Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

[Povuholo]

My brother never bothers to finish the story line. He just kills people and cheat. No wonder he didn't like Morrowind...

 

EDIT: Look at the date of the post before the one by Mali Kit! Raised from the dead... Soon to be dead again.

[WarKirby3333]

I did a lot of riding on the backs of trucks too. Get out an assault rifle, and gun down a few people til the cops start chasing,

 

 

 

Then you have a decent chase with the unfortunate driver trying not to die while you gun down cop cars from behind.

 

 

 

There really should be an ability to make someone drive for you so you can shoot out the passenger window. When standing on a car, you're liable to fall of at the slightest bump.

 

 

 

I also loved base jumping off the huge building in Los Santos. And then I discoverd something even more fun. Leaping from the tower on a bicycle. Sometimes, if you get the right angle, you don't die on landing. And you can bounce really high into the air.

 

 

 

Did anyone use cheats? I had some incredible fun with cheats.

 

 

 

The flying cars cheat made cars able to fly, although some were too slow for it. I used the Hotknife. It could fly faster than a jet fighter (wtf?) and you could shoot across San Andreas in barely a minute.

 

 

 

Also especially enjoyable was the spawning cars cheats. And the Blow up Cars cheat. I would spawn a huge pile of cars, like 20 or so, and then use blow up cars repeatedly to detonate them.

 

The initial explosion is huge, and spreads them everywhere, often crushing civilians. Then subsequent explosions (they explode mutiple times with that cheat) would throw them straight up in the air. Once you let up, it literally starts raining burning cars. Truly a wonder to behold. :D

 

 

 

I could talk about this game forever. And I likely will.

 

 

 

WarKirby

 

 

 

PS: Did you know the whole GTA series is made by a Scottish developer. I'm so proud ;D

[Rhydderch Hael]

...There really should be an ability to make someone drive for you so you can shoot out the passenger window. When standing on a car, you're liable to fall of at the slightest bump. ...

I've played Vice City, but not San Andreas. However, in Saint's Row you gain the ability to summon a fellow gang member to chauffeur you around right off the bat.

 

Can't use that 'Wheel Woman' for story-related missions, but you can for the general mill-around-the-city.

[WarKirby3333]

You really must get SA. It is truly incredible.

 

 

 

Vice city may have a better main character, but that doesn't matter in the slightest once you finish the story.

 

 

 

San Andreas has much more to do. Here's a list of every reason why you should buy it:

• Flyable planes. including a jet fighter, complete with missiles and Vertical Take off. Also including a passenger airliner and many smaller planes. They also all handle much better than the crappy seaplane in Vice City
  
• Increased flight limit. In vice city, the maximum height you could fly to was pitiful. In San Andreas, you can fly higher than the tallest skyscrapers. You can fly right up into the clouds, and fly through them. You can see the whole world below you. And you can dive out of the plane, open your parachute and fall at your leisure. Or you could experience some adrenaline filled freefall, and only open your parachute 100 meters or so off the ground.
  
• Customisable CJ. No longer are you stuck with a fat main character in a hawaiian shirt. As Cj you can visit clothes shops and buy a lot of different stuff to choose how you look. You can even go topless and show off your bulging six pack.
  
• Body toning. You can go to the gym and train to beef up, increasing melee damage and making you look much cooler. You can also become fat, or as skinny as a rake through eating. The eating is fairly inconsequential though, you can go for several days without eating so it doesn't get in the way of fun.
  
• Returning Characters. Many people from previous games make cameo appearances in SA, and it ties the story together much better. You also find out the name of the main character from GTA III
  
• It's big. Really Big. SA gives you 3 cities, Los Santos is LA to a tee. Complete with hollywood, the ghetto, muscle beach and everything else you'd expect to see there. It's as big as vice city. You also get San Fierro, which is essentially San Francisco complete with the golden gate bridge. That is also as big as vice city. And then there's Las Venturas. Based on Vegas, there are lots of casino's where you can actually gamble and lose millions if it takes your fancy. That too is about the size of Vice city.
  
• And then you've got the countryside. Hundreds of acres of coutryside to explore between the cities. The countryside is quite varied too. in the south you have the badlands, which includes a huge mountain.You can even jump off a ramp on the top of the mountain for a cool unique jump. In the north you have the desert, and the badlands. There's a hell of a lot of cool stiuff there, including a dam, a geyser, a secret government research facility, and a huge canyon which you can jump on a bike.
  
• More vehicles. In addition to more general cars, vans, trucks, bikes etc. You also get some unusual vehicles. Including a combine harvester which allows you to shred people, a tractor that allows you to pick up cars and tow them away. A hovercraft that works equally well on land and water. Planes as I mentioned earlier. More boats. And perhaps most famously, a Jetpack. Which is incredible fun. Also there is a working, real time train system connecting the whole of san andreas. You can hijack the trains too. If you go fast enough they will derail. You can also cycle on bicycles. Seems pitiful at first, but they are incredibly fun to use.
  
