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So we all know what San Andreas is, we know what it’s about, we know the players, and some of the features. But just because we know of the features, doesn’t mean we have the full skinny on them. In our last San Andreas preview, we offered up a small taste of what to expect from the latest in Rockstar’s breakthrough series. This time, we’ve got a smorgasbord. Who loves ya? That’s right…

I’m hungry

One of the new features in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is that the main character, CJ, now needs to eat. But what does this mean? And how does it work? It sounds initially like a relatively simple idea, as the Grand Theft Auto world becomes more and more interactive, it makes sense that food would become something that you can control. But when you start to think about all the possible ramifications of what this actually means… it’s HUGE.

When CJ is hungry a help message will appear, if he doesn’t eat soon his energy level will start to decrease.

Don’t forget to eat your greens

If CJ forgets to eat he will lose energy and start to get skinny, and will eventually become rather emaciated and weak. His clothes will fit him differently as he gets thinner. But its not all about looks, as CJ gets thinner from under-eating he becomes weaker, he wont have the strength he needs to lift boxes, his speed and stamina will be greatly reduced as he swims, cycles and runs. As he gets weaker the force of his punch will dwindle and he won’t last long in a fight!

So, to stay in shape and keep his strength up CJ will need to eat regularly. Eating a good solid meal will also restore CJ’s health. Each type of food has a calorific value which is used to determine how much the energy/fat will increase.

So, after a fight you may want to head over to the nearest hotdog stand to help you feel better. But anyone who thinks that just hanging out eating pizza all day will make you indestructible – you should know better.

All food and no exercise makes CJ a fat boy

Binging is bad. If you try and stuff CJ full and eat too much he will throw up! Needless to say any of the benefits of the nutrition you consumed are lost and your stamina is reduced to what it was before you pigged out. And you won’t get your money back! Furthermore, once you’ve regurgitated your food, you won’t be able to buy anymore for a while.

As CJ eats he gains weight. If he keeps eating, and eating, he will gain more and more weight and as he gets fatter he starts to bulge out of his clothes, he begins to waddle rather than walk, even standing still he struggles to catch his breath when overweight, every animation is affected – he cant even put his arms by his sides in the same way.

Naturally, carrying all this extra weight around will impact on his performance, he will have trouble with anything that involves exerting his body - lifting, climbing, swimming, running etc. His reaction time will also be a lot slower so you’ll want to avoid fights wherever you can, especially since a bigger body is a wider target! His larger frame becomes a hindrance to his stamina and ability to perform many actions. Some things will actually be impossible for him to do when he is too heavy!

Being a nation obsessed with our weight, people generally are cruel and not very understanding of those of us who are rather rotund! The inhabitants of San Andreas are seemingly no more forgiving on this issue. As an overweight CJ walks down the street the reactions he gets will be very different to when he is in peak physical condition - especially from the women!

Shaping up

If you want to get in shape you’ll need to spend some time at the gym, working out. But there’s more to being healthy than just being thin, you’ll want to pay some attention to building some muscle strength. A healthy CJ will be faster, stronger, have more stamina and a quicker recovery time. But it isn’t just a case of CJ being fat or thin, there are two statistics at work here: fat and muscle, so for example CJ can be relatively thin and have little stamina, but have exercised and built up his strength to the point that he hits like a tank. We will be covering more about exercising in a later feature but for now suffice to say that the system is incredibly subtle and there are a ridiculous number of fat/muscle combinations that not only affect the way that CJ looks, but his actions and performance and the way that other people react to him.

Places to Eat

Whatever you’re craving, San Andreas has is all, especially if it’s fast food. Leslie Benzies told us: “One of the things that stood out to us when researching Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was the enormous impact food and restaurants had and still has on Los Angeles. Just the variety of restaurants and how they’ve come to embody the lore of LA, from the Brown Derby to In-and-Out Burger, is truly astounding and bizarre all at once. We kept encountering stories of people that went in for a burger and came out wanted for double homicide!”

