Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

 PlayStation 2
Metascore
95

Universal acclaim - based on 80 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 79 out of 80
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 80
  3. Negative: 0 out of 80
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  1. The New York Times
    60
    It would feel truer to the game's open environmental design if you could have more general goals: kill an enemy when and how you like; raise money for an objective through any method available; challenge random people to races.

Awards & Rankings

1
#1 Best PS2 Game of 2004
1
#1 Most Discussed PS2 Game of 2004
1
#1 Most Shared PS2 Game of 2004

User Reviews

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User Score
9.1

Universal acclaim- based on 3539 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3,240 out of 3539
  2. Mixed: 148 out of 3539
  3. Negative: 151 out of 3539
  1. Xerxes
    Nov 25, 2010
    10
    This is one of my favourite games of all time, it really capture los angeles and the california area i reckon, the gameplay was awesome andThis is one of my favourite games of all time, it really capture los angeles and the california area i reckon, the gameplay was awesome and the story surpasses any other game made during its time, 10/10 yes, grove street for life.… Full Review »
  2. Bolo
    Dec 5, 2004
    10
    This game is really fun... u can swim !
  3. garyfisher
    Dec 17, 2011
    3
    Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has several flaws that are hard to overlook. The basic idea of the Grand Theft Auto Series is to complete taskGrand Theft Auto: San Andreas has several flaws that are hard to overlook. The basic idea of the Grand Theft Auto Series is to complete task for different people that for the most part are illegal. You have to kill, steal, and commit other crimes to make more money all while avoiding the cops. Past games have been very successful but San Andreas is not. First off, the City of San Andreas is simply too big. Bigger is not always better. It takes ridiculous lengths to travel to some parts of the city, and there really is no actual reason to have such a big city. There is an actual highway system which is basically the developers saying "Our city is too big and boring to drive through, so we make this nice highway to speed up going through all the horrible travel times." Why not just make a smaller city that you actually enjoyed driving through? It may seem not like a big deal, but really it blows my mind that players have to sit there and hop on an express way to their next objective. Going on the same theme of the massive city, there is simply too many pointless things in this game. One feature is having to eat food or else you get thin and weak. This doesn't add anything to the game, just giving players an annoying task to go find food every so often. Also buying food actually take an absurd time, walking up and taking your order. Why have this? All this is doing is wasting my time when I want to be driving the express way for 10 minutes. Every skill has a level feature. The more you use something or do something, the higher your skill becomes. Yet again this adds no strategy or use to the game. A better feature would have been having to pick and choose which gun skills to increase, like pick the shotgun skill and you can do amazing damage up close, but are penalized for far range shots. You know, make the player actually have to decide something. Not just driving around and leveling up your driving skill randomly. Its like "oh thats cool I guess." One feature is the ability to swim, which actually is useful simply because you don't instantly die if you fall in water. Most others are gimmicky nothings. You can have a girlfriend and go on dates, which is completely retarded. Would you rather get into a high speed police chase, or go out with an npc to a hamburger joint? What is the point besides "Hey look at ANOTHER thing you can do besides play the actual game." There are bars where you can play a badly implemented pool game. You can literally ride a bicycle faster then most cars. You can buy houses, which is useful because you will need many places to save or else you are spending 7 minutes driving down Los Santos Freeway to save. You can go try and find all 100 graffiti points, or the 50 oysters in the ocean, or the 50 horseshoes hidden in the game. Isn't that great? Over 200 collectables that you are expected to find in a city that takes a good 20 minutes to drive from one end to another. Basically the developers way of saying "Here is something for you to look up online." Hiding 100 packages in GTA3 was feasible because you could spend 15 minutes and have checked a decent portion of the map off. If they literally expected players to find 200 small items in San Andreas then I truly don't know what to think. ANOTHER feature is the ability to fight rival gangs in turf battles, which is great because your turfs will be attacked and taken over when you're stuck on the freeway 10 minutes away. If you like Dance Dance Revolution type games, then don't worry because you can load up GTA:SA, drive to a certain location, then play the dancing mini game. Why? As the developers must have thought, why the hell not? More and more is better. With all this added nonsense, there IS a GTA game in there, but its hard to find. GTA: SA is not good. All the extra features are irrelevant, and the map size alone is enough to ruin the game. Don't buy this game even if it's on sale for 50% off at the dollar store.… Full Review »
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