There's Something Rotten in San Andreas

Betrayal, a sweet substance for plot, is unanimously found in the greatest historical stories that range from Shakepeare's "Hamlet" to Scorcese's "Goodfellas" and now in Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto game series. In the 7th entry (if you count GTA 1,2,and London for Playstation One, GTA 1 and 2 for gameboy color, and GTA Advance) tale involves Carl Johnson returning home from Liberty City, in they early 90's, to find a harrowing revelation arriving to his attention. Without detailing too much information, all I will say is that he returns home to find a family member dead and him framed for murder. Now, it is up to CJ to avenge his family member's death by granting revenge against the tyrant offenders of the gargantuan state of San Andreas.

So, the game begins once again as a criminal tries to clear his name and seek revenge upon those who betrayed him. Yet is this the same game that we are so accustomed to, or is there more than meets the eye in the 3rd installment of Xbox's GTA series?

Graphics: 4.18 (out of 5)

The graphics are not as lively as Fable, but the world is much bigger and offers more variable attractions than any of the previous GTA versions. Most buildings have their own texture and shape that it is hard to find similarities from one building to the next. The lands of San Andreas are sprawling to say the least, where mountains, ravines, towns, cities, and ranches spread toward the distant horizon offering the scenic panorama of various types of fences, pedestrians, vehicles, and billboards.

The sprawling state of San Andreas offers over dozens of towns and cities constructed of overpasses, interstates, highways, byways, and even railroads that offer a fluid 30-40 fps. San Andreas is a huge state that resembles part California, part Colorado, and part Las Vegas surrounded by gargantuan mountain ranges, deserts, planes, and lakes. Within those particular environments, the game does offer very realistic weather effects where wind pushes either rain or sand (depending on where you are at the moment) past the character.

The car models do not shine as brilliantly as they previously had in the other titles. But given to the fact that there are no load times in between cities with this installment, I can easily forgive the flustered appeal the vehicles lack in this game.

The character models are very unique. There are so many different types of pedestrians that, depending what type of area you are in (country or city) each character model has dozens of appearances.

The crashes are kind of impressive. Now you can do interstate pileups where windows shatter, bumpers fall off, doors fall off their hinges and cars explode in a flaming inferno to throw shrapnel around the area. It is no Burnout, but it is still impressive in it's own way.

The interiors of the houses, diners, gas stations, etc. have a variety of designs as well.


Story: 4.38 (Out of 5)

The story is like "Menace to Society", meets "Boyz in the Hood", meets "Casino" with a hint of "Pulp Fiction" lingering within. San Andreas involves a series of events takes Carl Johnson into the underworlds of the San Andreas community where both deception, enlightenment, and friendship remain deep within the most corrupted of people.

There are many conspiracies found within San Andreas that are much bigger than the simple framing of Carl Johnson and the reunion of him and his friends. Without shedding too much light into the topic, I will just say that the government is now in the picture with this installment and CJ plays a big role in it.

Sound: 4.63 (Out of 5)

The sound effects are very nicely done. Almost every facet of every vehicle, motors, pedestrian, weapon, wrecks, explosions, and sirens have various sound effects that initiate so frequently that it is hard to hear the same two noises.

The soundtrack is very various as well. It offers practically everything from soul, to r&b, to rock, to rap, to country, to techno. I am guessing that the list of songs compile over the hundreds. But if the older sounds of the 90's aren't suitable enough for your preferences, then there is always the custom soundtrack option that promises nearly endless songs to save onto your Xbox's hard drive.

The voice overs give quality, award-winning, acting that very much seems like you are watching all of the four previous films that I referred this game being similar to.
The overall sound is great and worthy enough to speculate upon.

Gameplay: 4.10 (out of 5)

San Andreas offers much more than meets the eye, or even any other previously made game for that matter. The city allows you to rob, go on dates, go on dance competitions, gamble, massacre, and be a target of the army all in one passing of a day.

While driving through the streets of San Andreas one will probably be amazed to behold the amount of depth in commercialism the game actually offers. Aligning the streets are competing fast food restaurants, next to bars, next to various clothes stores, next to night clubs, next to gyms, the list goes on. Although you cannot enter in every building made, they have over hundreds of buildings within the game that you can eventually gain easy accessibility into.

Dating in general I found very interesting. You could not only partake on dating, but you could also go to a clothes store to purchase yourself an extensive ensemble of attire that perfectly suits your overall persona. So, along the way riding your specifically pimped-out vehicle (made at mod shops), you are able to shop for flowers, go to the gym to boost up your muscles (which further raises your 'sex appeal' (I will talk about that momentarily), and still have enough time to rob a liquor store for money to afford your enchanting date at Cluckin' Bell.

Now, about what I was saying about 'sex appeal'; this is an attribute of many attributes that you can level your guy and mold him into the "perfect" man of decent society. For not only can your guy grow muscles from the reward of working out, but can gain weight from the punishment of gluttony. Your respect is also measured on how you present yourself and how many favors you make to friends.