These are some of the choices of restaurants you’ll find in the game, each with different menus and varying degrees of fat content, so watch what you eat—

Cluckin’ Bell

This chicken shack features all things chicken—chicken burritos, fried chicken, wings—all served by guys in chicken suits. Menu choices include the Cluckin’ Big Filet Burger and Cluckin’ Huge Double Filet; the wings pieces bucket and fowl wrap burrito.

Well Stacked Pizza

Pizzas and more. The Buster, The D-Luxe, and The Double D-luxe are enough to tide even the hungriest of players over, but be careful about how much you gorge—the staff here is a bit aggressive and won’t take lightly to you vomiting all over the counter.

Burger Shot

If you like ground beef, this is your spot. Lots and lots of beef. The Double Barreled Burger is always a favorite.

While you’re there, you’ll want to have a look around you at the décor in these places. You’ll also notice other customers ordering and eating food – everyone’s gotta eat!

If you want to eat on the go, you don’t have to go to a restaurant to grab a bite. Stop by one of the many vending carts scattered around the city and pick up a snack.

Ready for a Workout?

Although CJ needs to eat, there are consequences and if he eats too much he’ll get fat! In order to stay in peak physical shape, like the rest of us, he could benefit from a little time at the gym. There are several gyms in San Andreas where CJ can workout. The gym in Los Santos is a tough place—just like those using it.

Gyms vary from one to another in terms of equipment etc but this one has a variety of workout options to burn off unwanted calories and build stamina and muscle: such as the stationary bike or the treadmill. CJ can develop his strength by doing barbell curls and bench presses.

Working out will give you the strength and stamina necessary to have any chance of surviving the streets of Los Santos. A healthy CJ will run faster, cycle faster and swim faster. As CJ becomes healthier his stamina will also increase and he will be able to keep up the pace for longer. His recovery time will also be faster. Outside of the gym also, the more CJ runs, the more his stamina will increase. When overweight or until his stamina has been built up CJ will grow tired very quickly.

As in previous Grand Theft Autos, the more frequently he runs and sprints, the more stamina he builds. But now, as CJ’s stamina increases, the player’s ability to complete missions and tasks will improve dramatically.

As CJ works out he will also gain muscle and strength. As he gets stronger he is better placed to win a fight as his punches and kicks will increase in force.

The relationship between body fat and muscle is not automatically the inverse of one another; these are 2 separate statistics, which result in a lot of different combinations depending on how you want CJ to be. So, for example, CJ can build strength and be fat.

Each city has a distinct style of gym, each with it’s own look, feel and type of characters who visit as well as its own type of equipment, workout and instruction available. The gym in Los Santos is a typical, grungy gym, the sort of first-floor joint where you can imagine gang members hanging around and sparring. Not only can CJ work out here but this is also a good place practice your fighting skills and to learn new fighting moves to complement the moves you started the game with. By taking on an opponent in the ring CJ can learn a variety of fighting moves to put his new found strength and stamina to the test—punch combos, punching on the ground, and punching while running are all new skills that will come in very handy in Los Santos. The gym in San Fierro, in contrast, is a serene dojo. Here you can learn and practice an entirely new set of fighting techniques that we will be releasing details on later. The gym in Las Venturas is a seedy, down-on-its-luck boxing facility with a ratty ring in the middle and numerous holes in the concrete floor. Here CJ can learn street fighting and some pretty aggressive and below the belt moves!

While fighting the player can now lock-on to opponents during melee combat and the use of a second button has now been incorporated allowing for more advanced moves and combos, enabling CJ to pull off some crazy combination moves! Plus self-defense has been incorporated - CJ can now block incoming blows from attackers.

Bike Tricks

As you can imagine the BMX bike is particularly fitting for getting around the Los Santos neighborhoods. It’s great for going short distances especially as it’s inconspicuous and convenient - it allows CJ to weave through traffic-clogged areas of Los Santos, get down narrow alleyways that larger vehicles cant follow you down, and it’s also a lot of fun to ride. But riding a bike is work, you can’t just hold down a button and expect to tear off at great speed, you have to tap the button to build up your pace: This makes the bike really controllable and great for doing stunts on.

