posted
Arse, it looks like I'll need to download the entire GTA:SA soundtrack to get it. I'll decide later if it's worth it...
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posted
I bought San Andreas this afternoon -- amusingly, with the £25 gift vouchers my President at work gave me for "5 Years of Service" -- and have played it for maybe 90 minutes, which by my cackhanded, clumsy standards doesn't mean much advancing through a game. Having chugged two cans of Strongbow, I was drunk-driving through most of it anyway.
San An centres around the satisfying sequel dynamic of reassuring familiarity and a twist of variation: controls are comfortable enough from VC although the vehicles seem to have marginally more "realistic" handling -- sparks flying and weight veering after a few knocks -- and the camera angle shifts drunkenly (tho that could have been the Strongbow) around your character, with the right analog stick circling the external viewpoint rather than giving you his subjective P.O.V. I've found this unexpected and slightly unsettling so far, though it does perhaps add to the sense of cinema.
The environment is an impressively alive city, weirdly true to my own recent memory of LA, with a lurking, paranoid sense of potential threat from local bad-asses ready to hassle if you look at them the wrong way. Relegated to hospital for the third time after some careless driving and a police shootout, I found myself running over the salmon-pink sidewalk-stars of Hollywood and wondered if knowing the real cities (LA, San Francisco, Vegas) could actually help you navigate the game.
What struck me most, making only a scratch into the missions, was the domesticity -- even the femininity -- structuring the game's agenda. Despite all the slurring, sometimes almost-incomprehensible garble of oldskool gangstericity -- "yo, you a disgrace nigga, check it motherfucka" -- the first five tasks are all about going home, chatting, sorting out your clothes, getting a meal, visiting the hairdressers and painting. When you enter the fast food joints like Cluckin' Bell, the captions explain the relationship between eating, exercise, muscle and fat, like a helpful Handbag article on calories and carbs. You expect a message to come up explaining that sugar will only give you a short-term boost and that Carl should opt for a handful of nuts or a tasty carrot stick as a healthy alternative.
Anyway, a shitload of fun, but in surprising ways... I'm playing it by the book, not even exploring, and it's far more about lifestyle than adventure and action.
posted
brrr worrying trend of collectionathon wank off in my face games. Wasnt it you kovacs moaning about london finding harvest moon / animal crossing appealing?
Can you only play upgrade your life games when its being applied to loaded esque magazines idea of what at a bloke should be doing to earn his "hit points" ?
quote:Originally posted by jnhoj: brrr worrying trend of collectionathon wank off in my face games. Wasnt it you kovacs moaning about london finding harvest moon / animal crossing appealing?
Can you only play upgrade your life games when its being applied to loaded esque magazines idea of what at a bloke should be doing to earn his "hit points" ?
I think you will note that I was surprised by the focus on domesticity and lifestyle challenges -- it seemed weirdly like one of those notorious Japanese video games about walking the dog or driving a train. The first missions are all about getting a shave or buying clothes.
So I didn't make out that the character-building, everyday simulation aspect of San An was what appealed to me... it was fascinating, but surprising. What I like best about it, as with Vice City, is the freedom, the physics -- jumps, stunts, spectacular deaths -- and the stunning views. I was just now standing at the back of the Vinewood sign, looking down at the sunset through fifty-foot letters.
The lifestyle tasks in this game are already salted with gangsta murders anyway, which is a queasily endearing mixture -- your homies slaughtering a bunch of guys just for wearing the wrong color shirts, then driving off making jokes about their next meal and how they need to get some sleep.
It isn't really remotely like a ladmag list of things to do before you're thirty. Firstly, that kind of list doesn't include "go to a gym" and "eat pizza", and secondly it doesn't include "buy an AK" or "chauffeur a drive-by".
posted
Yeah £5 a year is incredibly tight isn't it. I think the word "token" was pretty accurate. Anyway it makes me laff a little to think that they bought me this game. (Or, sadly, bought me some of it, because I had to chip in £15 of my own.)
posted
Hey folks its been a while, just thought i would inform you that you can advance to other islands without doing the missions. If you use a car to stand on, jump over the wall into the airport (to the east of the runways there is a wall rather than the wall with fence) you will find a propellor plane there is also (woohoo!) a private jet you can take for a spin. Please note that as soon as you enter airspace over a locked island you get 4 stars and shot down by a millitary jet. Fly low and jump quick try and find a car and get to a paint and spray. Not yet made the pay and spray let me know how you do?
quote:Originally posted by Tef-land: sheer genius.
*Base jumping is also available from the start of the game - if you want to....
to get a free parachute find the round building next to the mad junction in commerce, you go to the top automatically, note you can get a bike up there too, you cant jump off it or use your parachute while on the bike in the air but you will survive the drop
posted
I've eschewed main game missions the past couple of evenings in favour of turning the map green through gang warfare. Oh, and I've been seeing quite alot of Denise.
This has produced my first quibbles with San Andreas, though.
First of all, it's all very well being able to take a crew with you to fight for new turf, but it'd be slightly better if they weren't utterly shit at fighting. Renders their use slightly pointless.
Also has anyone else found that opposing gang members are allowed to run miles away, out of the 'warzone', but if you try to chase them down you're ordered back on pain of failing to capture the new turf. Annoying.
[ 05.11.2004, 09:33: Message edited by: Boy Racer ]
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quote:Originally posted by funkypurplepants: Not yet made the pay and spray let me know how you do?
You'll find that even a pay'n'spray wont help your cheating ass.
hey man i have no need to cheat i just load game a shit load. also using cheats puts your criminal rating right down, well it did in the last one anyway. I havent done much with the game as my p2 got nicked about a month ago, but have played quite a bit with a friend, i, or in fact we, cant currently recruit gang members, we recruited one when we first realized we could, but have been unable to do so since, i was thinking it may be to do with the customised ride is in the far garage miles from my crew do i need funky car to get the respect to do this?
posted
by the way guys i have noticed that no-one seems to have mentioned the dance your hydroulic car gambling options, or the burglary(the latter being the most efficiant way to make money i have found so far) to find the burglar van, go down the alley next to your first house, do a right you will notice that another road joins the one you are on on the left, go through the last gap in the fences on the left and you will find the van (big and black boxville) you can only activate burglar missions between 20:00 an 06:00 try to find two houses close together as if you keep going to the same one you will find that you strip it when you go from one to another all the goods are respawned.
quote: by the way guys i have noticed that no-one seems to have mentioned the dance your hydroulic car gambling options, or the burglary(the latter being the most efficiant way to make money i have found so far)
Somebody else too, it seems.
quote: I havent done much with the game as my p2 got nicked
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: YOU ARE MAKING ME FEEL BORED OF THIS GAME AND I HAVE ONLY PLAYED IT FOR ONE EVENING
sorry dude, completely unintentional i would never do such a thing, to cheapen any grand theft is worthy of global contempt let alone the biggest and best yet, thought you might like to take advantage of earning some cash to buy new house w/off st parking and having a nice place to keep your newly suped car. btw anyone found any purple pants, found some black ones and ones w/hearts on, any takers?
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