Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: Difference between revisions

The game puts the player in the shoes of Carl "CJ" Johnson, a good guy, [[Anti-Hero|relatively speaking]], a first for the series. CJ is a gangster who left the city of Los Santos, San Andreas after his brother was killed, but is returning home after a five-year stint in Liberty City to bury his murdered mother.

 

 

''San Andreas'''s reception was like pretty much every other 3D ''Grand Theft Auto'' game. In other words, it was received with a hell of a lot of love from gamers. While not without [[Rated "M" for Money|controversy]] (the [[Hot Coffee Minigame]] scandal was especially idiotic), it enjoyed overwhelmingly positive reviews by critics and fans alike, and has made millions in sales. Even after the release of ''[[Grand Theft Auto IV]]'', many fans still consider ''San Andreas'' to be their favorite game in the series. One reason for this is because of its absolutely huge sandbox area -- three full cities and numerous towns and countryside areas, as opposed to the other ''Grand Theft Auto'' games which were positively claustrophobic by comparison. Even as the games moved into the next-generation consoles, allowing greater realism in how cities are depicted, to date none of the games that followed ''San Andreas'' have equaled the scope and sense of distance offered by this game.

Fans of the game may want to check out [http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/GTASA/index.html this Let's Play told almost entirely from CJ's perspective], which fleshes out the story and fills in some plotholes.

 

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=== Distinct tropes of this game: ===

{{quote| '''Zero:''' No, no, I masturbate quite often, if that's what you're implying...}}

** One of the "I Say, You Say" segments also includes a masturbation joke.

** One of the radio ad parodies spoofs ''[[Harry Potter]]'', even though the first book wasn't published until 1997...in ''Europe''.

* [[And Your Reward Is Clothes]]: Completing some of the storyline and asset missions gets you some special outfits, which you may need to wear in order to progress through another mission. Also, achieving [[Level Up At Intimacy 5|100% progress with most of the girlfriends gets you an outfit related to their profession]].

* [[Anti-Hero]]: You, the rest of Grove Street {{spoiler|(well, Sweet at least)}}, Cesar and Woozie.

* [[Area 51]]: Parodied with Area [[Double Entendre|69]], which {{spoiler|CJ breaks into to acquire a [[Jet Pack]].}} Trying to enter the area will earn you an instant five-star wanted level, and if you fly over, you will be brought down by SAM sites and Hydra fighter jets.

* [[Bald of Evil]]: Officer Tenpenny has a shaved head. CJ can have his head shaved if the player chooses to do so, making it [[Bald of Awesome]].

* [[Beef Gate]]: Initially, CJ is restricted to Los Santos and Red County; there is nothing preventing the player from finding ways to enter the other regions before they are unlocked, but there is a penalty of a four-star wanted level if you do. Specifically, San Fierro, Whetstone and Flint County are inaccessible prior to completing "The Green Sabre" and Tierra Robada, Bone County and Las Venturas cannot be entered before completing "Yay-ka-boom-boom".

** Ironically, however, this is one of the only GTA games to ''not'' include a "rampage" side-mission in the basic one-player game, though certainly the player is free to make up his own.

* [[Beware the Nice Ones]]:

* [[Cutscene Incompetence]]: CJ is constantly pushed around by Tenpenny in their cutscene encounters throughout the game. Might maybe make sense in the beginning, but during the end of the game, after you've taken on Mafia, US Army, secret government agencies, and thousands upon thousands of gangsters of all kinds, and probably a fair share of cops, you can't help but wonder why on Earth CJ would let a single bent cop push him around. There's a cutscene in Las Venturas when Tenpenny punches CJ in the stomach, flooring him. If you have max muscle for that bit, it's just silly.

* [[Danger Takes a Backseat]]: T-Bone Mendez pulls a variation of this on CJ, trying to scare him into admitting he's a double agent. It doesn't work.

* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: The Cluckin' Bell worker clearly doesn't like his job.

{{quote| "If you come again, you're a moron."}}

** Also, if you weat the Gimp suit when meeting Millie, you automatically enter her house.

{{quote| '''CJ''': Here we go again with the kinky shit...}}

* [[Downer Beginning]]: The game starts with CJ (who left Los Santos for five years after the murder of one of his brothers) returning home to bury his murdered mother, which is grim enough. But as soon as he arrives, he's picked up by [[Dirty Cop|Officers]] [[Big Bad|Tenpenny]] and [[The Dragon|Pulaski]] who steal all his money, frame him for a cop killing that ''they'' committed, and dump him in the middle of rival gang turf. And when CJ does make it to his mother's funeral, he finds that his brother Sweet is pissed at him for leaving and that his old gang is in shambles.

* [[Drives Like Crazy]]: ''You,'' according to your Grove Street [[True Companions]]. Being a ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' game, this is probably a lampshade hanging.

