Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #779 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Take 2
• Released on: 2005-06-10
• ESRB Rating: Adults Only
• Platform: Windows XP

Amazon.co.uk Review
Considering how massively popular the last two GTA games were Rockstar could’ve knocked out any old rubbish as their last GTA game this generation, but despite Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas not being a full sequel (it still uses essentially the same graphics engine as GTA III) it has more new features and ideas than the majority of official follow-ups.

For a start San Andreas itself is not a city but a whole fictional county, containing the San Francisco-esque San Fierro, the Las Vegas style Las Venturra and the Los Angeles inspired Los Santos. You can drive anywhere else you like in the countryside, between making the game four to six times the size of Vice City.

You can also now start up your own gang in the game, recruiting members and claiming territory--you can even build and operate your own casino once you get the necessary moolah. You can’t just sit around and wait for the money to roll in, though--eat too much junk food and your character will grow fat and have to work out at a gym, as well as keep an eye on a new stamina meter.

The list of other additions and refinements are almost endless; above and beyond the usual claims of an improved aiming system for weapons you can now swim, ride bicycles, get your hair cut, take part in random break-ins and robberies... pretty much anything you were ever told not to do as a kid (except the getting a haircut bit). --David Jenkins

Customer Reviews

Best game I've ever played
One word sums up this game: perfection! Yes, that's right, perfection. There is nothing bad about this game.

Although the game itself is very similar to the previous instalments in terms of looks and gameplay, it takes it much further. For example, there is almost nothing that you can't do in this game.

Steal vehicles, shoot people, run your own gang, date girlfriends, eat at restaurants, go to the gym, buy weapons, rob houses, etc. The "city" is not a city at all but rather an entire county! Three cities (Los Santos, Las Venturas and San Fierro) are all linked together with miles and miles of countryside, smaller towns and villages, all with their own unique characteristics. Of course, you can only explore the area of Los Santos and the surroundings when you start as you need to "unlock" the other areas via missions.
However, even just Los Santos is enormous and will take you ages to explore.

The storyline is thus: you play a black American guy called Carl Johnson, commonly known as "CJ" who has returned to San Andreas to bury his Mum and take revenge on those who are to blame, restoring the neighbourhoods' credibility and power in the process.

Just as in Los Angeles, there are areas of the city of Los Santos that are controlled by rival gangs who will stop at nothing to take you down. Of course, the entire city isn't a gang-infested hellhole, only certain parts (mainly the eastern and south-eastern parts of the city) There are also extremely wealthy and aesthetically pleasing parts of the city, mainly in the north and west of the city.

All I can say is, if you've played GTA3 and GTA: Vice City and enjoyed them, BUY THIS IMMEDIATELY! If not, buy this anyway. I can't believe that anyone would not appreciate the time and effort gone into creating such a work of art. Long live Rockstar!

The missions are awful but it doesn't matter
I have spent probably far too much of my time playing this game, and on one level really love it. The problem with it is that the missions themselves are unbelievably boring. Some revolve around achingly mundane things, such as getting your hair cut, a boring enough activity in the real world; the vast majority are based on how fast you can drive somewhere - which gets *incredibly* tedious and frustrating very quickly. I stopped even bothering after the first ten or so missions - and thankfully what makes this game so great is the open-endedness of it. You can totally forego all the missions, and just spend hours driving around the huge map, exploring and listening to your own music; you can find a bar and play some pool (in what is a surprisingly well-executed minigame). In this sense GTA SA is completely immersive, and great fun. Apply some cheats and you can while away huge amounts of time on it. I just wish the missions were more imaginative.

How does it run?
Having been out on the PS2 for some time now I think we all know how awesome a game GTA San Andreas is. However, I think the question that all PC owners want to know is how will it run on my system. Having spent a couple of hours playing about with it on my system here is my experience.
I have a Athlon XP 2200+, 1GB PC2100 RAM and a GeForce 6600GT so a moderate setup with a pretty good graphics card. I'm playing the game with a resolution of 1024x768X32 with the detail on maximum (very high), the draw distance almost full and the anti-aliasing on 2 (this can be off,1,2 or 3). This seem to run perfectly even when the action hots up. I have tried slightly higher settings and it seems to work fine on these too but I don't want to take the risk of ruining the most hectic parts of the game by pushing it too hard.
So my conclusion is that if you have a half decent PC you should get a copy of this now!! You won't be disappointed.