Just when you thought the PS2 had San Andreas under it's belt...

Controversy is definitely what the series Grand Theft Auto brings. Excessive and brutal violence, lots of foul language, sex and drugs. All packaged in the famous series. But what really makes the series so damn fun AND popular? The main reason the game is so popular is that it doesn't force you to do missions or progress the game. In other words, freedom is the essence of the series. You can do whatever you want! You can travel and explore, shop, get a hair-cut, eat, workout and finally progress the game by completing the massive variety of missions. The second thing is what makes the series popular...well you'll just have to read the review on that one.

Taken place in the early 90s, Carl Johnson has gone to his hometown San Andreas but he comes back at the wrong time. His mother has been killed, his family is falling apart and rivals will start to start. A world filled with crime, violence, sex and befriending. Even the story is a bit different than the previous installments, you will see familiar people from the previous installments. You will not have to play the others before this. However, I'm sure everyone HAS played a Grand Theft Auto game before. San Andreas is much bigger than the previous games. Maxing in about 3 times as big and 4 times more interactive. The massive land scape of the cities you will visit: San Andreas, Las Venturas, Badlands, Desert and finally San Fierro. The interactive part is much more expansive. You can now eat food at resturaunts or fast-food places, work out at a local gym, gamble at casinos, shop for clothes and other accessories, get a hair-cut, stay in motels/hotels, go bar-hopping, play sports ride on an airplane to travel and ride a train. The options that lay ahead of you is limitless. You have the freedom to do what you want to do, when you want to do it. You can skip playing the missions for a little while and relax and travel. You can travel with other transportation include a huge variety in cars. From sport cars to go-karts, they are all here. Depending on where you travel, each city has it's own variety of cars. If you go to the desert, you'll see more motorcycles and vans while if you go to Las Venturas(short of Las Vegas), you'll see more muscular and sport cars. You can steal any car you want but make sure no one sees you because you'll get a wanted mark. There are 6(I think) total marks. Each mark gets more aggressive police after you. You can visit the local pay-and-spray to get rid of it and you'll get your car sprayed.

Something that has been used through the series is the radio stations. When you hop into a radio-carrying automobile, the radio will automatically come on. You can switch through 12 radio stations(including the custom soundtrack). The radio stations vary with different type of music. Classic hip-hop, modern hip-hop, country, funk, classic rock, dance, reggae, soul, alternative rock, grooves and finally a talk-radio station WRTC. There is something for everyone in the game so don't complain about the music. Oh and if you like the music in the game, you can buy the albums of this game on CD. The realism of the radio stations are high. On ALL stations, there are advertisements that are either funny or perverted. In the custom soundtrack found only on the Xbox, there are also advertisements on there as well. They come in quite nicely after a couple of songs or so. Even the selection of the tracks vary since they are chosen at random and you can't switch the songs. I found my custom soundtrack liking Seether and Ja Rule a lot.

Something very new to the series is the girlfriend touch. In each city you can have a girlfriend. 6 total and you can have all 6 at one time! Talk about a playa! The girls have it's different taste in men. One girl might want a fat and sloppy guy while the other would want a muscular and trimmed down guy. This also calls in Sex Appeal. Each girl has a certain sex appeal they want. This also stands in for the muscular or fatty guy thing. Also, you can date these women any time you want BUT they are only at home at certain times in the day. Eventually, you can move in with them but you and her must have sex before you can move in. The dates you take her to progress this. You can take her out to eat, drinks or go clubbin'. You can also find along the cities flowers which you can take for free. You can give it to her and surprise her with it. You can kiss you as well. All of this can help you get more progression in the moving in and having sex thing. Be sure though, you visit her frequently because if you don't, the progression will lower.

This is an action game so those aren't the only things you'll do in this game. The game evolves around shooting things so you will do lots of shooting. Mainly people. But the mission variety is huge as well. You'll come across missions where you and one of your family members ride a motorcycle and you must chase a train through the badlands with hills and mountains. Another example is where you and your girlfriend rob 4 banks and each vary. One you must blow up a safe while the other you take off with a tractor trailer. Believe me when the variety in missions are massive in style, variety and creativity. Even though the missions are fun, you will come across you wanting to travel and explore to relax from all the gun shooting and car chases. The missions are brutal and filled with lots of gore and violence so it's kind of nice to relax from it. There are also side missions which you can be a police officer, firefighter, cab driver and a pimp. Seriously, this game is huge and it will take you almost all year to get %100 percent.

The controls in the game have been made into good from worse on the Xbox. The main problem is when you are doing drive-bys. You must press the white or black button to look, the left trigger to accelerate your car and finally the B button to shoot. No talk about almost impossible! However, when your car is at a stop, it's okay but still frustrating. The other controls including the running, shooting, getting cars and all the other actions are laid-out real nice and they can be performed smooth as well. However, I found that when you try to steal a car, the Y button sometimes doesn't respond quick and it causes you to press it again which causes you to stand there like a dumb-a** when you pull the person out of the car when all you want to do is speed away with the car! Everything else is great.

Xbox is supposed to give more power than what the PS2 can do. However, that little fact doesn't do sh*t in the graphics. The Xbox version is almost identical to the PS2 version. The only difference in the entire graphical department is the cars which they look a tiny bit shiny. The character models are the most disappointing; the hands and body are very blocky and the hands looks like a damn block! The weather effects are not really improved; the sun-set is still beautiful with it's orange and red glow, the fog is still thick and gray but when it rains and storms, the graphics are awful with it's very dirty and grainy textures and they tend to slow down the game. The surroundings still are the same as the PS2 with it's variety of colorful textures to them. The draw distance hasn't been improved I think and you just can't help but see objects just suddenly appear. The sound in the game is great as the PS2; strong and theatrical voice overs by actors, the car effects, weather effects etc. all sound great and provide a nice atmospheric tone.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is a gem that is fun, enjoyable and engrossing just like the rest in the series. The freedom to do what you want is simply the best part about the game. Simply put, it's no wonder why Rockstar is so famous and so controversial with games like this. But when it comes down to porting this game from the PS2 to the Xbox, they disappoint me. The graphics aren't really better and at parts they are worse than the PS2. The controls are stiff and unresponsive at times and the drive-by controls are impossible to do unless you have three hands(what were you thinking, Rockstar?). The story is the same and the missions are the same so if you have the PS2 version, please don't buy the Xbox version because you might see de-ja-vu.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Information:
Genre: Action/adventure
Rated: M for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content and Use of Drugs
Difficulty: Average
# of players: 1-2
Lasting Appeal: 150+ hours