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[Grand Theft Scratchy]

In a little over a week, it will have been 15 years since Rockstar released Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on the PlayStation 2 . It is arguably the most ambitious open world game they ever developed, allowing the player to travel between not two but three large cities or any one of the small towns in between without the interruption of a loading screen. What made this especially impressive is the fact that we not only saw an increase in the size of the game world but the amount of things to do as well. Following the release of Manhunt a year earlier, San Andreas allowed the player to hide in the shadows and perform stealth kills with a knife. In fact, much of the texture work, simple shaders, targeting reticule etc. are reminiscent of Manhunt.

On top of the changes to player mobility (including climbing walls and swimming), you could fly aircraft, break into houses to steal valuable items, initiate gang wars, play basketball, pool, dance, bounce lowriders, ride a bike and train, play a video game within a video game, lift weights, get fat, or forget to eat because you're in the middle of a dark foggy forest with a camera hoping to come across Bigfoot. One day you're performing a drive-by on your rival gang. The next day you're breaking into a secret government facility to steal a jetpack because why not?

Did I mention James Woods voices a character in this game? Mike Toreno, easily my favorite boss in the series. Wu Zi Mu, the blind Triad boss, was pretty cool too. I also enjoyed seeing Claude and Ken Rosenberg again.

Much like with Final Fantasy IX and X, I will sometimes go back and forth with Grand Theft Auto III and San Andreas on which one is truly my all-time favorite. I love the atmosphere and city layout of Liberty City but I also love driving out in the countryside of San Andreas feeling like I'm part of a much larger game world... because if you can travel from San Fierro to Las Venturas or Los Santos, don't you feel like you could do the same with Liberty City and "nearby" Carcer City? At least back then it seemed like this was the direction the series would go in future installments. GTA IV had a really fun physics engine but it was a smaller game and GTA V was larger than GTA IV but it wasn't even half the game that San Andreas was despite more powerful hardware.

I know Rockstar re-released this game on every platform under the sun but still, let us never forget this masterpiece.

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

 

[Dada55000]

It 'felt' bigger than it was, because it was '04. Going back it holds up a bit eh. Shooting sucks. I remember thinking it sucked back then too. Driving is ok, but you can get fucked by some of the wonkyness, especially in races. The map felt so big, and now it feels really small. San Fierro especially. GTA4 felt constrained in that one city, but LC feels like a big city. SA now feels like a mini versions of a bunch of shit taped together. A lot of the content feels cheap, not really polished or refined. It's there, and that's nice, but it leaves you wanting it to have better implementation. Just look at the girlfriend system. It is boring and tedious as fuck. The girls barely have a character, don't talk during drives, it's trial and error whether they like the shitty burger joint you happened to choose, and then there's a cutscene and fuck off back home, maybe you'll get coffee. Like most things in SA, it's novel, but jank and not great, mostly tied back into some sort of progress bar. Hey, you had a jetpack! Eh, it's a thing that floats. Doesn't have a fun feel to it, kinda lame. But it's there! You have all these melee weapons, and fighting styles you can learn! But the melee combat is poo, and all the weapons do the same thwack, except for the katana and knife. But it's there!

That's in general what GTAIV tried and did in many ways. Better implementation of side stuff. Better designed side stuff. Better contextualisation for side stuff. Through a bunch of little things, like dialogue, small details like calling cabs and picking your destination, being able to hunt down people through the police tracker. Stealing cars by finding them through images sent to your phone. The internet. The improved police chase mechanics. Better melee combat. All these mechanics and details made the world feel alive. Making the population more dense, and then responsive through physics. That was always the sore spot with GTA, not just SA, how everything was like cardboard and there were horribly limited amounts of NPCs and cars in the cities. At times 3-VC-SA felt like goddamn ghost towns. Game world felt dead at those times. While cutting the fat from some of the more menial fluff, like literally the progression bar shit with muscles and fat. It's novel but it ends up being annoying as hell. Only thing it failed to bring back and expand upon is customisation of facial hair and tattoos. And the limited selection of weaponry. Oh, and pigeons, which is somehow far worse than graffiti and whatever the other 2 things in the other towns. Maybe because there was 200 of them. And they're small pigeons.

