Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Preview

Developer	Rockstar North
Publisher	Rockstar Games
Genre	Action
Release Date	10/18/04

Rockstar North’s New Menace to Society

With Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City being two of the biggest selling, genre-bending games this generation, it wasn’t until recently that the team exposed enough of their new baby to really get an idea what the team will do next. After a successful (if controversial) run with Manhunt, the team at Rockstar North finally reveals the next slice of their ever-growing world. And if you’re thinking that there’s nothing left for the team to do, or that the buzz has died down, you may find yourself eating your words, especially after what we have to tell you about the next Grand Theft Auto.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the next installment to the crazy popular Grand Theft Auto series, is set to surpass any of Rockstar North’s previous efforts. And if what we’ve seen so far is anything to go by, this could indeed be Rockstar North’s magnum opus.

Meet Your Johnson
It’s the early 1990’s, and Carl Johnson, the main character in San Andreas, is returning to his hometown of Los Santos after being away in Liberty City for five years. His reason for leaving is because of the death of his brother Brian, who was killed in a tragedy in their neighborhood. Carl’s older brother Sweet blamed him for Brian’s death. Carl left Los Santos, and the two didn’t speak again until just recently, when the unexpected death of Carl and Sweet’s mother broke the bad blood between them.

Carl returned home to find his old gang – the Orange Grove Families – in total hysteria. Carl’s brother Sweet, as well as family friends Smoke and Ryder, fell from their once-powerful status on the streets, and are now targets of rival gangs and internal family issues (Sweet and Kendall -- Carl and Sweet’s sister -- are fighting tooth and nail).

Though not interested in once again entering the life that he left behind him, Carl soon finds that even though he’s not looking for trouble, trouble will find him in one way or another. This trouble begins with two corrupt police officers, Frank Tenpenny and Eddie Polaski. From there, the story rages on and grows bloodier like a Blood and Crip gang fight.

If it sounds like the next GTA is a bit more on the serious side, you can rest in comfort knowing that the clever, witty, and classy humor that Rockstar North is notorious for in their satires is still well intact here. But it is true that the storyline of San Andreas is a bit darker than the plot of previous entries in the series.

Where in the World is San Andreas?
First things first: San Andreas isn’t the fictional San Francisco that we all once though it was. It’s not a fictional Las Vegas either (once thought to be called SinCity). In fact, it’s not even a fictional Los Angeles.

San Andreas is comprised of all three.

San Andreas isn’t a city, but a state. Three cities (and lots of countryside) make up the state, and the cities we all thought were going to become games in their own right have instead become a part of a much larger whole. So large in fact, that Rockstar says that San Andreas will be 4 to 6 times the size of Vice City and GTA III.

And instead of traveling city-to-city, you’ll be cruising the countryside, and as you can probably guess, there’s tons of it (you get to drive up a mountain too!). While it may sound like there’s not much to driving through the countryside, there most certainly will be, whether that be mundane things like houses, farms, and animals, or crazier things that are being kept under wraps. Just the idea of being able to leave one city and drive around in the middle of nowhere, only to eventually end up at a new city is all the more breathtaking in experience. It definitely makes the game much more tangible; that much closer to that living, breathing world that Rockstar North is always shooting for.

The cities themselves – Los Santos (Los Angeles), San Fierro (San Francisco), and Las Venturra (Las Vegas) – each are the approximate size of Vice City, and all are tailored for specific gameplay elements. The San Fran-satire San Fierro is a city packed with steep hills, perfect for huge jumps in any vehicle, and as such, much of the gameplay in San Fierro will revolve around driving and racing in some form or another. Each city will also be distinctive in look, like Las Venturra and its brilliant lighting on the strips (especially at night). If you thought that Vice City was too flat and indistinguishable, consider the problem addressed.

