Rockstar Games Announces Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Off topic, but don't go too far overboard - after all, we are watching...heh.
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Postby Jeffro » Mon Mar 01, 2004 8:17 pm

Originally posted by 007
You can actually play Grand Theft Auto online if you download a program called "Multi Theft Auto". Although last time I played it, it was very laggy and there were a lot of immature people. I think the URL is:

http://www.mtavc.com/


Done it before, and it sucked for gta3...


Laggy no damage models, no traffic, peds...
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RCinator

Postby RCinator » Mon Mar 01, 2004 9:24 pm

All of the GTA games were incredibly lacking on the gameplay front anyway. Meh. Not excited.

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Postby Jeffro » Sun Jul 18, 2004 6:17 pm

Game Info
Here's what we know about the game so far:


Story and Setting
San Andreas will be an entire state, loosely based on California (with a bit of Nevada), and composed of three cities: Los Santos (Los Angeles), San Fierro (San Francisco), and Las Venturra (Las Vegas).

Each of the three cities mentioned above will be roughly the size of Vice City, with countryside, desert, and mountains in-between. All together, the game world will be four to six times larger than that of GTAIII or Vice City.

The main character this time out is Carl Johnson, who after spending five years in Liberty City, returns to the rough streets of Los Santos after the murder of his mother. Shortly after the funeral, Carl discovers that the rest of his family and former gang (the Orange Grove Families) are having problems- both with other gangs, and a pair of dirty cops- so he finds himself dragged back into the street life he appaerntly tried to leave behind.

Following the glitz and glamour of Vice City's '80s vibe, San An will be based in the early '90s. This was a wild time indeed for Los Angeles; gang violence was at an all-time high, as was civil unrest (and even riots) sparked by many cases of police brutality. Needless to say, GTA should be right at home here.

While the early screen shots and initial story info give the impression that the game is simply based on 'gang banging', R* insists that this is only part of the story. In an interview with Game Informer, Dan Houser said that "it could seem that way if you only play about three percent of it" and that "it's very much lots of other things". Just judging by the various locations in the game, it wouldn't suprise me to see corrupt Hollywood movie exec's, Chinese Triads, and some classic Vegas Mafia-types playing a major role.

While working on the game, R* employeed teams of researchers, worked with various local Cali producers and directors, and sent the whole R*North team out there to help capture the feel and style of the real places.

Features
One of the new vehicle types which will be in the game are bicycles. All we've seen from the early screenshots is a little BMX style bike, but after going through the trouble of making new physics and animations for bikes, perhaps R* will include a few more?

San Andreas will include full interiors for many more buildings than we previously saw in VC.

To compliment the increase in interiors, San An will feature the new ability to burglarize houses. How exactly this will work remains to be seen, but from the bits of information released by R*, it will requre a bit of skill and planning to pull off a robbery.

No longer will we have to worry about drowning in knee-deep water, as our new hero Carl knows how to swim!

According to Dan Houser, there will be a whole "s*** load of weapons" in the game. How many and what type? Noone knows yet. But don't expect any ion rifles or anything, as all the weapons were picked to fit into the real world's time period. I guess this means the electro-gun from GTA2 won't be making a comeback...

The shooting mechanics of the gameplay have been upgraded and tweaked yet again to proved more responsive and functional control. Not sure how this works just yet, but from the sound of things, R* seems to have learned from, and implimented some of the controls they created for Manhunt. To quote Dan Houser, "Play Manhunt- The shooting levels from Manhunt. It's a development from that."

On top of the standard health and armor pick-ups from the previous games, our friend Carl will have to eat as well. From what we know so far, eating will affect your stamina, so if you starve yourself, you'll most likely get tired faster whilst running and such.

And what woult eating be if you can't get fat from it? Yes, your player model actually gets fat. Not only does eating give you energy, but eat too many donuts, and you might put on a few extra pounds.

And what can you do to keep from getting too fat? Simply pop down to the gym and work out a bit, and you can turn that flab into muscle; giving yourself more speed and strength while you're at it. I would assume riding bikes around would help with fitness too, but only time will tell.

Along with the ability to buy and own property introduced in Vice City, players will be able to build and operate a casino of their own.

Players will be able to recruit and manage a gang.

