Game Discussion of the Week: Grand Theft Auto San Andreas

Added and stickied.

Best of the PS2 GTA’s by far.

SA is tied with GTA IV as my favorite GTA game (even though I know deep down in my heart that IV is really my favorite game in the series). I own the Xbox version but I've stopped playing it because of how badly scratched up the disc is (my Xbox really struggles to read it). I want to buy another copy and I've been debating on buying the PC version for quite some time but I'm hesitant because of all the bad things I've heard about that port and the fact that there are no console commands, which is absolutely unacceptable for a sandbox game on PC. This is partly why TeS Oblivion is still my favorite sandbox game of all time. Say what you want about Bethesda (I won't stop you) but you have to give them credit for putting the best, most expansive consoles EVER into their PC games. Their console commands are so infinite that you can do or spawn just about anything, and that's not even counting what you can do with spell crafting. It makes modding irrelevant IMO. With the GTA games you're always limited to a small list of cheat codes across all platforms (GTA IV's cheats are especially shitty), and you can't save your game whenever you want. BTW do the PC versions allow you to make quick saves? That's something I've been wanting to know.

Anyway, looking past all the shortcomings of San Andreas, I still enjoy it a lot, even though it hasn't aged that well. What few cheat codes exist are all awesome (flying cars anyone? Super punch? Why the F#CK weren't these in GTA IV!?), and the sheer level of variety of everything in the game is unmatched by the other games in the series. The map is great, with Mt Chilliad possibly being my favorite location of any GTA title (I just wish Rockstar had allowed me to make a save file at the top of it so I didn't have to hike back up it everytime! > ). San Andreas also holds a special place in my heart for being my first sandbox game (I played it at a friends house shortly after it came out). I think the only other open world game I had played up to that point was Wind Waker, so being able to hop in a wide variety of vehicles and drive across the huge map running over people along the way absolutely blew my mind. Of course my parents rightfully didn't allow me to play it until I was 16, but I still fanticized about playing it every day. Looking back it seemed unhealthy of me to be so obsessed with any video game.

To sum up my feelings on SA: It's great. I'm giving it a 4/5 simply because of the dated nature of the game's presentation and, like GTA IV, for having a crappy PC port with no console commands. Although IV is my favorite GTA title, SA is still the best in many ways.

Doubling down on the wrong answer, I see.

Hey, it's a free country, man. That means you're free to be wrong and I'm free to tell you that Vice City is the better game.

i couldn't get into san andreas. the world was vast but lacked the atmosphere like gta3 and vice city had. great missions but didn't care for the characters, story, setting and soundtrack.

At this point I don't remember the difference between San Andreas and Vice City. They are both very cool games.

Grand Theft Auto games are great in general, and always very memorable with cool art design.

I usually get sidetracked by enjoying being a serial killer in an open city setting that I never end up finishing any of the games, but that's not a bad thing, it is actually admirable because the series can satisfy you even by just completing like 1% of the game, plus cheat codes rule, and GTA has always been great about those.

I always said Grand Theft Auto is the Mortal Kombat of the 2000s.