San Andreas: It's Here! Final Preview

The biggest game of the year is finally on shelves this week. We take a final look at San Andreas before our imminent final verdict. New media & gameplay video!

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Expectations surrounding Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas are nothing short of monumental - for gamers and the industry. There is no shortage of AAA product in the fourth quarter line-up this year, but San Andreas eclipses hopes for all other titles this year as far as retailers are concerned. The process of drip-fed information about the epic game is finally coming to a close and the world will be able to get its hands on what is, by all accounts, an astonishing feat of game creation in terms of both scale and creativity.

And with reports that the game comes in at anywhere between 100 to 150 hours, depending on how much exploring you want to do and how leisurely you want to experience things, it's not difficult to see why it's also one of the biggest tasks we've have as reviewers since, well, perhaps ever - yet the one task everyone on the team scrambles for.

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While the most recent San Andreas trailer, accompanied by 2Pac's thoughtful "I Just Don't Give a F***" - viewable along with the first two trailers below - gives fascinating insight into yet more things you can do in this massive game world (skydiving from an exploding plane, anyone?), still we get the impression that info released to date is holding back on a lot of surprises. In fact, we know it is, but for now we ain't sayin' a damn thing.

The Kikizo chopper flew in our copy of San Andreas...

As evidenced briefly in the latest trailer, one of the most continually striking aspects of the game, despite the fact we should know better from previous instalments of the series, is the movie standard voice acting. The typically West coast, predominantly black dialect is authentic and credibly retro. And, when the game first starts you'll be locked into dialogue with the voice talent of a surprisingly high profile actor, somebody who in fact we bumped into at the recent Tokyo Game Show for perhaps unrelated reasons. Say hello to Frank Tenpenny, a character voiced by none other than Samuel L. Jackson.

And the dialogue is all the more fluent when you consider the new talking system; a dialogue box in the top left of the screen now controls CJ's responses by using the d-pad to hit left for negative answers, and right for positive answers.

Our most recent demonstration of the game back at Rockstar started off in a distinctly different setting to Los Santos and the countryside. San Fierro, the game's rendition of San Francisco, offers a diverse population of yuppies, tramps, 'Nam veterans and moustachioed police officers - and for the most part, it's a pretty laid-back inner city part of the state, albeit slightly smaller than Los Santos.

We met some interesting characters, but the personality of the city itself is as large as its real life counterpart; coming together even more instrumentally with the microclimates system in effect, as San Fran's traditionally foggy setting lifts in the afternoon to reveal the rolling hills, terraced houses and seagulls flying around through a peaceful sunshine.

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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