Previews// Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS2)

Although each of these features is fairly insignificant when looked at independently, together they meld into a veritable marmalade of criminal excitement. Just as in previous games, the player will revel in actually being, living, and thinking like a gangsta (to the inevitable delight of the anti-Mario Daily Mail crowd). And for all us twenty-somethings who spent our teens treading the unremarkable streets of British suburbia wearing enormous trousers and T-shirts with overt references to spliff-rolling, whilst flinging up misunderstood gang-signs to similarly misunderstood youths; this time it's for real, mofo. Close your curtains, crack open a bottle of Hennessey, fill a hollowed cigar with dried banana skins and indulge in those adolescent fantasies. This is how it is in the hood G, for real, word is born. Peace, One love etc.

Answering the plea from fans, San Andreas’ customisable nuances also go beyond CJ himself. Various garages in the gamiverse will now offer up a variety of mods for your chosen/stolen vehicle. Obviously, you can get a paint change; but this time you can also get your car lowered, modded and packed with nitrous. Although the nitro-injection is the only performance-affecting upgrade available, the superficial advances are still extremely welcome. Rolling out of the garage in a pitch black muscle car, with big shiny bumpers and sparkling gold rims is by far and way the most stylish way to embark on a drive-by. Booka! Booka! Booka!

One of the (slight) criticisms of earlier GTA games was that once you’d found a car you liked, you might nip off into a building to run an errand/slap an innocent, to find your wheels vanished on your return. The apparent explanation for these vehicular disappearing acts was that the police would spot these abandoned stolen cars and somehow reclaim them. So in San Andreas, these recovered automobiles don’t just disappear from your parking spot; but they’ll actually find their way back to the SAPD impound yard. If you had the phattest ride this side of Midnight Club, you might as well sneak in and steal it back.