Honestly, the best part of SA is story missions. Those are still fun. Tenpenny, Smoke, Woozie. If nothing, else, it's still a classic Rockstar main campaign. Sure, a lot of times they're an excuse to introduce jank mechanics, same formula ala GTA4, but whatever. The game world and the side content is quaint, but the lengthy, varried campaign is solid.

 

[Tranquil]

Does it have better controls than GTA III? Been curious about this one.

I played GTA III for the first time last year and I couldn't even shoot a guy because the controls for aiming were so bad.

 

[Rest]

Does it have better controls than GTA III? Been curious about this one.

I played GTA III for the first time last year and I couldn't even shoot a guy because the controls for aiming were so bad.

In general, yes. Aiming controls are much better than GTAIII (let's be honest, GTAIII was a PSX game. It innovated in world and level design, and overall game design, not in granular elements of play mechanics. The aiming is the major proof of that.) GTAIII had slightly floaty driving controls, but once you mastered them you knew what pretty much any car would do in any situation.

GTA:SA had better controls for walking around, aiming, and lots of mechanics that GTAIII didn't even have. However, it had an experience based driving system that meant it was hard to learn exactly what vehicles would do in any situation. Once you got to the end of the game and your driving skill was maxed out, those controls were easy to master. But if you started a new game or went back to an older save, the differences in driving were jarring.

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

In general, yes. Aiming controls are much better than GTAIII (let's be honest, GTAIII was a PSX game. It innovated in world and level design, and overall game design, not in granular elements of play mechanics. The aiming is the major proof of that.) GTAIII had slightly floaty driving controls, but once you mastered them you knew what pretty much any car would do in any situation.

GTA:SA had better controls for walking around, aiming, and lots of mechanics that GTAIII didn't even have. However, it had an experience based driving system that meant it was hard to learn exactly what vehicles would do in any situation. Once you got to the end of the game and your driving skill was maxed out, those controls were easy to master. But if you started a new game or went back to an older save, the differences in driving were jarring.

Which guy are they talking about? I've been curious ever since seeing that and want to put my mind to Rest .

 

[Tranquil]

In general, yes. Aiming controls are much better than GTAIII (let's be honest, GTAIII was a PSX game. It innovated in world and level design, and overall game design, not in granular elements of play mechanics. The aiming is the major proof of that.) GTAIII had slightly floaty driving controls, but once you mastered them you knew what pretty much any car would do in any situation.

GTA:SA had better controls for walking around, aiming, and lots of mechanics that GTAIII didn't even have. However, it had an experience based driving system that meant it was hard to learn exactly what vehicles would do in any situation. Once you got to the end of the game and your driving skill was maxed out, those controls were easy to master. But if you started a new game or went back to an older save, the differences in driving were jarring.

Good to know the driving is rough until you max it out, I'd probably just get frustrated

Glad the aimings improved, will probably give this a shot in a few months. Hope one day they give GTA III a remastering would love to play that.

 

[Rest]

Which guy are they talking about? I've been curious ever since seeing that and want to put my mind to Rest .

This retard:



Using Satanism as a veil for religious intolerance and antisemitism is asinine.

Pieces of shit like that give a bad name to great music. But, he seems so sincere that I can't help but laugh sometimes when I watch that clip. He bought into the "rock and roll is devil music" propaganda whole hog, even though its origins are historically accounted for and it's known bullshit (even if you believe in god.)

Good to know the driving is rough until you max it out, I'd probably just get frustrated

Glad the aimings improved, will probably give this a shot in a few months. Hope one day they give GTA III a remastering would love to play that.

Well, it's not. The driving is fine at the start. Not amazing, but perfectly passable, usable, and fun. But as the game goes on the controls get more accurate and more precise, to the point that you could call them clinical at the end. And that is fun too. The problem is just that the controls feel so different at both ends of the spectrum.

