Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS3/X360)

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

"All you had to do, was port the damn game, War Drum Studios!"

Genre:	Action Adventure
Platforms:	Xbox 360 PlayStation 3
Release Date:	Xbox 360 October 26, 2014 PlayStation 3 December 1, 2015
Developer:	War Drum Studios
Publisher:	Rockstar Games
Made in:	United States
Franchise:	Grand Theft Auto
Previous Game:	Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Next Game:	Grand Theft Auto IV

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is an action-adventure video game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It is the fifth major installment in the Grand Theft Auto franchise, the game was originally released on PlayStation 2 in October 2004 and later ported to Microsoft Windows and Xbox in June 2005. Original release is hugely acclaimed and is widely considered to be one of the best Grand Theft Auto games ever made. The HD "remastered" port, was outsourced to War Drum Studios, and it wasn't well-received.

Why It Sucks

This version is nothing but a shameless port of the mobile version which was a good effort despite having many bugs, but this port was worse in terms of bugs, and is more expensive.
Many songs were removed due to copyright issues and expired licenses. Most notably, Killing In The Name by Rage Against The Machine and Hellraiser by Ozzy Osbourne were removed from Radio X, Ring My Bell from K-Jah West, I Don't Give a Fuck by Tupac and Express Yourself by N.W.A. from Radio Los Santos. The only radio stations still retaining all music are CSR 103.9, K-Rose and SF-UR. This broke the radio however, as while a song is playing on the radio, it will occasionally cut off and then skip to another track, or randomly stop, then rewind or go forward.
Many new bugs and glitches were introduced, and some were even in the mobile port, such as clouds teleporting when you move the camera (though moving the clouds is normal in the original game, they do not teleport) and most weird effect in this games.
The camera in the cutscenes is in a way broken due to being zoomed out, which leads to problems because of showing things not meant to be seen. Many issues include characters freezing in place, objects teleporting to character's hands, misplaced objects, vehicles freaking out (such as Big Smoke's car becoming a low rider in "Wrong Side of the Tracks"), and more.
False advertising: The back of the box uses the screenshots from the original version, tricking people into thinking they're buying the original version and not the remaster.
Sometimes, there are lag and framerate issues because of poor emulation; the game may even freeze and crash for the aforementioned reason.
Save games may become corrupt and, upon loading, will never progress past the initial loading screen.
Some characters seem to have no eyes, especially Dwayne, who has one eye closed, as BadgerGoodger of The Vadim M YouTube channel says, "I guess he thinks he's a pirate now."
Despite being a remaster, the character models look worse compared to the original. Also, facial expressions are now broken. CJ's broken face in the running from explosion scene in "End of the Line" is so bad it must be seen to be believed.
- Also, most of the models now shine, Even in water, thus making them look as though they were dipped in wax.
- Carl Johnson's model, however, is even worse due to having broken eyebrows in cutscenes (making him look sad), and narrow eyes in gameplay. Plus, it depends on the player's weight and clothing, as being fat fixes his eye lashes, and changing clothes fixes his narrow eyes.
- Kendl's character model now has 2 skin tones, making her skin look strange and unnatrual.
- The new character models also appear to be much blockier than the original, this can easily be spotted with Eddie Pulaski's eyelids.
Also, cars wobble and stutter at max speed for no apparent reason due to broken gear ratios. This was a bug that existed in the mobile version, but it was fixed.
Sometimes, the skybox will disappear, leaving the world in darkness.
The waterfalls in some places are now broken in the PS3 version.
Auto-jump was brought over from the mobile version. This means that when you run near a wall, roof, or other obstacle, CJ will climb it, whether you want him to or not (though in the PS3 version, you can turn it off).
The analog camera controls have very poor range. If you set the sensitivity too low, you can't look around.
- Also, if you set camera control sensitivity too high, you can't fine aim and will miss your shots constantly. If you set the sensitivity in the middle, you can't look around or aim.
Another huge problem carried over from the mobile version is the inability to move the camera while flying.
The audio quality is even worse in this version due to all sound effects being compressed to 22.5 khz.
Despite Microsoft adding support for certain original Xbox games in the Xbox One's backwards compatibility program, there is no option to play that version on the Xbox One, and in fact, inserting an original San Andreas disc will cause the system to download the HD version.
In the Xbox 360 version has a bug that crashes or softlocks the game selecting a test in Pilot School, this is particularly problematic as the Pilot School is mandatory in the storyline. To prevent this, the player spam the "A" button.
In the PS3 version also has a bug that it makes the dancing minigame even more harder than before. Even if the player presses the correct button in the circle marker being centered in the button you can't get perfect bonus and instead the player must press the button just close to the button in the circle marker making the storyline unfairly unbeatable because one of the missions "Life's a Beach" is mandatory.
During Michelle's date, specifically the "letting her drive" part, it is completely broken and will always end up as a bad date and CJ falls from the air every time.
The PS3 version has a confusing save system where normally saving a game from the top slot which you think would be overwriting the newest save will actually be overwriting the oldest save. This can lead to disastrous accidental overwrites.
Also, in the PS3 version has a disastrous problem that whenever you plug the controller battery charger into a wireless PS3 controller, the controller will not work and in weird cases, the game plays itself and even if you unplug the charger, the controller still not work until you exit and re-enter the game. This can be extremely problematic if your wireless controller is running out of battery meaning that you're forced to play other games than this until the controller is fully charged.
Some mission during cutscenes, Audio may cut at few moments. this making hard to understand for the players.

Redeeming Qualities

The Xbox One release does at least fix most of the performance issues, other than one or two very minor frame rate stutters, and also fixes a couple of other glitches.
The PS3 version fixes some bugs from the Xbox 360 version, especially the graphical corruption glitch.
The minigun can now auto-aim like other guns in the game.

Trivia

Similar to GTA: Vice City, there's a glitch in the Windows Store version of the remaster, in which it skips the entire game and you even get 100% completion.

Videos

Comments

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SpazJR61

14 months ago

Score 8

One of the best games of all time and my favorite game of all time, is butchered by this terrible port.