This game is by far the most open-ended and ambitious one ever. Not only in the series but Gaming in general!
You take the role of Carl; a 20-sumthing year old ex-gangster black male who is coming home from Liberty City to bury his mom. Pretty simple at first but it obviously wont stay that way. Not even 2 minutes into the game, crap already hits you in the face when 2 corrupt cops (one played by Samual L. Jackson) frames you for the murder of an officer and then dump you in hostile territory. This is where the fun begins.
In terms of gameplay, GTA: SA is the most varied. There are many sets of controls that are used for various "modes" of gameplay. Some including "On foot", Driving, Flying, Gambling, Pool and its only the start. Thankfully they fixed up the targeting. Aiming makes green reticle appear over your target and as you shoot it, it becomes redder until it turns black and the target is dead. You can now even manually aim with ANY weapon in the game. An awesome addition is the skydiving (which Actually feels like skydiving). These are some awesome improvements. Unfortunately, i coudn't help but feel like they could have dome more.
The graphics have never really been "revolutionary" but that was never the aim in the series. The cutscenes are well acted and the voice acting is spot-on. Attention to detal is incredibly high and everything looks as it should with its proper ambience to bring it out.
The sound in the game is excellent with one tiny hardly noticeable blemish. The vehicles explode loud enough for you to feel it, the jet engines sound like you are in an airport and the air whooshing quickly past you when you skydive makes it so awesome its scary. The little blemish i mentioned was the sound og the guns didnt quite sound powerful and satisfying. The gunshot sound of the desert eagle sounded like a little firecracker. Overall, the sound is worthy of such a game.
Needless to say, this game is DAMN close to perfect but is still not perfect. When too many things are happening all at once, there tends to be a slight frame rate slow down. Another letdown is that after having played previous GTA games, i coudnt help but feel like this is more of the same.
However, despite the flaws, this game is well worth the purchase because it IS what a game should be. This game will appeal to anyone who is remotely interested in games. I recommend this game to EVERYONE!