Grand Theft Auto-San Andreas

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is a sandbox-style action-adventure computer and video game developed by Rockstar North. It is the third 3D game in the Grand Theft Auto video game franchise and fifth original game overall. Originally released for the PlayStation 2 in October 2004, the game has since been ported to the Xbox and Microsoft Windows, and has received wide acclaim and high sales figures on all three platforms. San Andreas was preceded by Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and will be succeeded by Grand Theft Auto IV.

Set in late 1992, the game revolves around the main character, Carl “CJ” Johnson returning home from Liberty City to Los Santos after learning of his mother’s murder. CJ finds his family and his old gang, the Grove Street Families, in disarray. Over the course of the game, CJ gradually unravels the plot behind his mother’s murder while reestablishing his gang and exploring his own business ventures.

Much like the previous entries in the Grand Theft Auto series, San Andreas’s critical and commercial success has not been without controversy; explicit hidden content in the game resulted in the game’s re-rating and subsequent removal from many retailers’ shelves.
History
Following the success of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, many gamers anticipated a new Grand Theft Auto game on the PlayStation 2 in late 2003. The first concrete evidence of a new installment came on October 29, 2003, when Take-Two Interactive announced that an untitled GTA game was set for release in the “later half of the fiscal fourth quarter 2004″. By this time, pundits online had theorized about the plot of the game; it would either be based in the fictional city of San Andreas, California in the modern day, or in Sin City, Nevada.

On March 1, 2004, Take-Two announced in a press conference that Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas would be released on October 19, 2004 in North America, October 22 in Europe, and October 29 for Australia. The first news of the game’s content was revealed on March 11, when it was divulged that San Andreas would not be a city, but rather an entire state consisting of three whole cities and the surrounding territory.

On September 9, 2004, in Take-Two’s third quarter financial results for 2004, it was announced that the release date would be pushed back by a week. In the same release, Take-Two announced the Microsoft Windows and Xbox versions of the game.

San Andreas was released for the PlayStation 2 on October 26, 2004 in North America and on October 29, 2004 in Europe and Australia. It was released in Japan on January 25, 2007. The Windows and Xbox ports were released on June 7, 2005 in North America and June 10, 2005 in Europe and Australia.

Gameplay
 
Mountain biking up Mount Chiliad, PC version.San Andreas is structured similarly to the previous two games in the series. The core gameplay consists of elements of a third-person shooter and a driving game, affording the player a large, open environment in which to move around. On foot, the player’s character is capable of walking, running, swimming (which makes this the first GTA game in which gives player the freedom to swim), climbing and jumping, as well as utilizing weapons and basic hand to hand combat. Players can steal and drive a variety of vehicles, including automobiles, boats, airplanes, helicopters, trains, tanks, motorcycles and bikes.

The open, non-linear environment allows players to explore and choose how they wish to play the game. Although storyline missions are necessary to progress through the game and unlock certain cities and content, they are not required, as players can complete them at their own leisure. When not taking on a storyline mission, players can free-roam and create havoc. However, doing so can attract unwanted and potentially fatal attention from the authorities. The more chaos caused, the stronger the response: police will handle “minor” infractions (attacking people, pointing guns at people, stealing cars, killing a few people, etc.), whereas SWAT teams, the FBI, and the military respond to higher wanted levels.

The player can also partake in a variety of optional side missions. The traditional side missions of the past games are included, such as dropping off taxi cab passengers, putting out fires, driving injured people to the hospital and fighting crime as a vigilante. New additions include robbery missions, pimping missions, truck and train driving missions requiring players to make deliveries on time, and driving/flying/boating/biking schools, which help players learn skills and techniques to use in their corresponding vehicles.
Locations and setting
 