 

[Rbk_3]

It 'felt' bigger than it was, because it was '04. Going back it holds up a bit eh. Shooting sucks. I remember thinking it sucked back then too. Driving is ok, but you can get fucked by some of the wonkyness, especially in races. The map felt so big, and now it feels really small. San Fierro especially. GTA4 felt constrained in that one city, but LC feels like a big city. SA now feels like a mini versions of a bunch of shit taped together. A lot of the content feels cheap, not really polished or refined. It's there, and that's nice, but it leaves you wanting it to have better implementation. Just look at the girlfriend system. It is boring and tedious as fuck. The girls barely have a character, don't talk during drives, it's trial and error whether they like the shitty burger joint you happened to choose, and then there's a cutscene and fuck off back home, maybe you'll get coffee. Like most things in SA, it's novel, but jank and not great, mostly tied back into some sort of progress bar. Hey, you had a jetpack! Eh, it's a thing that floats. Doesn't have a fun feel to it, kinda lame. But it's there! You have all these melee weapons, and fighting styles you can learn! But the melee combat is poo, and all the weapons do the same thwack, except for the katana and knife. But it's there!

That's in general what GTAIV tried and did in many ways. Better implementation of side stuff. Better designed side stuff. Better contextualisation for side stuff. Through a bunch of little things, like dialogue, small details like calling cabs and picking your destination, being able to hunt down people through the police tracker. Stealing cars by finding them through images sent to your phone. The internet. The improved police chase mechanics. Better melee combat. All these mechanics and details made the world feel alive. Making the population more dense, and then responsive through physics. That was always the sore spot with GTA, not just SA, how everything was like cardboard and there were horribly limited amounts of NPCs and cars in the cities. At times 3-VC-SA felt like goddamn ghost towns. Game world felt dead at those times. While cutting the fat from some of the more menial fluff, like literally the progression bar shit with muscles and fat. It's novel but it ends up being annoying as hell. Only thing it failed to bring back and expand upon is customisation of facial hair and tattoos. And the limited selection of weaponry. Oh, and pigeons, which is somehow far worse than graffiti and whatever the other 2 things in the other towns. Maybe because there was 200 of them. And they're small pigeons.

Honestly, the best part of SA is story missions. Those are still fun. Tenpenny, Smoke, Woozie. If nothing, else, it's still a classic Rockstar main campaign. Sure, a lot of times they're an excuse to introduce jank mechanics, same formula ala GTA4, but whatever. The game world and the side content is quaint, but the lengthy, varried campaign is solid.

If you want it to feel small, get the mod that extends the draw distance way out and go flying in the Hydra.

 

[Soltype]

Been replaying it for about a month or 2, it still holds up. I took a day off from class to pick this up and it was worth it.The game fired on all cylinders back in the day.The driving is good, the cities were good, you had a variety of locales and layout, the missions were mostly good and it never took itself too seriously.The shooting is good enough for what you needed to do, everything for the most part was on point, and it was wrapped in a nostalgic 90s package. Rockstar for the most part had nowhere to go but down, and it shows in every GTA game that came after it. They just can't top this game, I'm hoping they will,but I know with the current games market, their focus and game design has shifted, and not for the better.

 

[brap]

Fuck the train and rc controls tbh

 

[Coflash]

15 years, time flies.

 

[Imtjnotu]

Fuck the train and rc controls tbh

FUCK THAT MISSION

 

[Grand Theft Scratchy]

Driving controls were worse in Vice City than San Andreas or GTA III. Usually you can let go off the gas before hitting something and not have to worry about the vehicle spinning or bouncing back. Especially after you get a feel for how each vehicle handles but in Vice City you really had to get accustomed to the vehicles handling or you were fucked.

Aiming is obviously better on the PC version since you don't automatically lock onto the nearest target and therefore don't need to press either the L or R buttons to switch from one target to another. But in most missions where you shoot people, I would always keep in mind to hang back far enough and try to pick off enemies one by one. Especially considering how powerful the AK47 and M4 were, your health would drop really fast. GTA IV by comparison is very easy since it introduced a cover system.

But you get used to the older games and how they control after a while. The only missions I still get frustrated by are Zero's RC plane missions in San Andreas but thankfully they're optional.

 

[Soltype]

Forgot to mention, the soundtrack was incredible, it was surprisingly accurate to what was actually on the radioin '92.A lot of games get radio stations wrong, especially when the game is set in the past, but SA was fairly period accurate.

 

[Diddy X]

I remember the ads everywhere at the mall, I didn't even know about the series at the time, didn't even own a ps2, until I got one... That day my life changed... forever.

 

[Northeastmonk]

I thought the health aspects of eating, not eating, weight lifting or not, were some cool additions to the series. I always put my car in first person mode because I couldn’t control in 3rd person. That’s changed since then since the driving mechanic in GTA is so wide spread in sandbox game(s).