What’s Old is New Again
The gameplay of the GTA series has always delivered, whether it was the varied missions, non-linear structure, or the completely open-ended gameplay that gave freedom gamers haven’t experienced in a videogame before. This fresh new take on games doesn’t go anywhere in San Andreas, but does expand greatly. From small additions that longtime fans have been craving (you can swim now!), to larger, more developed improvements to Vice City’s formula, there is definitely something for everyone, whether they are total obsessives of the series, or complete “n00bs”.

There were lots of things that Vice City touched down on, but the ideas were never really fully realized. Purchasing property debuted in Vice City for example, but you never really got to do anything with the property you bought except for save your progress (or get a lap dance, which wasn’t so bad). Purchasing property in San Andreas is more developed. You can buy a casino and run it yourself, or better yet, build that casino and run it. While details have yet to fully develop on property buying, the potential is certainly huge.

Other gameplay enhancements are minuter, but steps forward nevertheless. There will be new styles of carjacking available in the final game, as well as plenty of new rides. Not just new cars, but new modes of transportation, like bicycles (you actually have to press buttons to make them go faster). Players will be able to dual wield certain weapons, like pistols, or perhaps uzis, and you can count on more responsive controls to handle the targeting too (think Manhunt. The targeting ideas expand on that).

If They Only Had a Brain
Enemy and pedestrian AI has always been shaky. Pedestrians would often jump in front of cars to avoid yours, and most of the time, they all reacted exactly the same as most of the others on the street. In San Andreas, all of the characters have their own brain, so their reactions will be much more varied. So various are these reactions that the average recorded pedestrian dialogue was about ten minutes in Vice City, but has increased to an hour’s length in San Andreas. Taking part in different activities (like drivebys) becomes much more fun when you bring your own gang with you. The surreal experience of doing such a thing with your AI buddies right along side you definitely adds a cool dynamic to what you once thought was just another thing you did in GTA. You’ll actually get to run the gang too, but more in the way of speaking to members than inventory management. This could be a truly awesome addition to the series, and will certainly realize the vision that was first introduced in Vice City.

In addition, the new AI engine will allow a dynamic difficulty setting; that is, the difficulty of the game will adjust accordingly depending on how well you’re doing in the game. If you’ve had any trouble completing missions in the past, San Andreas allows for better playability, smoothing out the rough spots you may have had in the past.

The Man’s Got Skillz
New to the GTA universe is the skills that can be learned as you progress through the game. As you move along, you’ll be presented with new types of gameplay, where you can learn and hone skills, whether it’s gambling or robbing houses (yeah, you read that right). And these are real skills, so you won’t be able to succeed at these things very often without building them up. Simple button presses won’t be enough to master these new abilities, and there are hundreds of them in the game. Failing at these new talents could force you to pay some dire consequences. On the other hand, a triumph surely means lots of goodies for you, and an easier time through the game’s missions. This new addition is certainly intriguing, and can add a bigger incentive to play through the missions, as you’re constantly improving your character.

Cause and Effect
In order to really fill the GTA world with the life that Rockstar wants, the player must be able to interact with the world around him, and the actions he takes must affect the world within the game. In turn, the things that go on in the world must also affect him back to depict that true, living world that you can almost touch.

That said, San Andreas is a game that will react to Carl as the story progresses, and things he does will affect him and even his appearance. For example, you will have to eat in order to maintain your physical health. Throughout the state of San Andreas, there will be a plethora of eating establishments. But this time, instead of being merely a fancy building to look at or get missions from, you will actually be able to have your character eat there. And, depending on the kind of diet you have Carl eat, his physical appearance will change. Eat too much junk food, and Carl will get fat. But the best part of this is that, the world around you will perceive you differently. If you’re a tub, the pedestrians will insult your weight. Missions will become harder, especially the ones involving lots of hard, physical activity. So not only must you eat to stay healthy, you have to watch what you eat too.