A map showing the aerial imagery of San Andreas.Main article: San Andreas (Grand Theft Auto)
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas takes place within the fictional state San Andreas. It is based on sections of California and Nevada, comprising three major fictional cities: Los Santos and the badlands correspond to real-life Los Angeles and the California badlands; San Fierro corresponds to real-life San Francisco; and Las Venturas and the surrounding desert corresponds to real-life Las Vegas and the Nevada desert. Players can climb the half-mile (800 m) tall Mount Chiliad (based on Mount Diablo), parachute from various peaks and skyscrapers, and visit 12 rural towns and villages located in three counties: Red County, Flint County, and Bone County. Other notable destinations include Sherman dam (based on the Hoover Dam), a large secret military base called Area 69 (based on Area 51), a microwave dish, and many other geographical features. Previous Grand Theft Auto titles are set in a single city, whereas the events of San Andreas span the entire state. San Andreas is 13.9 square miles (36 square kilometers), almost four times as large as Vice City, and five times as large as Liberty City.

Los Santos
 
Los Santos, as seen from the low-income district of Idlewood.Los Santos is the largest city in San Andreas. Like its real-life counterpart of Los Angeles, Los Santos is comprised of several diverse areas. This includes the gang-ridden neighborhoods of Ganton, Willow Field, Jefferson, Idlewood and East Los Santos, based on their actual counterparts of Compton, Willowbrook, Watts, Inglewood, and East Los Angeles, respectively. Also located in the city is a busy downtown section based on Downtown Los Angeles; the wealthy Rodeo and Mulholland districts (Rodeo based on Beverly Hills and named after Rodeo Drive); the beach-side districts of Santa Maria Beach and Verona Beach, representing Santa Monica and Venice Beach; and the glitzy Vinewood and the giant Vinewood Sign are based on Hollywood and its Hollywood Sign. Los Santos features landmarks reminiscent of Los Angeles, which include the Watts Towers, the Los Angeles Convention Center, the Capitol Tower, the Los Angeles City Hall, the U.S. Bank Tower, the Griffith Observatory, the Forum, the Santa Monica Pier, the Vincent Thomas Bridge, Rodeo Drive, the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, and Grauman’s Chinese Theater.

San Fierro
 
Gant Bridge, modeled after San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.San Fierro is the smallest city in San Andreas. Like its real-life counterpart of San Francisco, San Fierro is characterized by a prominent cable car system and hilly terrain. San Fierro features several interpretations of many of San Francisco’s districts and landmarks, including the Haight-Ashbury district (Hashbury), the Castro district (Queens), Chinatown, and the Golden Gate Bridge (Gant Bridge). Several other familiar landmarks have been recreated, from the Embarcadero clock tower and the Transamerica Pyramid (Big Pointy Building) to Lombard Street (Windy Windy Windy Windy Street), and the San Francisco Bay Bridge (Garver Bridge). There is a district known as ‘Garcia’, a tribute to Grateful Dead frontman and San Francisco native Jerry Garcia,[citation needed] and San Fierro’s City Hall closely resembles San Francisco’s ornate city hall. San Fierro also contains remains of the Cypress Street Viaduct which collapsed in 1989 during the Loma Prieta earthquake. There is also an aircraft carrier in San Fierro, docked at the naval base.

Las Venturas
 
A casino on Las Venturas’ main strip.Las Venturas is the second-largest city in San Andreas. Like its real-life counterpart of Las Vegas, Las Venturas is home to legalized gambling and several casinos. In these casinos, the player can partake in blackjack, poker, roulette, or play slot machines. In addition to gambling, strip clubs are also prevalent in Las Venturas. Many real Las Vegas Strip casinos are faithfully interpreted on Las Venturas’ Strip, including the Excalibur Hotel and Casino (Come-a-Lot), the Sphinx and pyramid of the Luxor Hotel (The Camel’s Toe), Treasure Island (Pirates In Men’s Pants), The Mirage (The Visage), Circus Circus (The Clown’s Pocket), Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (V-Rock Hotel and Casino), and Imperial Palace (Four Dragons Casino). Other landmarks include a replica of the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign and interpretations of Vegas Vic and Vicki as Vice City characters Avery Carrington and Candy Suxxx. Suites in several of the hotels are available for purchase. Additionally, Las Venturas features a large surrounding desert region, low-density residential areas, and strip malls, as well as a seedy area (Old Venturas) with several strip clubs and gambling parlors based on the Old Vegas Strip.
Characters
Main articles: List of characters in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and List of gangs in Grand Theft Auto series
The characters that appear in San Andreas are relatively diverse and relative to the respective cities and locales which each of them based himself in. This allows the game to include a significantly wider array of storylines and settings than in Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City. The player controls Carl “CJ” Johnson, a young African-American gang member.

