GTA:SA First Impressions & reviews

Tusky

I know theres loads of threads about GTA so merge this if you want but I think more people will read it if it has its own thread

Just been playing it for an hour or two and heres a few small things ive noticed.

-You are broken in much easier than Vice City.Lots of small missions that get you used to radar, shooting, fighting, haircuts, working out, driving, spraypainting, buying clothes ETC you have alot longer to get used to the game.

-DEAR GOD the play area is massive.... its like comparing Ron Jermerys lad to a midget childs eskimo shriveled pecker!

-You can leave the city but early on you get a phonecall from a cop telling you if you leave you will chased down

-The graphics havent improved at all from Vice City but I dont really mind!

-The 90s setting works really well, I wasnt mad about the music stations when I read the track listing but they are surprisingly good. There is a chat staion called WCTR - Talk Radio.

-Lots of little improvements like aiming - much easier. you can now walk up to a fence and press jump , you will scale the fence.

-The bike is great fun You can hold x or tap to go fast. L1 makes you do little jumps.

-Instead of "100 health" you have a red health bar,Also theres a fairly wide variety of foods to buy!

-There is a motorway with sliproads and theres a good few massive bridges in the first city.

-The map is much better.Areas you havent been are shaded grey and you can zoom in and out. I havent been in the countryside but from the map it looks like there is **** loads of it!

I know they are only small impressions but will post more as I play on.

TheGreatOne

This is a useful thread m8, your not sh1te'n on about when your gonna buy it or which one of your friends bought it off their cousins boyfriend who works in Xtravision.
good stuff

AdMMM

Nearly makes me want to buy a PS2...

nearly...

Keyzer

I have an erection.......

Creamy Goodness

|.Murderer.| wrote:

Nearly makes me want to buy a PS2...

nearly...

wait for pc, better controls and such

Tusky

-Much better animations for the characters

-People on the streets talk alot more , feels more alive. You can walk up to them and press left on the D-pad to say a negative comment or Right for a posative comment.

-If you get a van you can drive to a house at night time.Brake in and load the van full of stuff - then drive it to a store house. You have a noise metre, if your noisy you will wake the people up and they call the cops

-If you hold L1 your stats come up on the screen in a little box. They are Respect, Stamina, Muscle, Fat, Sex Appeal

-I dont know what its for but in your house ( where you save ETC ) there is a camera which you can take and save pictures with, you can then view them in a gallery. There is also a spray can for spraying over rival gangs tags. I guess they are like hudden packages as there is 100 to find and spray over. Some are hid on the roofs of buildings.

-You have skill levels for your weapons. Im poor with everything except pistol which im "gangsta" with

-There is loads and loads of stats which you can look at from the options menu. Much more than were in Vice City.


If anyone has any questions I'll try my best to figure them out. Oh and ive been playing 1:45 mins and im 4.81 % into the game.

sound_wave

whats the camera like tusky and the first person view??

Lenny

Cremo wrote:

wait for pc, better controls and such

Same as meself, how much are ps2's 2nd hand?
might get one chipped aswell while im at it..

Tusky

sound_wave wrote:

whats the camera like tusky and the first person view??

Pretty much the same as Vice City. The first person is invert controls. The camera seems a bit more responsive, less bugs.

I just drove the forklift, it kicks ass !
The missions are really diverse, for example...

in one early mission you have to rob a train , you throw box's off the back while a guy in a car driving behind the train catches them. In another mission you brake into an national guard base by scaling a wall , open the door from the inside so your friend can drive the truck in. You then load the truck with crates usign a forklift while he fights off the guards.

cregser

excellent! but please, no more spoilers! they're too tempting.

Tusky

not exactly spoilers...nothing to do with storyline. Just outlines of missions but I put them in spoiler form because some people dont like to know anything

the_syco

Tusky wrote:

-You are broken in much easier than Vice City.Lots of small missions that get you used to radar, shooting, fighting, haircuts, working out, driving, spraypainting, buying clothes ETC you have alot longer to get used to the game.

