Boom shakalak!
San Andreas is the ultimate toybox videogame and everyone should be able to find something in it worthy of praise. The central single player mission is enormous, and the world it’s set in even more so. Even over 25 hours into the game, we’d only got as far as San Fierro. Getting impatient to see more we made a break for it, and swam to the forbidden shores of the Las Venturas mainland; instantly acquiring several wanted stars in the process. We stole the police 4x4 that awaited us, and thrashed it into the centre of town; hoping to find a casino and throw our entire fortunes onto the roulette wheel, but instead took a wrong turning and found only an empty sex shop with a chainsaw-dildo on the counter. We could hear the cops assembling outside, there was a chopper overhead; so we strapped up our Tec 9, pulled out a grenade, and blew the whole scene to kingdom come.
It’s that kind of spell-your-own-fate sideline activity that makes GTA games so enjoyable, and San Andreas brings it back by the bucket-load. BMX stunt-riding, base jumping off skyscrapers, shooting range competitions, advanced driving schools, betting shops, bus surfing, fighting schools, burglarising, pimping… If you can’t find something to keep you occupied in San Andreas you clearly have no imagination.
We haven't even finished the game yet, but even so, we can whole-heartedly recommend this as an essential purchase.
SPOnG rating: A +
We'd love to pretend we were disappointed by San Andreas, but in all truth, it's the best £35 you could possibly spend on behalf of your PS2. It's still not quite worthy of the elusive SPOnG 'S' grade though. That might have to wait for GTA 4.