The Los Santos stages of the game revolve around the theme of the Grove Street Families gang fighting with the Ballas and the Vagos for territory and respect. East Asian gangs (most notably the local Triads) and an additional Vietnamese gang are evident in the San Fierro leg of the game, while three Mafia families and the Triads who all own their respective casino are more prominently featured in the Las Venturas section of the game.

Like the previous two GTA games, the voice actors of San Andreas include notable celebrities, such as David Cross, Andy Dick, Samuel L. Jackson, James Woods, Peter Fonda, Charlie Murphy, Frank Vincent, Chris Penn, Danny Dyer, Sara Tanaka, rappers Ice T, Chuck D, Frost, MC Eiht and The Game and musicians George Clinton, Axl Rose and Shaun Ryder.

Young Maylay makes his debut as the protagonist, Carl.
Plot summary
 
Officer Frank TenpennyAfter living in Liberty City for five years, Carl “CJ” Johnson returns home to Los Santos for his mother’s funeral. There, he finds his family and gang, the Grove Street Families, in disarray. While ironing out issues with his fellow gang members and fighting enemy gangs for territory within the city, Carl begins to bring the Grove Street Families back to prominence. However, with the Families on the cusp of retaking control of Los Santos, he discovers that his best friends, Big Smoke and Ryder, are working with the crooked Officer Tenpenny and Grove Street’s rival gang, the Ballas. Smoke and Ryder set a trap and help the Ballas ambush Sweet, Carl’s brother. Tenpenny sends the police to arrest Sweet and kidnap Carl, whom Tenpenny ditches in the distant rural countryside. Carl, realizing Tenpenny is his only hope of staying out of jail or getting Sweet released, continues to run the cop’s crooked errands, in the process killing or discrediting people involved in building a criminal case against Tenpenny.

Carl steadily befriends new allies, among them blind Chinese gang leader and businessman Wu Zi Mu, a hippie called The Truth, and Cesar Vialpando, a Hispanic gang member who, like Carl, has been betrayed by his old friends. Carl and his friends open a garage in San Fierro while they wait for an opportunity to return to Los Santos. After finding and killing Ryder, Carl becomes immersed in the affairs of a shady government agent, Mike Toreno, who implies that he will release Sweet if Carl helps him with his covert operations. Then, Carl works alongside Wu Zi Mu to promote the growth of a new casino in the mafia-run Las Venturas. Consequently, Carl enjoys newfound wealth and eventually returns to Los Santos. Toreno makes good on his earlier promise to release Sweet, but much to Carl’s surprise, his brother wants no part of Carl’s new lifestyle. Sweet insists on returning to the hood and working to reestablish the GSF rather than rest on the laurels of Carl’s success.

Tenpenny goes to trial for several felonies, but the charges are dropped for lack of evidence, as all the prosecution’s witnesses are either missing or dead. Tenpenny’s release sends the citizens of Los Santos into a citywide riot, similar to the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. Fueled by Sweet’s resolve to topple Big Smoke, who has become the city’s biggest drug kingpin, Carl reacquires lost gang territory and hunts down the traitors responsible for pushing drugs that destroyed the Families. He kills Smoke, and seconds later Tenpenny shows up and flees with Smoke’s drug fortune. Sweet and Carl pursue Tenpenny through the streets of Los Santos in a car chase. He finally careens off a bridge and dies. The final scene shows the Johnson family reunited. As his friends and allies celebrate their success, Carl turns to leave. When asked where he’s going, he replies, “Fittin’ to hit the block, see what’s happening.”
Crossovers with other Grand Theft Auto games
Many characters, locations and fictional elements from previous Grand Theft Auto games reappear in San Andreas. Catalina, the main antagonist in GTA III, accompanies CJ on a number of robbery missions. Claude, GTA III’s protagonist, also makes a brief appearance as Catalina’s new boyfriend after she dumps Carl. They proceed to compete in a street race, which Claude and Catalina ultimately lose. Catalina hands Carl a deed to a garage in San Fierro instead of the car’s pink slip, stating that, “He needs his car to get to Liberty City”. In a bit of an inside joke, numerous remarks are made about Claude’s apparent muteness, due to the fact that he had no spoken lines in GTA III.

