Fun on a Faultline--The Grand Theft Auto San Andreas Review
Fun on a Fault Line
I wrote a preliminary review of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas last month on Amazon.com. I’ve played enough now to write a proper review. However, I have not properly introduced the series so I shall do so first.
Grand Theft Mayhem
Five of the most controversial PC games in history would be all five volumes of the Grand Theft Auto series. From the first title in 1997, players could steal cars, run over a flock of nuns, then jump out and machine gun a crowd of shoppers-all in good fun. Players could even sell stolen cars-or rig them with bombs and blow up a crowd of people. Developers DMA also introduced special mass murder missions called rampages, in which players must kill a minimum number of people with a specific weapon within a specific time frame.
Wisely, developers DMA kept most of this activity out of the storyline. Players committed the worst atrocities purely at their discretion. Depending on a person’s ideology or philosophy, such free-will inclusion might make the game seem worse for not taking a stand for or against such crimes. DMA nevertheless kept the focus on socially acceptable story missions in which the player merely killed other criminals. Conservatives and liberals alike approved in enough numbers to keep the first two primitive games on store shelves.
DMA leaped to 3D rendered graphics and lighting with Grand Theft Auto III. In doing so the developers carried over additional crimes: the ability to climb towers and shoot innocent civilians with a sniper rifle; the ability to fuck prostitutes, kill them, and steal their earnings; the ability to steal boats and light planes; the ability to bludgeon people; and the ability to used remote control toys rigged with explosives. The developers also committed a coup by introducing a soundtrack loaded with satirical radio commercials, and a lot of 80’s and 90’s dance pop music. DMA changed its name to Rockstar.
Rockstar is actually a rather successful and important game company. Sure, it makes big bucks by cashing in on people’s prurient interests, while keeping the legislators and special interest groups at bay with a modicum of finesse. But Rockstar also contributes to gaming with revolutionary elements.
Bullfrog Ltd’s earlier Syndicate games also allowed random mass murder and car theft in urban environments-and with even less consequences than DMA games-but the technology of the day simply didn’t permit the level of immersion and diversity found in Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto III. Rockstar built one of the first 3D rendered cities that players could roam. Rockstar was also the first to provide “sandbox” mode-in which players can eschew a story campaign altogether for random fun-in the world of third and first person shooting games. Rockstar wasn’t the first company to outsource its soundtrack to an established music artist, but it was the first to provide an in-game radio featuring multiple stations and dozens of artists. It also helped popularize the tactic of hiring veteran B-list actors for voice talent, which in turn made it safe for A-list actors to lend their voices to future games.
Since then Rockstar has gone on to acquire the rights to other notable and revolutionary game series, such as Max Payne. Rockstar also acquired household name status after it produced Manhunt and Vice City, two titles elevating the socio-political hyperbole to new heights.
Blastin’ Like its 1992
Me? I’ve been aware of the Grand Theft Auto series from the beginning, but it took the controversial and revolutionary game play of the third outing to grab me. GTA III essentially stands as the beginning of an epic remake, GTA: Vice City marks the middle, and at last Rockstar brought out the conclusion last fall. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas not only brings together the previous two titles, but also realizes the world of the original. It’s the best of the series--and a big bite to chew.
San Andreas, like Vice City and Liberty City before, was one of three cities in the first GTA. Now it’s a state of the union, and the child hood home of Carl “CJ” Johnson: once a proud member of the Grove Street Families gang alliance, now a buster living in the relative safety of Liberty.
Then a phone call brings CJ back to the streets of Los Santos, San Andreas. His mother has joined his brother in the afterlife, the alliance has collapsed, and rival gangs threaten to flood the streets with base. Once CJ arrives, corrupt police officers blackmail him into protecting them from an internal affairs investigation. Carl must not only prove to his surviving family and friends he’s down for life, but must ultimately save life.
