(Originally published to Glitchwave on 11/30/2023)
[Image from glitchwave.com]
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Developer: Rockstar North
Publisher: Rockstar
Genre(s): Open-World
Platforms: PS2, Xbox, PC
Release Date: October 24, 2004
A gangster’s livelihood is neither fun nor glamorous, or at least that’s what I’ve come to understand. The gangster genre of fiction in film and literature gave us a glimpse of the seedy underbelly of society to elicit a great vicarious thrill for all of the good-natured, god-fearing common folk. The highs of gangster life verge on euphoria, but every piece of mob media assures their audience that the repercussions of this lifestyle can be cataclysmic in more ways than one. While the allure of the criminal life is strong, one can still ignore the enticing criminal riches and intimidating swagger that come with it, unless you’re The Sopranos who argues that a mafioso lifestyle is a damning, dominant genetic trait for certain ethnicities. Also, all of this pertains to organized crime. A facet of the gangster world that is just as ever-present as Italian guys in their pinstripe suits and loafers carrying Tommy guns around are the street gangs predominantly run by African-Americans in impoverished urban areas, a harrowing result of the American government’s war on drugs and racial systemic oppression. Unlike the mafia, the excess and glamor of street gang life are far less extravagant, but the ramifications are no less disastrous. Still, the conditions of the streets where gang violence occurs are so bereft of any legitimate economic prosperity that it seems like flirting with danger is the only way to make a living. The vicious cycle of drug-inflicted murder in America’s ghettos among young black men was the subject of John Singleton’s 1991 film, “Boyz n the Hood,” and its breakout success gave the rest of the world insight into the Afro-centric state of depression. Despite how sincere Singleton was with his film, several insubstantial imitators came out of the woodwork like Menace II Society and Juice, along with an influx of “gangsta rap” music emerging from Los Angeles which expanded to other parts of the country as the decade progressed. Like its GTA predecessor Vice City, San Andreas is a time capsule that intentionally oozes the motifs and atmosphere of the raw and grimy scene of urban decay when it was ubiquitous in mainstream culture. I’m actually surprised that it took until the franchise's fifth entry for Rockstar to revel in its thematic potential. While San Andreas is intended to be manic fun like any GTA game before it, the game offers enough tact and subtle substance in its narrative to prevent the act of making mayhem in its culturally sensitive setting seem tasteless.
Enter Carl Johnson (aka CJ), a young, twenty-something black man who is seen returning to his hometown of Los Santos after a five-year stint in Liberty City. He absconded from his birthplace because his younger brother Brian became another statistic of gang violence, and he returned to Los Santos under the unfortunate circumstance that his own mother had also fallen as a result of their environment. Before he arrives at his old stomping grounds, he is intercepted by two C.R.A.S.H officers named Tenpenny and Pulaski. They blackmail CJ by threatening to pin the murder of fellow officer Pendelbury, who was actually killed by the two when he attempted to call public attention to their prevalent corruption within the force, on him unless he becomes their indentured servant. Carl reconnects with his brother “Sweet,” his sister Kendl, and a plethora of other familiar faces upon his arrival. He’s been away for so long that his old homie “Big Smoke” rashly tries to bash his face in with a baseball bat, confusing him for a common thief upon not being able to recognize him. Now that the gang's back together, Sweet orchestrates a revenge mission against the rival “Ballas” gang in purple on the speculation that they’re responsible for his mother’s murder, and CJ is the muscle of the operation. Rockstar has decided to continue their streak of setting the scene with the protagonist returning to the streets after a long hiatus to draw parallels between the player’s unfamiliarity and the protagonist’s refamiliarization. The only difference now is that CJ isn’t returning after any time behind bars, mussing up the traditional introduction a bit. Still, the opening sequence of San Andreas splendidly establishes the tone of the setting along with the characters that reside in it, mostly through natural character interactions as opposed to overt exposition.