* [[Game Breaking Bug]]: The infamous Madd Dogg glitch. A glitch in a mission where you had to save him from his own suicide attempt by positioning a truck full of hay under him before he could jump off a building would become Unwinnable because he would jump off the building before the cutscene ended. This glitch also made the ''game'' [[Unwinnable]], and this is compounded by the fact that no one is certain what triggers this glitch; it seems to be completely random. Many suggestions have been made, the most commonly accepted "cause" being that it's caused by cheating extremely often, or using common cheats. This is discredited, since many people who never cheated once the entire game still had the glitch occur, while some that cheated extensively never saw it. One cause is the "pedestrians riot" cheat (which cannot be turned off), causing everyone to become hostile to each other. This mission is affected because Madd Dogg's character attempts to run to the nearest NPC to fight them, and in doing so, runs off the roof and dies. This is made even worse by it being one of the last missions in the game, meaning that if you get this glitch, you're screwed and have to start all over and pray you don't get the glitch again. Though, mercifully, it seems as though it never happens in two new games in a row.

** Also, if you attempt to play basketball in Madd Dogg's mansion, all basketballs on the world map will be deleted from the game, meaning you can't play it again in that particular save. This one is minor, since basketball is not needed for [[Hundred-Percent Completion]], but another glitch involving the mansion that you should worry about involves saving there, which corrupts your file.

* [[Game Mod]]: Ranging from improved textures to increased draw distance to gameplay changes to, most infamously, the Hot Coffee scandal. To begin with, you can replace CJ with [[Touhou|Marisa Kirisame complete with Master Spark]].

* [[Gameplay Roulette]]: Done right, since that's part of the fun.

* [[Let the Boss Win]]: Woozie's men constantly do this whenever they play games with him. Ironically, Woozie seems like an nice enough guy - especially to his men, with whom he is very loyal - such that it's likely he wouldn't go [[Bad Boss]] on them if he did lose once in a while.

* [[Let's You and Him Fight]]: Tenpenny claims to be setting the gangs against each other to weaken them.

** Attempting to date [[Sexy Secretary|casino employee-by-day]]-[[Dominatrix]]-by-night Millie gets you a gimp outfit; almost certainly a [[Shout-Out]] to [[Pulp Fiction]].

*** Dating Millie to a certain percentage of progress ([[Video Game Cruelty Potential|or just killing her]]) is actually necessary to progress in the game, unlike the other girlfriends who can be completely ignored if the player chooses.

** Getting to 50% progress with [[Wrench Wench|mechanic Michelle]] gets you the keys to her Monster Truck.

* [[Lighter and Softer]]: This game is in tone probably the lightest in the series. CJ <ref>at least in cutscenes</ref> and most of his allies are far closer to the antiheroic side of the scale than the protagonists from ''GTA III'' and ''GTA: Vice City'', the world is much lighter than ''GTA IV'' (still Crapsack, but amusingly so rather than depressingly so) and the story is lighthearted and fairly optimistic. Also unlike Claude and Tommy, CJ clearly has fun and smiles now and again.

* [[Locomotive Level]]: Three -- one where you rob a train by riding it and tossing boxes to Ryder, one where you're on a motorcycle keeping up alongside the train, and one where you're on a jetpack flying around the train. There are side-missions where you can drive a train, but nothing interesting happens. At all. Unless you go so recklessly fast that you derail the train.

* [[My Name Is Not Durwood]]: OG Loc's name is ''not'' pronounced "Ogg Lock".

* [[Neighborhood Friendly Gangsters]]: The [[Meaningful Name|Grove Street Families]], especially Sweet and CJ, are very keen on traditional family values. Their allies, the Varrios Los Aztecas and the Mountain Cloud Boys Triads, fit as well.

* [[Nitro Boost]]: One of the two performance upgrades you can acquire for your car at the [[Pimped-Out Car|mod garages]]. Comes in the "Stored Nitro Charges" type. Also, the reward for finishing the Taxi Driver side missions includes unlimited nitrous on all taxis.

* [[Noble Demon]]: CJ may be willing to steal, murder, and do violent criminal acts, but he has a good side as well.

* [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]]:

** Madd Dogg is based on Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg and voiced by Ice T.

** OG Loc's appearance is based heavily on Tupac Shakur, but his personality is anachronistically Ja Rule (apparently a leftover from when CJ was going to be voiced by Ja's then-rival 50 Cent)

** Ryder is very obviously Easy-E with the exaggeration turned [[Up to Eleven]].

* [[Pint-Sized Powerhouse]]: While not immediately noticeable, it can be seen that CJ is much shorter than most pedestrians, standing a full head below some. However, nobody ever comments on his height, and even if they did, [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|it's likely]] [[Disproportionate Retribution|they'd regret]] [[One-Man Army|it afterwards]].