This requires CJ to kill and destroy an awful lot. Not much has changed in the series on that end. But while the silent protagonist of GTA III was a cold-blooded mercenary to the end, and Tommy Vercetti was a sociopath who became kingpin of Vice City, CJ operates from a pirate’s code of honor. His pride in family and gang contributes to the most ambitious and coherent story in the series. Major characters take a more compelling, frequent, and usually logical role than in previous installments. While GTA III and IV amounted to a succession of mercenary missions loosely bound by a drive for revenge, San Andreas weaves a number of plot threads through the length of the game, with story and missions mutually bound to each other.
San Andreas suffers from a few snares of course. My new DVD-RW drive successfully installed the game, but couldn’t detect the disc whenever I tried to run it. Technical support insisted my firmware needed to be updated, but updates didn’t help. My newer DVD-ROM drive likewise failed at first. Then tech support had me disable all Startup options in msconfig; only then could my ROM drive detect the disk, and not one hundred percent of the time. Not long thereafter, my harddisk array broke; for awhile I could not even get Windows to load, and I ultimately had to scrap my RAID config altogether. Next, I found a selective start up solution: disabling Microsoft’s Drive Letter Access driver allowed the game to load some of the time. Finally, I learned how to disable DLA itself, without fucking up the start-up driver.
Now my game loads most of the time; but I found I periodically had to delete the settings file from the game’s user directory in order to allow the game to execute. And as the game progresses I encounter more and more Blue Screens of Death. I have heard of other games damaging or interfering with Windows, and this spoils an otherwise clean record between my PC and Rockstar.
So imagine my mood when I also discovered a significant control change from previous PC ports. The ability to mouse-look and strafe with the keyboard arrow keys seemed absent. Having only tinkered with the PS2 version, I didn’t realize GTA:SA incorporated a weapon skill system. One must gain proficiency in a given weapon before CJ can strafe, while mouse looking with a target reticule requires one to hold a lock-on key.
This being part of a simple reality check for the series. Unlike his predecessors, CJ can’t just drive a Banshee or pick up an M4 like a professional. Instead he must practice to improve control over game vehicles and weapons. CJ can also improve a wide range of attributes, including muscles, fat, respect, and sex appeal. Improvements unlock many abilities, like climbing walls, recruiting gang members, and picking up girlfriends-which in turn unlocks still more features. Skills and most abilities don’t degrade, but CJ must continually exercise and eat to maintain feats like sprinting and swimming underwater. GTA III and IV tracked some use-based skills and abilities too, but with number V, the stat screens finally show exactly where CJ stands. The game also makes this stat system manageable, gently and clearly reminding the player of CJ’s current condition. When a significant change happens, popups explain why it matters.
And things matter here. Within an already epic series, San Andreas takes players on a 100-mission journey across three cities, five regions, and the communities and countryside in between. CJ journeys across mountains, deserts, valleys, and finally even under water. His visibility suffers in fog and dust storms, while rain interferes with his vehicle traction-all forewarned by radio disc jockeys. CJ also operates beneath a variety of colored skies, depending on a particular area’s level of pollution.
Layers of activity also cover the landscape: CJ earns respect to recruit gang members to seize enemy turf to earn tribute to buy fancy clothes to impress girlfriends who grant CJ gifts to better complete his story missions… and so on. CJ has reoccurring, freeform missions and one-shot missions so linear they put the Brown Streak railroad to shame. Ya want stealth missions? Check. Shoot ‘em ups? Here. Car chases may apply. Dancing, swimming, trucking, racing, bicycle riding, sky diving, gambling, off-track betting, dating-even automotive mods and low rider hydraulic competitions. And if CJ needs to take a break, he can always find a basket ball, pool table-or even a video game.
You Just a Buster
The only things missing are jet skis and skateboards. Come to think of it, the more the game adds, the more it seems to be missing. With a benchmark set this high, I want to see a fatigue meter as well as a breath meter. I’d like to be able to pilot a submarine or a ship. Perhaps players should have to start worrying about broken bones, disease, and marriage… so long as it all remains fun.
San Andreas also isn’t quite as fun as its immediate predecessors in certain points.
