GTA San Andreas: Impressions from all you playas

[Perfect Stu]

GTA: SA raises the bar in so many different areas. It's tough to absorb the size of this beast when you first start playing. But, at about 7 hours in, I've began to tame the beast. And man...what a beast it is.

Visuals

-While not the most amazing textures or highest-poly character models, the game looks very good. Great lighting, a distinctful, fitting art style, and sheer variety of what you see around you is boggling.

Gameplay

-Better than any other GTA, period. Variety is fantastic...I've danced in night clubs, played pool, rode cars, lowriders, dune buggy's, BMX bikes, choppers and motorbikes. There have been motorbike chases, lowrider races, and train pursuits on a dirt bike. Drive-by's, gang beatings, and picking up hookers. Ive lifted crates of guns from a forklift into a stolen van. I also showed off my lowriding skills by hopping my car around on hydrolics, based on a minigame that is not unlike a simple version of DDR.

-One thing that has changed since past GTA games is character custimization. You can pick your clothes, you can build up muscle at the gym, and you can pack on the pounds by eating fast food (if you feel like it). NPC's will react to your appearance according to your appearance.

I feel that I've taken a decent chunk out of this game, but apparently I'm only 9% in. I havent seen either of the other two cities, or most of the countryside.

Ive looked around, and there's really nothing to complain about. You can look hard for glitches and imperfections, but you'll soon get caught up in the atmosphere of cruising down the beachside in your lowrider listening to "Aint Nuthin but a G Thang" or tearing down the highway at night on a chopper listening to "Free Bird".

Games dont get much better than this. And I'm less than a 10th of the way though it.