San Andreas improves greatly on the previous installments in the series with a bigger playing environment, more to do, and smoother play mechanics. The graphics, control, and aiming system are all much improved over Vice City which lacked in these areas. The biggest difference is how huge the world is, three cities (all almost as big as Vice City) plus even larger areas of countryside, dessert, mountain, and woods with a few towns too. It cant be really understood untill you've gotten the chance to really explore. Its not Morrowind but for the type of game it is, its plenty big. The missions are much less tedious this time around too and although some are still hard they arent as often cheap or unfair. There is a lot more variety too with some that are simply awesome. A few with RC copters are awful and require perfection. The new aspects of the game are really good too. You can recruit gang members to fight with you and perform drive-bys and the gang wars are fun too where you must defend your area while conquering others to get control of the city. There are also many more vehicles to commandeer such as many types of planes, helicopters, cars, boats, bikes and such. I also preferred the music in San Andreas to that in Vice City although that depends on your personal taste. There doesnt seem too much of a reason to own this with the X-Box version available but that doesnt detract from the score I'll give this version.
Other Helpful Reviews for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
I consider this game to be a masterpiece - everything involved; the gameplay, the weapons, the vehicles, everything. From the motorcycles to the Rustler airplane; from the jetpacks to the reference to Grand Theft Auto 3 ... Read Full Review
I've never played all the way through GTA3 or Vice City. I found that, in both games, the characters and missions did not hold nearly enough substance for me to care what happened next. Before San Andreas, GTA was only... Read Full Review
