GTA: San Andreas information that deserves its own thread

Perfect Stu · 06-13-2004, 07:16 PM

Official Playstation 2 Magazine UK: Synopsis

Quote:

The state of San Andreas contains three cities and miles and miles of interstates, valleys, freeways, deserts, coastline and badlands, all of which you can explore. The game is five times the size of Vice City, more populated, more detailed, has more cars, weapons, challenges, characters, secrets, music, and more storyline than Vice City. Each of the three cities Los Santos, San Fierro, and Las Venturra have their own individual style. Examples are architectural style, vehicle population, mission types, character’s accents, and the actions of pedestrians.

The countryside will be far from boring. There are new vehicles that can’t even be used in a town, such as a quad bike, that you can race in the country. The driving physics have been worked on and although GTA is not a racing game, it feels like a chasing game. The countryside racing feels super quick and a lot of fun. In the country you will also have inbreds and degenerates who give you missions reflecting their environment. The countryside is very refreshing to drive through. It has rolling fields, farms, rivers, forests, deserts, and hills. There is also a legendary mountain - it is nearly a half mile tall, takes a minute to fly from the base to the top in a helicopter, and much longer to ride down with a bicycle. The grass and plants have new techniques to really bring the countryside to life like no game ever before. San Fierro is very hilly and there is a big emphasis on driving in this part of the game.

Swimming was added because Rockstar knew about the constant request and was tired of being told it couldn’t be done. Now when you drive off a bridge, you will not drown. But that being said, it is not a swimming game. The way swimming will work is this: When your car hits the water you have two choices. The first is to climb out the window of the car. If you choose not to get out, you will sink with the car, and you will have a certain amount of stamina which you can build up. There are some missions that have swimming in them, but this won’t be a swimming action adventure game. The feature is there for playability.

In addition to eating, getting fat, and working out the gym, another stat feature is cutting your hair. You can go to the barber and get your haircut how you want. If you have a bad haircut, pedestrians make fun of you and call you stupid. If you have a good one they are impressed.

The LA vibe is there with the smog, crystalline light, the thud of a basketball off in a court, the air filled with hip hop, the blazing sun, the light reflecting off low riders. The right analog stick will allow you to bounce your car. In missions, all of the familiar details are there like the yellow arrow above objectives, the blue type on the screen giving mission outlines, and the little music after a successful mission.

Immense effort has gone in to individualize each player’s experience and make the game as non-linear as possible. At times you’ll be following the storyline, but then the game will stop and open up, allowing you to do anything you want. Then the story continues, then it opens up, and it follows this pattern nicely for the best experience.

The engine has been rewritten. Now there are details like never before, such as tumbleweeds in the desert and other organic things. The map is much more densely populated than Vice City, even in the countryside. There are mirrors and real time reflections. The draw distance is now twice as much as Vice City in the urban environments and four times as much in the countryside. The lighting system has been improved to include separate models for daytime and nighttime. CJs can stand and sway slightly, with his jaw moving in a slow circular motion as he chews gum. The character models are much more detailed than previously.

Improvements have been made on the lighting to make neon spill onto the streets, streetlights light up buildings, and shadows from the sun fade to moonlight. Compression techniques have been used to detail al of the models - from the map to the cars to the pedestrians. The game is now more sharp, with weather effects and more crammed special touches than thought possible. Rockstar has borrowed a bit from Manhunt with the new lighting. Now you can see gang members in dark alleys and you can use the shadows yourself to hide under a bridge, watch an enemy run past, then jump out and jump him. Even with one star you will have to worry about the police, but hiding in shadows can help out. On missions you can do them Rambo style or you can sneak around and pick them off one by one. This means actual stealth techniques which adds a lot more variety to missions than before.

San Andreas returns with the Rockstar humor we love. The satire will be directed at American consumerism, action movies, weirdness, and pop culture of the time. The characters will be more serious but the game will still be hilarious.

Every part of the game has been aimed at making it feel like a living, fully realistic world. Each city as well as the districts in them will feel unique. Instead of adding content to GTA III or Vice City, Rockstar wanted to make this game so you could climb onto a roof and know your location. The amount of exploring in San Andreas has extreme depth, and it is not to be raced through because it is all unique and interactive. All the missions, even the most outlandish, are all designed to make use of the vehicles and to explore the map. Tons of work has gone into making the countryside look organic, the cities not looking square, and overall the game feeling real. The map is so big even Rockstar becomes lost in it from time to time. The population is more dense and more active than ever before. The city has been given life. Each pedestrian has his own actions and animations based on where they live, and where they are at in the city or the country.

One of the biggest challenges is compressing the massive detail in this game. Rockstar has loads of content and continues to add more. The only loading times in San Andreas are slight pauses when entering buildings. They have already packed the DVD and will be having to use dual layer. Although the game is very broad, all the missions, gameplay elements, and events will tie together and feel part of the same game thanks to the controls, art, and atmosphere. There are some parts where the game is in first person. There are also ties to the past games for hardcore fans. All of these things, even the most outlandish of missions, will make sense to you when you are playing.