Damn. I hope there's some mental hard missions, tho.

Tusky wrote:

-DEAR GOD the play area is massive.... its like comparing Ron Jermerys lad to a midget childs eskimo shriveled pecker!

Well, hope its bigger on the PC.

Tusky wrote:

-You can leave the city but early on you get a phonecall from a cop telling you if you leave you will chased down

Excellent. This sounds like fun. Usually I have to run down @ least 2 coppers, grenade the car, before they even notice me. Me loves being chased by the pigs :cool:

Tusky wrote:

-The graphics havent improved at all from Vice City but I dont really mind![/QUOTE}
Its a PS2. The graphics CAN NOT get better, as there's a limit on how far they can push the graphics, due to hard-ware constrictions. On the PC, however, they'll be so... so... sweeeet, no doubt

Tusky wrote:

-The 90s setting works really well, I wasnt mad about the music stations when I read the track listing but they are surprisingly good. There is a chat staion called WCTR - Talk Radio.

Not bothered. I'll just do the usual putting-of-MP3-shortcuts into the MP3 folder. There's nothing better than listening to Exodus when killing the bystanders.

Tusky wrote:

-Lots of little improvements like aiming - much easier. you can now walk up to a fence and press jump , you will scale the fence.[/QUOTE}
For aiming; buy a mouse. It makes it so easier.

Tusky wrote:

-Instead of "100 health" you have a red health bar,Also theres a fairly wide variety of foods to buy!

Seemingly, without exercise, your character can become overwight. This mean he or she can't run as well from the cops, gangsters, etc, before running out of breath/stamina.

Tusky wrote:

-The map is much better.Areas you havent been are shaded grey and you can zoom in and out. I havent been in the countryside but from the map it looks like there is **** loads of it!

I wonder is there any animals you can run over. Also, is there any farm viechles. Imagine; mowing people over with a combine harvester [spelling?].

=-=

All in all, I can't wait till the game comes out on the PC Its gonna be so so sweet :cool:

LegacyUser

Im buying it on ps2 and will get it on pc when it comes out too...do you think i will be bored of it when it comes out for pc? I mean, I played vice city to death on ps2 and then was bored of it by time it came out on pc mainly because i didnt notice any difference graphically and the fact i found vice city tiny.

Tusky

the_syco wrote:

Damn. I hope there's some mental hard missions, tho.


Well, hope its bigger on the PC.


Excellent. This sounds like fun. Usually I have to run down @ least 2 coppers, grenade the car, before they even notice me. Me loves being chased by the pigs :cool:


Not bothered. I'll just do the usual putting-of-MP3-shortcuts into the MP3 folder. There's nothing better than listening to Exodus when killing the bystanders.


Seemingly, without exercise, your character can become overwight. This mean he or she can't run as well from the cops, gangsters, etc, before running out of breath/stamina.


I wonder is there any animals you can run over. Also, is there any farm viechles. Imagine; mowing people over with a combine harvester [spelling?].

=-=

All in all, I can't wait till the game comes out on the PC Its gonna be so so sweet :cool:

Yea you do get fat if you eat too much and dont exercise/work out. There are farm vehicles but I aint come across any yet.

- The damage on vehicles has been done up with different kinds of damage ETC

-The A.I of drivers and cops is alot better, cops dont seem to come out of nowhere as much.

-Terrible terrible pop up. As bad if not worse than Vice City. People pop up almost right in front of you as you drive along...I dont really care though because the rest is soooo good.

L5

Tusky wrote:

-Terrible terrible pop up. As bad if not worse than Vice City. People pop up almost right in front of you as you drive along...I dont really care though because the rest is soooo good.

with graphics this bad, i think its a joke that this game got a 9.9 from IGN, and a 9.6 from gamespot. It should automatically lower the score to at least 9.0

tman

L5 wrote:

with graphics this bad, i think its a joke that this game got a 9.9 from IGN, and a 9.6 from gamespot. It should automatically lower the score to at least 9.0

why?