Judging from how his return is received, CJ gets even less respect than Rodney Dangerfield. His long absence from the dilapidated cradle of civilization he was born into has made him detached from the rough and rowdy gung-ho attitude that all ghetto denizens live by to survive. Or, at least that’s a concern that his brother Sweet and other various acquaintances vocally express regularly. His neighbor and fellow gangbanger Ryder, especially, keeps calling CJ a “straight busta,” which I can infer from context clues means that he’s calling CJ a “lameoid” or a “poser.” All of his family members consistently give CJ a hard time, but Ryder has the gall to disrespect CJ right to his face. I am appalled at the audacity of CJ’s friends and relatives for treating this man with such blatant contempt because he’s a glowing instance of the continual evolution of Grand Theft Auto protagonists. San Andreas is far more character-driven than any of the previous 3D GTA games. CJ, our newest mischief maker in the realm of chaos that is the GTA world, supersedes the stigma of a simplistic avatar character that Claude had unfortunately established for any future GTA successors. Tommy was a stark improvement on Claude with a voice and a clearer background but let’s be frank, his brightly colored Hawaiian shirt carried his character’s charisma. CJ is as animated as a Tex Avery cartoon. He’s confident to the point of being arrogant, he isn’t afraid to shout at those who provoke his ill temper, and he’s quite diligent when it comes to enacting all of his destructive, illegal deeds. Still, he shows compassion and respect to those that he is loyal to, namely his older brother Sweet who gets himself trapped in many perilous pinches as an executive gangbanger, and CJ must provide his aid to protect him. GTA’s protagonists have been upgraded from emotionless psychopaths to a wavering, complex sociopath. Hey, it’s still Grand Theft Auto at the end of the day. Don’t expect CJ to be Levar Burton from Reading Rainbow. Most of all, CJ is uproariously funny. Because he’s brash as can be, he combats all social interactions with hilariously candid and loud retorts. The characters that I enjoyed from the previous two GTA games were the secondary characters seen through sparse interactions via cutscenes, but San Andreas marks the first instance where the protagonist is a strong contender for my favorite character in the game.
But the ostentatious CJ isn’t simply caterwauling at blank NPCs just because he enjoys the booming sound of his own voice. San Andreas’ greater emphasis on character relationships and interactions is a two-way street between CJ and those that he is close to. I’ve briefly stated that CJ’s loved ones and acquaintances give him heaps of grief, but the amounts of spurning vary in loads and stem from different perspectives. Sweet, CJ’s older brother, is fiercely dedicated to the feuding struggle between his hood and the rival Ballas gang around the perimeter. If the conflict between the Families and the Ballas were comparable to war, Sweet would be General MacArthur, patrolling the streets with a towering sense of pride as a de facto five-star ranked warrior. You can imagine why he’d be disappointed in his brother for abandoning the cause for half a decade. Meanwhile, CJ’s sister Kendl, expresses a disgusted resentment for all the senseless violence that her brothers are aggrandizing. She’s so deliberately detached from the Grove Street insularity imposed upon her that she’s dating Cesar, the leader of the Los Aztecas Hispanic gang, much to Sweet’s chagrin. The close allies around the block that support Sweet’s cause are OG homies Ryder and Big Smoke, the lieutenants that directly assist Sweet with missions of defending the reputation of the Families. Ryder is an amoral degenerate who brandishes his angel dust cigarettes as casually as if he were smoking tobacco. Gang activity seems to be a perfect outlet for this unfeeling soldier of death and destruction. Big Smoke, on the other hand, is more akin to a comic relief character. Whether it be his artery-clogging order at the Cluckin’ Bell drive-thru or his incoherent musings on life, Big Smoke is quite lighthearted for a man who regularly murders people. It must be a law for all rotund supporting characters across all fiction to be somewhat jovial. Non-affiliated characters from around the block include aspiring rapper Jeffrey “OG Loc'' Cross, the celebrated MC whose fame OG Loc covets named Madd Dogg, drug dealer B Dup, and his drug monkey Big Bear. While these supporting characters exist on the outskirts of Grove Street affairs, their existences are still influenced by the same destitute state of urban life. Up until now, GTA’s approach to character interactions was becoming acquainted with strangers, and the overarching goal of the protagonist’s relationship was still constricted by business. When every supporting character already has a history with CJ and some are composed of his family and friends, their personal chemistry heightens the dramatism of both conflict and moments of mirthfulness.
