First GTA: San Andreas Screens

<a href="http://www.rockstargames.com/sanandreas/">Check them out for yourself</a>. Looks like we're going to be cruising around on the west coast in modern day time. Also, on May 21 Game Informer Magazine will have the first ever details on GTA: SA, plus plenty of new screens.


***[UPDATE]*** Early this morning, Rockstar released the first plot summary of GTA: SA, which confirmed its early 1990s millieu. Here it is verbatim:

"Five years ago Carl Johnson escaped from the pressures of life in Los Santos, San Andreas...a city tearing itself apart with gang trouble, drugs and corruption. Where filmstars and millionaires do their best to avoid the dealers and gangbangers.

Now, it's the early 90s. Carl's got to go home. His mother has been murdered, his family has fallen apart and his childhood friends are all heading towards disaster.

On his return to the neighborhood, a couple of corrupt cops frame him for homicide. CJ is forced on a journey that takes him across the entire state of San Andreas, to save his family and to take control of the streets."

Courtesy of http://www.videogames.com

That sounds bad ass!!! I cannot wait!

Seems like the up'd the graphics Nice, nice.

Yeah, they said they revamped the entire graphics engine, so shadows and body movements will be especially nice. The screens look pretty much the same as vice city (except a little crisper), so I guess I'll have to see it in action to truly see if the graphics are indeed that much better.

All the new info and screenshots (12 of them, not the same 3 on the rockstar website) from the new issue of Game Informer is already on ***SPOILER WEBSITE*** http://www.gtagaming.com Enjoy!

***SPOILERS***


If what Game Informer says is true, this is gonna be a truly mindblowing game. That site says it will take place in San Francisco, LA, AND Las Vegas! In Vegas, you get to manage your own casino, and you get to recruit gang members. You now also have to eat food to sustain yourself, but if you eat too much, you'll get fat (refer to the screens on gtagaming.com) and the pedestrians will start mocking you! I can't wait for this game!!!

The screenshots are gone, they were asked to remove them by GameInformer.

Yeah I know...they were just taken off today. But when i posted that link they were still up there. Too late, too bad. But I understand why Game Informer would want them off. gtagaming.com was putting up the entire "exclusive" Game Informer article up there for everybody to see. Game Informer would lose so many customers that way.

While a similar synopsis is on gtagaming.com, I have the original text that used to be up there. Here it is:

Game Informer has a 10-page San Andreas preview showing now at E3. Every point here is all confirmed and official from the early release of Game Informer. The magazine has 12 screenshots.

Screenshots
-One pic shows the inside of a house, with rendered interior environments. There is furniture inside the house.
-One shows a helicopter with its searchlights on a runway criminal.
-The others show how the main character can get fat, it's a pic of him (fat) crossing the street with a donut shop in the background.
-One shows two other characters that are a part of the main character's crew.
-One shows a gang carjacking. Three guys with doo-rag masks are carjacking other guys.
-One shows a four person drive-by.
-One with two men sneaking around the back of a house about to rob it. They are crouching and carrying guns.
-Another one shows a california type pimped out car.
-The last one shows the background of LA with a smog sky.
-The rest are the three we have already seen.

General
-The game is more serious than the others, but the elements of comedy are still there.
-A full staff of research personnel at Rockstar have been studying Las Vegas, San Diego, and Los Angeles for months to ensure that they truly capture the feelings of these cities.

Location
-The game will not take place in Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Las Vegas. It will take place IN ALL THREE as well as the countryside in between.
-Los Angeles will be called Los Santos, San Francisco will be called San Fiero, and Las Vegas will be called Las Ventura.
-Each city is about the same size as Vice City.
-Not all cities will be open at the start of the game.
-The entire game will be about four to six times as large as Vice City.
-San Fierro (San Francisco) will have hills. This city is more driving based.
-You can drive from LA, through the countryside, up a mountain, into San Fran, and onto Las Vegas.
-Driving through the desert won't be empty and plain with a couple cacti...it will be vibrant and alive with weird things to see.
-There will be a lot more buildings with open interiors.

