Michael Ballack

Same thing happened to me. I waited around her house for a couple days, but she never showed. That fucking ghetto hole!

sureAV421

i must have been playing too many PC games recently or something because the framerate and graphics for SA are atrocious. that is my only gripe though, as the gameplay/story is great.

wlj

I cannot believe how unbelievably enormous this game is...I just unlocked San Fierro(spell correct??) last night. OMG this game is huge....and I still have one more city to unlock I really believe this is the best game ever made.



wlj

Tarantino

Considering how huge this game is, it's no surprise for me. I didn't pick it up for the graphics, however.

Gil Jawetz

"atrocious" is far too strong a word. It's not the ultimate in graphics but when you consider how much there is, it's fine.

Ghym

I did the same thing. I hit her with them and she took off running down the street. You have to face her and hit L1 to give her the flowers or kiss her.

slop101

From gang-wars, to pimpin', to dealin', to racing, customizing, exploring, shopping, eating, dancing, jacking, thieving, working out, stalking, biking, gunning, flying, dating, swimming, fighting and a whole lot more, there's almost more things to do in this game than in real life... and it's so mind-boggeling, that I've had to put it down for a few days to regain some prespective (btw, I'm not even out of Los Santos yet). Insane.

Trigger

I got into the vegas city and hopped on a motorcycle and busted ass to a paint shop - made it this time. However, once I got sprayed my 4 stars just flashed and stayed there. I kinda expected that, but was hoping they would go away. Oh well... managed to cruise around the city for a few more minutes. They can't catch me when I'm on a motorcycle, man. I'm too quick.

In other news... I'm only 2 territories away from having the Groves control 100% of the areas. I hope there isn't more of this crap when I get to the other cities. Probably is though.

NC-36

What's the deal with the oysters anyway ? I saw them on the stats screen but have no idea what it means.

Personal favorite moments - finishing taxi missions right off the bat to have lots of cash early on, and the mission with CJ and Big Smoke being chased by Russian mobsters. Awesome shit

Tarantino

There are 50 oysters hidden in the waters of San Andreas (underwater).

If you want an idea of what to look for, there's one

thegame370

I just finished that mission alittle while ago and loved it! That was one of the best missions in any of the GTA games ive ever played!

MasterCXtreme

Is anyone else finding the "Protect your hood" jobs annoying? I like to mess around a lot, and the last thing I want is to have something I need to do.

Keeping your relationship up with your girlfriend is repetative as well. I may just shoot her when I get the chance.

Tarantino

But when you get her meter up to 100% satisfied,

NC-36

And now a review from Christ Centered Game Reviews :
(full thread at http://www.ccgr.org/topic.asp?TOPIC_...nd+Theft+Auto% )

written by BigJesus

There's a reason there's so much negative press surrounding this game. It's unfortunate that this game will sell very well, and so now us Christians must go into damage control and try to sheild ourselves from this digitized form of Satan.

We're off to a good start

Story

The story of this game surrounds CJ, a black gang-banger who has lost sight of God from an early age and his struggles in the gang dominated city of Los Santos. CJ, who had once fled from Los Santos, is forced to return CJ then finds himself in emotional and financial troubles and has to rejoin his old gang to try to make a living.

Game play

The game play is very similar to Vice City and GTA 3. However there are a few new features. The first is the addition of break-ins. My first break-in took place in an elderly woman's home. I pulled up in my suspicious looking white van, got out and hopped a fence to get into her backyard. From there I was able to easily sneak into her kitchen from an unlocked backdoor. The old lady sat in her living room, which was now in view from the kitchen, watching an old episode of Golden Girls (one of those subtle little jokes Rockstar always hides in their games). I approached her silently with my shotgun drawn until I was within 5 feet of her. She sensed my presence and turned around only to be greeted by the cold stare of my double-barrels. She screamed but my character was quick to tell her to "Shut the f**k up!". I then demanded money, and she gave me 200 dollars. The next event was an unfortunate slip of the controls by myself. I intended on pressing the cycle-weapons button, so I would no longer be so threatening to such an elderly woman, but I accidentally hit the pistol-whip button. So CJ hit the poor woman across the face with the back of his shotgun. Some children ran into the room crying and shouting "Grandma! Grandma!" as their Grandmother lay motionless on the floor.