San Andreas extends the enhanced dynamic between the protagonist and the other characters with the game’s main antagonist(s). The opposing force that is making CJ’s life more of a living hell is LSPD officer Tenpenny and his crony Pulaski. One strong facet of hood-related media is the presence of a corrupt police force that puts the already underprivileged members of society under further subjugation. The constant slaps in the face the boys in blue inflict on individuals of the impoverished African-American community especially sting when they are from people of the same skin color who are perceived as traitors to their own kind, as portrayed with Officer Coffey in Boyz n’ the Hood. Not only does Tenpenny not share any kinship with those he undermines, but he treats them as pawns in a game he manufactured by abusing his power as an officer. He’s sitting pretty as the king of the streets, and he’d go to horribly despicable lengths to maintain his tyrannical reign. Pulaski is like Tenpenny’s attack dog lackey, enforcing Tenpenny’s demands with bellicose strong-arming. I’d say he represents the bad cop delivery to Tenpenny’s good, but they’re both rotten to the core. A major strength of Tenpenny as a villain is his confident control over CJ. One might question how Tenpenny could simply snatch CJ off the streets and make him indebted to serving them when their blackmail against him is baseless, but it’s terrifying to realize that this is the extent of influence he has over everyone that falls under his jurisdiction. Unlike the distant main antagonists of the previous GTA games, Tenpenny is an omniscient force of evil who appears periodically to rub CJ’s face in shit and remind him that he’s his bitch.
If CJ isn’t going to receive the respect that he so duly deserves, the player can assure that he eventually will, gosh darn it. How can the player prevent future acts of harsh criticism, insults, and other forms of impoliteness from being dogpiled onto CJ from all angles? The amount of respect stemming from the general perception of others is actually something that can be improved on, the top of the increasable statistics in the quasi-RPG mechanic that San Andreas introduces to the series. Given that San Andreas is relatively grounded in reality, albeit a warped one, and is set in 1992 and not 1092 (AD), the RPG attributes displayed here are all domestic. By pulling up a side menu, the player will see five gray bars that coincide with either a physical or personable attribute. These attributes range from subjective, intangible concepts like respect and sex appeal to the measurable fat, physical stamina, and muscle content of CJ’s body. Throughout the game, the player will be either actively or inadvertently increasing these stats, with a variation of pacing and methods to maximize them. CJ can visit the nearby gym to lift weights and become shredded immediately, provided he’s harboring enough fat to burn so his hard work doesn’t atrophy away (always remember to visit your local Cluckin’ Bell to refuel!). Other attributes such as respect are boosted in microscopic increments by completing missions or gaining gang territory. Don’t be discouraged by how disastrously low CJ’s sex appeal is and the immovability of its pitiful status for the vast duration of the game. Eventually, expensive clothes and driving around in a bodacious automobile will shift CJ into an irresistible, suave casanova this side of Shaft. Additional to the five featured in the menu are also a plethora of alternate stats. Excess shooting with any type of firearm will increase their caliber and spread, and driving around the map in between missions will ensure that CJ will gain a tighter grip on swerving around, thus preventing unfortunate accidents. The RPG elements are an oddly genius way to enhance the player’s engagement with the protagonist. A recurring theme in the GTA series is climbing up the social and economic ladder to glorious prosperity, and incorporating RPG character attributes alongside the protagonist’s narrative growth is a finely complimentary gameplay mechanic. The player will notice the shift in how CJ is perceived by the NPCs based on the stats at hand, even in a negative light if CJ eats too much and plumps up like a Christmas ham. Truthfully, I wish Rockstar had introduced something of this nature in GTA III. Claude was a vacant blueprint similar to a base character from an RPG, making him an ideal contender for role-playing customizability. Still, this staircase thought evidently works just as effectively for a personable character like CJ.
