Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for iOS Review
First released in 2004 for the PlayStation 2, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas still ranks among the biggest, most ambitious, and most impressive games ever made. With an open game world that spans three distinct cities and miles of open countryside in between, it tells a story that starts with petty gang wars in a facsimile of early ’90s L.A., and eventually balloons to include government conspiracies, jetpacks, and massive casino heists that lead to absurd wealth. The idea that it’s now playable on our phones is a little mind-blowing — and yet here it is, without visible sacrifice or compromise, looking, sounding, and playing just like we remember. Well, almost.
San Andreas is complete on iOS — every big, epic mission and semi-hidden side activity is represented here — but exploring it with a touch screen device like an iPhone or iPad can be tricky. And despite several options for touch-screen controls (cars, for example, can be steered with onscreen buttons, a virtual thumbstick, or simple flick gestures), everything feels clumsy, in part because this was the GTA that decided to experiment with RPG elements. At the beginning of the game, protagoinst Carl “C.J.” Johnson is purposely a lousy shot and a worse driver, although he gets better at these things the more you do them. (He’s also supposed to eat and exercise regularly, or he’ll get hungry/fat — although so long as you save frequently and are relatively active, you won’t have to spend much time at restaurants or the gym.)
His initial lack of ability, however, makes the already-iffy controls feel unresponsive, as cars carom into walls in spite of our input and C.J. shoots in random directions as we frantically swipe across the screen to turn the camera to face enemies. It’s awkward, and it greatly increases the amount of patience players will need to master the basics and move on to the really good stuff. Playing with Logitech or MOGA’s Made for iPhone controllers does a lot to ease these problems, but playing on an iPhone carries its own problems, the biggest being that the radar — essential for knowing where missions are and where to go next — is tiny on an iPhone screen, making it hard to read.
San Andreas was considered rough-looking in 2004, and its blocky characters and low-res textures haven’t aged very well, even on a small screen. Even so, we still ran into performance issues, including frequent choppiness on an iPad 2 (which could be corrected by quitting out and restarting the game). Thankfully, a few things have been modernized; San Andreas’ auto-saving usually lets you pick up right where you left off, without requiring a trip back to a save point, like the console versions did. Also, a cloud-saving feature means you can continue your game on whatever device you feel like using at the time, so long as it’s using your Apple ID.
Technical issues aside, San Andreas is still an impressive sandbox to play in, and players who can power through the initial frustrations long enough to get out of L.A.-inspired Los Santos and move on to the San Francisco/Las Vegas facsimiles of San Fierro and Las Venturas will be rewarded with a huge, seamlessly explorable world filled with fun things to do, and a story crammed with memorable characters and celebrity voice actors. There’s a wide variety of open terrain to explore, from the rocky slopes of Mt. Chiliad to the deserts surrounding Las Venturas, and hours of eclectic licensed music to listen to while you do so. And there are plenty of fools to roll up on and shoot, whether you’re wresting gang territory away from the rival Ballas or thrown into pitched battles against small armies of corrupt cops. It’s huge, and although the barriers to entry are a little higher this time, they’re still worth surmounting.
The bottom line. It may be nearly a decade old, but in spite of technical hiccups, difficult controls, and a slow start, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is still one of the best open-world games of all time.