Tusky

L5 wrote:

with graphics this bad, i think its a joke that this game got a 9.9 from IGN, and a 9.6 from gamespot. It should automatically lower the score to at least 9.0

why ? with the ammount happening on screen I dont think it would be possible to reduce the pop up...

L5

Tusky wrote:

why ? with the ammount happening on screen I dont think it would be possible to reduce the pop up...

games like gt4 dont seem to have that problem

L5

tman wrote:

why?

because its a weakness of the game

Retr0gamer

I wonder is there any animals you can run over. Also, is there any farm viechles. Imagine; mowing people over with a combine harvester

IGN says there is a combine harvester

with graphics this bad, i think its a joke that this game got a 9.9 from IGN, and a 9.6 from gamespot. It should automatically lower the score to at least 9.0

For me graphics don't count as long as they are functional. If the game is great fun then it doesn't matter if it looks crap. Classic examples are mario 64 and Doom. They look dire now but are still ridiculously good fun.

Tusky

L5 wrote:

games like gt4 dont seem to have that problem

GT4 has been in delelopement alot longer , also there is more happening onscreen in GTA. Cars,pedestrians,buildings,gunfire,explosions! Also there is alot less slow down this time.

ExoduS 18.11

Cremo wrote:

wait for pc, better controls and such

whens it coming out on pc?

Kiith

august 2005

tman

last i heard it was due for may/june on the pc...

Brock

there right the graphics are alot worse than vice the gameplay itself has alot more variety on first impressions the game is alot like vice city for bout 10 mins then its all about the homies with having to do all kinds of diffent **** overall already i can see this been a corker but i aint gonna spoil u all with the details
Brock

honru

L5 wrote:

with graphics this bad, i think its a joke that this game got a 9.9 from IGN, and a 9.6 from gamespot. It should automatically lower the score to at least 9.0

Gamespot gave the graphics an 8, which I would consider fair if Vice City is anything to go by.

9.9 though? I dunno, haven't played the game.

Stephen

Have Fernando or Lazlow made reappearances on the radio stations?

Brock

aint sure i mainly listen to radio x with guns n roses and stuff i dont like hip hop

Tusky

Theres loads of stations with no hip hop! some of the radio ads are hilarious ! Im hearing loads of songs that I know but didnt recognise when I looked at the song list.

bush

In fairness i think the graphics are better than vice city, i noticed a lot more pop up on vice city. You cant really judge how bad the pop up is on a back up version anyway cos theres not as much when your playing it on an original disc

bush

The german dude on the dance stations is the best dj of all games. Hes hilarious

[CrimsonGhost]

L5 wrote:

with graphics this bad, i think its a joke that this game got a 9.9 from IGN, and a 9.6 from gamespot. It should automatically lower the score to at least 9.0

TROLL, you dont play games cause they look nice. You play them for the experience, and that is what GTA:SA is all about.

Swifty

Sounds cool. I'm not too bothered about the below average graphics they didn't bother me in the other two. I hear there's some great random quotes off people on the street. Read on some forum that a guy just shouted "Steroids make your dick do WHAT?!" out of nowhere when he approached him.. sounds hilarious

I'm looking forward aswell to seeing myself zip away from gangbangers on my trusty BMX! Hopefully I'll have a copy Friday.

ObeyGiant

Retr0gamer wrote:

For me graphics don't count as long as they are functional. If the game is great fun then it doesn't matter if it looks crap. Classic examples are mario 64 and Doom. They look dire now but are still ridiculously good fun.

To be fair, L5 isn't just saying that the graphics "look bad" or "look antiquated", he's addressing Tusky's reports of ridiculously bad popups - a significant flaw in the game.