The RPG mechanics are just one of many ways to immerse the player in the world of San Andreas. An argument could be made that a game in which the player is free to cause cathartic amounts of chaos to their heart's content doesn’t need additional perks to enhance the experience. Nevertheless, San Andreas incorporates a plethora of new activities to spruce up the sandbox. Firstly, why is sex appeal a relevant factor in a game revolving around gang violence? Certainly, CJ isn’t trying to bed any of the homies. CJ needs to exude the manner of a debonair gentleman to impress the ladies he can take on dates. After saving a fellow Ganton girl Denise from a burning building during a mission tasked by Tenpenny (that CJ burned down in the first palace, mind you), the expression of her gratitude towards CJ is to become his girlfriend. But Denise isn’t merely a status symbol so CJ can brag about getting a little action on the side to Big Smoke. CJ has the option to occasionally court her whenever she can fit into his demanding schedule. CJ can show Denise a good time by entertaining plenty of the fun new features the game offers, including a rhythm-oriented minigame on the dance floor where CJ can flaunt his sweet dance moves. If Denise is satisfied with CJ’s efforts to woo her, she’ll return the favor by offering him “coffee,” leading to a cutscene depicting an outside view of her house with screams of pleasure echoing overhead. If you’re of the appropriate age demographic to play a Grand Theft Auto game, I shouldn’t have to spell out what is happening behind these closed doors. If CJ goes on enough dates to the point where their relationship is super serious, maximizing their relationship status will earn CJ the reward of a pimp suit. While CJ should be grateful, other girlfriends can give him the privilege of retaining all of his weapons and body armor after being wasted or busted by the cops, a GTA player’s dream finally come true. Normally, I wouldn’t condone adultery but here, I recommend discretion to reap all of the benefits. Another extracurricular activity that coincides with another of CJ’s stats is conquering the rival gangs that pollute the streets of Los Santos with drugs and whizzing bullets that are as precipitous as rain. Outside of the missions, CJ has to approach and kill three Ballas or Vagos members standing in districts with their respective gang colors on the map. This act of aggression will trigger a gang war where hordes of them will ambush CJ in three waves. Once they surrender, the territory will be CJ’s for the taking, painting Los Santos green like a St. Patrick’s Day parade. If acting as a one-man army in the line of fire sounds scary, CJ can recruit a posse of generic Family members to help wipe the Ballas off the map. Other activities verge more on leisure such as billiards, basketball, casino games, arcade games, etc. I’d even count the new ability to ride a bicycle as a merry little lark. Admittedly, none of these activities are as thrilling as blowing off the heads of pedestrians, but the fact that CJ can still engage in these mundane minigames helps the world of San Andreas mirror reality a tad clearer.
For more serious engagements with San Andreas, the game offers as many quality-of-life enhancements as it does frivolous distractions. I’ve bleated on and on about how shooting combat in the past GTA games is an awkward, imprecise process that involves more tension than necessary. To expand upon the life-saving targeting system, the player now has a reference to the amount of health an enemy has with a declining color-coded indication. CJ can also shuffle between arrays of enemies with the back trigger buttons to mow down multiple enemies with quicker efficiency. CJ can also execute a dodge roll and aim at the gas tank of a car to immediately blow it to smithereens in a fiery inferno. However, the location of this spot on any car is as elusively nanoscopic as the clitoris, so any occurrence in setting off this makeshift bomb was a stroke of dumb luck. I would execute a total face turn on GTA’s combat system if CJ could duck and cover behind walls and scaffoldings instead of merely crouching, but at least San Andreas marks the first GTA game in which encountering a gang of enemies firing at me from all angles didn’t make me feel like a sitting duck, causing me to take passive precautions to survive. CJ is also thankfully the first GTA protagonist who can swim and no, I’m not pointing out the irony of this milestone. How the developers didn't consider that the first GTA character who should've been granted this useful ability was Tommy, who resides in a city surfaced below sea level, is befuddling, but this other staircase thought comes much appreciated nevertheless because CJ is still in close proximity to the Pacific coast. One slight regression to the GTA gameplay is that CJ’s health and body armor are displayed with bars instead of percentages. I prefer having a pinpoint accurate reference to the state of my character’s being so I have a better understanding of how to approach dangerous situations. Still, complaining about this slight change is but a nitpick. Overall, the greater accessibility with performing the combat and CJ’s apt mobility make for the most capable I’ve felt in a GTA game so far.