GTA III is the goriest of the entire series, with the ability to literally blow people’s limbs off, fountains of blood jetting into the sky. Rockstar hasn’t dared return to such extremes, limiting gore to decapitations in subsequent titles. Vice City subsequently introduced drug dealing and robbery, which could be done at any time from select locations to boost Tommy’s bank account. When it came to San Andreas, Rockstar eliminated the first activity and severely limited the second. Both III and IV allow single-player rampages, while these too have been removed from San Andreas.
Even the limitations of the earlier titles can pose an advantage over the latest. Players have fewer vehicles to learn and less distance to travel in III and IV. They don’t have to worry about tracking stats or modding cars. These games also field a narrower range of mandatory mission types, which in turn allows the player more time and opportunity to learn remaining requirements.
Personally, I prefer the diversity of San Andreas. However the series weaknesses really show in a game this ambitious.
The entire remake trilogy features a glitch or exploit which effectively grants the player infinite ammunition. III and IV double the player’s ammunition whenever they conduct a Rampage mission. Rampages are set off by a limited number of hidden, single-use icons. However, players can simply fail the mission and receive the ammo endlessly, since a given Rampage is available until it is completed. However, a failed Rampage icon took time to respawn. GTA V does one better: it doubles ammo whenever CJ enters a target shooting match, available at any time from most gun stores marked on the game map. CJ can simply cancel right out of the match to receive the bonus and then immediately re-enter and cancel again to receive another bonus. Shooting matches never expire. Worse, CJ automatically looses any shotgun ammunition he has whenever he goes on a match; while infinite subgun and rifle ammunition is nice, shotguns are more reliable killers in the GTA series.
Speaking of guns, the trilogy also suffers from weapon imbalances.
First, the game hides weapon spawn points all over each city and countryside map. Collected weapons respawn after a set period of time, so the player can gradually acquire infinite ammunition. Rockstar also tends to place spawn points for powerful weapons early on. GTA III was the least guilty, but it also only boasted an arsenal of about ten weapons. Vice City boasted about twenty-five weapons and some of the best ones were available in the very first map. It’s also easy to find armor and police bribes in VC. SA edges out its predecessor by laying out the most powerful submachine gun and pistol in the game in several easily discovered locations right from the start.
Then there’s the super weapon imbalances. Towards the end of the second act of GTA III, players can find the M16. In this game, the M16 fires so fast at such a great range and accuracy that it can immediately destroy almost any character or vehicle visible on the game horizon. Only tanks and police helicopters force the nameless protagonist to use alternate weapons. The shotgun was pretty ridiculously powerful too. GTA IV weakens the M16, but then transfers its former power to an Ol’ Painless-style minigun. Worse, the minigun could now lay easy waste to helicopters-which could also be downed in one precision shot to the rotor shaft by an M16 or a sniper rifle. Also, the new magnum pistol took the place of III’s super shotgun to lay waste to vehicles and people with just a couple shots. However, both of those games mitigated their super weapons by limiting their availability; they only spawned in certain areas or the player had to pay a hell of a lot of money to buy them. San Andreas actually spawns a free minigun at one of CJ’s safehouses at the beginning of the final chapter.
The trilogy also features save game methods for clearing police wanted levels. In III and IV, the player could save his or her game, reload, and the wanted level would be reset. In V, simply saving the game clears the level-no reloading necessary.
Families 4 Life
Still, San Andreas is one hell of a game compared to it’s brethren.
GTA and GTA2 are two dimensional, SVGA jokes right out of the 486 era of PC gaming. Though they lay the series fundamentals, the limited overhead view and almost non-existent camera angles make tight corners and road blocks almost impossible to avoid. It’s difficult even to navigate on foot. The graphics sucked ass even in 1997 and 1998. Weapon selections were extremely limited. So were the mission types.
