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Guides


Playstation 2 : Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Special Edition) Reviews

Gas Gauge: 96
Gas Gauge 96
Below are user reviews of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Special Edition) and on the right are links to professionally written reviews. The summary of review scores shows the distribution of scores given by the professional reviewers for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Special Edition). Column height indicates the number of reviews with a score within the range shown at the bottom of the column. Higher scores (columns further towards the right) are better.

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ReviewsScore
IGN 96






User Reviews (1 - 11 of 26)

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u have sent the wrong game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 24
Date: March 13, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I requested a purchase of the special adition, but what i recieved was the regular Grand Theft Auto : San Andreas

Disappointing

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 25
Date: June 24, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Everybody loves this game, and I can't figure out why. It's almost impossible to get money, you die far to easy, and the missions are tedious; hoo boy lets get a haircut...good times. I played True Crime and it was soo much better than this. Maybe I didn't play it long enough, maybe I just suck royally at this game, but I didn't think it owned up to its fame

game failed

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: January 08, 2008
Author: Amazon User

i bought this game used, and it did'nt work, so im not happy with this purchase.

Two words: complicated & overrated

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 9 / 30
Date: July 13, 2006
Author: Amazon User

If you're reading this, you probably love the game and hate my review already simply based on my title. That's fine. I know I'm the small minority that pretty much hate this game. This game is a love it or hate it type of game.

This is why I hate the game (and why you probably love it):

1. It's too much like "The Sims." That's right, the Sims. Along with the standard health, armor, and wanted levels, you have "stamina," "fat," "sex appeal," and many more I forgot. These meters effect your game and you have to keep them in check. It becomes tedious and boring having to worry about eating or working out or having the right type of clothes.

2. It's too complicated. As mentioned with the comparison to The Sims, it's becomes more complicated with the driving maps. The one thing I liked so much about Vice City was the simple layout it had; GTAIII was a bit too complex for me, especially with timed missions. Well, San Andreas makes GTAIII look like Vice City. It's just way too complicated to get where you have to go with bridges and overpasses and junk like that.

3. It's just not fun. Drive-by's and just getting shot at on the streets is the norm. There are no fun, fast cars in the beginning. You have to constantly worry about your "homies" on a mission because if they die, you fail the mission. Yes, it makes the game more realistic, but it makes it less fun. In video games, fun takes a back seat to realism.

4. Too much story. There are parts where you have to watch the in-between stories. This is annoying to people like me who don't care about the story and just want to play the game.

5. Too much talking. A lot of the missions are teamed missions (and hey, you get to drive the car while your homies gets to shoot the guns. Fun? Not really) and all your friends talk during the mission. What they say is not funny or entertaining; it's annoying. It distracts from the radio, which is sometimes funny (but not nearly as funny as Chatterbox or KCHAT).

With that being said, it's still a GTA game and every 5th mission is somewhat fun, which is why I'm giving 2 stars.

Great game, but....

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 12 / 17
Date: November 19, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is a great game. The graphics are awesome, the story is great, and there are endless possibilities. I would recommend buying a different game instead though. Instead of buying this game, just buy the older and cheaper original release. It is the same game, this is just a ploy to make more money by Rockstar. Just because it says Special Edition on the cover doesn't mean it is a better game. The game is great already, but I wouldn't shell out the extra money so I can have the title colored gold instead of white.

Pretty Good Game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: June 04, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is good, but once you beat it, it becomes a little borring. I mean the driving around and killing people is pretty fun when you know how to lower and freeze your wanted level. I don't really have this game but my friend has it and I played it for about two days straight and I give this game, overall, 4 stars.

Big step from vice city!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 7
Date: July 13, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I've been playing the GTA series for 4 years now and I decided that Vice City was the very best of all video games ever made!...until I got this game a week ago...The game is so much more like real life in a gang(not that I know, but compare this to vice city and its pretty obvious0. The only reason I gave it a 4-star overall rating is because in two-player roam mode, almost every plane holds only one person(please pardon me if I'm wrong, I only have one PS2 controler...the other one's for PSone). If you liked vice city, you will probably believe there must be a god when you buy this!

Awesome game, but parents beware...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 21 / 27
Date: January 20, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is by far the most amazing videogame I have ever seen or played. It raises the bar of excellence, size, scope, fun and involving game play so incredibly high that I doubt any other game will come close to it for a very long time.

But parents beware! Even with the infamous "Hot Coffee" mod removed, this game is rated Mature for good reason. It is extremely adult oriented with excessive language and violence that make even GTA III and Vice City seem tame in comparison. The F-bomb is dropped every few moments, and African Americans are frequently called the N-word. Profanities of all kinds are prevalent and constant throughout the game. All of the violent and sexual adult content of the previous games is back, but ramped up to new levels of intensity. The prostitues are back, but this time the main character not only employs their services, but also acts as pimp, delivering the hookers to others. The improved graphics and motion-capture add a great sense of realism to the violence. Make no mistake: THIS IS AN ADULT GAME AND SHOULD NOT BE PURCHASED FOR CHILDREN!