Ken Rosenberg and Kent Paul, from GTA: Vice City, feature prominently in several Las Venturas missions in connection with Salvatore Leone, the Liberty City mob boss featured in GTA: III and Liberty City Stories. Maria, who later becomes Salvatore’s wife, also appears as a waitress in Caligula’s Palace.
Differences in gameplay from previous titles
Unlike Vice City and GTA III, which needed loading screens when traveling between different districts of the city, San Andreas has no load times when the player is in transit (which is notable, given how much larger the in-game map is than in the previous games). The only loading screens in the game are for cut-scenes and interiors. Other differences between San Andreas and its predecessors include the switch from single-player to multiplayer Rampage missions (albeit not in the PC version), and the replacement of the ‘hidden packages’ with spray paint tags, hidden camera shots, horseshoes, and oysters to discover.

The camera, fighting, and targeting controls were reworked to incorporate concepts from another Rockstar game, Manhunt, including various stealth elements, as well as improved target crosshairs and a target health indicator which changes colors from green to red to black depending on the target’s health. Car physics and features are similar to the Midnight Club series of street racing games, allowing for much more midair vehicle control as well as nitrous oxide upgrades and aesthetic modification.
New features
In total, there are nearly 200 types of vehicles in the game, compared to the approximately 85 in GTA III. New additions include bicycles, jet planes, a jetpack, quadbikes, tractors, trains, a combine harvester, police motorcycles, a forklift, a street sweeper, a ride-on lawnmower, and many others. In addition, players can swim and climb walls for the first time in the series. The ability to swim has a great effect on the player as well, since water is no longer a viable barrier to the player and can no longer instantly kill the player (although it is possible to drown). For greater firepower, players can also wield dual firearms or perform a drive-by shooting with multiple gang members. Also, due to the immense size of San Andreas, a waypoint reticule on the HUD map can be set, aiding the player in reaching a destination.
Running in Los Santos, PC version. The player’s character initially has little money, fitness, and skills. These attributes improve as one progresses through the game.Rockstar has emphasized the personalization of the main character. Clothing, accessories, haircuts and tattoos are now available for purchase by CJ, and have more of an effect on non-player characters’ reactions than the clothing in Vice City. CJ’s level of respect among his fellow Grove Street gang members varies according to his appearance and actions, as do his relationships with his girlfriends. Players must also ensure CJ eats to stay healthy and also exercises properly. The balance of food and physical activity has an effect on his appearance and physical attributes.

San Andreas also tracks acquired skills in areas such as driving, firearms handling (when skills are high enough, double-wielding of certain weapons is possible), stamina, and lung capacity, which improve through use in the game, adding an RPG aspect to San Andreas. CJ may also learn three different styles of hand-to-hand combat (boxing, martial arts and street fighting) at the gyms in each of the game’s three cities. CJ can also speak with a number of pedestrians in the game, responding either negatively or positively; Rockstar claims that he has a total of about 4200 lines of spoken dialogue.

The game’s artificial intelligence was also improved. No longer can the player beat a pedestrian to death on a busy street in broad daylight and have bystanders not respond. While most pedestrians will flee or duck for cover, some armed civilians such as drug dealers and enemy gang members will attack CJ, and friendly gang members will shoot at and pursue his opponents. Cops will now chase other rival gang members who are committing crimes, instead of just the player.