Because CJ seems to have a higher battle acuity, progressing through San Andreas’ story through the missions is a smoother excursion. I’d need an extra pair of hands to count how many times I failed most of the individual missions in both GTA III and Vice City, but I copped a clear victory on my first try for every other mission in San Andreas. Tis’ a blessing that CJ is such a talented killing machine, for the total number of story missions in San Andreas exceeds double digits. Objectives in San Andreas tend to revolve around the GTA standard of mass murder and driving with frequent deviations to keep things interesting. One frequent element that pops up from time to time is the necessity for stealth. Missions where CJ channels his inner Solid Snake that come to mind are stealing a war veteran’s weapon crates as he sleeps in “Home Invasion” and “Madd Dogg’s Rhymes” where CJ must ransack Madd Dogg’s mansion using only a knife to dispatch his roaming guards, boosting the potential rap career of his corny and untalented hood acquaintance OG Loc. Still, San Andreas’s difficulty curve compensates for its lack of rigidity by stacking individual missions with multiple objectives or expanding the scope of one objective to epic proportions. “Reuniting the Families” sees CJ rolling through the halls of a hotel defending his homies from a SWAT team ambush that intercepted their plans. Then after wall-to-wall SWAT officers fire at CJ in enclosed spaces, CJ has to shoot down a police chopper on the roof and then blaze through dozens of police cars pursuing him while he makes a getaway with Sweet, Big Smoke, and Ryder. “Wrong Side of the Tracks” involves CJ and Big Smoke biking all the way past the Hollywood Hills following a train with four Vagos members trying to escape. This mission is infamous for not only its length but Big Smoke’s wonky upward shooting that the player has to rely on the unstable accuracy of to succeed. On a positive note, Big Smoke’s AI is far tighter here than in any instance of cooperative missions with an NPC in the previous games. If it were, say, Lance Vance on the back of that motorbike, the mission would turn from disagreeable to impossible. While scraping through some objectives by the skin of my teeth just to have another to contend with before completing a mission made my brow sweat like I was under interrogation, I appreciate the constant stream of climactic missions that San Andreas offers. Every mission in the game is all killer with maybe the occasional filler. There definitely aren’t any missions where CJ has to race to four phone booths or sit and wait to spend over $300 at a strip club, that’s for sure.
For as grandiose as the missions in Los Santos are, the surprising thing is that they aren’t even situated at the halfway point of the game. If the player opens the map in the pause menu, they might question why 75% of the map is obscured in an unopened blue and perhaps realize that the unexplored areas are not situated in the Los Santos zip code. The state of San Andreas encompasses lands that greatly extend past the parameters of CJ’s home city, which should be an exciting prospect for those who salivate at the soaring breadth of a game’s map facilitated by the open-world genre. As wondrous as exploring beyond the reaches of CJ’s hood of Los Santos is, the starting point of CJ’s San Andreas odyssey couldn’t have been started under less felicitous circumstances. Before CJ meets up with Sweet to dispatch a high-ranking unit of Ballas, Cesar calls him to show him something urgent. CJ is shocked beyond belief to find out that both Ryder and Big Smoke are working for Tenpenny in his syndicate to sell out the Families alongside the Ballas, the same syndicate that coordinated the drive-by that killed CJ’s mom. In his attempt to reach Sweet and save him from the trap Tenpenny has set up, everyone is taken into custody by a fleet of police helicopters. Instead of sharing a cell in prison with Sweet, CJ is bagged and driven to the southwest wilderness of Whetstone by Tenpenny, who threatens to harm Sweet if CJ returns to Los Santos. The “Green Sabre” mission that unfolds the game’s most crucial turning point in the plot has a devastating outcome. CJ’s world is completely shaken and disturbed in a state of irrevocable disrepair. All CJ can do now is reshape his life in his new environment and even though things seem awfully grim, CJ’s relocation has given him a golden opportunity. CJ’s story as a Grand Theft Auto protagonist isn’t only defined by financial growth, but a personal one through broadening his horizons past the deficient confines of his unfortunate birthplace.
