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San Andreas?! Thoughts on GTA:SA
NaturalNarcissist
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey all,
I'm a bit of a wonk when it comes to game design - and often I find bad game design (Bad checkpointing, respawning enemies, switching from stealth to action without telling the player etc.) just as intriguing as the best stuff out there. And so, after finally getting my hands on an original xbox I'm tackling San Andreas.
I played through GTA3 and Vice City years ago, and promptly lost interest in the franchise. The two DLC packs for GTA4 brought me back to the fold and regained my faith in the franchise, so here I am.
And dear lord, what the hell is with this game? The sense of atmosphere is still unmatched, the gunfights are decent fun, and I've cackled like an idiot at more than one awesome car chase.
Now, I've only just unlocked San Fiero, but I've got some serious questions about why the developers made the choices they did.
1) Why in the world do the vast majority of the early missions not reward you with money?
So far, respect only seems to affect if I want to bring some homies along for a ride, not exactly essential to the grand scheme of things. Especially annoying is how I burned through all of the early Los Santos missions with not even enough money to buy a decent safehouse. I looked online and promptly did the courier missions... which reward ludicrous amounts of money for an easy task that is unmarked on the map. Without that, I'd have to return to the one save point in angel pine or the Johnson house to save the game, every single time I beat a mission.
I understood that Rockstar does things their own way, and was able to tolerate the weird save point system in Vice City. But driving for ten minutes across the countryside, just for a save point because the game can't/won't give me money or some way to save my game? This pushes the limits, to say the least.
2) This is more a question than a criticism - but are there people out there who DON'T immediately reload a saved game when they die on a mission in the GTA games? The penalty of losing your money and your weapons just seems so harsh, especially in a series where money doesn't exactly rain from the streets.
3) Whoever designed the early missions is a sadistic man. "Hey, you know what would be great? Making the player claw through the majority of it without having access to an AmmuNation, so they can't buy body armor."
I'm a bit of a wonk when it comes to game design - and often I find bad game design (Bad checkpointing, respawning enemies, switching from stealth to action without telling the player etc.) just as intriguing as the best stuff out there. And so, after finally getting my hands on an original xbox I'm tackling San Andreas.
I played through GTA3 and Vice City years ago, and promptly lost interest in the franchise. The two DLC packs for GTA4 brought me back to the fold and regained my faith in the franchise, so here I am.
And dear lord, what the hell is with this game? The sense of atmosphere is still unmatched, the gunfights are decent fun, and I've cackled like an idiot at more than one awesome car chase.
Now, I've only just unlocked San Fiero, but I've got some serious questions about why the developers made the choices they did.
1) Why in the world do the vast majority of the early missions not reward you with money?
So far, respect only seems to affect if I want to bring some homies along for a ride, not exactly essential to the grand scheme of things. Especially annoying is how I burned through all of the early Los Santos missions with not even enough money to buy a decent safehouse. I looked online and promptly did the courier missions... which reward ludicrous amounts of money for an easy task that is unmarked on the map. Without that, I'd have to return to the one save point in angel pine or the Johnson house to save the game, every single time I beat a mission.
I understood that Rockstar does things their own way, and was able to tolerate the weird save point system in Vice City. But driving for ten minutes across the countryside, just for a save point because the game can't/won't give me money or some way to save my game? This pushes the limits, to say the least.
2) This is more a question than a criticism - but are there people out there who DON'T immediately reload a saved game when they die on a mission in the GTA games? The penalty of losing your money and your weapons just seems so harsh, especially in a series where money doesn't exactly rain from the streets.
3) Whoever designed the early missions is a sadistic man. "Hey, you know what would be great? Making the player claw through the majority of it without having access to an AmmuNation, so they can't buy body armor."
NaturalNarcissist on
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Then you lose THAT, but you still have your allies, friends, and self respect. After that, In San Fiero, you start building something beyond just being a gangbanger doind drivebys agains other "soldiers". You open your eyes and realize there is more to life than Grove or Ballas. And you start building up again, only this time you're not so shit, so alone, doing what Tenpenny wants, and you're building something... more solid.
There are 2 more acts, but that's the point of the start. Yeah, you're not supposed to roll around with full military kit at the first act. But the missions are beatable. The game is well balanced enough.
Gameplay-wise, ignoring the whole "CJ's Journey" thing, go for the spawning guns at your houses. First thing to do is get a guide and find all the graffitti tags, that should be a shortcut. Makes things more manageable.
San Andreas is my favorite sandbox game ever.
Now, that wouldn't be bad by itself. Saints Row is a franchise dedicated to being entirely over-the-top. The problem is that SA tries to mix the intensely personal (the cops corrupting the protagonist's childhood friends, who then kill his mother and help cover it up) with the wacky (jet packs, getting missions and training from the CIA, all of the David Cross bullshit), and winds up being neither.