Other new features include:
Driving a modified sports car in San Fierro while deploying nitrous oxide to boost speed, PC version.Car modification: Most automobiles in the game can be modified and upgraded at various garages. All car mods are strictly visual apart from a nitrous oxide system which gives the car a speed boost when activated; and hydraulics, which lowers the car’s height by default and allows the player to control various aspects of the car’s suspension. Other common modifications include paintjobs, rims, body kits, side skirts, bumpers and stereo system upgrades.
Gang wars: The goal is to gain as much territory within the city as possible in order to earn money. Battles with enemy gangs are prompted whenever the player (either alone or accompanied by fellow Grove Street Families members) ventures into enemy territory and kills 3-4 gang members. If the player then survives multiple waves of enemies, the territory will be won and fellow gang members will begin wandering the streets of these areas. Occasionally, your territory will come under attack from enemy gangs and defeating them will be necessary to retain these areas. Once all marked territories are claimed for the Grove Street Families, they no longer come under attack.
Robbery: Continuing the series’ tradition of controversy, home invasion is included as a potential money-making activity. By stealing a robbery van, CJ is able to sneak into a residence at night, and cart off valuables or shake down the occupants.
Minigames: Numerous minigames are also available for play in San Andreas, including basketball, pool, rhythm-based challenges (dancing and ‘bouncing’ lowriders, with hydraulics), and video game machines that pay homage to classic arcade games. In addition, there are the aforementioned casino games and methods of gambling, such as betting on virtual horse races.
Multiplayer: A two-player cooperative mode has also been added for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions. Accessing this mode will launch a series of special objectives similar to ‘Rampages’ from previous Grand Theft Auto games. Two human players will be able to travel by car or on foot. Both players are required to remain on the same screen and within a reasonable proximity of one another.
Money: The money system has been expanded upon, compared to previous titles. Players can spend their cash on gambling, purchasing weapons, buying meals, etc. However, excessive spending can force the player to sink into debt, which is shown in red negative numbers. When the player leaves a safehouse, CJ gets an unexpected call and a mysterious person tells him about his debts. Four gang members suddenly appear and shoot Carl on sight if he does not erase the debt when the mysterious person calls him a second time.

Soundtrack
Main articles: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas soundtrack, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Official Soundtrack, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Official Soundtrack Box Set
Just like the previous two entries in the Grand Theft Auto series, San Andreas has an extensive amount and variety of tracks taken from the time period the game is based in. Notable inclusions to the game’s soundtrack include The Who, Toto, Faith No More, Depeche Mode, James Brown, Soundgarden, Rage Against the Machine, Danzig, Cream, Alice in Chains, Guns N’ Roses, Snoop Dogg, N.W.A., 2Pac, Ice Cube, Dr.Dre, Eazy-E, Stone Temple Pilots, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Ozzy Osbourne.

San Andreas is serviced by eleven radio stations; WCTR (talk radio), Master Sounds 98.3 (rare groove, playing many of the old funk and soul tracks sampled by 1990s hip-hop artists), K-Jah West (dub and reggae), CSR (new jack swing), Radio X (alternative rock and grunge rock), Radio Los Santos (gangsta rap), SF-UR (house), Bounce FM (funk), K-DST (classic rock), K-Rose (country) and Playback FM (classic hip hop).

The music system in San Andreas is enhanced from previous titles. In earlier games in the series, each radio station was essentially a single looped sound file, playing the same songs, announcements and advertisements in the same order each time. In San Andreas, each section is held separately, and “mixed” randomly, allowing songs to be played in different orders, announcements to songs to be different each time, and plot events to be mentioned on the stations.

