Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

San Andreas alternates between being really impressive and annoying the piss out of me.

The new Gang Warfare system is pretty cool: color-coded regions on the map show what gang runs them, and I can go to a rival gang's turf and start a war by shooting up some of their homies. This starts a wave-based Gang War encounter, and if I win, the turf becomes my gang's. But this really walks the line with regard to the dying penalty in the game: I can buy body armor and guns to better my chances, but there's a great chance of me dying anyway, and since none of the gang war's "progress" is saved I will have effectively wasted my money. You can bring gang members with you, too, but they're trigger-happy and their kills don't count toward starting a gang war. They also get run over and die a lot.

There are in-game girlfriends, which you can cultivate relationships with by going on dates. Rockstar did a pretty good job of making this an appropriate pain in the ass.

I spent a bunch of time doing the exercise minigames at a gym, and have maxed out my muscle and stamina stats. So I can run a really nice distance, and can beat people to death with little trouble. But it's still super-easy to die, especially when the guy I'm beating to death has a friend with a TEC-9.

The city is big. In many ways, too big: the map/radar is not totally adequate for finding my way from one side of the city to the other, and missions that take me across the map are irritatingly common. I haven't even gotten to the other two islands yet!

I like San Andreas's additions to the GTA experience, but it is still weighed down by failures of the GTA3 engine. That's what gets me the most, I suppose. It would be one thing if I was playing SA straightaway after Vice City, but now every time I have trouble getting away from a two-star wanted level I can't help but think about GTA4 or Chinatown Wars instead.

Progress: Having some coffee with Denise