Having said that, let me say again what a great, fun game GTA: San Andreas is. It is a marvelous advance in the world of videogames, and as an adult, I find it to be a very deep, involving form of escapist entertainment. No doubt, we'll all be hearing from the politicians and others who want to censor forms of entertainment they find offensive. And this new game, like the previous entries in the series, will likely become a center of controversy. We'll hear the same old arguments about how this and other violent videogames are the source of all evil in the world. I'm sorry, but that is just so simplistic and untrue. Videogames are entertainment, plain and simple, just like movies, books, music and television. And certain videogames, just like certain movies, books or TV programs, are not intended for children. Responsible parents should not allow their children to play GTA: San Andreas, any more than they would allow them to watch Pulp Fiction or The Sopranos. But just like other forms of mature entertainment, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has every right to exist for an audience mature enough to understand and enjoy it.

Enough of my soapbox editorializing. If you are an older teen or an adult, get this game, play it and enjoy it. It really is an amazing achievement. If you are a parent whose younger teen or child wants this game, find another more appropriate title. There are a lot of good ones available.

What an amazing game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 16 / 16
Date: January 09, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is probably the best game to ever hit the PS2. Yes, this game is very sick and twisted, even without that bloated Hot Coffee mod. Yes, this may be the game that might have your PS2 controller smashed in frustration (*cough* Zero Missions *cough*). But the sheer size of this game, coupled with the amount of diversity and possibilities, makes this a true gaming milestone.

Put simply, this game is huge: 5 to 6 times the size of Vice City. It took me over half an hour to drive from one city to another. The amount of things that you can do in this game is stunning: Eat, swim, climb mountains, fly jetplanes, change clothes, work out, build stats, go on dates: all here.

And of course using a variety of weapons and jacking cars is still an essential part of the GTA experience: The weapon targeting in this game was a huge step up from the ridiculous auto-aiming engine from Vice City, and the driving controls were sharp as always.

I thought that the graphics, while still showing a litttle bit of pop-up here and there, were still pretty stunning for the dated RenderWare engine, especially in the lush countryside. The story and voice acting were good, but Young Maylay (CJ), Sam Jackson (Officer Tenpenny) and James Woods (Mike Toreno) were particularly impressive here. OG Loc was pretty annoying though.

The music was the only thing here that I thought was pretty mixed: I'm not a huge fan of rap, but even I could tell you that the gangsta rap station was the best one on here. Both Radio X and the classic rock station disappointed me compared to V-Rock from Vice City, and who the hell thought it was a good idea to put a country station on here? All the other stations were pretty forgettable. I usually put on my own music while playing most games anyway, so I won't take points off here.

Other than the halfway-decent soundtrack, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is a riveting success of a game and every mature gamer should buy it immediately.

Oh, and this special edition is basically the original game minus the Hot Coffee mod, and there are also sections of the game that are easier than the original. It also includes a bonus DVD that has the 20-min Introduction and Sunday Driver on it. Hope this helps.

Pure Innovation

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 18 / 20
Date: May 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I really, really wanted to hate this game. It goes against everything I stand for as a gamer and I felt it was giving a bad name to the video game industry in general. And then I played it. And I'm still playing it. Chances are, I'll be playing it forever on end.

This is one great game, and if not for a rather forceful brother and a cheap $20 price tag, I may have never discovered this. No game has ever been as in-depth as this one has. You can do absolutely anything under the sun, whether it's exercise, eat and drink, play video games (within a video game), steal cars, shoot people, install hydraulics into low-riders, shoot more people, buy gang-colors, ride BMXs... you get the point. All that can be done as an aside to the actual story of the game, which I have to say is pretty damn good. Without spoiling much, I'll say that the main character, Carl, has come back to his old neighborhood after the death of his mother, and finds himself the avenger of his mother's death. Along the way, he meets quite a few characters, and gets himself involved with most of the major gangs as well as some government agencies. Some of these meetings are beneficial to Carl, while others are purely life-threatening. What's great about the story is just how he ends up getting involved with these characters. At first, it seems strange that a gang-banger would affiliate himself with the CIA, but Carl does just that, eventually. Basically, you'll just have to play the game to believe some of this stuff.

The game-play is damn fun too. Every separate element, whether it be cars or weapons, or the intangibles like respect and sex appeal, has a level that must be built in order for Carl to be able to do certain things. Obviously, driving skills as well as gun skills are important in a game such as this, but getting the respect from your fellow gang-bangers is important too. And then there is the idea of muscle building and atrophy. You have to keep Carl healthy, and that means constant exercise and eating right. And we can't forgot all the side missions, like tags and clams and jumps. Simply finding these are tasks, but getting every separate tag or jump or whatever actually feels good, and the benefits make it worth spending the time to do these things.

In the end, after putting a fare amount of time into this game, I realized one thing: I'm losing sleep. That's not bad, though, because I'm having fun, and no game since Final Fantasy VII has ever done this to me. Though I still think some of what happens or can happen in this game is pointless and unneeded, those are my own personal beliefs and ones I won't use anymore as a reason for hating this game. Therefore, I highly recommend this game to any mature, sane minded adult. It's a gaming experience that is almost pure innovation from start to beginning. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some tags to spray.


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