Besides tuning your reputation, you can also level up your ability to do anything from riding bikes, to firing weapons, to functioning aircrafts, to even lung capacity. Everything in the game levels up from how much you work at doing something, which each accomplishment is very worth the rigorously tedious training involved with each attribute.

If you get an urge to boost up the value of your pockets, instead of your appearance, you could always join race competitions or even gamble at casinos or playing bets at the horserace tracks. The most rewarding of the three I found was the casino, which offers almost every form of popular gambling game from blackjack to slots to wheel of fortune (which, you could also build your attributes of the casinos, thereby being able join a 'rewards club' program where you could raise the stakes even higher).

Or you could just show off your money by buying out the hundreds of real estate properties spread throughout San Andreas.

But be forewarned that as much mesmerizing privileges the game boastfully offers, strolling through San Andreas is no heavenly walk in the park. This game is the most violent of the 3. The game has random gang wars, where gang members will kill you for walking their turf. Cops chase after pedestrians in hot pursuit now and shoot them down in a bloody fashion. Machines, such as plows, can now grind and mangle people into hundreds of dismembered and contorted body parts. And now pedestrians are ruthlessly violent of road rage, that at some cases in car wrecks, the bystanders will exit their vehicle and hunt you down with either shotgun or bat (even if the accident was entirely their fault!) So, I earnestly warn once more, (between the more explicit prostitution, stronger drug use, more decrepit language, and even morbid violence than found in the Grand Theft Auto predecessors) I will say this is the most vile of all GTA games combined into one. Players under the age of 18 SHOULD NOT even put their hands upon the very CD case that contains this influentially corrupted game. San Andreas is just that sinful.

I feel like I have revealed too much that the game has to offer, but believe me when I say that I have just reached the surface of the nearly hundreds of more things to do and discover in San Andreas.

Now, the reasons why I didn't give the gameplay an overall score of 5 pertains to the fact that the control is somewhat off. In this version, some buttons share two separate functions, that either infuriates the gamer or makes them lose a mission out of mere confusion of the misplaced controls. I mean, they eventually take a time to get used to, but isn't easily adaptable as the previous titles.

With the controls, comes the dreaded targeting system. The newer version offers the perquisite switch-target capability that allows Carl Johnson to switch between targets. But sometimes the target cursor disappears, while at other times, Carl faces one way and shoots a totally different direction for no apparent reason.

The vehicles start off driving in a fish-tailed method as the cars swerve haplessly around (an ability that you will eventually get better at through the attribute level-up function), but it will still warrant the beginning of many frustrating hours until your driving skills build up to a comfortable level. The flying also needs improvement, for I have yet to find a simple aircraft that doesn't wobble about. I mean I have literally crashed into land from the turbulence in the air (at days when wind did not exist).

Another con in the gameplay is that there is not a convenient "save anywhere, anytime" function. Which at times, makes the gamer play a four-series mission without saving in between, only for him to loose out of messing up. (many times, the game faulty made me lose with the controls, that before I ended the very last sequence of a mission, I died to start all over again). I guess I have played Morrowind so much that I spoiled myself rotten with that particular privilege.

Certain aspects of the game (rather being the controls, or the save features, or a few utterly ridiculous missions) force me to have a love-hate relationship toward the game. Never have I cursed a game so much since the NES days when I tried to beat Ghosts N Goblins (a game that I still have yet to beat and spent years to try and conquer). This game gets as infuriating as that game so much, that if it weren't for the nearly endless perks found in San Andreas, I would have abandoned this installment behind to blow in the wind and returned to the beautiful lands of Vice City.

Replay: 4.75 (out of 5)

The best of Rockstar just gets better. This game offers so much to do that I cannot honestly list them all. And further beyond the limits of what you are able to do, are all of the unlockables and Easter Eggs from the previous GTA installments.

If you get bored of San Andreas there are challenging arcade machines to uphold upon defeating and Casinos to bleed dry.

Yet driving around the entire span of San Andreas is rewarding enough that I, having beaten the game at 28 hours, still have yet to drive every automobile, high-jack every military aircraft, and take over every military vehicle spread throughout San Andreas. I have probably literally tapped into a 10th of the secrets and even accomplished less than that on all of the Vigilante, Ambulance, etc. missions.

I wouldn't say the depth of every single minigame and secret is astronomically abyss, yet I will say that this game is more overstuffed with things to do than an entire vacation spent going to Disney World, and even enormously cheaper as well!

Overall: 4.59 (out of 5)

Besides Morrowind, this game is all you need in your X-Box collection. The main game is not longer than other titles that I have played. But this is the most versatile, and violent, game that I have ever played. Never in my life have I had the intense experience of playing the elements of Hitman, Splinter Cell, Twisted Metal, Casino Kid, Need For Speed (and possibly every other type of game ever made in creation) all compiled in one neat package. This is the ultimate game to get, despite the horrid controls (and the unfortunate fact that Ray Liotta plays no voice acting role in this installment). For the feeble price of 50 dollars, you are able to purchase a one-way trip to the enthralling state of San Andreas; consider it a vacation that you might not ever come back from.