Expect tons more mini-games such as the Vigilante and Pizza Boy missions from VC.

Technology
The game engine has been tweaked, optimized, and generally prodded to produce a 'bigger, better, faster' game. I'm guessing that part of this may include an upgrade to the latest version of Renderware.

Part of this improvement will be a highly optimized (if not completely overhauled) data streaming system. The benefits of this should be obvious enough by the fact the engine will have the ability to render three cities.

Another part of the improved engine shows up in the form of real-time reflections on mirrors, chrome, and windows. This showed up in the X-Box version of Vice City, and will be a quite welcome addition.

The as-of-yet mysterious "Impact Animation" system. Popular theory and R* innuendo have this being simply another name for ragdoll physics, as seen in games like Max Payne, Unreal Tournament, and the ubiquitous Stair/Truck Dismount games.

Night and day versions for *all* building models and other map objects. This was used in a handfull of places in VC to add to the realism of the lighting effects, and I musty say, it does add a nice touch. To get a sense of what this does really, head down to the south end of Ocean Drive in VC, and check out the difference in the hotels at night.

Greatly improved AI. From mission-related characters down to even the random ped's, NPC's will now have a "brain", and will react more intelligently to their surroundings. There will also be more things for the random ped's to do this time out, making the cities feel that much more alive.
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Postby SavageParrot » Sun Jul 18, 2004 6:57 pm

Fuck, there goes another 2 weeks of my life...
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Postby Pierce » Sun Jul 18, 2004 8:04 pm

Originally posted by SavageParrot
Fuck, there goes another 2 weeks of my life...


Yeah same here, cept it'll take a litte longer than that for me. :)
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Postby Face » Mon Jul 19, 2004 11:30 am

I very much doubt that Rockstar will forfiet the large amounts of $$$ they can make on a PC port, since GTA3 and Vice City did so well.

Anyway, the purpose of GTA (to me) is to just sit back, grab a beer, and conduct lots of random PC violence in a safe, friendly, fantasy setting. The reason GTA is fun is because you are free to do whatever you'd like. Missions, sure if you want. If not, just drive around running people over, trying not to spill your drink from the laughing. Sometimes a mindless night of gaming is what the doctor ordered :).
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Postby Mr. Slayer » Mon Jul 19, 2004 11:41 am

YES YOU WONT DIE WHEN YOU FALL IN THE WATER!!!!!

(Just as annoying as dying when you fall 10 feet in BF)
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Postby SavageParrot » Mon Jul 19, 2004 4:30 pm

I still have to finish the other 1 percent I have left on vice city. Those damn hidden packages...
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LordShard

Postby LordShard » Mon Jul 19, 2004 7:04 pm

Grand Theft Boner

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Postby Mr. Slayer » Mon Jul 19, 2004 7:29 pm

I figure that Vice City is the only game that stays fun after and while using cheat codes. :D
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Postby hightimber » Wed Jul 21, 2004 9:46 am

Originally posted by Face
Sometimes a mindless night of gaming is what the doctor ordered :).
GTA fills this bill very nicely, too. :beer:

You hit the nail on the head.

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Postby SavageParrot » Wed Jul 21, 2004 10:02 am

I spent a good hour sniping the drivers of tanks once and didn't get bored. I got that trouble meter up as far as national emergency or something, those guys wanted me bad. Then i nicked one of the empty tanks and drove it into my garage and safety, a classic.

I also still play the original gta, the one with the overhead view awesome retro amusement.
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Postby SandStorm » Thu Jul 22, 2004 4:25 am

It needs to come to X-Box soon. When Vice City came out on X-Box, it played and looked much better than the PS2 version. Yes I know X-Box is newer and more powerful than PS2. But why make X-Box owners wait and suffer for over a year before they finally port it over.:confused:

Oh well, I'll just play Madden NFL 2005 & Halo 2 til then:D

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Postby Jeffro » Sun Jul 25, 2004 4:48 pm

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Coverart!
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Slaughter1

Postby Slaughter1 » Sun Jul 25, 2004 5:01 pm

yeah it was funny the first 10 times i beat up someone, and the other times I blew up cars, gameplay is horrible, I stopped playing anything that is ported over from the console crap thats out, there is a reason why I have 600 dollar vid card, for incredible game play that the computer system has

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