You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge. Welcome to Los Santos....
User Rating: 9.2 | Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas PS2
Ice cube once rapped “If you smoke cane you a stupid mother*****r/ runnin’ round the hood like a school yard clucka/ doin that crack with all the money ya got/ on ya hands and knees searchin for a piece of rock/. I think the writers of San Andreas used this line as inspiration for the development of our protagonist, C.J. We are introduced to C.J as he receives a call from his brother Sweet. Their mother has died and C.J returns back to his home in Los Santos to pay his final respects. Unfortunately for C.J he’s immediately picked up by two corrupt police officers. (Brilliantly voiced by Samuel L. Jackson and Nice Guy Eddie errrr Chris Penn) They frame C.J for a murder and the game begins. They throw you out of the car (at least they throw you out near a bicycle). You bike (At least try to bike) to your house where you meet up with your brother Sweet. You and Sweet join your fellow homeboys (Ryder and Big Smoke) to the funeral and of course an argument erupts. This doesn’t last too long as the rival gang (The Ballas) decide to rain on your parade with a drive by. Since they blow up your car, you conveniently find a bunch of bikes across the street. First new game play element started. Bike Riding! I have to say the first mission is actually kind of difficult. Figuring out how to control the bicycle can be a bit challenging at first, especially when you have a low rider full of vatos blasting your sorry ass with submachine gun fire (story of my life), but I digress. You quickly learn that your gang (Grove street boys who operate out of Compton errr Ganton) has lost their luster. Most of their members have fallen into the habit of smoking crack (see rap lyrics above). C.J is outraged by this, and wants to restore Grove Street back to dominance. You start off by tagging up Ballas turf, eliminating drug dealers, and gaining respect (literally). Since your boys don’t exactly control any turf anymore you don’t get paid like in previous installments of the GTA series. You earn respect one plus sign at a time. It takes almost the entire game to get your respect bar completely, so don’t be distraught by how slow your meter increases. One of my big worries going into this game was the looming micro management of having to eat and work out within the game. Thankfully this was handled perfectly. When your health is low, eat and you’re good to go. Eat healthy and you don’t get fat. Get your fat ass on the treadmill and you don’t get fit. Life the weights and do some curling and you get buff and your sex appeal goes up. See real simple. Trust me, it’s nowhere near as intrusive as it might seem. It actually adds some flare to the game. The fact that you can change outfits and customize your look honestly makes the game a lot better, and I never thought I’d say that. As you know the game takes place in the State of San Andreas (yes it’s a state, like California). There are three cities within this state you can explore. Los Santos, San Fierro and Las Venturas. Los Santos is where you begin your journey. Once you advance far enough, you get sent to no mans land and thus San Fierro opens up, and then Las Venturas opens up. Yeah it’s somewhat linear but not really. (Note: You can actually find ways to make it to the other cities before you are supposed to, however once you make it there, your wanted level reaches four and you know how the story ends). Some new additions to the game include schools. Driving school, flight school, bike school and boat school. While you need to finish flight school to finish the game (Technically you can steal a plane by jumping over the gate at the airport and getting your flying skill up to snuff) the other schools are optional. Driving school is a true exercise in frustration and flight school will have you yelling at the screen over and over and over again. It took me forever to get the flying down right, but once your flying skill improves, handling the airplanes will become much easier. Actually like everything in the game, the more times you do something the better you get at it. There is an RPG like element where if you drive enough your skill goes up, and if you shoot enough your skill level will increase. The graphics in the game are quite good considering how old the Playstation 2 technology is. Character animations that looked incredible in GTA 3 are starting to wear thin a bit, but that’s expected. What the developers did with the technology is what’s really amazing. The draw distance has been increased and you can view a much larger portion of the game at any given time, and the skyline typically looks remarkable. Of course just like in previous installments the game can take a hit on frame rate quite often, but mainly only when you decide to go on an Anarchist’s trip and send the entire police force after you. The characters you meet in this game are what truly make a must have. From the obnoxiously annoying yet amazingly funny O.G Loc (I’m Gangstaaaa… come on you know you said it too) to the downright awesome Tereno. (Voiced by James Woods) You’ll also encounter some old friends from GTA 3 as well as Vice City, which really ties the entire series together nicely. Seeing this characters made me pop in the old GTA 3 for a trip down memory lane You’ll come across a blind Triad who thinks he has special skills (turns out he’s got too many yes man surrounding him, and it’s quite funny to see him walk into walls…hey I can make fun of the blind, I have horrible vision too). The sound in the game is quite impressive as well. When it rains, you might check your shirt to make sure you’re not getting wet. Walking down the street and hearing someone say “that white boy got me on crystel meth” will make you chuckle. The soundtrack again is top notch. It is not as cohesive as the stellar 80s soundtrack for Vice City but the game has enough solid tracks to keep you entertained. The best station of course is Radio Los Santos. When you’re doing a drive by what else can you listen to besides Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg performing Deep Cover?! I mean seriously. The rock station is quite great too. The final anthem-like scream by Zack De La Rocha in Killing in the Name will make you want to go on an authority-must-die killing spree. The soundtrack does pull you back to the early 90’s nicely. (R.I.P Eric Wright, EZ Duz it). The side missions are back as well. The notable add-ons are the Pimping missions (once completed hookers pay you, talk about paradise) and Robbery; a nice way to pick up cash in the game. Overall I again loved this game just as much if not more than GTA 3 or Vice City. The game keeps getting better and better. The game keeps getting more in depth. The voice acting gets better. The writing gets better, and in the end what else can you ask for. Yeah there are a few problems along the way. The lack of a “replay last mission’ option really boggles my mind considering the amount of driving one must due for certain missions, but there aren’t enough problems with the game to make a big stink about it. So yes, buy this game unless you are an emotionally wrecked, weak minded, can’t tell game land from reality land, right wing conservative Christian fundamentalist, yadda yadda yadda.. If you realize this is a game, and you shouldn’t do these sorts of things in real life. Go for it, indulge yourself. 