Alas, CJ’s journey of self-discovery must begin below his former status as a Grove Street gangbanger. In order to hoist himself up by his bootstraps, CJ has to contend with surroundings outside of his comfort zone. I can’t think of a starker fish-out-of-water scenario for this black city slicker than residing in the podunk wooded area up north, where his racial background makes him stick out like a sore thumb among the unsophisticated white farmer folk, who drive tractors and only use their guns to shoot wild animals. CJ is proverbially naked and afraid in what is the antithesis of his normal setting, so he feels inclined to find anyone out here who is affiliated with his riotous way of life for comforting familiarity. Unfortunately, Cesar recommends somebody whose criminal tempo runs faster than even CJ’s. Cesar’s cousin who he hooks CJ up with is none other than Catalina from GTA II, yet another instance of Rockstar revitalizing a character from a previous game and seeing them at a different point in the series canon timeline. CJ and Catalina form a Bonnie and Clyde bond with one another where the two rob every bank and place of business in the rural vicinity, with the striking difference of the Bonnie character in this dynamic calling all the shots with Clyde scared shitless of her. We can infer from her role as GTA III’s main antagonist that Catalina is a deplorable person, but the amplified narrative and character interactions seen in San Andreas allow us to see the full extent of her loathsome personality. Catalina isn’t a firecracker: she’s an entire fireworks show firing off all at once and crippling all those in the blast radius. She’s an inexhaustible beacon of rage and rancor whose source of scorn is self-generated. She makes bunny boiler Alex Forrest look like Mother Teresa. She’s also the reason why the mute button was invented, for she nags and disparages CJ every five seconds they are together. This section is perceived as the weakest in the game, but I appreciate how it depicts how dire CJ’s life is here with Time Magazine’s contender for craziest bitch of the century, giving greater impact to his downfall in Los Santos.
Once Catalina leaves CJ for Clyde, who still doesn’t utter a single word, it’s time to head on up north in the 1967 Volkswagen Camper van belonging to aging hippie “The Truth” to the American free love mecca of San Fierro. This fictional depiction of San Francisco, while sharing the urban architecture of Los Santos as opposed to the wild woods of Angel Pine and the surrounding areas, is essentially just as alien to CJ. The steep, slanted streets of this fellow San Andreas metro are not covered from head to toe with loitering gangbangers ready to aim their AKs at CJ once he crosses their peripheral lines of sight. The friendlier atmosphere of the baked bay area sounds lovely, but CJ is still flying solo. Because the exposure that comes with lacking support is discomforting, the facet of CJ’s journey of personal growth explored in San Fierro is fraternizing with people who aren’t of the same skin color and don’t share the same upbringing. Specifically, gathering a whole new gang of people to take down the Loco Syndicate, the drug distributors who supply Big Smoke with his biweekly load of crack cocaine, his incentive for selling out CJ and Sweet out to Tenpenny. To put a hurtin’ on CJ’s former friends, CJ establishes connections with all walks of life in San Fierro. Wu Zi Mu, aka Woozie, is the blind leader of a faction of San Fierro triads who employs Carl in the interest of using him to combat the rival Vietnamese Da Nang gang. For having a leadership position in a crime organization, Woozie is calm, level-headed, and extremely polite. However, the mere mention of the Da Nang does tend to rile him up a bit. Zero is the owner of an RC shop in San Fierro, and seeing him and CJ interacting with each other during the cutscenes is as unnatural as the sun and moon sharing the same sky simultaneously. CJ has found his polar opposite in every way imaginable. To gain Zero’s valuable electronics expertise, CJ must vanquish his intellectual rival Berkley, who is constantly giving Zero grief with his weaponized RC equipment. Next to Catalina, this