The more CJ rides the BMX, the better he gets at it. He will build up stamina and be able to keep riding longer but his skill will also increase, he will fall off of the bike less, and the bike will handle better and be more responsive.

It wouldn’t be a BMX if you couldn’t do tricks on it, including bunnyhop, wheelies and endos. CJ can also perform a variety of combinations, including 360s and 180s on the BMX. The actual number of tricks CJ can do is still unnanounced at the moment.

Police AI

The police in San Andreas are pretty smart and responsive. They will try a variety of tactics to take down anyone they’ve got it in for. During high-speed pursuits, police will open fire with their weapons and will follow, not only from behind but also from all possible angles—coming at CJ head-on, down side streets, cutting him off or ramming his car in order to end the pursuit.

They are also very skilled at following a suspect with the spotlights on their helicopters. When they point one of these lights at you, the light is too bright to see anything, making it much harder to take out the helicopter or aim at the cops on the ground in the direction the light is shining from. Shining bright lights in the eyes of the criminal to paralyze him is a well-known tactic that is frequently used by LSPD. They also will look out for their own safety and will seek out and use cover during gunfights.

For those of you keeping up to date with our latest screens, you may have noticed the motorcycle cops; watch out for them, they also have the ability to fire their guns while in pursuit.

The San Andreas police force has quite a challenge keeping the peace and patrolling the streets of San Andreas. Be careful, they are up for the challenge.

Lighting Models

The lighting in Liberty City was designed to be grim, distinctly urban, and rather depressing even with sunlight. Vice City was the total opposite--bright and sunny, giving the city a warm, friendly and optimistic glow – however superficial. San Andreas is such a huge place with so many different atmospheres, lighting is such an important part of setting the mood we wanted to make sure that the lighting was appropriate to each setting, so that the lighting in downtown Los Santos feels very different to the light in the open countryside and again very different to the artificial glare of Las Venturas.

Every item in the game has been modeled for both day and night. Shadows and textures are unique not only to each individual item, but specific times of day. Cars will look different from day to night.

Shadows will change with the time of day. Also, very specific lighting schemes were assigned to the cities in San Andreas. Los Santos was designed to reflect the lighting environment of Los Angeles. Smog is an element in the atmosphere, at times a physical presence, leading to dramatic sunsets.

Lighting was used to give each city a distinct physical presence. San Fierro and Las Venturas have very different lighting effects – as you can imagine based on the cities that they are inspired by. In San Fierro for example the changeable weather with crisp blue skies and fog and rain call for very different lighting from the oppressive, dirty heat of Los Santos. The glitz and neon of the Las Venturas strip contrasts with the blistering heat of the desert where you can literally see the shimmering heatwaves coming off the ground.

Carjacking

The population of San Andreas it seems are fairly street smart and not unused to dealing with car thieves. Many of them will put up a fight and instead of merely pulling a driver out from behind the wheel, CJ may often need to resort to a stronger method of persuasion when jacking his vehicle of choice

For example CJ may have to kick, punch, pistol-whip, or bash the head of the driver into the dashboard of their car to jack a vehicle.

Tattoos

As we have mentioned, and as you saw with CJs visit to Reece the barber, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas allows for an incredible level of customization of the main character, CJ, allowing the player to alter his clothes, hair, and more. The player character really becomes a character you can shape and mold, customizing and modifying him to be how you want him to be, so that he can become a very different character for each person playing the game.

Taking this further in a way that really is a seamless part of the San Andreas of the 90s, CJ will also be able to get tattoos. This works in game in a manner similar to real life. CJ finds a tattoo parlor,

And then selects a design for a tattoo and which part of the body will be inked. His choices will of course include gang affiliations and other tattoos in the heavy ink style emblematic of 1990s era Los Angeles.