Grand Theft Auto III cheats the least of the subsequent remake trilogy. It also has the best gore and violence modeling. But it also intimidates with the overall hardest vehicle missions in the game. And for all the blood, it doesn’t really have the balls to curse, show sexual activity, or portray real world drugs. Vice City is perhaps the most user-friendly game; the map and most of the best weapons and vehicles unlock early on. It also doesn’t have as many hair-pulling missions as its partners. However, Vice City seems soft in other content areas; though characters swear more, the drug references are even more muted, despite the fact Tommy Vercetti becomes a drug dealer. And at the time it looked pretty dated in texture quality and rendering effects; these haven’t weathered as well as other major games from around 2003. The gameplay seems dated too, with a lack of a swimming ability and repetitive assassination missions.
San Andreas is tougher than Vice City but easier than GTA III. Playing the trilogy in chronological order (by game dates, not real-world publishing date) also places the difficulty in ascending order. SA boasts the biggest selection of weapons and mission types. It allows characters to actually swim for once, as well as to manage player attributes. San Andreas also roots in a more realistic world. Player characters can not only be seen having sex once a censorship flag has been unlocked, but they use real world names and slang for drugs, and can even be seen drinking and smoking all sorts of shit. The city names tend to be more plausible, instead of overtly clichéd labels like “Liberty City” and “Vice City”.
You Ever Been to Liberty City
GTA:SA plays a lot like GTA III.
All three games begin with dramatic betrayals forcing the player character to climb from the bottom. Tommy Vercetti gains vengeance fairly early in his game, and most of Vice City is an exercise in building a criminal empire-incidentally behind the backs of the Forelli family bosses back in Liberty City. III and V, on the other hand, compel a lowly character to rise quickly and unexpectedly through the ranks of an established crime family-only to lose it all over again to yet more betrayals at the ends of the respective first acts. Both the nameless mute mercenary and CJ must flee their home turf to unfamiliar grounds, while Tommy topples a backstabbing coke baron and takes over his operations.
With Act II, all three games turn into mercenary campaigns: the lead character frequently doing the paid bidding of crime bosses. But Tommy basically does favors for minor characters in between missions to solidify his empire and smash his competition. Nameless Mute and CJ humbly serve powerful underworld crime figures who determine our protagonists’ respective fates--and who aren’t afraid to offer a friendly reminder every now and then.
The final acts of each game end in dramatic restitution for the player characters, but again the situation seems to be in reverse for Vice City and comparable for III and San Andreas. With VC, its Tommy’s own boss who comes for revenge, since Tommy isn’t cutting Sonny Forelli into the Vice City action. Tommy must not only whack his handler in self defense, but also take out some of his own cowardly partners. In doing so, Tommy becomes the undisputed crime lord of the city islands. Nameless Mute and CJ must track down and assault the villains who betrayed them way back at the beginning of the game. They break even at the end.
Actually, despite my talk above about San Andrea’s story being the most coherent in the series thus far, I feel the story could be tighter. Specifically, portions of the story are underdeveloped.
Rockstar doesn’t tell the story badly-in fact it raises a fair amount of suspense as the nature of the conflict periodically reveals itself to be worse than ever before. Unlike GTA III or Vice City, the story doesn’t unravel after the first act. The corrupt officers periodically dog CJ, and many of CJ’s missions are spent either working for them or secretly confounding their plans. And as the game goes on, things become increasingly desperate for the cops, who put increasing pressure on CJ. Excellent voice acting and good model animation sell these characters and their conflicts. And the game frequently updates the player on the situation with cut scenes, news updates on the radios, and cell phone calls to CJ.
The first Chapter plays like gangbangers, as it immerses the player deep in the world of Central Los Santos. I can practically smell the asphalt and marijuana wafting about Grove Street, as shots ring out in the distance and police helicopters fly overhead. Gang leader “Sweet” Johnson reacquaints his buster brother with the lifestyle through varied and compelling missions. As the Chapter goes on, these missions also reinforce the city atmosphere, as well as the rise of menacing forces to resist the return of the Grove Street Families. Yet CJ preservers and busts Los Santos wide open for the Grove. A climactic mass push into remaining gang turf and Grove Street will truly be down for life.
