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Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (GTA:SA) is a sandbox-style action-adventure 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.
Much like the previous entries in the Grand Theft Auto series, San Andreas's critical and commercial success has not been without controversy; hidden content in the game resulted in the game's re-rating and subsequent removal from many retailers' shelves.
HistoryFollowing 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".[5] 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.[6] 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.[7] The Windows and Xbox ports were released on June 7, 2005 in North America and June 10 2005 in Europe and Australia. GameplayImage:GTASA PC Gameplay Mountain Bike.jpg 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 to move around in. On foot, the player's character is capable of walking, running, swimming (the first GTA game in which swimming is possible), 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 (e.g. drive-by shootings, robberies, etc). 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, 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 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. LocationsImage:GTASA PC Los Santos from Idlewood.jpg Los Santos, as seen from the low-wealth district of Idlewood. Downtown's prominent skyscrapers are visible in the background. The fictional state San Andreas is based on sections of California and Nevada, comprising three major cities: Los Santos and the badlands correspond to Los Angeles and the California badlands; San Fierro corresponds to San Francisco; and Las Venturas and the surrounding desert corresponds to Las Vegas and the Nevada desert. Players can climb Mount Chiliad (based on Mount Diablo), a half mile (800 m) tall mountain, 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 a massive dam (based on the Hoover Dam), a large secret military base called Area 69, a reference to Area 51, a microwave dish, and many other geographical features. San Andreas is approximately 17 square miles (44 square kilometers), almost four times as large as Vice City, and five times as large as Liberty City. Los SantosLos Santos features landmarks reminiscent of Los Angeles, which include the Watts Towers, the Los Angeles Convention Center, the Capitol Tower, the U.S. Bank Tower, the Griffith Observatory, the Forum, the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, and Grauman's Chinese Theater. The city of Los Santos has several important areas, including the gang-ridden neighborhoods of Ganton, Willow Field, Idlewood and East Los Santos, based on their actual counterparts, of Compton, Willowbrook, Inglewood, and East Los Angeles, respectively. Also located in the city is a busy downtown section, the wealthy Rodeo and Mulholland districts, beach areas representing Santa Monica and Venice, and glitzy Vinewood (complete with giant VINEWOOD sign in the hills), based on Hollywood. San FierroSan Fierro features Rockstar's interpretations of the Haight-Ashbury district (Hashbury), the Castro district (Queens), Chinatown, and the Golden Gate Bridge (Gant Bridge), as well as the city's prominent cable cars and hilly terrain. 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 Scottish landmarks such as the Forth Bridge (Kincaid Bridge) and the Forth Road Bridge (Garver Bridge). There is a district known as 'Garcia', a tribute to Grateful Dead frontman and San Francisco native Jerry Garcia, 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. Las VenturasLas Venturas is home to several casinos, where the player can partake in blackjack, poker, roulette, or play slot machines. Off-track betting parlors are also available in the game's other regions. 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), the Mirage (The Visage), and the Pioneer Club, with Vegas Vic and Vicki[8] replaced by Vice City characters Avery Carrington and Candy Suxxx. CharactersImage:Sapreview2.jpg CJ sprays graffiti in East Los Santos. Rockstar's interpretation of the Watts Towers can be seen in the background. The characters that appear in San Andreas are relatively diverse and relative to the respective cities and locales which each of them based themselves 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 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 Yakuza who all own their respective casino are more prominently featured in the Las Venturas section of the game. Like the previous two GTA games, San Andreas's voice actors includes notable celebrities, including David Cross, Charlie Murphy, Samuel L. Jackson, James Woods, Peter Fonda, Frank Vincent, Chris Penn, Danny Dyer, rappers Ice T, Chuck D, Kid Frost and The Game and musicians Axl Rose and Shaun Ryder.[9] Plot synopsisSpoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Image:GTASA PC Gameplay Airplane.jpg Flying a stunt airplane over the desert region of Las Venturas, PC version. After the death of his mother, Carl "CJ" Johnson returns home to Los Santos to find 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, Carl 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 many people intending to testify against Tenpenny. Carl steadily befriends new allies, among them blind Chinese gang leader and businessman Wu Zi Mu; the seemingly aloof but extremely knowledgeable hippie The Truth; and Cesar, a former Hispanic gang member who, like Carl, has been betrayed by his old friends. Carl, along with Cesar, Kendl (Carl's sister and Cesar's girlfriend), and The Truth's friendly technicians, works to open a garage in San Fierro to support his family. 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. At Toreno's assertion, Carl avoids Los Santos and instead 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 CJ's surprise, his brother wants no part of Carl's new lifestyle. Sweet insists on returning to the hood and working to reestablish Grove Street, 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 aiding in the drug business that destroyed the Grove Street 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, finally forcing him off a bridge, killing him. The final scene shows the Johnson family reunited, with Carl walking out the door, saying, "Fixin' to hit the block, see what's happening." Spoilers end here.
