This review was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content. It was written by John Godfrey.

Chances are that if you haven't heard of the Grand Theft Auto series of games, you probably got to this page from a Google search looking for car alarms or something along those lines. And even if that is the case, chances are you have still heard of the series mentioned by various congressmen and sensationalist news reports condemning the highly-popular "virtual prostitute murdering game". Because truth be told, the GTA series has had a large impact in the gaming industry and society alike, re-examining what the limits of a videogame are, and pushing them to the extent where you control a character who has free will in a large virtual environment, able to do just about anything he pleases. And now Rockstar has pushed those boundaries even farther with the release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Originally released for the PlayStation 2 under a year ago, the game has finally hit the Xbox.



The year is 1992, and after a few years in Liberty City, Carl Johnson is ready to return to the streets of San Andreas. No sooner than it takes him to leave the airport, Carl is confronted with the harsh reality of what his former stomping grounds have transformed into: his mother has been murdered; his gang, the Grove Street Families, are falling apart and losing turf with in-fighting, crack, and increased turbulence with rival gangs; crooked cops are already making his life miserable; and the friends and family he was once close with now question his return and view him as a deserter. This is just the beginning of a story that once again one-ups itself from the rest of the series with realistic characters with real personalities and traits, plot twists and just plain fun as Carl works his way up the criminal ladder, taking jobs from various individuals such as his gang, crooked cops, the Chinese Triad, a whacked-out pot dealer and even jobs that he puts together himself to further propel himself on up.

The missions Carl goes on range from mowing enemy gang members down drive-by style on his home turf to intercepting top-secret government property, starting businesses and doing what he can to destroy the competition, and your GTA staples like tailing missions, chase missions, run-from-the-cops missions, assassinations and all the rest that give you that warm and fuzzy feeling of familiarity. Indoor missions are back and better than before, featuring larger areas to play in that are more detailed and better constructed layout-wise. In many of these missions Carl can use the abilities seen in Rockstar's other controversial game, Manhunter, and hide in the shadows to sneak up quietly behind enemies and kill them silently. He can also manually aim from afar for a head shot with a silenced pistol and no one will be the wiser. The new stealth addition to gameplay is a breath of fresh air to the series and really changes the way you approach missions. There are also many side missions and minigames to play; Carl can pimp his rides at upgrade shops and race them, date girls, play pool, gamble, pimp, burglarize houses, start gang wars on other gangs’ turf and claim it, buy a wide assortment of clothes and much more. The amount of things to do in San Andreas is mind-boggling when you try to sit down and recall it all at once.

San Andreas is a huge leap for the series, mostly due to the mammoth scale of the city –correction - state of San Andreas. The previous GTA titles allowed you to run rampant in a city divided into two or three areas to unlock. With SA, players are set loose in Los Santos, a recreation of Los Angeles down to the orange haze always present in the sky, palm trees, pier, LA (or LS in this case) river, the run down flats of the Compton-type ghettos to the downtown financial district, beach houses, country clubs, mansions – it's all there, and all available to you as soon as you boot up the game. Like all GTA games, completing missions for various bosses will allow you to continue the story and then unlock more parts of the city, and in this case additional cities in the state unlock.

Next up would be San Fierro - you guessed it, a GTA-styled San Fransisco, complete with Golden Gate Bridge, Transamerica building, insane hills perfect for recreating chase scenes from Bullitt, and the famous colourful Victorian style houses. Also a part of the outskirts of San Fierro is what's known as Mt. Chiliad, which has to be the largest object ever to be seen in a videogame. Its tip is usually enshrouded with clouds, but that doesn't mean you can't hike, bike, drive, or get to the top by aircraft if you wanted to. It just takes quite a while.

Las Vegas would be the last stop; known as Las Venturas in San Andreas, this huge piece of desert is home to gambling and everything else that earns it the nickname Sin City. The huge desert is there, complete with the top-secret government facility in the middle of the desert, blocks and blocks of the cookie-cutter suburban homes, and of course the vast main strip of casinos that light up the nights with neon lights.

You can take a train to get from city to city, but of course cars play a major role in getting around too; the cars are all from the early 90's and earlier, featuring earlier models of cars we've seen in previous GTA's and all-new additions like the Turismo (McLaren F1) and Bullet (Ford GT). The cars can be customized at garages now, allowing you to add hydraulics (essential for low-rider competitions), nitro, and change cosmetic things like rims, custom paint jobs, lights, spoilers and more. Various racing side missions will find you returning to the garages for that added edge against the competition, as well as just being able to increase your odds against Johnny Law when you know a mission is going to require a quick getaway from the cops. All forms of aircraft are now at your disposal in San Andreas as well, including commercial, rescue, industrial and fighter helicopters complete with machine gun and missiles, planes in the form of huge 747-style passenger planes which you can either buy tickets for a trip on or hijack, private jets, fighter jets which work similar to Harrier jump jets in that you're able to hover off the ground before taking off; you can even engage in dog fights with these jets. And should you wind up in trouble in the air, simply ditch the aircraft and pull out yet another addition - the parachute. You can skydive from the plane, hover around into the direction you want, and then pull the cord for a safe landing. This also comes in handy for base jumping off high buildings and is an extremely fun new feature in GTA.



