After 10 years, Grove St. is back and looking better than ever… or so you would think. Rockstar has re-released an HD version of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for the Xbox 360, honor of the game’s 10th year anniversary. With the re-release comes 720p resolution, enhance draw distance, and 33 achievements to unlock at the price point of $3.74, which is a awesome price for such a great lengthy game. This deal is great for avid GTA fans and for new GTA fans who have yet to experience the original Los Santos.
*Note: $3.74 may be temporary price for 10th anniversary.
The story has not been altered, so we are delivered the same phenomenal story exactly how it was told 10 years ago. Carl ‘CJ’ Johnson makes his return to Los Santos after a death occurs in the family. Upon his return, he is instantly thrown back into his old life of gang violence and dealing with crooked cops. Getting involved with these criminals again, puts CJ into some dangerous and ridiculous situations across Los Santos, San Fierro, Las Venturas, the open country wilderness, and everything in between. Players will spend many hours getting lost and side tracked by the large cities, just as they did ten years ago. Though the gameplay and story have not changed, there were supposed to be updated visuals graphics.
The biggest issues with this “re-mastered” version of San Andreas are the visuals. During my time with game, I encountered character and building models fading in and out as well becoming see through. Though the object was faded or had disappeared, the object(s) walls were still in place, making the have invisible walls. When this model glitch occurred it would usually cause a mirrored reflection of the game at the top of the screen. The only way I was able to solve this issue was by go to the dashboard and restarting the game. This never occurred during the cutscenes only during actual gameplay, but cutscenes did have their own issues. Cutscene audio would occasionally cut out, it would randomly and didn’t even occur constantly. There were a number of times when I the audio would cut out but if I replayed the scene the second time around the audio was fine.
Another visual was with character model lighting and disfiguration, these minor visual bugs didn’t affect gameplay but definitely stood out during cutscenes and character close ups. During cutscenes with certain characters, their neck would be a lighter skin tone than their face or the rest of their body. This bug also would cause some of the character’s necks to look stretched and disfigured. This disfigured effect would also occur to CJ’s torso in cutscenes or when he is changing clothes. These are two of the smaller visuals bugs that will occur doing play time.
Many have claimed that this “re-mastered” San Andreas is just a port of the mobile iOS, and I can see this being more than true. With the visual bugs and the menu/map selection layout, it is easy to see how this would just be a port of the mobile version. This isn’t a bad thing but makes the game feel a bit weird and clunky. Overall, the game is still enjoyable, ridiculous, and wild as it was ten years ago. If you can tolerate the visual bugs, this without a doubt you grab this game while it’s still on sale. But if you know the visual bugs will be a massive issue then I recommend purchasing the original xbox copy and playing without the achievements. Though San Andreas was extremely controversial at its time, that didn’t change how great the game was and still is today. Every busta needs to experience the original chaos of Los Santos , its characters and its surrounding cities.
A Light Skin Video Game Enthusiast 