* [[Plot-Triggering Death]]: CJ comes back from Liberty City to attend his mother's funeral.

* [[Pretty in Mink]]: Some of the women pedestrians walk around in a fur coat.

** Spoofed when a pimp claims he has loads of stuff made of mink.

** Also spoofed in [[GTA Radio|a radio ad]] about selling fur coats to guys in a mid-life crisis.

* [[Prodigal Hero]]: CJ does it twice: first time, at the beginning of the game when he returns from Liberty City, and second time, when {{spoiler|Sweet gets arrested}} and spends most of the game in San Fierro and Las Venturas, only coming back to Los Santos near the end of the game.

* [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]]: Kendl gives one to CJ when he complains about the state of the garage he's received, telling him that he's wanted rewards without work, and can't see an opportunity when one falls into his lap.

* [[Reverse Mole]]: Late in the game, it is revealed that {{spoiler|Officer Jimmy Hernandez, who was never an overly willing participant of C.R.A.S.H. to begin with, has been feeding dirt on Tenpenny and Pulaski to Internal Affairs.}}

* [[Ripped from the Headlines]]: The bent cop Tenpenny works for an anti-gang unit C.R.A.S.H. -- Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums. The unit is (very loosely) based on a real life police counter-gang unit gone bad. In real life the Los Angeles Police Department was rocked by the C.R.A.S.H Rampart scandal.

** Towards the end of the game, {{spoiler|the riot that breaks out in Los Santos is reminiscent of the Rodney King beating trial riot}}.

* [[RPG Elements]]: The game has the CJ's (the player character) skill with guns increase as he used them, allows him to train in gyms to improve his strength, stamina and fighting skills, and has him having to eat occasionally in order to stay healthy. Fat and Muscle feed into CJ's relationships with his girlfriends. Progress in those relationship is increased in the dating mini-game. Compared to the [[Grand Theft Auto IV|sequel]] the work required to keep on top of these elements is fairly light and often optional.

* [[Sequel Escalation]]: If you were expecting more of the same ''GTAIII'' / ''Vice City'' gameplay, only set in the '90s and with RPG elements, boy were you in for a surprise.

* [[Shout-Out]]:

** Certain NPCs look like [[Will Smith]].

** The katana's mere existance in this game is at least partially a ''[[Pulp Fiction]]'' refence.

** In the mission "Air Raid", you have to gun down RC planes that are coming to bomb Zero's antennas. After you gun a few down, Zero may call out "[[Star Wars|Great kid, don't get cocky!]]"

** In one of the [[Pimped-Out Car|car-modding garages]], one of the custom paintjobs for [http://www.grandtheftwiki.com/File:Sultan-GTASA-modified-front.jpg the Sultan] is very similar to the [[wikipedia:Subaru World Rally Team#Vehicle development|one seen on the Subaru Impreza]] used by the company to participate in the World Rally Championship.

* [[The Stoner]]: The Truth and Ryder. A few of the recurring characters from ''Vice City'', as well.

* [[This Is for Emphasis, Bitch]]

* [[Throw It In]]: The random plane crashes were a glitch Rockstar discovered during beta testing, due to a spawned plane's randomly set trajectory sometimes intersecting with the ground. They found the crashes so funny and appropriate for the comedic [[Crapsack World]] setting that they left the glitch alone.

* [[Trash Talk]]: CJ does this all the time in combat. "Oh, look, a gun." * Blam*

* [[True Companions]]: The group CJ builds during the course of the game is large, diverse and bound together like family.

* [[Video Game Cruelty Potential]]: A staple and much of the point of the whole GTA series, but it especially comes into play here as an odd case of [[Gameplay and Story Segregation]]. CJ is, for the most part, presented within the story as a ruthless but well-meaning [[Anti-Hero]] rather than a [[Villain Protagonist]], but the player's still free to go on genocidal rampages in between each mission.

* [[Villainous Breakdown]]: Both Tenpenny and Pulaski undergo one late in the game, because {{spoiler|the FBI has taken an interest in their involvement with the criminal underworld. Tenpenny is the one most visibly effected by it, as he goes from being smug, superior and cocky to edgy, paranoid and prone to outbursts. And when it's revealed that fellow officer Hernandez has been ratting them out... well, Tenpenny's reaction isn't pretty.}}

{{quote| '''Lazlow''': {{spoiler|Big Smoke}} is doing a lot for the community. Or ''to'' it.}}

* [[Violation of Common Sense]]: There's one point where you jump out of a moving plane, onto another moving plane, open the door and start shooting everyone in sight. Impossibility notwithstanding, who the hell would ever think of trying to do this just for a second?