TeAM YYePG

REVIEWS
The Tao of
DJ Pooh
HIP-HOP AUTEUR
DJ Pooh, who helped
write GTA: San Andreas,
cowrote the movie
Friday and wrote and
directed The Wash.
PUBLISHER: Rockstar Games DEVELOPER: Rockstar North GENRE: Action ESRB RATING: M REQUIRED: Pentium III 1GHz, 256MB RAM, 3.6GB install, 64MB videocard
RECOMMENDED: Pentium 4, 384MB RAM, 128MB videocard, gamepad MULTIPLAYER: None
SAN ANDREAS IS ALL ABOUT DRIVIN’ CARS
and poppin’ caps in the asses of unwary fools,
but it could go to a Halloween ball as one of
the most ambitious RPGs in recent memory.
Sure, the game is set in a thinly veiled analogue
of real-world California and Nevada,
there’s no magic, and the only dragons to be
found are tattooed on the Chinese mafiosi who
give you odd jobs. But look again: Underneath
it all, San Andreas is a massive, Morrowindscale
undertaking.
In a decidedly Boyz n the Hood–esque game
world populated with three major cities and a
dozen tiny towns, you’ll take on the role of
smooth gangsta Carl “CJ” Johnson. Like traditional
RPGs, San Andreas has plenty of guilds
and factions (street gangs) to deal with, and
you can form up a party (posse) and ride into
combat (turf wars) or even visit a shop for better
weapons and armor (machine guns and
62 > COMPUTER GAMING WORLD
Kevlar vests). The story unfolds through quest
strings, with plenty of side jobs to net you extra
gold (er, dollars). And, of course, there are lots
and lots of stats—strength, dexterity, etc.—
tracked in obsessive detail as you build CJ
from zero to hero.
Maybe this is why a game originally designed
for consoles plays so well on the PC: At its heart,
San Andreas treads the same territory that PC
RPGs have been covering for years. It’s Baldur’s
Gate with handguns…or if you prefer, Dungeons
& Dragons starring a chaotic-neutral male human
rogue with a predilection for carjacking—which is
to say it isn’t a perfect likeness. San Andreas
offers immense freedom, but the average RPG
enthusiast will likely find the core of the game far
too restrictive and limiting for his or her tastes.
The “meat” of the game is a series of largely linear
missions that gradually unlock vehicles,
weapons, areas, and more missions.
Bullet-riddled corpses and
over-the-top explosions are
the norm in San Andreas.
GRAND THEFT AUTO:
SAN ANDREAS
Cross-platform crime spree
GRAND THEFT CUT-SCENE
Over the course of the GTA series, Rockstar
has gradually repurposed the missions to be
less about gameplay or skill and more about
playing out scripted story events and memorizing
preset patterns. Storycentric events composed
a small minority of GTA3’s missions, but
in San Andreas you’ll be hard-pressed to find a
single job that doesn’t feature a lengthy prologue
and a healthy dose of running dialogue—
frequently to the point where it interferes with
the gameplay.
As a port, this PC version is a bit of a missed
opportunity. The original PlayStation 2 game was
great, but it suffered from shortcomings that really
should have been addressed in the eight
months since its debut. Unfortunately, PS2 veterans
will encounter many familiar problems: unbalanced
mission difficulty, vague objectives, the
unreliable “trip skip” function, and lots of glitches.