I always thought the UFO/Big Foot stories were cool. III and Vice City were the games I played with other classmates back in high school. I’m glad San Andreas came out when it did because I enjoyed the story quite a bit. Most of the time the group of guys would just put in cheats and then see how many stars they could get. Then I remember the red label greatest hits and EB games having to get rid of all the black label versions (which was so stupid).

 

[s34ab]

Is that the one with the ending where you're essentially Tony Montana from Scarface?

 

[Dada55000]

Is that the one with the ending where you're essentially Tony Montana from Scarface?

not that's Scarface The World Is Yours

 

[RobRSG]

Been trying to play this on the original Xbox , but the controller layout is very, very awkward.

 

[base]

The best GTA. Played it on PC back then.

 

[The_Observer]

The best GTA ever. I remember I was a GTA fan but I only had a weak PC at the time it released on PS2 (played GTA 3 and VC with single digits of framerate) and we went to the small console shop in my town every now and then with my friend to play it on a demo console there. My parents knew how much I wanted this game with a PS2 so those were our Christmas presents in 2004. I have fond memories of this game and still hope that maybe one day they will remake it. BTW the PS2 version is the definitive one IMO because of the color palette.

 

[AlexxKidd]

And it's still the GOAT GTA.

 

[JimmyJones]

San Andreas was the last fun GTA. They fell for the realism meme afterwards.

 

[#Phonepunk#]

incredible game. amazing. probably the best open world game i've played yet.

just the storytelling of it all, how you start peddling a bicycle, then end up flying jets and driving luxury cars. your journey can be described symbolically through your vehicles. i still remember how my mind opened up when i got to Flight School. "Oh shit, now I'm flying jets and helicopters?"

the journey of it all was just epic. never before have i played a game that really felt this epic in scope. it really feels like a movie, where you go through different phases of a character's life, watch him grow and change.

plus the all time GOAT soundtrack. plus the Hollywood actors doing the voice acting. it's all soooo good.

 

[Werewolf Jones]

San Andreas was the last fun GTA. They fell for the realism meme afterwards.

Ballad of Gay Tony brought it back a bit.

 

[Fbh]

Man, times flies.
Still remember going to my friends house who had just gotten it and being blown away by it. Not just the size but all the smaller stuff too like there being bicycles or how CJ gets fat if you eat too much junk food and how you can then go to the gym to get back in shape, felt like some next gen shit.

San Andreas was the last fun GTA. They fell for the realism meme afterwards.

Yep, the realism stuff sucks. It's the main reason I couldn't get into IV even though the story was pretty good.

I think V was a step in the right direction but then they went in hard on realism with RDR2 so who knows what the next GTA will be like

 

[deriks]

I guess that this was the last GTA that was really videogame-ish, but I have problems with it.

- Too much stuff to collect or do in really randoms places, and this stuff doesn't do much in gameplay.
- Controls in Vice City are not good because they look more playable for a keyboard and mouse, but San Andreas is made for the sake of the analog controls and feels like an early N64 control scheme. No good change.
- This was maybe the first open world game that I said "so open and empty". It was nice having three cities to play, but you can't go to those places from the start and to one to another it has nothing but roads. Vice City was way smaller, but so fun to drive and see the places...
- The final mission is really awesome, but kinda implies that there's another mission to happen and then it ends. Where's the closer, man?!

But the good things
- The soundtrack is nice. Maybe not that great as VC, but it's in my mind.
- It's the most well written dialogue in a GTA game by far. It's one of the funniest games I ever played. And the Terminator homage, so great.
- This is a game made for gameplay in first place, so the PS2 version is the real deal. It has pacing issues, but kinda feels part of the guts of the game.
- Like I said, gameplay comes first in this game, and you know all the time that it is a videogame just being a videogame. You can do dumb stuff, a mayhen and then everything can disapear in a blink of an eye with a cheat. Great times.
- Maybe the PS2 version is the definitive way to play the real game, but every PC today can play this game with mods and online. It's fun as hell.

 

[iorek21]

GTA SA alongside Bully are probably the best Rockstar GAMES

From GTA IV onwards, their games are more of a streamlined visual spectacles than really good open world games

 

[Helios]

My favorite GTA

 

[Weilthain]

It’s been so long it feels like it’s been longer.

