After the honeymoon period with GTA IV wore off and the inevitable and predictable backlash against its more serious nature got underway, many people were quick to compare it unfavourably to its predecessor San Andreas, complaining that in comparison it wasn't as fun, that the missions were dull, the characters and story boring and poorly crafted, and so on and so on. I disagreed but found myself many times in the minority.
Out of all the GTA games SA was the only one I felt was a chore to finish. But it had been three to four years since I last played the game so I decided to revisit San Andreas and make an attempt to see why it was held in such high esteem by many gamers, and to understand why exactly I didn't consider it to be the classic many others clearly do.
Well, after many hours of playing the game I have arrived at a conclusion which I feel accurately sums up the problem with San Andreas. And the conclusion is (drum roll please)…
In an nutshell, the game consistently fails to live up to the brilliant sequence of opening missions. Disagree? Then read on...
Despite a trio of incredibly annoying characters (the banal dullard that is CJ, the "busta" obsessed Ryder and the cringe worthy OG Loc) and some awful dialogue, mainly from the aforementioned three stooges, the first part of the game was fantastic fun.
The integration of CJ back into the Grove Street gang was well paced and the game managed to craft a convincing (yet tongue-in-cheek) gangster rap themed atmosphere through the well implemented storyline, the engaging and imaginative mission structure and the excellent soundtrack.
The final mission in the opening stage is the "Green Sabre" mission and is a wonderful crescendo to the hood sequence in that it achieves so many things. It shows how your relationship with your brother has been repaired and the bond restored. It validates the character of Cesar and shows him to be a trustworthy ally and a fitting boyfriend for your sister. And the plot twist, fantastically captured in that perfect caught-red-handed moment revealing Ryder and Smoke's betrayal, is unexpected yet believable. Your brother, at the conclusion, is arrested and you are deposited outside of town by the crooked cops and as a result are blackmailed to work for them in exchange for their letting you walk free.
What a tantalising cliffhanger to end the opening sequence of missions...
But then it all rapidly goes downhill. The story quickly descends into a series of pointless and irrelevant countryside missions. The momentum from the Los Santos missions frustratingly fizzles out like a damp squib. The gangster rap theme evaporates and the game shoots off on a tangent, inexplicably and almost criminally wasting, in my eyes, the potential the first stage promised.
After all the gritty gangbanging, murdering and hustling that you took part in previously, why now are you stealing a combine harvester from a group of hillbillies for a hippy stranger, or going on random robbery missions with a detestable Latino woman? Wasn't she supposed to be helping you get your brother out of jail? Indeed, exactly why aren't you working on a plan to bust your brother out of jail? Or to set up the cops responsible for his arrest? Or to get revenge against Smoke or Ryder? Obviously some things need to be saved for the finale but come on Rockstar... at least give us something interesting to do in the meantime.
Just as Vice City imitated Scarface and other 80s themed gangster films, San Andreas could have quite easily taken elements from films such as Boyz n the Hood, Menace 2 Society , Juice, New jack City and so on. I doubt Menace 2 Society would have been so credible if Caine, after seeing his cousin killed, instead of getting revenge leaves town and opens up a garage with a hippy.
And then there's the driving… and my goodness what a lot of it there is. The majority of your time is now spent arduously driving from location to location, through bland countryside, interrupted only by a need to keep checking the map to confirm you're going in the right direction and by the occasional short length mission, especially short once you've subtracted the amount of time spent driving in them. It certainly makes you really appreciate the taxi service available in GTA IV.
And unfortunately the game continues to plummet in quality as you progress. Win a car race and your given keys to a garage in another City, which you open with your newly found hippy pal and his assortment of whacky friends. The story is stretched thinner and thinner, and the missions become increasingly contrived. The entertaining and fun missions are far outnumbered by the sheer volume of filler missions.
Occasionally you are asked to perform a task with some sort of relevance to the main story such as gaining the trust of a pimp with Balla connections but by this point its all been watered down so much you've lost interest. All this, you feel, for the sake of elongating the game length, but what a sacrifice, to lose all that was built up so admirably in the first stage, just to make the game longer. No amount of jet-packing or aeroplane flying can compensate.
And this is the ultimate failing of San Andreas – quantity over quality. Jack of all trades, master of none.