Differences from previous Grand Theft Auto gamesUnlike 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, 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 that change 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 featuresIn 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, lowriders, 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. 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. Image:GTASA PC Gameplay Running.jpg Running in Los Santos, PC version. The player's character initially has little money, fitness, or 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 but also exercises properly. The balance of food and physical activity has an effect on his appearance and physical attributes. If CJ eats too much and does not exercise, he will grow fat and move slower. If he fails to eat at all, he will become less muscular and, eventually, will lose health. 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 at the gyms in each of the game's three cities. CJ can also speak with a number of pedestrians in the game, and Rockstar claims that he has a total of about 4200 lines of spoken dialogue.[10] 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 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: Image:GTASA PC Gameplay N02 Driving.jpg Driving a modified sports car in San Fierro while deploying nitrous oxide to boost speed, PC version.
SoundtrackJust 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 Faith No More, Depeche Mode, James Brown, Soundgarden, Rage Against the Machine, Alice in Chains, Guns N' Roses, Snoop Doggy Dogg, N.W.A., 2Pac, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Eazy E, Stone Temple Pilots, and Lynyrd Skynyrd. San Andreas is serviced by eleven radio stations; WCTR (talk radio), Master Sounds 98.3 (rare groove, ironically playing many of the old funk and soul tracks sampled by 1990s hip-hop artists), K-Jah West (reggae), CSR (new jack swing), Radio X (alternative), Radio Los Santos (gangsta rap), SF-UR (house music), Bounce FM (funk music), 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 MP3's. Crossovers from other GTA gamesMany characters, locations and fictional elements from previous Grand Theft Auto games reappear in San Andreas, at times with minor modifications due to the difference in time periods. Due to the fact that Vice City occurred before the events of San Andreas, crossovers from that game are more prominent, although there are also numerous crossovers from GTA III. One of the most notable is Catalina, who accompanies CJ on a number of robbery missions. Catalina was the girlfriend and betrayer of the protagonist in GTA III, who also makes an appearance in San Andreas and is purported to be named Claude, due to a phone call made to CJ late in the game. While Rockstar has never officially confirmed or denied this claim, evidence in GTA III's data files suggests it is his true name. Although his name may be in question, CJ only refers to him as "that mute asshole," an inside joke referring to the fact that he never speaks at all during the games. Ken Rosenberg, Kent Paul, Salvatore Leone and his future wife Maria also make a few appearances later on in the game. ReceptionSan Andreas was praised as the PlayStation 2's best game, with an average score on Metacritic of 95%,[12] 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.[13] GameSpot rated the game 9.6/10, giving it an Editor's Choice award.[14] San Andreas also received an average rating of 9.6/10 from the 1UP.com network[15] and a 10/10 score from Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine. The game sold over 12 million units for the PlayStation 2 alone.[16] 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.[17] AwardsGrand Theft Auto: San Andreas has won several awards:
Hot Coffee controversyImage:Hot coffee.png Screenshot from the controversial sequence. In mid-June 2005, a software patch for the game dubbed the Hot Coffee mod was released. 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, partially clothed sexual intercourse mini-game. Patch codes using Action Replay that allowed the scenes to be accessed in the console versions were subsequently found. 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. Template:Wikinews On 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[27] for the PC version and re-released San Andreas with an Adults Only rating. The PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions have also been re-released in a "GTA Trilogy Pack"[28] for Xbox, and a Special Edition for PlayStation 2 that includes the documentary film Sunday Driver. MythsSan Andreas is distinct from the previous two games for a large amount of propagated myths. Shortly after the release of the game, several message boards sprouted claims of alleged Bigfoot, Leatherface and UFO sightings, and several alleged photographs were released, most of which have been proven to be fake. The IntroductionThe Introduction, an in-engine video, was provided on a DVD with the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Official Soundtrack, as well as the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Special Edition re-release for the PlayStation 2. The movie chronicles the events leading up to the events in San Andreas, and provides insight on the development of the characters of the game, to the point when Carl learns of his mother's death in a phone call from Sweet and returns to Los Santos. Trivia
See also
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