Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Story and setting

The game was set in 1992 and followed Carl “CJ” Johnson, who returned to Los Santos after five years away when his mother was murdered. His family had fallen apart, the Grove Street Families had lost influence and Los Santos was being pulled apart by gang conflict, drugs, corruption and betrayal. CJ was soon framed by corrupt police officers and forced into a journey across the state of San Andreas.

Los Santos drew on Los Angeles, San Fierro on San Francisco and Las Venturas on Las Vegas. The state also included rural settlements, forests, a mountain range, beaches and a large desert. The setting allowed the story to move from a grounded account of family and gang politics to a much broader crime saga involving organised crime, corrupt officials, rural extremists, casinos and military hardware.

How it played

San Andreas remained a third-person open-world game built around driving, shooting, exploration and mission-based storytelling. CJ could steal and customise vehicles, ride bicycles and motorbikes, fly aircraft, swim, climb, use firearms and recruit gang members during turf conflicts. Missions ranged from drive-by shootings and races to robberies, stealth sections, long-distance pursuits and large set-piece assaults.

Rockstar added role-playing touches without turning the game into a conventional RPG. Eating affected CJ’s weight, exercise increased his muscle and stamina, weapon use improved shooting skills, and clothing, haircuts and tattoos altered his appearance. Properties, gambling, pool, lowrider challenges, driving and flying schools, dating, side missions and collectables gave the enormous map purpose beyond the main story. The radio stations, talk shows and adverts were also central to the period setting, with music drawn from early-1990s hip-hop, rock, country, soul and dance.

The PlayStation 2 version supported limited local two-player activities. A second controller could be used for split-screen free-roam and rampage-style challenges found at particular locations, but this was not a cooperative version of the main campaign. There was no online multiplayer, despite some database listings having recorded an online mode.

Reception

San Andreas was received with exceptional enthusiasm. GameSpot awarded the PlayStation 2 release 9.6 out of 10, while the aggregated PlayStation 2 critical score recorded by Metacritic was 95 out of 100. Contemporary praise focused on the scale of the world, the variety of activities, the writing, voice cast, soundtrack and the feeling that the game could support months of play.

It was not without criticism. Reviewers and players noted technical limitations on the ageing PlayStation 2, including texture pop-in, an uneven frame rate, visual jaggies and occasional glitches. Some missions were considered frustrating, while the shooting and driving systems could feel less precise than later Grand Theft Auto games. Those reservations did little to affect its reputation at release: it was widely treated as one of the defining games of the PS2 era.

Versions and differences

The original UK release was a PAL DVD-ROM identified by serial SLES-52541 and carried an 18 rating. Contemporary UK retail listings put the launch price at £39.99. The European version followed the North American release by three days, and the core game, story and local two-player features were the same across the main console regions, subject to the usual PAL and NTSC video differences.

The game later appeared in Platinum and other reissued forms, in a 2005 Special Edition containing Rockstar’s Sunday Driver documentary, and in the PlayStation 2 Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy compilation. Disc revisions are important to collectors. The 2005 Hot Coffee controversy concerned unused sexual content embedded in the original code that could not be accessed during ordinary play, but could be exposed through unauthorised modifications or hardware-assisted cheats. Revised editions were produced with that material removed. The UK release retained its 18 rating; the major rating change was the American ESRB’s temporary move from M to Adults Only.

Legacy

San Andreas became the culmination of the RenderWare-based Grand Theft Auto III era and pushed the PlayStation 2 hardware unusually hard. Its mixture of a large continuous map, character customisation, gang warfare, vehicle variety, radio presentation and optional activities established ideas that Rockstar would revisit in later games, particularly Grand Theft Auto V’s version of Los Santos.

The original has since been converted for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, and it was included in Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition. Those releases are separate conversions or remasters rather than the original UK PS2 disc. For an authentic period experience, the PAL DVD, a working PlayStation 2 and a memory card remain the clearest reference point.