a monsterous plot twist takes place! I won't tell you how, but somehow you end up in a small country town called Angel Pine.
This is home to something new to the GTA series- a mountain. Yes, a mountain. Not just a little hill or something, a mountain! And the most important feature of this is it's height, because the height limit in San Andreas has been drastically improved from the last game, mostly because of this monstrosity of a landmark. CJ makes his way through the countryside, eventually meeting up with a couple of familiar GTA faces, and decides to move out to San Fierro. San Fierro is Rockstar's remake of San Francisco, and they do an absoloutely great job on capturing the city. There's trolleys, hippies, a China-town, and even the Gant (Golden Gate) bridge. The greatest part of S.F. would have to be the extremely hilly terrain. This makes for terrific jump oppurtunities, and is the main reason San Fierro is mostly driving-orientated. In this city some major characters are knocked off, if you know what I mean, towards the end. And we then proceed to... the desert.
This is another new concept for GTA and it proved to be quite the experience. There's many cliffs and other things you would expect from a desert there(did I mention a secret military base called Area 69?. The most important and quickest way to get around is then taught to you at a school. Flying planes is kind of difficult when you first start, but it gets easier with time. I might add that the planes they make you use at Flying School are not nearly as easy as flying the one's at the airport. So if you are having trouble and think planes are a dumb addition, think again. That's the best way to get around SA. CJ runs a few errands out there, but gets a call and decides move on to Las Venturas. The casinos, the lust, even the Elvis impersonators-Las Venturas IS Las Vegas! There are more GTA cameos here, and CJ even gets involved with the Mafia (hint,hint)! There are also major characters knocked off at the end of this city.You end up meeting someone who needs you to go back to Los Santos, making CJ's adventure full-circle. Don't think the gangsta theme is over yet, because Carl gets back on the scene with Grove St. This continues for a while then, the last mission. It's a long one, but packed full of so much action you'll puke.
The gameplay was fantastic, graphics were good-even for GTA, music was terrific(especially the early 90's gangsta rap), and has the greatest game value and most likely will continue to until the next installment. Overall, insurmountably amazing game. Here's three words for you if you haven't done so yet: Buy.This.Game.