My 360 would suffer the dreaded Red Ring of Death sometime after I beat GTA 5 so I switched back to PlayStation (having previously switched to Xbox because my PS3 had died through a similar issue). And I never really got into GTA Online (I'm a story guy). While GTA V's map is a lot bigger and there's enough to do to keep someone busy for years, most of that was not part of the story so it didn't count. Of course, I played GTA 5 shortly after it was released, but the single-player campaign was disappointingly short and it hardly met the standards of San Andreas' storytelling in my view. Since beating San Andreas, I've actually paid for it on two occasions, firstly for Xbox 360 as an adult, and last year for PS4.
RELATED: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Fans Discover New Secret Cheats The game took me a very long time to beat and, although I had to employ several cheats, I enjoyed every second.
GTA SAN ANDREAS BEST CLOTHES PS2
Eventually, I saved enough to buy myself a small, second-hand television and moved the PS2 into my bedroom.įrom there on out it was all good I could play whenever I wanted, without having to use a window of paternal employment obligations to go back to being Carl Johnson. I was promptly banned from playing S an Andreas and had to wait until he left for work every day to continue playing. "What the f*ck you want from me this time?" Carl blurted at the worst possible moment, my dad was well within earshot. A devout Christian and a sporadic preacher, he had very little patience for expletive material and happened to pass by while CJ was being harrassed by Tenpenny and his partner in crime, Hernandez. I might have never gotten to experience the thrill of playing as, in all of my wisdom, I popped that disc in for the first time while my dad was somewhere around.
Whether it was joining Sweet or the traitorous Big Smoke and Ryder on missions that kept my heart pounding or simply rolling through the hood killing Ballas, or even doing officer Tenpenny's dirty work, San Andreas was the getaway. However, I suspect I would have loved it anyway, there was just so much to do. That may have been because I identified with CJ as he had just lost his mom too. There were always opportunities to have a good time with the in-game working girls, but I won't confirm or deny anything where that's concerned.Īnyhoo, I was absolutely hooked. He never asked me to return it and I spent countless hours of my young life being Carl Johnson, going to the gym, riding cool bikes and going on dates with girlfriends Denise and Millie. Maybe I paid him for it eventually, I can't recall. I'm not sure why, yet he lent it to me without even really playing it and I. To this day, gaming is one of the few things I can rely on to help me navigate through a stressful situation, although it's often the source of my stress.Īs it happened, San Andreas dropped a week or so after my mom passed and an older friend of mine bought it sometime after. Fortunately, I owned a PlayStation 2 at the time and videogames would become an avenue for coping with the indescribable loss. I had watched my mom battle cancer for nearly two years before she passed in October and it didn't help that I'd just finished high school and had little to do to take my mind off everything. RELATED: Grand Theft Auto: 23 Hidden Details In Liberty City, Vice City, And San Andreas Only Real Fans Know AboutĢ004 was the toughest year of my life. It was released at a time when I needed it most. My appreciation for San Andreas runs a lot deeper than plain enjoyment.
But, the way I see it, San Andreas is among the best sandbox games ever made and definitely the best title to ever come from Rockstar. I'm pretty sure most people will back the current GTA as the best, and that's alright - the notion is still difficult to argue with. On a personal note, though, it hardly holds up to the OG that is Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Certainly, that's mostly due to the multiplayer facet and the constant updates from the developers, who continue to polish their gem in a bid to keep it as attractive as possible.Īt some point, GTA V will be succeeded by a new title from the franchise and will go down as one of the most played games in history. The Rockstar title has around for nearly seven years now, yet it still continues to sell like crazy and there's very little indication that sales will slow anytime soon. It didn't become the most sold game of the 2010s or the all-time third best-selling game by chance, it's really one of the best games ever made. Grand Theft Auto V is well and truly a masterpiece.