And regardless of the people who are calling L5 a troll, he's got a fair point. If the graphics (or rather, the graphics engine) is this flawed, how on earth is it receiving such earth-shattering scores? 9.9 is near-flawless. Unless the only .1 point you're deducting is for awful popup, then something's definitely rotten in the state of Denmark.

bush

If you read the review you will know why he gave it 9.9

ObeyGiant

bush wrote:

If you read the review you will know why he gave it 9.9

Oh, I did. I read the second paragraph where he listed a number of flaws in the game, but dismissed them because they "didn't matter". Now I can understand his attitude here; I've made more than my fair share of concessions for game flaws, trying to convince people to buy Ico in spite of its brevity (I finished it in 5 hours), but this is completely different. If someone asked me to 'score' Ico, I'd have to take this into account, realising that this would turn people away from the game, or worse, disappoint them. With a score of 9.9/10, the IGN reviewer is basically saying the game is near-flawless, in spite of listing many glaring technical flaws.

Which means his entire review is suspect.

cregser

agreed

steviec

ObeyGiant wrote:

Oh, I did. I read the second paragraph where he listed a number of flaws in the game, but dismissed them because they "didn't matter". Now I can understand his attitude here; I've made more than my fair share of concessions for game flaws, trying to convince people to buy Ico in spite of its brevity (I finished it in 5 hours), but this is completely different. If someone asked me to 'score' Ico, I'd have to take this into account, realising that this would turn people away from the game, or worse, disappoint them. With a score of 9.9/10, the IGN reviewer is basically saying the game is near-flawless, in spite of listing many glaring technical flaws.

Which means his entire review is suspect.

But he made the point that the game is so good that none of that matters. Being only 5 hours long is a big flaw for a game to have(I havent played Ico so cant say anything else), if San Andreas finished after five hours it would get a very different score. If the game lasts dozens of hours and is fun all the way through, aswell as full of variety, then why shouldn't it get a top score?
That's like a movie reviewer scoring Lord of the Rings lowly because of that scene where a car drives by in the background.

ObeyGiant

That's like a movie reviewer scoring Lord of the Rings lowly because of that scene where a car drives by in the background.

It's not really. It's along the same sort of lines, but it's not.
The difference here is that the car, in the background, is so small and barely-noticable and out of the way of all the action that most people (myself included) didn't notice it. However, the popup, the dodgy AI, the erratic collision detection... all these are very much in your face during the gameplay and can occasionally (only occasionally, mind you) ruin your experience. Not only this, but they're long-standing complaints that still haven't been addressed, which makes them even more annoying.

Please, please, don't get me wrong about all of this. I'm not begrudging GTA:SA, nor am I trying to say that isn't going to be the best game I'll probably ever play on PS2. I'm merely concerned about the lack of objectivity going into these reviews. For example, let's see what kind of backlash comes out of Edge's alleged 10/10 score for Half-Life 2.

Hell, I even just started out trying to prove that L5 had a legitimate point and shouldn't just be dismissed as "trolling".

Swifty

In most cases you really should just ignore scores and judge from the actual words what the game is like yourself. They're a nice way to sum up vaguely how good the game is but that's all. The reviewer just gave the game 9.9 because he got great enjoyment out of the game. 9.9 is a little over the top because a game never IS that perfect but you should just take that score as a general idea of how much enjoyment that reviewer thinks you will get from the experience.

But anyway, currently creaming my pants at the prospect of owning this game tomorrow

DRakE

One mother****er in my class already has SA, and its not out til tomorrow.. basterd works in xtravision

EVEN THE MANUAL LOOKS ELITE.

Gonna try and hit up gamestop for a copy this evening, getting my ps2 today too! xD

balkieb2002

Starting playing the missions then, got kinda sidetracked after a while, mainly when i went for a drive but ended up half-way across the map (i was looking for a tractor (which i eventually found)) but realised it would take about 10 minutes to get back to the home save point.

just couple of questions though (for people with game):

How long before you get to leave los santos as in how many missions?**

how do ya get the breakins to work? or does it only work after certain point in game?

also did anyone go into the toilets in the los santos police station HQ? theres an "interesting weapon" in there....

Things i noticed about the game:

theres more interaction as tusky said even with the prostitutes

Four star police are almost impossible to lose but those police jeeps are cool and make welcome addition.

