Yet the rampages are still there, along with a bunch of other wacky distractions.
#Grand theft auto san andreas cast series#
The very thing that once defined the GTA series was suddenly rendered uncomfortable and weird by the power of good writing. Neither character feels like the sort to launch a rocket launcher rampage in a crowded shopping mall. Forged in tragedy, and forced to compromise his own sense of honour by cruel circumstances, he's very much the forerunner of Niko Bellic. They existed mostly as a gateway avatar, giving the player tacit permission to live out their own vicarious fantasies, rather than compelling characters with unique tales to tell.ĬJ isn't like that. Both Claude, the mute thug of GTA 3, and Tommy Vercetti, the larger than life career criminal of Vice City, were purposefully amoral cartoons. Not least with CJ himself, who marks a definite break from the traditional Grand Theft Auto protagonist. In that sense, knowing what came next with GTA 4, it's easier to see where Rockstar's experiments were leading. This is a game that sprawls, both geographically and narratively, and CJ often gets lost against such a vast backdrop. In hindsight, however, there's a sense that San Andreas saw Rockstar doing too much. The decision to cast obscure rapper Chris 'Young Maylay' Bellard as CJ was the result of Dan Houser deciding it was distracting to play as Ray Liotta in Vice City. The devil is in the details, and Rockstar's intricate web makes these cities feel lived in, as if they were always there, not just conjured up from ones and zeroes stored on a disc. These are places that you can feel, more than just rearranged assets or a new gameplay stage. Each is its own place, with its own feel. Then comes San Fierro, the city by the bay, and deeper still into the game you can head to Las Venturas, the gambling mecca in the desert. Vast tracts of countryside, hills and forests surround the looming bulk of Mount Chiliad. With competitors snapping at their heels, clearly there was a need to keep forging ahead, pushing back the boundaries of the sandbox to see how much world we could take.įrom those early missions in the neighbourhoods of Los Santos, San Andreas widens the scope to draw in the rest of that city, then keeps going. Even more so when you consider the sheer scale and ambition of what Rockstar attempted with San Andreas. The characters are boxy, the textures crude and the draw distance is often shocking, but there's a sense of place that still impresses. There's a reason why architectural trade magazine Blueprint chose to profile Rockstar as a pioneer of virtual urban design. Lots of rivals copied the Theft and the Auto, but missed out the Grand. Gaming has offered up dozens of urban sandboxes since 2004, but few match - or even understand - what Rockstar brings to the table. Stepping back into his world eight years later, I'm struck by how real it still feels. Although it may be CJ Johnson's story, it's San Andreas itself that draws us in. It's fitting that these mid-period GTA games took their titles from the cities they created. San Andreas was the first to allow climbing and swimming, making movement across the game far more enjoyable. The South Central projects immortalised on wax by NWA and Ice T may be exaggerated, but they existed - and still exist. It's just that where Vice City splashed around in the garish neon-pink world of Miami Vice and MTV, a fantasy within a fantasy, San Andreas starts from a more tangible real-world source.
Like the previous Grand Theft Auto games, San Andreas is a cartoon version of a world filtered through pop media. Even before you've set foot on the streets of Los Santos, Rockstar's obsessive attention to cultural detail has already got you in a West Coast frame of mind, a world of sneaker-clad feet squeaking on tarmac as they run from the five-oh of helicopters in the night and the snap, crackle and pop of distant gunshots of sipping a forty with friends, waiting for the noon heat haze to lift. Discuss your favorite titles, find a new one to play or share the game you developed.It starts with that high-pitched G-funk siren wail.
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