But what’s the point of getting fat if that’s where it ends? Can you get back to your former self? Yep. All you need to do, for example, is hit the gym. Find one, and get in there and work off all that excess lard. In addition, working out will add strength to Carl, so not only are you taking off the fat, you’re helping your abilities too.

So Cal Style
Graphically, San Andreas is shaping up very nicely, especially considering that the size of the game dwarfs the two previous installments. Rockstar North’s programmers have crafted new streaming and rendering technology, allowing for more detailed and interactive environments. A good example of more detail is the fully rendered interiors. In Vice City, the interiors were devoid of anything really useful, and added very little to the gameplay. This time, those decked-out interiors will be able to be robbed, so it’s likely that everything inside those interiors will be able to be interacted with in some way.

The whole visual package is getting its overhaul though. You’ll see real time reflections on mirrors, cars, and windows, as well as radial lighting, an advanced form of lighting that will produce more realistic shadowing and soft shadow light sources for inside environments. Also, the entire visual splendor will be more pronounced, thanks to independent models for both day and night. This way, everything in the game will be equally vivid 24 hours a day. Add to these more and better animations, and it’s clear that there has been quite a stunning upgrade to the graphical department of the Renderware engine (the engine that has powered the GTA series on PS2).

Rockstar North is pleased to be adding rag doll physics as well, which should be quite an addition. This seemingly simple upgrade has done wonders for games like Max Payne 2 and Dead Man’s Hand; the flailing and realistic (and sometimes wacky) animation should really inject more life, and ultimately more fun, into the game. After all, in GTA, you’re almost always interacting with someone, whether it’s fighting them, shooting them, or running them over with station wagons. The new physics should be a real trip.

Heavy Thuggin’ It
The GTA series has always been one of the top franchises to showcase what a truly immersive soundtrack could do for a game. All too often, the audio is ignored, but the GTA games embraced it. In fact, it’s arguable that the two previous efforts wouldn’t have been near the success without the creative soundtrack and oodles of dialogue pouring from the denizens of their respective cities.

While it’s argued by some that Grand Theft Auto III boasted a more creative soundtrack, Vice City got its props for offering an all-eighties soundtrack of top hits from that era. San Andreas will continue down that same path, compiling a soundtrack of top artists of the early nineties era, and even adding some older west coast classic tunes to the mix. Rockstar assures that they will be pushing harder than they ever have to make the soundtrack the very best it can be. And not to worry; while there will be rap music, the variety of music styles that the GTA series is known for won’t be going anywhere.

Rockstar North is also known for hiring on superlative acting talent and other celebs to do the voice acting. While Rockstar North does admit that they’ve got some knockout talent doing the voicing of San Andreas’s numerous characters, they feel that the star voice talent will take too much away from what the game is really all about, so at this time, they choose to not reveal any information on the subject (although it was rumored that rappers 50 Cent and Eminem were both somehow involved with the game. In fact, one of the rumors is that 50 Cent voices the game’s main character, Carl Johnson).

Making it Big in Cali
The buzz around the Grand Theft Auto series isn’t as feverish as it was two years ago, but that hasn’t stopped almost every publisher from making some kind of knock-off game. And even if developers aren’t directly copying the GTA titles, they’re incorporating telltale elements of the franchise into their own creations. Since Rockstar North’s gameplay isn’t unique anymore, how do you keep all the copycats following your lead? By doing everything bigger and better than those other games could ever imagine, that’s how.

Vice City expanded on the free-roaming foundation that GTA III built, but with less than a year between the two releases, there is so much that Vice City wasn’t. With a full two-year development cycle for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Rockstar North looks to reinvent the genre they pioneered; the genre that everyone wants a piece of. And with a brand new story, 3 full cities, a state’s full of countryside, tons of new features, missions and gameplay advancements, star voice talent, and era-specific music, combined with Rockstar North’s dark wit (not to mention some familiar characters), Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas looks to be the game that’s going to send all the wannabes back to the toolshed. Living the life of crime never sounded so good.

Preview by Brendon Hivner