“We wanted people to be in complete control of their characters. If they didn’t like the way he dressed, they could earn enough money to buy new clothes. The tattoo feature works the same way, only the motivation is different. If you were in a gang, you’d get a gang tattoo showing that.” - Leslie Benzies

The Rockstar production team worked closely with Mister Cartoon, a legendary LA-based tattoo artist, to develop the look for in-game tattoos. The inks for Los Santos residents are often guns, gang names and girls and are heavy and black, the patterns and styling similar to iconography brought into mainstream culture by rap albums and films of the early 90s. In San Fierro you’d be more likely to find Aztec signs and drug iconography appealing to the more relaxed members of San Fierro society, and in Las ventures of course is all about Lady Luck and cards and dice for the high rollers.

The LAPD maintains an enormous database on gang members and their tattoos. If you’re arrested and have a tattoo, it’s photographed. They literally serve as a better form of ID than a driver’s license, and they tell more about a person than DNA or a fingerprint. Certain tattoos say ‘don’t mess’ from a distance.

With this level of customization for your character, each player can have their own unique brand of CJ. One may be a fat, uzi wielding nut case, while another may be a suave, suite clad gangster. The choice is really up to you, and adds a whole new dimension of replay value to the games that previous GTA games have been without.

New Camera Controls

Rockstar North worked very hard to implement a new intelligent camera and at the same time gave the player complete freedom over camera control if they choose to use it.

The left analog stick controls the direction a character walks in. The right analog stick allows for complete camera control, both in-vehicle and on foot.

In weapons mode, the right analog stick allows you to freely target all ranged weapons, if you choose to, and no longer have to stay in a fixed position. Now players can choose to aim with the R-stick while running/strafing with the L-stick. This also means that you can look in a different direction while running or driving. So you can look wherever you need to, to get that perfect look at something that will improve your gameplay or performance on a mission.

Dirt on Cars As you drive around in your favorite ride you’ll find that the cars get dirty— generally people in San Andreas don’t seem to wash their cars too often and there are actually a lot of filthy cars around the streets. If you manage to acquire a nice, spotless car, be warned—constant use will dirty it up a bit. Dirt will appear in the obvious spaces—around the wheel wells, around impact areas after a traffic accident, and on the windshield if you’ve been going through alleys or parks. Look out for car washes if you want to keep your car clean and shiny.

Dirty cars are one thing, but San Andreas residents also seem pretty slack when it comes to fixing bumps and scrapes. You’ll notice quite a few cars around San Andreas with varying degrees of damage - broken windows, loose bumpers, and bullet-riddled doors, presumably from previous battles!

Gang Members

You may think that gang members spend all their downtime just hanging out on street corners, but there is a wealth of subtlety to their actions. Look closely at a group of gang members you will see them drinking, smoking, greeting one another, throwing signs and talking to one another.

Play your cards right and they’ll also have your back when you’re being chased by the police or a rival gang. If you are attacked by police or a rival gang while on your home turf, your gang members will come to your assistance without you even having to ask. Use this loyalty strategically to your advantage - lure your pursuers into friendly gang territory and let your guys help you out while you make your escape down a nearby back alley. The player now has a real sense of home turf.

Obviously there is a flip side to this…Be careful when entering a rival gangs turf! They’ll aggressively attack and destroy CJ’s car if they see him driving through their territory! If on foot, the gang will approach CJ and try to attack. It’s dangerous to think you can get to know their tactics and out-smart them, they wont necessarily come after you the same way each time, and they may not all come after you together. They may send a couple up ahead to tire you out before descending as a group to finish you off, then again some of them may stay back so just when you think you’ve beaten them, they’ve got fresh legs to chase you away, or finish you off!

Leslie Benzies commented: “We spent a lot of time getting that level of interaction right, and making it unique. We wanted to convey very clearly that the gangs had a certain way of communicating, very definite mannerisms, and yet had to create signs and language all our own that was faithful to the world we’re trying to depict. It was challenging, but it adds a startling level of detail to the game.”

And if that’s not all, you can surely expect more details to continue to surface as the October release date nears. There are still plenty of aspects to ponder over, including story progression, a more in depth look at the games RPG elements, and so much more. Until that time comes around, we’ve got some new screens in the gallery to tide you over.