Graphics
-The graphics engine has been tweaked. Smog will be present in LA, and real-time reflections on cars, windows, mirrors, as well as new techniques like radial lighting, which allows for more realistic shadowing, and soft-shadow lighting for interior levels will be present.
-Everything in the game now has independent models for day and night to give better lighting and shadowing.
-The game will have ragdoll physics, or "impact animation" in Rockstar's words.

Vehicles
-As for vehicles, there will be pimped-out lowriders, and 90's versions of some GTA3/VC cars will return.
-There will be bicycles

Story
-Characters from the past will return

Gameplay
-In the Las Vegas city, you will be able to buy and build a casino - and then run it.
-You can then gamble your money in the casino.
-Your character can dual wield pistols and potentially other weapons.
-You need to eat to retain your stamina. If you eat too much fast food, you become fat and pedestrians will mock you for being fat. You also run slower. To remedy this, you can go to a gym to exercise.
-You can now rob homes. The robberies will require skill and planning, however.
-You can recruit gang members and use them to do four person drive-by's (seen in screen).

Weapons
-The choice of weapons will match the time in which the era of the early 90's occured.

Artificial Intelligence
-Enemy/pedestrain AI will be greatly revamped and they will think more logically. You can't beat someone to death in broad daylight and not have people notice and react.
-Your enemies will be smarter, which wil make robbing houses take a lot of skill.

Music
-There will be a rap station, but there will be a variety of other stations as always.

Sorry for the length, but no link could be provided as this information was taken down yesterday. Please pm me if this is too long and I should remove it. You can go to gtagaming.com to check out a synopsis of what I wrote, or you can buy the new issue of Game Informer for all the new screens and info (comes out May 21st). You can also visit this site for another poster who posted much of the same info, along with the new screens I mentioned:
http://www.madcappers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1446

maybe GTA is getting a little too realistic. when i opened up my game informer, i could have sworn i saw my grandmas house

There's nothing wrong with it.

I'm gonna beat up your grandma.

Good one...I'm going to rob her house in S.A.

my grandma could beat your ass, and shes only got one arm.

This is a cool site that lists everything that's known (and confirmed) about the game so far. The site has all the new screens as well, and they update it regularly:

GTA SA Confirmation List:
http://fivestarstuff.com/list.htm

I can't wait for this game!

WOW! That's an awesome site! I really can't wait until October! I'm so happy!!!!

If you want to keep up with the latest on San Andreas check out these sites.

http://www.gta-sanandreas.com

http://www.gtagaming.com

Man, I really can't wait. I've never been so excited about a game. Did you read about how we can trick out our cars now? You can change the spoilers, the wheels, exhausts, etc. That is gonna be so cool, even though it does sound sorta NFS-ish. But it does say that cars can deteriorate over time, and the car impoundment lot is making a return (from the first GTA). I just hope that you can fix a car you've tricked out (it would suck if you see it rust away and you can't do anything about it), and get back your car that's at the impound.

My favorite new thing is the large customization level we get to tweak. I can't wait to get tattoos and tons of jewelry and make CJ really fat and shirtless, lol. And all the new clothes is gonna be so awesome. I'm gonna love being able to pick out separate shirts and pants, instead of just having only one outfit. And having all the outfits available at your safe houses (instead of throughout the city like in VC) is gonna be so much better.

*drool*

When does it come out for the PC?

If they make me wait like they did with VC, im gonna go nuts.

I think that Sony has an arrangement with Rockstar for the release of the game on other systems. I believe it is at least six months before they can release it to any other platform.

-goes nuts-

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! I want to play San Andreas SOOOOOO bad, but I refuse to buy a PS/2 (dont have the money or the room, plus Im too loyal to my PC). I guess the improved graphics and performance offered by the PC will be worth the wait.

AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!! I know how you guys feel! I've been going crazy just thinking about it! Why can't it just be out today so that I can HAVE IT?!?!?!!

I preordered it, that made me feel a little better.

Still, I seriously can't wait. I think when I finally get it my head is gonna explode.

I want San Andreas for one reason: It is looking to be more polished than Vice City ever was. I wish they would make the original GTA over in 3D, altough # 3 was very close. Anyways, something confuses me: if theey are done with cities from the first game, what will they do? Also, why did they come up with a new name for San Francisco if in the first game San Andreas was San Francisco?