Menace To Society
Speaking of the missions, these have had a considerable overhaul too. In past games the missions would sometimes be a little confused or unclear but that’s been rectified in GTA:SA. Mission objectives are concise and clear and the map markers have had an overhaul so you now know whether you’re above or below a target.
Once again there are plenty of sub-missions to deal with at your leisure. Most of them have some relevance to the main plot line, such a spraying your tag over rival gang’s tags and some of them give you access to vehicles and weapons for use elsewhere in the game. An interesting distraction is the dating game, where you’re encouraged to take certain girls out and show them a good time. This usually involves you trying to guess what she’s thinking before you head off somewhere (a bit like real life then) and then maybe off dancing. This kicks in a mini-game like the superb PS2 dance mat games, so it’s all about timing and hitting the right button at the right time. Then you head back to her place for coffee. (Note: There is a patch on the net that activates the original code… you get much more then ‘coffee’!-Ed)
What allows GTA:SA to be so varied right from the start is that the playing area is simply enormous… and by enormous I mean HUGE. In GTA 3 we were stuck in a suburb of the city for the early part of the game, in GTA:VC we had the run of one island of the city but in GTA:SA you’ve got the run of one CITY on one of three islands in the state of San Andreas, and not only just the cities, but all the surrounding countryside as well. This gives the game a huge open-ended feeling, though you will have to complete the storyline missions to progress to the other cities. Having such a big play area hasn’t been wasted though, as following the storyline, and without blowing it for those of you yet to play it, you end up having to get the hell out of Los Santos and spend some time in the country. A nice touch is that as you get deeper into the game you’ll start to mix it with other larger gangs and come across characters from GTA:VC.