GTA: San Andreas Thoughts

Post by **benheck** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 11:31 am

Well, I've had it since Monday night and have been playing it quite a bit. Here are my thoughts, feel free to share your own:

Pluses:
*Overwhelmingly enormous world. And I've only seen a 1/3 of it!

*It's a lot deeper, more like a real city. More cars (notice they're flat-shaded, perhaps to get more on-screen?) and people around at any given time. I love how on the big highways cars pile up if there's a wreck.

*You get more stuff (money, guns, garages) sooner than you do in Vice City

*SWIMMING! You just KNOW there's gonna be some sort of underwater explosives-planting infiltrating mission somewhere.

*And everything else great about GTA games.

Minuses: (These are really minor to gameplay but they still bug me)
*IMHO the gun sound effects are AWFUL! Being from Wisconsin I've shot a lot of guns in my life and I've never heard a pistol that sounded like an Atari 2600 trying to imitate a cap-gun. Granted no movie or videogame has guns that sound completely realistic (they'd have to invent speakers that make your ears ring all the time) but it's almost like this game goes completely in the opposite direction and makes the guns really quiet, almost understated. Are the Tec9's silenced? What is going on? I don't understand. Really distracting!

*Granted I haven't listen to everything yet but the radio stations/commericals aren't as funny. (Again, IMHO) They go more for vulgar than humor and seem to be imitating the ones from Vice City rather than being fresh and new. As soon as I heard this took place in 1992 I was REALLY hoping for some overblown Rush Limbaugh-esque radio host but NOPE. I mean, they had a right-wing politician in Vice City named Alex SHRUB, where's this sort of thing in San Andreas? Oh, they have a gardening show - what's that got to do with ANYTHING?

*Again back to the radio stations. There isn't as much variety and the music they play is a little out of place. "Queen of Hearts" was a 12-year old song in 1992, yet it plays on the radio? There's a Pearl Jam song I'm pretty sure wasn't out in 1992. And although I could be wrong a lot of the rap is newer than 1992. Granted some (well, a LOT) of the music in Vice City was too old for 1986 and a lot of 1985/86 stuff was missing (like Walk Like an Egyption, Danger Zone, the Power of Love, all smash hits that year) it didn't seem to have the musical timeline amnesia that San Andreas does.

If a game takes place in 1992 you should hear "Under the Bridge" (Red Hot Chili Peppers) "Life is a Highway" (Tom Cochrane, you'd THINK that sound would make it to a GTA game, I mean, "life is highway???") "Damn Wish I Was Your Lover" (Sophie B Hawkins) Anything REM, NIRVANA, where the heck's the NIRVANA for crying out loud??? I remember 1992 well and don't think one hit song from that year made it into the game. That'd be like making GTA: Wind City that takes place in 1996 and not playing Hootie and the Blowfish, Alanis Moriessette or No Doubt.

Sorry, as an avid karaoker who is well aware of what songs were popular when (which helps when judging which to sing based off the audience) this game's soundtrack misses the mark BIG TIME.

But again, these are all audio-related problems. Everything else is cool!

-BEn

Post by **gannon** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 1:03 pm

An interesting rant indeed! I know one of my favorite parts of gta3 and vice city was listening to the radio, so I know what you mean.
As for gun's, yeah, it'd be hard to make accurate sound effects, but from the way you describe it they didn't really even try. Tec9's aren't extremely loud, but they'll still make your ears ring a bit.

cennar · Post by **cennar** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 5:35 pm

graphics suck the controls are acward and i absolutly hate the way that guy holds his gun... also i would feel better if it where on a PC

Post by **Sparkfist** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 8:59 pm

Well I know they did a port to PC of GTA3, wait and see if they find it luicritive enough to release.

I'll have to check it out when I get some money and hook my PS2 up.

cennar · Post by **cennar** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 11:46 pm

yeah still im not happy with it, but a pc would help the controls graphics and maby it would be nice to have radio mods

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 2:17 pm

this is taken from annother forum, somewhere out there in the vast expanses of the internet:

gta3 ps2 version release date: 10/22/2001
gta3 pc version release date: 05/20/2002

gta:vc ps2 version release date: 10/27/2002
gta:vc pc version release date: 05/12/2003

gta:sa ps2 version release date: 10/26/2004
gta:sa pc version release date: 5/?/2005 ?

xxxeagle · Post by **xxxeagle** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 4:39 pm

i am getting it for christmas so i havent played it yet. But from what some people told me it was awesome. also i heard on tech tv that u could customize cars some thing i think ill really like. and i too have shot guns and that sounds weird to me that they arent loud.

s3ptic · Post by **s3ptic** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 6:33 pm

Times like these I really wish my PS2 wasn't broken

. Oh well once november 9th rolls in I'll be nice and happy again.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Oct 30, 2004 4:46 pm

Hey, anybody sneak into the airport yet and steal the plane or the JET? You can fly to Las venturas but they shoot you down with missles!