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Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Review - Xbox

Introduction

Carl Johnson (CJ) returns to his home town after hearing of the somewhat suspicious death of his mother, and to help put some things to rest. Things have changed in Los Santos since CJ left in the 80's. His own hood has gone down hill, hard drugs are destroying his town, rival gangs have started cutting into the territory, and fellow buddies have gone to the dirt. Petty infighting has seen much of his former gang members go their own separate ways, and many are no longer the same people CJ remembers.

CJ is a member of the Grove Street Families, and your posse is as much as the game as your own story. Each of the characters has a massive personality, and their own past history with CJ which plays out over the game.

Gameplay

The main storyline of the game revolves around returning the Grove Streeters to the Mac Daddies in the area, and finding out what really happened to your mother. All of this plays out brilliantly, and really draws you into the world and culture of the time and place. For those that have played the Playstation2 version, things play out a little differently in the order of the missions, but the storyline is largely the same.

GTA:SA allows you roam freely throughout the ever living and breathing city at any time to complete the main storyline missions, or many side tasks. These missions will advance the main story each time, and give you a further background and insight into your past and the characters around you. By walking into the flashing red zones, these will usually commence a cut scene and further leader into the game. Some of these involve assassinating certain people, taking out rival gangs, forming gang alliances, even missions such as street racing, and drive bys – all of which you might expect an American street gang to get up to.

Most of what you find in San Andreas is what you can do in a big city – visit shops, take away outlets, hairdressers, clothing stores, gyms, tattoo parlours, bars, auto shops, illegal gambling dens, sports stadiums, and much more, all of which you need to make use of at some point during the game and can be used to personalise CJ. You are able to work out at the gym (which visibly makes CJ look bigger), build up your presence and your street cred, get a haircut, choose some ink, cut some fine threads, even later on get a girlfriend and buy a house. The depth and flexibility here is outstanding, and there are literally hundreds of different activities you can do in each of the towns – some of which require a little bit of digging and exploring to uncover. If you delve into any of the side missions, at any time you can return to your old family home and continue this main storyline.
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