GTA: San Andreas - shizz be changin in the hood!

[Yakoob]

So i just started my much delayed playthrough of GTA:SA and am just going through the initial tutorial missions. The game feels crazy dated tho, the graphics kind of blow and the controls are atrocious. I am using X360 pad and aiming is mapped to the start button... and you need to hold it down to shoot with one of the other buttons... which is nigh on impossible. Also half the functions are only accessible via keyboard (like actually opening up the menu / checking map) which is making me consider scrapping the pad altogether.

Thus i'm curious, any must-get mods / ini tweaks I should get before I proceed more into the land of drivebys and hookers? Mainly improving controls would be best, but I remember some crazy graphic tweaks in the past.

So far tho, It's GTA, pretty much what I expected from the enjoyable experience. I heard about the exercise/eating mechanic and can see it getting real tedious real soon. I am a wee bit disappointed the city is not as acurate charicature of LA as I hoped and so my living in the city is nigh on useless. But I do smile every time I see a nice reference - so far found the Pershing Square, Unity Station and the Vinewood sign. Also I found an easter egg already - if you go into the police department locker rooms your guy somehow gets equipped with a giant purple dilldo melee weapon

[henke]

If you can't get the gamepad controls remapped, KB+mouse should do just fine. And you don't have to exercise. Eating restores your health but beyond that there's no need to do that either, unless you wanna make your character really fat. Which you totally should btw, how many actiongames lets you be a fat guy after all? Um... actually now that I think about I guess Saints Row and quite a few other games that let you customize your character does, but when GTA SA first came out it was pretty fresh. Some people say the game was breaking new ground in letting you play a black character, but that had been done before, in Urban Chaos, Shadowman, and probably some other games as well. The real breakthrough was letting you play as a big fatass.

And yeah, the game's graphics were dated already on release since it uses basically the same engine as the several years older GTA3.

[Yakoob]

oh wtf I just found out that the the 3 savegames I made last night are now completely gone. ok?

[dethtoll]

I just played through this a few weeks ago. You can and should remap the gamepad controls -- they're atrocious, and you still have to use the keyboard for certain things, but that mouse+kb advice is an out and out lie. Try flying a damn plane with just the keyboard, I fucking dare you.

It's funny how VC and III both have much better gamepad controls than SA despite coming out earlier.

Dunno what to tell you about the savegames.

[Eshaktaar]

Yeah, especially the plane/helicopter controls were atrocious compared to Vice City's. I remember getting rather frustrated during the RC missions in San Fierro.

[Pemptus]

Try flying a damn plane with just the keyboard, I fucking dare you.

All the gold medals in the flight school with the keyboard, biznatch. No all that hard once you remap the keys properly and literally have no other choice because no gamepad.

The helicopter missions were a total bitch, though.

[henke]

Try flying a damn plane with just the keyboard, I fucking dare you.

Allow me to answer that with this video I made back in 2006.



I think KB+Mouse works just fine buddy.

[PigLick]

Yeh I did all my flying without keyboard only, wasd and arrow combination

[Thirith]

On the dated visuals: San Andreas is weird in that the actual graphics aren't good, but there are still moments where I'd drive around soaking up the atmosphere created by them, or I'd get out of the car and watch a sunrise or sunset in the game. Dunno whether that's the art direction or simply the world building.

I don't think I had any major problems with the flying missions, but the driving school nearly killed me - until I realised that with deactivated vsync certain moves were nearly impossible.

[icemann]

I played through this game last year I believe, on ps2 (via pcsx2 on PC) and its EASILY the best game in the series. Every game since has gone downhill.

The flying missions later on are SO MUCH EASIER with save states. Gah. And that remote controlled plane mission. Meh.

The fun stuff: All the missions besides the plane / flying ones, cruising around the block listening to early 90s gangster music (ooooh yeah), just driving around doing random stuff and the territory control stuff.

I found the ps2 controller controls to work just about perfect for the game for the most part. Especially when driving.

[Pemptus]

Thus i'm curious, any must-get mods / ini tweaks I should get before I proceed more into the land of drivebys and hookers? Mainly improving controls would be best, but I remember some crazy graphic tweaks in the past.

Good question, seconded. I remember trying some texture mods several years ago, but they created terrible pop-in and it looked better and more consistent without them, anyway. There was also ENBSeries, which adds the usual shiny, blurry and hdr-ey modern stuff, if you like that sort of thing. I don't.
I'd really appreciate any recommendations of mods that aren't cheat bullshit golden AK-47 reskins made by 12-year-olds. The modding sites are unfortunately cluttered with such crap. A better map, perhaps? Some gameplay tweaks that make the game better, but not imbalanced? Something like that.