The new punching moves make a lot of difference when your're fighting but if ure using the lock-on to a civilian to punch him, its hard to lock onto the right person.

The one shot explosion on the cars are cool but fairly hard to do as cars seem to pick ure sum speed out in the country but are possible in the city.

**

i'm just after completing the lowriding jumping contest so just trying to figure out is there many mission left in los santos

Stormfox1020

There a **** load of missions in Los Santos over 25 anyway. Missions are savage, had a 'lil trouble with the lower rider contest though but now its sorted. . Sometimes you get distracted from the main missions and in awe just wonder around the city wondering how the hell the PS2 can keep up with the game.

LegacyUser

Brock wrote:

there right the graphics are alot worse than vice the gameplay itself has alot more variety on first impressions the game is alot like vice city for bout 10 mins then its all about the homies with having to do all kinds of diffent **** overall already i can see this been a corker but i aint gonna spoil u all with the details
Brock

Don't listen to Brock. He doesn't know what he is talking about.

I really hope the graphics are slightly better than vice city then again, it is just a ****ing ps2. Can't wait for pc version. I really hope I am not bored of this game by the time it comes out for pc like I was with Vice City.

LegacyUser

Brock wrote:

aint sure i mainly listen to radio x with guns n roses and stuff i dont like hip hop

PS: brock loves hip hop like a fat kids loves cake...or paris hilton loves cock.

chillywilly

no!stop telling me all of this!SPOILERS!!!!!!!!AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tusky

ObeyGiant wrote:

It's not really. It's along the same sort of lines, but it's not.
The difference here is that the car, in the background, is so small and barely-noticable and out of the way of all the action that most people (myself included) didn't notice it. However, the popup, the dodgy AI, the erratic collision detection... all these are very much in your face during the gameplay and can occasionally (only occasionally, mind you) ruin your experience. Not only this, but they're long-standing complaints that still haven't been addressed, which makes them even more annoying.

Please, please, don't get me wrong about all of this. I'm not begrudging GTA:SA, nor am I trying to say that isn't going to be the best game I'll probably ever play on PS2. I'm merely concerned about the lack of objectivity going into these reviews. For example, let's see what kind of backlash comes out of Edge's alleged 10/10 score for Half-Life 2.

Hell, I even just started out trying to prove that L5 had a legitimate point and shouldn't just be dismissed as "trolling".

Well the pop-up is quite bad....but overall I would give the game 10/10 withotu a doubt.

Tusky

balkieb2002 wrote:

Starting playing the missions then, got kinda sidetracked after a while, mainly when i went for a drive but ended up half-way across the map (i was looking for a tractor (which i eventually found)) but realised it would take about 10 minutes to get back to the home save point.

just couple of questions though (for people with game):

How long before you get to leave los santos as in how many missions?**

how do ya get the breakins to work? or does it only work after certain point in game?

also did anyone go into the toilets in the los santos police station HQ? theres an "interesting weapon" in there....

Things i noticed about the game:

theres more interaction as tusky said even with the prostitutes

Four star police are almost impossible to lose but those police jeeps are cool and make welcome addition.

The new punching moves make a lot of difference when your're fighting but if ure using the lock-on to a civilian to punch him, its hard to lock onto the right person.

The one shot explosion on the cars are cool but fairly hard to do as cars seem to pick ure sum speed out in the country but are possible in the city.

**

i'm just after completing the lowriding jumping contest so just trying to figure out is there many mission left in los santos

I finished that mission ages ago and Im still in Las Santos. I didnt know about the weapon in the toilets , I'll check it out !!! Have you been up to Vinewood and the countryside ? or on the freestate motorway thingy...also the Massive junctions are amazing !

GoneShootin

TheGreatOne

Ok, posted this in other thread but no1's answering my call.
How much is it gonna cost me in Game with a rewards card, any discount?

Cactus Col

no discount for card holders it seems

but this has the best soundtrack to a game ever ... FAITH NO MORE!! G'N'R!! RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE!!! SOUNDGARDEN!!! and that's just one station!