Game:

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004)

Duration: 8:27:19

41 views

2

It's hard to play a game like this and not judge it by today's standards. This game came out in 2004, a lot of its mechanics, designs and controls just don't hold up well. Yet the game still has its charm. It introduced a system that I first saw in Skyrim where the more you use a weapon, run, swim, get hurt, eat, and work out it levels up your stats. You can go work out at the gym and buff CJ up, then go to a food joint and over eat. When you level up a weapon through use you become more proficient and can move and shoot more easily, are more accurate and sometimes can even dual wield. It's pretty damn cool having RPG mechanics in a Grand Theft Auto. You can even level up your driving and flying abilities. Speaking of which, the flying mechanics are truly awful. I may just be trash, but they were abysmal. Although I do find it hilarious that for your license test you fly through rings like Superman 64. The game starts out kind of slow, but really starts to pick up once you get out of Los Santos, as does the crazy story. The entire game is pretty silly and over the top. There is some pretty solid variety to story missions, though most consist of go over there and kill a guy and return. They really do try to branch out and try some cool things. I think one of my favorites was when we were preparing for a casino heist and I had to steal 3or four bikes and load them up on a truck under a time limit. The Zero RC missions were pretty cool as well and somehow the RC flying controls were better than the standard vehicles. One of my biggest gripes though was when the game came to a screeching halt when a mission required me to be able to hold my breath for a set duration. So I had to stop playing the game and drown CJ for a good 30 minutes. It was absolutely awful design. There is not a single thing you do up to that point that necessitated having to swim or hold your breath and now you have to meet a silly and arbitrary mandatory stat check. There's also a mission that forces you to use the poorly implemented dating system to get to an appropriate romance level before she will give you a code. It once again forces you to stop playing the game and focus on randomly being able to take her on dates. It's a huge bummer and time waster. The music, on the other hand, is freaking great and just about every station has got some killer tracks. I loved getting into vehicles and letting the game just randomly choose a station for me. The curated licensed music is a huge part of the experience and I am glad I was able to hear it. It's also hard for me to talk about the games graphics since I played a modded version. It looked nice for a 2004 game, but some of the textures and models were for sure altered. I enjoyed this game for what it is, blemishes and all. Enjoy my blind playthrough.

You can find my Twitch channel here:
https://www.twitch.tv/cereal_ki11ah

Other Statistics