Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Image
Metascore

Universal acclaim - based on 47 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 671 Ratings

  • Summary: 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. [Rockstar] Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 45 out of 47
  2. Negative: 0 out of 47
  1. What does make it great is that it actually delivers on nearly everything it promises while still being fun to just pick up and play.
  2. 100
    How do you improve on perfection? We’ll tell you how: Take the same genius game that you played last fall on the PS2 and give everything a fresh coat of pixel paint... Then, remove the long load times, allow us to save 30-second replays to the hard drive for those you-won’t-believe-this-booshiz moments and create personalized radio stations by ripping your CD collection to the hard drive.
  3. 85
    The experience is still amazing... and that the gameplay is still really, really broken in many areas. Each new port brings with it a handful of new features, yet none of them are anything more than mere tweaks.
  4. Just seems to be a poorly designed port of a rather good console game.

See all 47 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Negative: 19 out of 137
  1. 10
    Say hello to one of the best games ever made. Graphics are offcourse not very good, but this game is quiet old. The gameplay is amazing, plus the fact that there are so manny cheats, which i love :3
    The story is probably the best. I havent skipped a single cutscene trough out the entire game. It made me **** in excitement to know what the next thing to do was. But it was a little bit repetitive sometimes i thought. The sound is veeeeeery good. The soundtracks from the radios fit prefectly. The voice acting is great and the sound from ALL the different veichels are awesome. Actually, what made this game for me was all the veichels i could drive, anything from different types of planes to helicopters, tanks, dirt bikes, bulldozer and bmx.

    ROCKSTAR ROCKS
    Expand
  2. Gta San Andreas in PC, is fun, huge and graphically great, but the controls issues makes this version of the game worse than the PS2 version. It haves the same things as the console version, and even with better graphics, but console version is a lot better. Still, it is an impressive game. (8.8) Expand
  3. 7
    I've played the game since it came out and here I am deciding to finally review it in 2013. Though the PC version gets a 7 from me, the PS2 version gets a 9. What's not to love about San Andreas? You get all types of missions and side-missions, a huge world to explore, a very good story and downright excellent characters. As a bonus, you also get the RPG elements that spice up the gameplay and really help you out in the long run, such as having longer periods of running/swimming, weapon dual-wielding and building up an NPC gang that can follow you wherever. It's a gamer's wet dream. Alright, now onto the downsides. The PC port is pretty bad. I'm not complaining about graphics being improved or anything for the PC, but Rockstar always gets lazy when it comes to PC ports. Look at GTA IV for example. The in-game settings don't stay the same every time you launch the game. You have to disable/enable the "Frame Limiter" option just to get certain game elements to work - and things like that usually make me quit playing a game outright and forever, but this game redeems that with the tons of positives. Apart from the PC issues, you're gonna come across those moments where a mission is insanely too hard or the AI doesn't work the way it should and it screws you in the end somehow. These are the same things you encounter in the previous games like Vice City and GTA III. Do these things break the game entirely? Not really. But can these things frustrate you greatly? Yes, very much so. Overall, if you're an old time gamer or a person just becoming a gamer, play this game. Just do it. Oh, and guess what? This game has two multiplayer mods known as San Andreas Multiplayer and Multi Theft Auto where up to 100 players can play on the same world. Be sure to play that too. Yes, both of those multiplayers are still being played. Expand
  4. WesM
    0
    This game sucked major. The graphics were something to be desired and there were too many glitches/bugs. As for the story line, IT WAS POINTLESS! And the dialog, wtf with that!? Who calls their mother "moms" all the time, and what kind of black trash would be lowlife enough to call their own kind a "nigger"? This game fails hard. Expand

See all 137 User Reviews