It's not often that we do three unique reviews for one game across multiple platforms. But given the length of time between the original PS2 release and the subsequent Xbox and PC releases, we felt it important to give it a second look. On top of that, PC gamers may have some expectations that may be a little different than console gamers so we decided to differentiate those as well. What we found after playing the game for so long is that it's still an excellent game on the PC. It looks better than the other two versions and has better combat controls while suffering only slightly in the driving department with the mouse and keyboard. It's an expansive, awesome, well produced and put together game with a ton of different missions of all sorts. While it has its problems, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is a very entertaining game with hours and hours of fun for those who both want to rip right through the story or explore the gigantic environment.
While the GTA series was birthed on the PC, the PS2 provided the second coming of the series. Since Grand Theft Auto III was released and broke all kinds of sales records and ushered in a new way of thinking about open ended game environments, the GTAseries has gone back in time, first to the 80's with Vice City, and now to the early 90's with this latest installment, San Andreas. I'd say this is the best of the three because of a couple of things. First, it has a much better rounded story and second, for those that want to explore, there's a ton of room to do it and things to find. But while players of the originals will find that this indeed sets the bar again in terms of size of environment and exploration opportunity, it stays pretty close to home in the rest of the experience.
San Andreas follows the story of Carl Johnson, recently arrived back in the fictional city of Los Santos, just the first of three major metropolitan areas in the game, to help bury his mom. Upon arriving home, he's immediately picked up by officer Tenpenny, a hard-nosed cop that immediately sets Carl up in order to cement his "loyalty" and attention. Soon after, Carl's back in the thug life accompanied by a hugely varied cast of characters.
These characters and personalities that make up the story of San Andreas are a huge part of why this game is so damn good from a strictly story-based point of view. Not only is the cast believable and fun in the way they're written into the plot, but they're also absolutely excellently voiced. The entire cast, minus a couple, is brilliant. Rockstar managed to find the perfect people to voice each of the characters and make them human. Samuel Jackson plays the a smarmy corrupt cop, Chris Bellard (aka Young Maylay) does a perfect turn as the main character CJ, and even Peter Fonda steps in perfectly for one of the supporting roles of The Truth. What's ear catching about all of these roles is that it sounds like these people were all really having some fun voicing them and took the job seriously, something that kicks ass in itself given all of the craptastic voice work that we hear in so many other games.
Not only are each of these characters voiced well, but they're given life with animation sets so good that it makes visuals that are otherwise average, good. Only the low poly models and unimpressive textures get in the way of convincing the realness of these people. All of the characters that play a role (main or supporting) are given their own animation set to complete the full bodied approach to creating a believable set of individuals.
As I said though, the same can't be said for all the visuals in the game, especially considering the way PC graphics have progressed over the years. Textures aren't very good, models tend to be a bit blocky (think blockhands), lighting isn't real time, and none of those tag words everyone loves so well like Normal Mapping are included in the equation. Of course, a large part of this is probably due to graphics being specifically designed for the much less powerful PS2. Perhaps in the future, as Rockstar develops for the PS3 and Xbox 360, we'll finally see a truly spectacular GTA. Right now, we're left with something that on the surface looks like a game that's a couple years old
Screen shots
Minimum system requirements for GTA: San Andreas::
The specification listed is the lowest with which the game will work. Running the game on a PC with any component that does not meet this specification may prevent the game from working.
Supported Operating System:
Windows 2000 (with Service Pack 1 or higher)
Windows XP (with Service Pack 1 or higher)
Hardware:
Processor: 1Ghz Pentium or AMD Athlon
RAM: 256 MB RAM
Video Card: 64MB Directx9 compatible (GeForce3 or better)
Soundcard: Directx9 compatible
DirectXOM: 8x DVD ROM Drive
Hard D Version: DirectX 9
DVD-Rrive: 4.7 GB free hard disk space
Peripherals: Keyboard and mouse
Recommended:
Processor: Pentium 4 or Athlon XP
RAM: 384+ MB RAM
Video Card: 128MB Nvidia GeForce6 or better)
Soundcard: Directx9 compatible surround sound card (Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Seried Recommended)
DVD-ROM: 16x DVD ROM Drive
Hard Drive: 4.7 GB free hard disk space
Peripherals: Keyboard and mouse