pasty, timid dork tends to draw the most ire out of gamers. Gaining his shop as an asset only requires the completion of three missions, but they are definitely the most bizarre and demanding missions that San Andreas has to offer. “Supply Lines…” is even a prominent contender for the hardest mission in the entire franchise. If I were CJ, I’d just hire somebody working at Radio Shack and leave this pathetic nerd hanging by his underwear where he belongs. CJ also finds himself in close quarters with his Loco Syndicate enemies as a tactical maneuver, which includes the brazen, purple Jizzy the Pimp and the prickly T-Bone Mendez. At first glance, circling the map to the various mission markers to conduct business with these strangers mirrors the impersonal interactions found in GTA III. On the contrary, CJ forms a genuine camaraderie with the people he meets in San Fierro, playing video games with Woozie in between hunting down the Da Nang and cracking jokes about the absurdity of Zero’s predicament with Berkeley. Cesar, the man whom CJ previously judged because of his ethnic background, starts to form a deeply compassionate bond with him as they work on building their San Fierro garage. In an ironic twist of fate, Cesar, a man from across the tracks in the no-man's land of Los Santos, shows CJ more loyalty and respect than anyone who runs with the same colors.
After dismantling the syndicate’s drug operation and getting revenge on that mark-ass trick Ryder, CJ ventures across the Golden Gate bridge beyond the coastline to the scorched wasteland of the desert, along with the sin city parallel of Los Venturas to traverse. In the gambling capital of the USA, the overarching conflict is Woozie’s casino business venture being eroded away by the competing one controlled by the Italian mafia. To halt the suckling straw of greed and ensure the success of Woozie’s new livelihood, CJ and his pals from San Fierro methodically conjure up the scheme for an elaborate heist mission in the rival Caligula’s Casino. A balder, yet no less stressed out Ken Rosenberg and a neutered Kent Paul also return six years after the events of Vice City to join the ranks of CJ’s new friends. The heist mission “Breaking the Bank at Caligula’s” is the climactic finale that closes this chapter of San Andreas but up until then, CJ isn’t twiddling his thumbs in the planning room waiting for further instructions. What this section of San Andreas showcases for CJ’s journey is the grander scope of what he is capable of. Acting as the tail gunner in a police car chase as wild and adrenaline-pumping as that of To Live and Die in LA with the Grove Street gang is thrilling as is, but CJ’s new compatriots squash the missions of Los Santos into small potatoes with their extravagant assets. Mike Torino, a seedy, borderline insane government agent, grants CJ full access to his hangar of fighter jets and compromised commercial airline planes to zoom around the skies of San Andreas, enacting feats of espionage that even Solid Snake would shy away from. Any mission involving flight is a hair-raising affair, with the fear of crashing and burning always a distressing possibility because the plane controls require substantial proficiency to prevent CJ’s fiery demise. Flight school sucks, but the courses are warranted. “Black Project” sees CJ humoring The Truth’s scattered-brained conspiracies, believing that there is a government project housed in the deep catacombs of the highly secured Area 69 facility located in the desert. Only a damn fool would even spit near this alert quarantined zone where guards would call an airstrike on a fly that buzzed over it, but CJ does the impossible and yoinks a jetpack financed by more American tax dollars than anyone could fathom. The “Saint Mark’s Bistro” mission entails CJ flying all the way to Liberty City on a hit job assigned by Salvatore (yes, the same Salvatore from GTA III) and flying back in one piece, and I’m still in disbelief of the country-wide scale this mission covers. CJ starts San Andreas with acts that would make him an un unnamed statistic but outside the realm of his hood, he performs stunts that would define him as public enemy #1 on all of the San Andreas headlines.