The Xbox and PC versions of the game include an additional radio station that supports custom soundtracks by playing user imported MP3s.
Reception
Awards
IGN’s Best of 2004 PlayStation 2 Game of the Year, Best PlayStation 2 Action Game, Best Story for PlayStation 2
GameSpot’s Best and Worst of 2004 Best PlayStation 2 Game, Best Action Adventure Game, Readers’ Choice - Best PlayStation 2 Action Adventure Game, Readers’ Choice - PlayStation 2 Game of the Year, Best Voice Acting, Funniest Game
2004 Spike TV Video Game Awards Game of the Year, Best Performance by a Human (Male), Best Action Game, Best Soundtrack
Prior to its release for the PlayStation 2, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was one of the most highly anticipated video games of 2004, along with Halo 2. San Andreas met most of these expectations, as it was praised as one of the PlayStation 2’s best games, with an average review score on 95%, according to Metacritic, tying for the fifth highest ranked game in PlayStation 2 history. IGN rated the game a 9.9/10 (the highest score it has ever awarded to a PlayStation 2 game), calling it “the defining piece of software” for the PlayStation 2. GameSpot rated the game 9.6/10, giving it an Editor’s Choice award. San Andreas also received an average rating of 9.6/10 from the 1UP.com network and a 10/10 score from Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine. Common praises were made about the game’s open-endedness, the size of the state of San Andreas, and the engaging storyline and voice acting. Most criticisms of the game stemmed from graphical mishaps, poor character models, and low-resolution textures, as well as various control issues, particularly with auto-aiming at enemies. Some critics commented that while a lot of new content had been added to San Andreas, little of it had been refined or implemented well.
Sales
As of March 3, 2005, the game had sold over 12 million units for the PlayStation 2 alone. As of September 25, 2007, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the best-selling video game in the United States, ahead of its predecessors Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto III. As of September 26, 2007, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has sold 20 million units, with 8.6 million of those units being sold in the US.
Hot Coffee controversy
Main article: Hot Coffee minigame controversy
Wikinews has related news:
Video game’s secret sex scenes spark outrage
Screenshot from the controversial sequence.In mid-June 2005, a software patch for the game dubbed the “Hot Coffee mod” was released by Patrick Wildenborg (under the Internet alias “PatrickW”), a 38-year old modder from the Netherlands, who had reverse engineered the code.[citation needed] The name “Hot Coffee” refers to the way the released game alludes to the unseen sex scenes. In the unmodified game, the player takes his girlfriend to her front door and she asks him if he would like to come in for “some coffee”. He agrees, and the camera stays outside, swaying back and forth a bit, while moaning sounds are heard.

After installing the patch, users can enter the main character’s girlfriends’ houses and engage in a crudely rendered, fully clothed sexual intercourse mini-game. Later in June 2005, a console ‘hacker’ known as Jay “FNG” released an “Action Replay Power Save” for the Xbox console, enabling the “Hot Coffee” mini-game. On July 12, 2005, Jay “FNG” released codes for the Action Replay game enhancer that allowed the scenes to be accessed in the PlayStation 2 console version. The fallout from the controversy resulted in a public response from high-ranking politicians in the United States and resulted in the game’s recall and re-release.

Wikinews has related news:
Stores drop game “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” after given ‘Adults Only’ ratingOn July 20, 2005, production of the game was suspended and the game received a revised ESRB Rating of Adults Only, making San Andreas the only mass-released AO console game in the US. Rockstar has given distributors the option of applying an Adults Only ESRB rating sticker to copies of the game, or returning them to be replaced by versions without the Hot Coffee content. Many retailers pulled the game off their shelves in compliance with their own store regulations that kept them from selling AO games. Rockstar North released a “Cold Coffee” patch for the PC version and re-released San Andreas with an M rating. The PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions have also been re-released in a “GTA Trilogy Pack” for Xbox, and a Special Edition for PlayStation 2 that includes the documentary film Sunday Driver.

On 08 November 2007 Take-Two announced a proposed settlement to the class action litigation that had been brought against them following the Hot Coffee controversy. If the proposed settlement is approved by the court, neither Take-Two nor Rockstar would admit liability or wrongdoing. Consumers would be able to swap their AO-rated copies of the game for M-rated versions and may also qualify for a $35 cash payment upon signing a sworn statement.
Myths
Shortly after the release of the game, several message boards sprouted claims of alleged Bigfoot sightings, UFOs, Leatherface appearances, Loch Ness Monster, and ghost cars. Several photographs were released, purporting to support the myths, but none have ever proven to be real. Rockstar addressed the rumor of Bigfoot in the game in an article in the January 2005 edition of Electronic Gaming Monthly; Rockstar CEO Terry Donovan is quoted as saying, “There is no bigfoot, just like in real life.”