You have new fist fighting techniques and the gun fighting has been overhauled. The physics of the gun fighting has been rebuilt from the ground up and now it is very elegant and easy to control. When you target someone green will be displayed if they have full health, yellow at half, and red if they can be killed in another shot. The auto targeting will also make much better choices based on threat level.

Working with your gang the Orange Grove Families, you can take over areas of the map. Controlling territories and personalizing the map is like personalizing your character. You can make money off your property if look after it. Some parts of the game you can take it over yourself, and for other parts you will need your gang. Car jacking has an even more threatening and sinister vibe than before, because now your gang is involved. By the way, being a gangster is 15% of the total game.

In the first mission Carl is picked up from the airport by the two corrupt cops. They don’t take him home, they drop him off in rival gang territory. You have to get out quick, so the first thing you do is steal a BMX. You rapidly hit X to pedal and CJ sways from side to side to pick up momentum. This is one of the stunningly realistic animations. You complete the mission when you reach the area where CJ grew up and where his gang lives.

One mission involves you meeting up with your old friend Ryder, who is a loose cannon and is very passionate about the Orange Grove Families. Your chat takes place in front of the Badfellas poster (which fans will recognize). The owner of a pizza store has erased the OGF tag from his walls, and Ryder wants you to join him in teaching the owner a lesson. You hop in a pickup and head to the pizzeria. Once you arrive but before you enter the pizzeria, you will be given the opportunity to give CJ a new haircut.

This is an example of many side tasks available during missions. Rockstar really wants to blur the line between on a mission and off a mission so you will see this a lot. You hop in the barber’s chair and he cuts your hair while you watch. You receive a new haircut which you can see in the mirror, and you choose to accept it or get a new style. Once you leave the barber Ryder will make a comment about your new hairstyle depending on what you chose. Now in the extremely detailed pizzeria you have even more choices. There are three different sized meals with prices based on size. You order the largest meal to distract the pizza boy for Ryder. But Ryder cannot be calmed and to his surprise as he becomes more irate, the pizza boy fires off a 12-gauge shotgun. You and Ryder run out to the pickup and drive back home.

Yet another mission has you driving a four person drive-by as your gang wants to hit the local gang The Ballas. As your roll by The Ballas, Sweet, Smoke, and Ryder all take aim and open fire. Your job is to move the car back and forth to dodge the returning fire. The four person drive by is amazingly real. As you drive by the three gang members adjust their aims. When you pass The Ballas, your guys will lean out the windows backwards and one will get up through the roof. After taking out this group, you go after another group of Balla members. But the cops have started chasing and you must take a detour into a Pay ‘n’ Spray. The mudded car actually becomes cleaned off, the cops stop chasing, and you go home. The Orange Grove Families are back in business, but every time you enter Balla territory, be ready for hostile activity.

The mission Reuniting the Families is about the heads of all the local gangs sitting down to talk and avoid a war. When you arrive at the hotel which is the meeting place, Sweet is the OGF representative. Suddenly a police chopper appears over the car park and cops start pouring out with guns blazing. The other members of the OGF run for their own safety, and leave you alone in the hotel to save Sweet yourself. As you march through the hotel with your shotgun you will see police flowing in from all directions and off balconies with their semi-automatics lit up. A nice shot from your shotgun will kill a cop, and the more you kill, the better your accuracy becomes (as displayed in a percentage in the top left). You can also strafe for cover now. Eventually you find a dying gangster who points you to Sweet.
The two of you escape to Smoke driving a car, who takes down the helicopter with a shotgun then speeds off. Following this is an intense car chase with Smoke driving and you shooting police cars in first person view. You can align the crosshair on the speeding cars and shoot out the tires to take them out. Suddenly a cop jumps right onto the back of the car, and you are forced to shoot him at point blank. Then another one leaps onto the front. Smoke turns down an alley and finds another helicopter in the way, with its rotors pointing at the ground. Smoke speeds up, then at the last second both of you bail out. The last image you see is the cop holding onto the front being shredded up by the spinning metal rotors.

- All of this information was summarized from the Official Playstation 2 Magazine UK July 2004 Issue.

Sounds fantastic...let's hear it

DeathsHand · 06-13-2004, 07:34 PM

Holy flunking shiiiiaaaat it better not suck...

This game sounds amazing.... More than amazing...

But as we learn more and more, it seems more and more likely that it will make use of the hard drive... Oooorrr it'll just be awesomely amazing...

The countryside, the improved graphics, the everything sounds awesomely cool!

Typhoid · 06-13-2004, 07:43 PM

Awesome find, +reps.

And, i like how they arnt saying whether it will, or wont use the hard drive. Surely they know, but they arnt releasing it, maybe in fear of an uproar, maybe because it doesnt need one, who knows. It probably does if you think about it, its 4 times the size of Vice City, and only loads in buildings. Well, Vice City had a few loading points, and if its 4 times the size, either they need the hard drive, or they compressed the hell out of it.