Even though CJ is out of town cultivating growth and wealth, it becomes time to end his adventure by clicking his heels and repeating “There’s no place like home.” When CJ finally returns to Los Santos, however, he repossesses Madd Dog’s mansion that was foreclosed on him and houses himself and his new allies there to aid Mad Dogg with the production of his big musical comeback. Sweet is even released from prison, so the story of San Andreas seems as if it's neatly wrapped up nicely in a pleasant bow. However, Sweet’s transgressions upon hearing that CJ has forsaken his hood yet again to gallivant off with non-affiliates touring the state of San Andreas means that closure is still out of reach. That, and the non-guilty verdict given to Tenpenny after good-natured Officer Hernandez blew the whistle on his vile ass erupts into a city-wide state of utter chaos that mirrors the historic events of the 1992 LA riots. To restore (relative) balance to the hood, CJ must bring Tenpenny to justice by exterminating him, along with Big Smoke as an auxiliary act of personal retribution. The “End of the Line” mission in which all of this transpires is a five-act endurance test that had me breathing heavily out of sheer tension by its completion. All's well that ends well when CJ looks over the deceased body of his uniformed oppressor and says, “See you around, officer.” The line gives me chills every time I hear it.
Understanding San Andreas comes with the realization that Sweet is the game’s main villain. Tenpenny is the flower of evil acting conspicuously above the ground, but Sweet is really the root of CJ’s problems. Like a strict parent, no matter how much money CJ earns or how far he climbs up the chain of command in life to better himself and his family, Sweet is unsatisfied with CJ’s success if it conflicts with his own perspective of success; dominating the Los Santos gang terrain as an unrelenting foot soldier. Near the beginning of the game, wiping out the presence of the Ballas and Vagos gangs was something to take pride in because it was the pinnacle of achievement for the narrowly bounded world which our protagonist was born into. After broadening CJ’s perspective by traveling abroad, initiating outside connections, and accomplishing insurmountable odds that make those around him awe him like he’s Superman, returning to the origin point to reclaim lost gang territory feels unsatisfying. Grove Street and all the baggage that comes with it is beneath CJ at the end of the game, which is why reverting back to being unappreciated and unpaid like at the start is undignifying. Sweet is an irritating anchor who is tying down CJ and the rest of his family to a life of squalor, but he’s still a sympathetic antagonist in a pitiable sense. Sweet has drunk too much of the thug life kool-aid supplied to him by the systemic restrictions of his background. He’s been fed lies of honor and loyalty that come with sticking to his literal guns, but the game proves that Sweet’s convictions have little basis in reality. Eventually, his stubborn, myopic dedication to the life that has been chosen for him, even when CJ gives him an avenue out of it, is going to kill him and cause even more grief for the Johnson clan. Using the juxtaposition between CJ’s success and Sweet’s propensity for lying in the dirt, San Andreas presents the viewpoint that gang life is tragic and unnecessary, which is how the game prevents itself from existing as a case of glorification despite gamifying it.
GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas act as a loose trilogy of games from the franchise, sharing the designation of being developed for the PS2 console as early stepping stones for the open-world genre before it reached its mechanical peak in successive gaming generations. While the varying years, stories, settings, and central characters slacken the connection between the three games, I’m still going to reference it to convey that Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of this GTA threesome. It’s the entry that dwarfs the previous two by catapulting the open-world design built from their framework into the stratosphere with ambition so remarkable that it is unbelievable that it was capable of being presented on the PS2. Admittedly, the shoddy graphics and compressed audio are a humbling reminder that it shares the same system as GTA III and Vice City. Still, Grand Theft Auto was never intended to be pretty: its allure has always been associated with the thrill of vicariously simulating the freedoms deemed too taboo to execute in real life. GTA: San Andreas offers so much content on one game disc that it transcends the initial novelty of committing acts of unspeakable violence that it could potentially supplement one’s real life entirely to the digital realm of gaming. For those who want substance behind the slaughter, San Andreas provides an insightful narrative arc into the dynamic life of a street gangster arguably more riveting and substantial than the hood movie that inspired it, created by a team of British guys whiter than I no less. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is absolutely incredible on all fronts and is truly when what we wished for the open-world genre came to fruition.
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