• Swimming: No longer will you drown in a paddling pool. CJ can swim perfectly well, and even dive underwater. If you drive your car into water, you can now get out and swim to the surface.
  
• Gang Wars. I left this so late for a reason. Many people don't like san andreas because of the subject matter, you play as a black gangster from the ghetto. I myself was skeptical at first. But the gangster part of the game is quite small unless you actually want it otherwise. After the first few hours, you can stop being a gangster and just enjoy the freedom. It it however handled very well. your gang has a tangible prescense on the streets, and it gives a feeling of purpose to the game to gradually take over los santos. When you capture a neighborhood, your gang members start to appear there too.
  
• Excellent Voice Acting: Like Vice City, san andreas has great acting. Notably on the roster, Peter Fonda as a perpetually stoned hippy, James Woods, and the man, Samuel L Jackson as the main bad guy.
  

Anyway. I think I've ranted enough. If that doesn't convince you that San Andreas is the best game ever, then you likely can't be convinced. Oblivion is great, but San Andreas is ultimately better.

 

 

 

WarKirby

[Rhydderch Hael]

Thanks for the info. I'll have to try San Andreas out sometime.

 

In size and scope, it seems that Saints Row is more a copy of Vice City than San Andreas then.

 

Saints Row is different from Vice City in some significant ways, I still wonder if the differences hold true against San Andreas as well. Some of the things you find in Saints Row include:

 

-- Customizable characters. Race, hair, and body build are yours to manipulate at will. And if you don't like the result at first, you can visit a plastic surgeon to remake your image. Doing so will erase your Wanted status as well.

 

-- Customizable cars. Body mods and paint options, from iridescent paints to matte finishes, can be chosen in the car shop. Unlike Vice City, however, changing your car's appearance doesn't affect your Wanted status. In fact, you can't even modify your car while carrying a Wanted star.

 

-- Persistent car inventory. Customizing cars will do no good if you happen to lose the vehicle someplace, right? Well, in Saints Row if you garage or modify a car, it becomes attached to your personal inventory list and can be recalled whenever you visit your garage or go to a mechanic's shop. No more shoe-horning three vehicles into a 2-car garage: you choose the vehicle from a list and summon the one you want. You can abandon a car on the street or have it blown up in t fight, and it will still show up in your garage later.

 

-- Persistent car damage. The caveat of the above feature is that any damage to your vehicles will carry on until you pay for repairs. If you wreck a car on the road, you have to pay to restore it the next time you summon it up.

 

-- It's not the fall that kills you. It's the sudden stop at the end. Tommy Vercetti could leap off an apartment building's roof without dying. Your character in Saints Row won't survive a drop from a third-storey balcony.

 

-- Recruitable guns. As you progress in the game, you gain the ability to bring along one, two, or eventually three fellow Saints who will follow and support you in any fights.

 

-- Penalties are different. You keep your weapons when you go to the hospital or the police station, but the financial costs are steeper.

[WarKirby3333]

San Andreas has some of those things too:

 

 

 

Custom Cars: San andreas has garages where you can upgrade your car with various mods. Most are cosmetic, but you can buy a bassbooster to improve the quality of the radio, and Nitro for an incredible turbo boost (complete with speed blur)

 

 

 

Persistant inventory: San andreas has many garages that can store vehicles. You eventually gat a hangar that is designed for big aircraft, but can store 50 cars if you want. Unfortunately, if you lose a car, it's gone.

 

 

 

Recruitment: SA gives you a respect meter which increasses as you do stuff for your gang, and anything else that might make you famous. At certain milestones you gain the ability to call members of your gang to follow you, shoot at your enemies, and ride in cars with you. You can get 2 to start with, and at max respect you can have 8 buddies following. It's quite the experience to call a few people, get into your custom lowrder, and roll through rival terrritory. Your gang members shoot out the windows so you can just drive and allow them to do the ass kicking.

 

 

 

Aparrently, you can mod the PC version. I only had it on PS2, but seeing as I have an über Pc now, I'll buy the PC version soon and see what mods are available.

 

 

 

Forgot to mention. So easy to forget, but one of the biggest differences from VC. The entire aiming system has been overhauled. You still have the lock on, but you can break it and aim manually, allowing you to finally shoot at helicopters with something other than an RPG. With free aim, the minigun becomes the most awesome weapon in history. Period. You can also roll to the side, and lock onto people's heads when you get close.

 

 

 

And it has skills too. Can't believe I forgot all this stuff. You have a skill for each type of weapon, a skill for driving, bikes, cycling, flying, sailing etc. That auto improve as you do the appropriate action. And you get nice bonuses at certain levels. Mastering the uzi or pistol allows you to dual wield them. Few things are cooler than a beefed topless CJ with 2 uzis.

 

 

 

You need to get SA.

 

 

 

WarKirby