 

[Tesseract]

only gta i played all the way through, stunning game

the multiplayer that came to pc down the line was fucking nuts, you had to be there

 

[Birdo]

Man, that map felt so big.

 

[The_Observer]

incredible game. amazing. probably the best open world game i've played yet.

just the storytelling of it all, how you start peddling a bicycle, then end up flying jets and driving luxury cars. your journey can be described symbolically through your vehicles. i still remember how my mind opened up when i got to Flight School. "Oh shit, now I'm flying jets and helicopters?"

the journey of it all was just epic. never before have i played a game that really felt this epic in scope. it really feels like a movie, where you go through different phases of a character's life, watch him grow and change.

plus the all time GOAT soundtrack. plus the Hollywood actors doing the voice acting. it's all soooo good.

Exactly, it's an epic journey.

 

[Skyr]

Boy ow boy. I remember I was just starting to earn my own money and went out to buy a PS2 just for the game when it released. I was forced to play it on a 15" CRT TV at that time.
Still one of the best gaming experiences of my life.

 

[amigastar]

Just driving around the desert with "Horse with no name" on the Radio, took me to another place.
Also San Fierro was fantastic.
RIP Peter "The Truth" Fonda

 

[lock2k]

In a little over a week, it will have been 15 years since Rockstar released Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on the PlayStation 2 . It is arguably the most ambitious open world game they ever developed, allowing the player to travel between not two but three large cities or any one of the small towns in between without the interruption of a loading screen. What made this especially impressive is the fact that we not only saw an increase in the size of the game world but the amount of things to do as well. Following the release of Manhunt a year earlier, San Andreas allowed the player to hide in the shadows and perform stealth kills with a knife. In fact, much of the texture work, simple shaders, targeting reticule etc. are reminiscent of Manhunt.

On top of the changes to player mobility (including climbing walls and swimming), you could fly aircraft, break into houses to steal valuable items, initiate gang wars, play basketball, pool, dance, bounce lowriders, ride a bike and train, play a video game within a video game, lift weights, get fat, or forget to eat because you're in the middle of a dark foggy forest with a camera hoping to come across Bigfoot. One day you're performing a drive-by on your rival gang. The next day you're breaking into a secret government facility to steal a jetpack because why not?

Did I mention James Woods voices a character in this game? Mike Toreno, easily my favorite boss in the series. Wu Zi Mu, the blind Triad boss, was pretty cool too. I also enjoyed seeing Claude and Ken Rosenberg again.

Much like with Final Fantasy IX and X, I will sometimes go back and forth with Grand Theft Auto III and San Andreas on which one is truly my all-time favorite. I love the atmosphere and city layout of Liberty City but I also love driving out in the countryside of San Andreas feeling like I'm part of a much larger game world... because if you can travel from San Fierro to Las Venturas or Los Santos, don't you feel like you could do the same with Liberty City and "nearby" Carcer City? At least back then it seemed like this was the direction the series would go in future installments. GTA IV had a really fun physics engine but it was a smaller game and GTA V was larger than GTA IV but it wasn't even half the game that San Andreas was despite more powerful hardware.

I know Rockstar re-released this game on every platform under the sun but still, let us never forget this masterpiece.

Last time I felt truly excited about a triple A game. I played the shit out of it until my PS2 broke down. Good times.

 

[Myths]

Still amazing, still being modded, still being played.

 

[Weiji]

I’m still salty they back tracked on the RPG elements. I loved that you could get fat etc.

I still feel SA was the peak of the series. GTAV is great, but for all it’s polish it feels like there’s less to do in single player.

 

[Grand Theft Scratchy]

Last time I felt truly excited about a triple A game. I played the shit out of it until my PS2 broke down. Good times.

Man, I played it so much that I would read up on all of the secrets, like the hidden interiors universe so I could access the small section of Liberty City outside of the mission.

GTA V, as I recall, you could explore Ludendorff and that was kind of interesting.

To the game's credit, I really liked the UFO/alien easter eggs.

But I first recall reading about Ghost Town (Upstate?) in GTA III years ago.

I play them on the PC now but back then it was super interesting trying to access something you weren't supposed to and on the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 .

 

[Breakage]

Got it on launch and played it to completion. It's an enjoyable game, but it's my least favourite out of the PS2 era GTAs.