White van ? Children ? I call bullshit on this review right now

Graphics

One complaint video game reviewers have often been to scared to make about the GTA series is the fact that the graphics are far below par. While this would be a definite disadvantage for most games, it actually works well for GTA: SA. When I accidentally murdered the Grandmother there wasn't any blood shown. This made my conscience feel Zestfully clean. In fact the violence is sometimes so poorly animated that it can make for some comical scenes. My wife, who is a clinician, had a hearty laugh when she saw me use a chainsaw on a fellow gangmember because the cadaver merely shook while on the ground as if the man was have convulsions. She even made a comment about how I probably wished I only shook when I had my power saw accident, and believe me I agree with her! With that being said, it's still important to understand that we are both university educated adults and so we can understand that chainsaws are capable of inflicting serious bodily harm. The average teenager may not know this, and when they see this in a video game many times they may actually begin to have unreal expectations of the power a chainsaw really has.

"Zestfully clean" ? I'm starting to think someone at Rockstar wrote this and submitted it as a joke And I give teenagers enough credit to know that chainsaw = bad. But that's just me

Sound

My biggest complaint about this game, aside from the violent content, is the vulgar language. Swear words are said almost every second word. The characters in game, with the exception of a few like cops, speak to each other with so much jargon that I sometimes believe that Rockstar actually wants it's audience to not understand what's happening in their game. Also I found it extremely surprising that the black characters in this game actually refer to eachother by the N-word. The irony is astounding and so very offensive at the same time.

I guess he's never seen "Boyz in the Hood" or "Friday"

Appropriateness

As you could probably tell by the running theme of this review this game is extremely inappropriate. I didn't even play this game to the worst extent possible and I still found it extremely violent. By that I mean that players are actually capable of murdering those children who cried over the body of their deceased grandmother. The game would actually award "Respect" to the players who successfully kill those children and escape the police. And of course, even more respect is award if you kill those police who chase you . Every mission in this game is also inappropriate in that they require you to commit a crime. Mainly murder. Sometimes theft, but even that usually ends up in murder . All in all it is extremely important that your children do not get a copy of this game. My son, who is currently studying psychology in university, said that playing GTA: SA is just as bad as watching Schindiler's List from a Nazi's perspective. In fact his last essay "Behaviour and Video Games: Killing For A New High Score" is actually being considered for publication. His other articles "Are Video Games A Loophole For The Murder Commandment?" and "Jesus Never Used Cheat Codes" have both recieved praise from critics. He has shown me studies that show the negative effects of gaming, and games like GTA:SA are the types of games that are most likely to turn your children into Satanists, or other types of misbehavior. Avoid giving this game to children at all costs.

This last paragraph almost convinces me that the review is a Rockstar plant . What do you guys think, Rockstar prank or lying moron ?

nickdawgy

I'd say it's a BS review. The break in, if you get detected, they don't scream and give you money, they either attack you, or run away and the police are called. There is also no pistol whip button as far as I know.

DrCaligari

When I first played my copy on a friend's PS2 I was horrified. Blurry textures, jaggy lines, etc. I kept poking around the set up menu looking for a way to turn of the "haze" (like in the previous GTA's.) We actually found it painful to look at.

When I played it on my own set up it looked much better. The only difference between our set ups is that he uses the yellow RCA cable for his video connection while I use an s-video cable. If you are using an RCA cable for your PS2 I highly recommend upgrading.

Mind you this game won't win any awards for graphics. The textures still look blurry and there are jaggies galore. In my opinion this game belongs (and deserves to be) on an upcoming next generation system, not the aging PS2.

The Franchise

Just got my game yesterday finally! It was killing me to hear everyone talking about it. I put it on my HDLoader and the load times are non-existant except for the initial load which still takes a while.

Man the city is freakin huge! I keep getting lost and jst driving around. The swimming is better than I thought it would be. I snuck into Las Venturas just to see the strip with helicopters and police in tow. I like the new cinematic camera angle. I wish I had a widescreen TV with S-video. That's my only gripe, but that's against my TV.

Oh yeah and the language is really harsh in this game. I don't mind it but I'm sure some soccer mom will pick it up and be mortified when little Johnny starts calling her a "hoodrat". Congressional hearing anyone?

shaun3000

I would hope that the excessive violence would be more offensive than the language...

The Franchise

I agree but when was the last time you heard someone swear on network TV? Gunning people down is ok but swearing or "having relations" is too risque. The violence in GTA:SA seems the same as it was in VC but the language has been amped up quite a bit, hence my comment.

superdeluxe

This is MAJOR spoiler

superdeluxe

Do you watch NYPD blue? they swear on occasion.

Joe1086

I was just browsing IMDB and it said that Donnie Darko is referenced in the game. Did anyone catch this? What part is it? I might just not be up to that part in the game yet.

Tarantino

I'm just found this in my collection. Forgot I still had it. I think I'm going to pop it in and play again, since I've been going through GTA4 lately.

Anyone played it in a while?

RichC2

Naw but I'm eagerly awaiting a tablet port

Aww technology

nickdawgy

Talk about a blast from the past. I was only 25 when this came out. EB Games and PS2.

Memories.