Until an anti-climactic betrayal pushes Grove Street into a mass ambush. For the corrupt police officers had their hooks in the gang all along. The hit team is wiped out, Sweet is wounded and arrested, and CJ kidnapped by the corrupt officers. The reason for this is never explained, but scenes throughout the game gave me the impression that Grove Street under the Johnson brothers became a threat to the corrupt officer’s own criminal kingdom. With the Johnson boys out of the way, crack cocaine is free to flood the streets of Los Santos.
But they aren’t finished with CJ, and the story isn’t over by a damn sight. Chapter Two sends CJ scrambling around the Badlands countryside in a complicated scheme to protect corrupt police officers Frank Tenpenny and Eddie Pulaski from a pressing investigation. Along the way CJ must evacuate his surviving friends and family from Los Santos and find some new allies to protect him. If he isn’t careful, his brother Sweet will get worked over by prison gangs working for Tenpenny. Eventually, the scheme sends CJ north to San Fierro and the start of Chapter Three.
With Los Santos overwhelmed by rival gangs, and the cops keeping him on a long but noticeable leash, CJ decides to settle down with the survivors and start a semi-legitimate business. Particularly after the scheme to protect Tenpenny and Pulaski is complete, they pretty much leave CJ alone for the next three chapters. An opportunity which he exploits to exact revenge. Yet here is where the story starts to loose steam through a few gaps.
The idea of opening up a car garage, and then later a car dealership intrigues me. And so did the idea of hooking up with a local Chinese gang to cut off the flow of crack for good. But the story doesn’t develop enough of either. The game rushes through both the business thread and the battle thread and they resolve too easily, and the business resolution does not evolve back into the greater scheme of things.
I feel like we should have gotten as immersed in the atmosphere of San Fierro as we did in Los Santos, but that didn’t happen. I also feel CJ should spend some time trying to go legit, while the idea of revenge and restitution burns in his mind. The Triad connection could have been eased in as not only as a temptation to go gangster again, but as a more realistic sense of growing trust and power between CJ and the Triads. This would simply make good drama and character development for me. Plus, I feel maintaining these businesses should have reoccurred throughout the remainder of the story for CJ to build his base of power, and thus making the whole thread completely relevant to the plot.
Speaking of power, it seemed to me like Tenpenny and Pulaski should have been butting heads with CJ and his new allies a lot more. After CJ and the Triads ambush crack shipments and ultimately destroys their factory in San Fierro, I would think that the corrupt cops would take some serious issue with that. Even a simple cut scene of Tenpenny trying to bully or kill the Triad leader would have satisfied my sense of continuity.
And conflicted continuity definitely caught my eye in the Chapter 4 desert missions, when CIA agent Mike Toreno basically drafts CJ away from the cops. Toreno even goes so far as to protect Sweet back in prison-though he also threatens his own prison gang influence if CJ doesn’t comply with Toreno’s air support missions. I thought it would have been great to see Toreno butt heads with Tenpenny and Pulaski, especially since this would have pitted voice actor James Woods against voice actors Samuel L. Jackson and Chris Penn. At the very least, there should have been a scene or a mission at some point in which the cops confront CJ about his Toreno dealings.
These CIA missions, by the way, are about as sideline to the main plot as it gets. However, unlike the business and crack busting threads, Mike Toreno missions reappear through the next two chapters. And it does provide a logical way to rescue Sweet without relying on a clumsy deus ex machina.
Because you know Tenpenny and Pulaski can’t keep CJ around forever. In Chapter 5 the chickens come home to roost. The cops are hiding in Las Venturas as the noose tightens around their neck. They have a couple of last ditch missions to save their goose, and then CJ himself must be disposed of. This would have been a good time to tie in the Triad and Toreno interferences. But the game settles for CJ killing Pulaski and then going on to Chapter Six and his dramatic return home.
An Asshole to the End
In the end, Rockstar returns with a hell of a title on their hands, in both a positive and a negative sense. The sheer size of the maps may become tedious and overwhelming to some. Yet the graphics and level design ensure the massive scope massively immerses me. It magnifies weakness of the series, but also adds a lot of new strengths. So long as I can play it without breaking my computer. Let’s get some patches out so this doesn’t have to be last word on this latest game.