San Andreas: Near-Final Build Impressions

We get more first hand impressions with San Andreas direct from Rockstar. Come with us on an extensive tour of a near-final version of the game.

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This high up in the mountain, the clouds seemed only an arm's reach away. It's the first time the GTA series has seen such wildly dynamic and realistic weather. Indeed, after the main demonstration, Dean was able to use the build's debugging option to cycle through the different weather effects, showing the impressive range of lighting and environmental work that has gone into creating a fully believable west coast state. A heavy thunderstorm at night stood out as particularly impressive, especially considering it was a relatively humble PS2 behind the on-screen artistry.

Additionally, Dean demonstrated how the moon now goes through phases in San Andreas and the game keeps track of the days you've spent in the world, it even knows what day of the week it is. As time goes by, the moon will slowly cycle through a thirty-day change. We took a look up as night fell in the San Andreas countryside, and the sky is clearer out there and the moon is brighter.

In fact it is difficult to see how many different ways they can improve the look of the game with other hardware, such as next summer's officially confirmed PC version.

"What we're going to do now is get into a classic vehicle that made its first appearance in GTA3," announced Hamish. We climbed into Dodo - a chopper no less - to get an aerial tour of the countryside. The three-minute journey to a small town called Dillimore gave an idea of the huge scale of the countryside space, not to mention the incredible engine behind the game from this vantage point. And to show how seamless the transition back into more familiar city territory is, Hamish pointed out, "we're actually not that far from Los Santos here, so we're going to find a bike and drive there."

Incidentally, just as we were jacking the bike, a huge pile-up occurred just down the road, resulting in a fair amount of carnage. It didn't seem like a fixed set piece, rather just a probability-enhanced but still-impressive indicator of the realistic world that is San Andreas.

The further we rode into Los Santos, the hotter things became, with more police cars on the streets, more sirens blazing, gangs banging, a couple of fires, and edgier types walking the streets. It became livelier as you'd expect to happen on any journey into deepest LA from, er, the countryside.

We passed the Vinewood sign, GTA SA's now equally famous rendition of the real world's Hollywood sign, and caught a glimpse of some of the beautiful and sizable houses in the Vinewood Hills, "the kind of place CJ would love to live one day," reveals Hamish, though we weren't quite sure if he was referring to CJ in the game or Rockstar London's own PR rep of the same name (surely a co-incidence, seems to be the office sentiment).

The view from Mount Chiliad is awesome.

Passing the hills we caught some additional insight into what work is available for CJ. RU Haul is a friendly little shipping company in the rolling hills west of Los Santos, the owner there is always happy to get an extra driver, and pay them cash for towing some cargo. Any time CJ wants to swing by, there will be work for him here.

So we finally arrived back in the town where CJ grew up in a markedly different area to the countryside we'd previously been jollying around in, effectively demonstrating the huge variety on offer in a game that is promising well over 120 hours of gameplay, according to insiders.

"The countryside feels really natural, and people were worried that we'd be throwing them in a completely alien environment to what they're used to in the grittiness of these cities," explains Hamish. "But even in the countryside, it still feels like Grand Theft Auto, and that was really important when designing that aspect of the game."

What a way to travel the countryside...

"It's as big a step as when the series went from 2D to 3D" enthused Hamish, and having watched the demo, it's difficult to criticise that view. Rockstar was keen to show that the series is sticking close to its roots despite branching out into quite literally pastures new.

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas is little over a month from release. We'll be bringing you continued updates before our final review closer to the game's release. The wait is almost over.

Adam Doree
Director, Kikizo.com

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Catch up with our massive GTASA coverage here:

• Announcement (March 2004)
• Preview 1: First Preview (June 2004)
• Preview 2: Tasty New Screens, Diet Info
• Preview 3: Workin' Out, Jackin' Cars
• Preview 4: Another Massive Update
• Preview 5: Livin' Los Santos
• Preview 6: Shops and Robbers
• Preview 7: First-Hand Impressions
• Preview 8: Near Final Build Impressions
• Preview 9: It's Here! Final Preview
• Review - our final verdict