Malik  (5/12//04)

GTA:SA Partially Unveiled at E3

Some new details and a handful of screen shots have recently left Rockstar's secretive mouths about GTA:San Andreas. It looks like SA will make a strong departure from the settings of GTA3 and GTA:VC. Instead of focusing more on the organized crime side of things, you will instead play someone more in tune with the streets. It seems that you play a character (Carl Johnson) that left town to escape the pressures of the ghetto 5 years prior to the start of GTA:SA and has just returned.  After your release, you find that your mother has been killed and your friends and family are spinning out of control towards chaos and some crooked cops are trying to frame you for a murder.  So, being a GTA protagonist, you do what comes naturally...you do what you can to take control of the streets in order to save your family and friends (and to help pad your wallet). 

Some other revelations are that the game will (thankfully) not take place in the 1970's like many wannabe informants have said. I personally never bought into that type of speculation; I mean it was based on nothing more than, "GTA3 was the 90's, VC was the 80's, so SA must be in the 70's). Instead, you are playing in the early to mid 90's on the west si-eeed. The game is going to have a large gangsta flavor to it. This will definitely be a big jump from the Mafia influenced heroes of GTA3/VC. 

Considering how my least favorite part of VC was the music (the 80's, in terms of music, are fun for a few songs, but not for a whole game), I just hope that there will be plenty of variety to the music of SA. I am the type of person who needs music for driving (and driving games), so I just hope the genres will all be represented. I think it's safe to say some old school gangsta rap will be present, but I hope they will also include some genres less associated with the flavor of the game. I just don't want a repeat of True Crime, where we are surrounded by a good selection of rap, but no selection in other genres. Anyways, that's my only concern. 

Besides the possible music selection issues, the details all seem to suggest SA will have a lot of the good old familiar tastes of GTA3/VC, but plenty of new touches to make it worth the money and the time. I guess only time will really tell, but I personally have more faith in Rockstar (mostly their GTA series) than any other company in terms of game quality and meeting release dates. Anyways, the web site for GTA:SA is showing a bit more info all the time, so it's worth a browsing. More news will come as the info slowly leaks from Rockstar. 

Malik