[Thirith]

There's a mod that increases the view distance, which is worth it. Other than that, I stuck with the purist's version last time I played the game.

[dethtoll]

I played through this game last year I believe, on ps2 (via pcsx2 on PC) and its EASILY the best game in the series. Every game since has gone downhill.

Bigger doesn't mean better. While the most I've played of IV is about half an hour so I can't really judge, Vice City Stories is without a doubt the superior game out of all the PS2-era games.

[faetal]

I've never made it through the flying missions

Frustrated all hell out of me that such a cartoon-like game would immediately throw such complex flight physics at you.

Maybe I should buy a gamepad and try again at some point. It's a real shame as I otherwise adore the game.

[gunsmoke]

Bigger doesn't mean better. While the most I've played of IV is about half an hour so I can't really judge, Vice City Stories is without a doubt the superior game out of all the PS2-era games.

Only one I haven't played. Vice City is one of the greatest fucking games ever. I am a child of the 80's, though.

[Thirith]

Vice City Stories is without a doubt the superior game out of all the PS2-era games.

What makes it superior? I haven't played it myself, not least because while Vice City had a great atmosphere I enjoyed the topography of San Andreas considerably more - Vice City was too flat to hold my interest as a place.

[icemann]

Its all in the eye of the beholder. Vice City has annoying flying missions in it too from memory.

For me Vice City reminded me ALOT of Scarface (as I am sure it was intended to be from the get go). It has good atmosphere and music (the type that will have you parking off to the side of the road to listen to) and some good side mission stuff to do.

San Andreas has that and then more. San Andreas reminds me of, nothing its original. The range of music is better, the rpg elements introduced are a welcome addition (ie being able to increase your strength via weight lifting, learning new fighting moves, food making your fat if you eat too much, getting better at types of guns the more you use them etc), being able to get tatoo's and haircuts, the missions being alot more varied, the amount of side mission stuff being SIGNIFICANTLY higher, territory control and much much more. The story is better and is not based off any movie that I can think of.

When you've completed all of the main story line related stuff in VC there is next to nothing left to do. In SA there's plenty left. SA takes everything good from Vice City, adds more good things and as such is the better game for the sum of all of its parts.

If I was to give VC points for anything it would be in its intro. VC has the better intro. Who could go wrong with a Commodore 64 game startup . Loved that.

GTA4 in comparison was a humungous let down since its took all of the great things introduced in VC and SA out and went right back to basics. Some might like that, but I totally hated it. The new additions of the strip clubs, watchable tv shows and being able to go on the "internet" was the only things I loved in it.

[Eldron]

San andreas multiplayer is quite the mod that everyone should experience once.

http://www.sa-mp.com

[Thirith]

Somewhat tangential, but there's a detail I *loved* in Vice City that none of the other games replicated - the blinding gleam of the sun on car windshields. It was such a throwaway detail but really added to the hot'n'sweaty feel of the place.

[dethtoll]

When I said Vice City Stories I didn't mean the original fucking Vice City. Jesus.

I mean, okay, it's true -- VC as a setting is kinda boring. But other than that it's pretty great -- the empire-building mechanic is an improvement over the gang wars in SA, the music selection is superior to that of VC1 (with the possible exception of V-Rock and the rap station) and the character writing is better. It's not a blatant knockoff of Scarface (or of Boyz In The Hood like GTASA) fasdlfjasldfjkaljkf oh my god i just waited 4 fucking hours for the internet to come back so I could finish posting this, fuck this shit

[Yakoob]

On the dated visuals: San Andreas is weird in that the actual graphics aren't good, but there are still moments where I'd drive around soaking up the atmosphere created by them, or I'd get out of the car and watch a sunrise or sunset in the game. Dunno whether that's the art direction or simply the world building.

I don't think I had any major problems with the flying missions, but the driving school nearly killed me - until I realised that with deactivated vsync certain moves were nearly impossible.

You know I've had those moments too. I literally have thought to myself a few times "wait, did the graphics just gett better all of a sudden?"

That or its just buggy. Like the shadows; sometimes they are gone, sometimes they are all messed up, sometimes they show up perfectly. They just do wtf they want. They're like the honey badger.

[icemann]

When I said Vice City Stories I didn't mean the original fucking Vice City. Jesus.

My bad I misread your earlier post.