It does have 2 player, see?
Another such hint towards possible greatness, that fails to manifest itself in the way one might hope, is the addition of the co-operative two-player missions. When SPOnG broke the planet-quaking news that this feature was to be included, despite Rockstar’s protests and insistence that we were just telling fibs, we knew that this feature would be an incidental one. The silence on this issue was to prevent people getting their hopes up about San Andreas being a two player game. Indeed, it is a single player game which just happens to have a few two-player tasks on offer. Again, this is a fantastic inclusion, but it does feel like a half-hearted approach to the idea.
As for the more sinister elements of GTA, the principles of evil seem to have been more than amply addressed. San Andreas features specific and explicit references to all the following vices, to name but a few: narcotics (weed: sticky icky and Nepalese charras, cocaine, opium, DMT, magic mushrooms, crack), pimping, prostitution, S&M, burglary, theft, perverting the course of justice, genocide, resisting arrest, criminal damage, car-jacking, speeding, traffic-offences, joy-riding, assault (ABH & GBH), murder, lewd behaviour, illegal firearms, incessant strong swearing/blasphemy, and, of course, driving without due care and attention.
Get over here!
One of San Andreas’ major selling-points, like its forefathers, is its indisputably controversial nature. Quite simply, controversy sells; and the reaction to the NWA headed gangsta rap phenomenon that occurred around the time that this game is set, had already proved that point rather well. It’s inevitable that San Andreas is going to cause a mass of brass-buttoned blazer sleeves to be thrown up into the air in a collective fit of conservative outrage, with Daily Mail advertising inserts flapping to the ground as children are scooped up and swaddled in protective blankets. For San Andreas manages to break each and every one of the seven deadly sins, and then waves them in front of ‘da kidz’ in a neat and well-priced package that’s sure to gain publicity in newspaper headlines, or at the very least, the rambling agony aunt columns at the back. If you cast an eye at the following moralistic analysis, we’re sure you’ll agree that certain folk over at Rockstar will be damned to an eternal roasting in the burning brimstone-filled pits of hell.
