Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

...It's an epic! "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" has to be the greatest video game ever made. I've been playing the game almost everyday since it dropped on October 26th and I'm still not even half way through it. That goes to show you just HOW MUCH thought and detail was put into its production.

While this "GTA" title is a massive improvement over the previous two, it doesn't just surpass them in terms of graphics and gameplay, it surpasses them by building on the many things that made them great in the first place, and then some.

I've been a massive fan and player of the "GTA" titles on the PS2 since the revolutionary "Grand Theft Auto III" was released in 2001 and its 1980s prequel/sequel "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City," which dropped in the early fall of 2002.

"GTA: SA" puts a lot of its focus on Carl "C.J." Johnson, who returns to the city of San Andreas and the minute he steps off the plane, he runs into trouble. Trouble comes in the form of two corrupt cops who have him set up to take the fall in the murder of a police officer, and C.J. finds that his old neighborhood of Ganton is in shambles.

His mother has passed, many of his childhood friends are into gangbanging, and many of the families have since dissolved their relationships with one another. What follows is a statewide odyssey for C.J. that will take him out of his Ganton ghetto and into the flash and glitter of the casinos in Las Venturas a la Las Vegas.

From the get-go, you're entranced by a thoughtful storyline that has you doing a lot more than just missions so that you can earn "respect"; you become a significant part of the story, or more accurately, you become the story. Whereas the previous two titles had you doing things to further your position, not a whole lot of weight or thought was put into your motivations in those games.

It is true that this game was heavily influenced by the hip hop culture of the 90s, and many rap artists are prominently featured on the soundtrack, including Dr. Dre, Snoop [Doggy] Dogg, Public Enemy (Chuck D is the "Forth Right MC"), Big Daddy Kane, Eric B. & Rakim, Ice Cube, Cypress Hill, 2Pac, and N.W.A. And also, references to many "'hood" movies from this time are in abundance, namely "South Central," "Menace II Society," and "Boyz N the Hood" (be on the lookout for a "Tre" look-alike wandering about).

10/10

Talent, that's the first thing I want to say, to be able to make so much in 1 year must take a lot of talent and dedication, and to make fun out of so much must take even more talent.

Look at other games like Half-Life 2, that game took Valve 6 years to make and it is a lot smaller than San Andreas, Valve might have some laid back lazy developers who take their time. I think Rockstar and Valve are about the same size of company and even though Valve made a new engine for Half-Life 2, you would expect it to take less than 6 years to be made, same is true for Doom 3.

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas is probably the biggest game ever made.

After Vice City and Liberty city you'd think they might run out of passion, ideas, or powers. I mean don't they get tired of making such a huge game every 2 years, Valve and id Software will probably not release a new game for the next 6 years and Rockstar releases such a big game every 2 years.

Apart from it being insanely great game and a lot of fun, this game is HUGE, I can't think of any game bigger than this when I write these lines, you have 3 big cities, connected by big country side and deserts with a lot of nice areas to find in the desert and the country side.

Other games of 2004 and 2005 like Half-Life 2, Doom 3, Far Cry Battlefield 2, are all big games, but none of them is as big is San Andreas.

And none of them allow you the amount of gameplay opportunities as San Andreas allows you to play, you can be everything you want, a cop, a medic, a firefighter, taxi driver, thief, pilot, pimp, train driver, construction worker, gambler, gangster, lover, valet. You can also change your hair, put tattoos, change your clothes, eat, exercise, and much more.

I salut to Rockstar for having such a great talent, skill, dedication, and nonstop art passion and motivation.

And this is one of them. I want to start with its cons. The graphics wasn't really good at those time. Absolutely it was good but not very good for a GTA. But they have tried to make much much bigger map and they've done. Even now 15 years later this game is playable at mobile phones and with mods. This game is just evolving with its mods. Amazing, unique action game.

Best video game ever. in gta series surely play this game

This review I'm writing is just on what i have accomplished. I have been playing this game for a total of 20 hours. I love to take it slow and really walk around and explore. The amount of detail and stuff to do, is incredible. The gameplay is as solid as ever. the story sucks you in like very little video games do these days. I have only gotten up to the second city, San Fierro. I've done a few missions but mostly I'm just looking around, I can't help it! I've been a fan of the GTA series since GTA2. The fever died down after a while though. When GTA3 came out I was amazed how they totally blew every other game out of the water. GTA3 to this day is one of my favorite games of all time, over Vice City even. this games is starting to become a huge time suck, which means this game is awesome. I'll finish this review when ever I finish it. For now, 10 out of 10!