By the end, CJ is an anime character. He's rich (he owns a stake in a casino and is Ice Cube's manager). He's powerful (has close ties to the Triad). He's skilled (CIA training so he can fly fighter jets, stealth training so he can assassinate people). Yet, we never get any closure to any of that. At the end, Tenpenny gets his, but that's it. Angel Grove is not made better, despite CJ supposedly being all about the hood.
Now, maybe that's the point of the whole thing - the wackiness being a play on 1990's extreme, and the non-ending being some sort of commentary on the permanence of the ghetto. But it's disappointing to see a character gain so much, in every respect, and not share any of it with the people he claims to care for the most.
What the game really needed was a denouement. Maybe a re-skin of some of the buildings in Angel Grove to show some progress.
It's a fun game to play, and there are some wild moments, but the plot is pretty bad.
Shogun Streams Vidya
That mission was terrible. And the thing with defending the roof of his r/c store with the turret gun? That was utter fucking bullshit, in the worst way.
Actually, I found VC to be pretty cohesive. Stupid Little Cuba/Haiti missions aside, it was all about breaking away from the Liberty City empire and forging your own. Most of the missions, at least tangentially, related to it. III was pretty focused, too.
SA and IV? Not so much. Way too much filler. In each, somewhere around 50%-75% of the 'story' missions have nothing to do with the overarching story arc. I actually sort of get why that happens - it's a way to flesh out the locations and amp up the immersion in the setting - it's just that R* doesn't do it very organically in GTA as the protagonists seem to forget why they're where they're at, or why they're doing what they're doing.
RDR gives me hope, though. At least Marston would mention his quest, or act impatient to people who wasted his time. Since it's on his mind, it's on our mind, so the filler doesn't seem quite as blatant. Marston, in effect, voices our own frustration at getting dicked around.
And Ammu-nation? Find a map of weapon and armour locations. If it wasn't for the mission where Sweet sends you there (and I don't think you actually have to go) I'd never go at all.
The Zero missions are a pain. And only necessary for 100% and generating money at the shop.
RDR was done by Rockstar San Diego, not North. I woudn't put too much into thinking that GTAV will be like RDR narratively.
Do not engage the Watermelons.
What is it with these RC missions in GTA? Because that helicopter mission in VC was even worse.
Having bad controls and being tedious and frustrating.
Fuck that mission.
However, I always felt like SA was one of the first games to really transcend boundaries with its open-world design. There are plenty of games these days (most obviously and directly SR3) that do open-ended, open-world, do-whatever as a gameplay feature, but all their advancements, goodies, and gimmick vehicles can be traced back in one way or another to San Andreas. It was SA where I first realized I could just take my car and...go driving. For hours. Just to see what could be seen. Sure, somebody might possibly get shot along the way, but it would probably just be a tragic accident and not because of objectives. Going from Los Santos through San Fiero, into the desert and back again while bumping your own mixtape station? Good clean fun.
I think the groundbreaking nature of SA is why the mod and TC community for it is so amazing.
Games: Ad Astra Per Phalla | Choose Your Own Phalla
I've got the xbox version and I just beat the RC Zero mission - jesus H Christ, what a pain. I only beat it by looking up online and discovering that I could glide to save fuel... which apparently wasn't an option in the original version for the ps2. Egads guys, godspeed with that.
Um
Actually, I've never purchased anything in any GTA game other than food
Except in the story missions where they make you buy a gun
Money is useless to me in those games
The minigun is easy because of Mouse aiming, but they actually increased the timer for the RC plane mission, because it was truly bullshit indeed.
My single most hated mission of ALL GTAs (after III) is the race for the bank heist driver on VC.
Well, except for the ones that came out on PSP, I've never played those.
That's why I disliked GTAIV. The driving was a pain and the music was terrible except for a couple of songs.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
But the DLC packs include these so I can't fault it
Never played the DLC packs, are they any good?
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Ballad Of Gay Tony is considered fantastic but I didn't like it as much as TLAD. It's closer to the tone of GTA:SA but still within the 'realistic' realm of GTAIV. You get a mess of new high powered weapons and the missions go nuts in terms of scale. One has you rigging bombs on a moving train, while a helicopter tries to kill you.
To be fair, it's more like one reggae station and one completely Bob Marley station
And if you don't like Bob Marley, well
Fuck you
EDIT: Damn, it had an afrobeat station too! Fucking fantastic.
But yeah, SA's soundtrack still reigns supreme. Radio Los Santos, Playback, K-DST, CSR and Radio X are all great stations
But honestly, I've found that the best way to enjoy music in any open world game is to NOT switch stations to your normal desired genre. Just let it ride, it's more natural, you have one less thing to worry about, and you may discover new music.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
I'm simply shocked to hear that.
Do not engage the Watermelons.