Talking about new additions, the one all GTA fans have been dying for: the ability to swim. No longer does falling off a bridge or crashing your car into water equal instant death, as Carl Johnson has the ability to tread water, swim above water and also hold his breathe and submerge; swimming underwater effectively avoids enemies in some levels. Collecting secret items scattered across the sprawling state adds another notch to the exploration and replay value of San Andreas. You will first encounter the need to swim for a mission once you reach San Fierro. If you haven't been practicing on your own time, you will need to start so that you'll be able to reach the level of skill that will allow you to stay submerged for longer amounts of time. As you continue to practice you will be able to swim and maneuver in the water faster, as well as being able to stay under longer.

Swimming is not the only ability that you can increase, as just about everything that Carl can do is "levelled-up" much like in an RPG, starting with simply his body. Carl can go to the gym, lift weights, use stationery bikes, etc. The more weight Carl pushes regularly, the stronger he becomes and his body will gain in muscle mass and the muscles will gain much more definition. The more you run, bike, or do cardio in the gym, the longer you can run without needing to catch your breath. Of course, there is the opposite to this coin, in that you can waste away to anorexic proportions if you don't eat properly, or become enormously fat if you eat too much. These impact your performance when it comes to physical activity and running out of breath. It also affects how the general public and your gang think of you. You will get comments about your body and your style of dress from pedestrians and gang members, positive or negative depending on what route you chose with your body; there's even a sex appeal meter that shows how you're doing with the ladies. When it comes to your gang, if you're buff and wearing gang colors you'll be all good in their books, as indicated in the "respect" meter. The respect meter is only partially dependant on your physical appearance though, as drive-bys and mission completions greatly attribute to it. With more respect you're also able to recruit more gang members into a posse, so you don't have to go into battle alone.

The audio is once again superb in San Andreas, using professional actors for character voices, including Samuel L Jackson, Ice-T, Chris Penn, James Woods, Peter Fonda, and Charlie Murphy to name a few. All the characters are packed with personality and are very distinct from one another; they don't feel like standard place holders there to progress the story in cutscenes like in some games, as the wit and humor that makes the Grand Theft Auto series what it is is ever-present in the form of the characters and the whole world of San Andreas. The music taken from the 90's which blasts through your car radio further enhances the authenticity of the era, with fully licensed music on channels ranging from rock, rap, country and talk. The DJs are hilarious to listen to (that GTA wit and humour) and once again make it feel like a living, breathing world you're inhabiting, frequently issuing news updates on happenings that you usually have had a hand in and giving quick weather forecasts. And yes, Lazlow is back.

Another first for San Andreas is a two-player mode. When you run into a certain area you can get a friend to press a button on the second controller and begin a free-roam or rampage game. When roaming you can even walk into bars and play pool, do co-operative drive-bys with one player driving and the other shooting, and much more. Though this is a cool addition, it was also available in the PS2 version - there's not much in the way of Xbox-only features here, folks. What the Xbox does get over the PS2 version is an MP3 radio station as seen in previous versions of the GTA series on the Xbox and slightly tweaked graphics with cleaner textures and slightly farther draw distances. Progressive scan and 16:9 widescreen is supported in the Xbox version and there's a new 30-second replay feature that's especially useful for playing back those unbelievable moments to naysayers who wouldn't believe you otherwise. It's not the leap you saw between GTA3 and Vice City PS2 and Xbox versions, but then again this is coming out after only six months from the original (PS2) release.

Like the rest of the series, the graphics are somewhat cartoony – a stylized version of the real world. Cities look much like their real-world counterparts and the lighting is great in all the variations of the day, including no more of the motion blur which aggravated many in the first two games on the current generation formats. The famous Los Santos/Angeles fog has been toned down a bit on the Xbox version as well, presumably because the Xbox doesn't need it as much for a draw distance crutch.



San Andreas is pretty much the crown jewel of the Grand Theft Auto series to date, but it's not without flaws. Graphic-wise, it's merely average when compared to the cream of the crop of Xbox games. We all know no one plays Grand Theft Auto for eye candy, but there's definite room for improvement here. When it comes down to general controls and physics the series still seems a tad bit premature; handling can be fleshed out more and improved quite a bit, but the "bare bones" approach still proves to work for the series, everything you need without bells and whistles.

Though there were a few really cool multi-tiered missions, it would be nice if there could be more depth in the range of missions available. The staples still include chase, run, follow, and kill-kill-kill. And finally, having your own gang is too cool for school, but it would help if they were intelligent. Gang members usually just stand and aim directly at the opposing force ahead of them, not strafing to avoid bullets or trying to go around the side to flank enemies. If there's a car around members will use it as cover but will usually stick around when the car is on fire from the onslaught of enemy bullets and explode along with it. All gang members usually have the same weapon grade as well - a simple pistol. As your empire grows by taking over enemy gang turf I would only assume that the gang would be able to grab some heavy-duty weaponry, but that doesn’t happen here.



Fans of the series and new-comers alike should definitely pick up the latest piece of ultra-violence from Rockstar. There's just so much to do in San Andreas that you have to pick it up and experience what the developers put so much time into. San Andreas feels like a living, breathing world where you can make choices that affect yourself and the world around you in a non-linear, multi-levelled fashion, and above that it's just plain FUN completing missions or roaming the streets causing damage like a mad man, hunting down secret objects to collect or just discovering "oh my, you can do THAT?" If you haven't already, check it out now – San Andreas is worth every penny.

It's everything you expect times a bazillion or so. San Andreas takes GTA and makes it better.

On the Xbox it's merely decent, but has some nice lighting effects; not a huge jump in quality.

Great voiceacting, fantastic line-up of 90's tunes spanning many genres, and the classic DJs.

Once you boot up the game and play your first mission chances are you'll be enthralled.

I can't even begin to fathom what it would take to get 100% completion; now add two-player.

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