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Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas doesn’t come out for another 3 months, and everyone is scouring for any tiny speck of information they can get on the hot title. Scour no more dear reader; your friends at Gamers Wanted have done the scouring for you, and now we’ve compiled it all into one handy little feature for your reading convenience. Everything in this feature is officially announced either via text, screenshot, or otherwise. Rumored content for the game is not included; we’ll save that for the forums.

The Story:

The storyline in San Andreas has the potential to be one of the best Grand Theft Auto stories told to date. The official description from Rockstar looks like this:

"Five years ago Carl Johnson escaped from the pressures of life in Los Santos, San Andreas... a city tearing itself apart with gang trouble, drugs and corruption. Where film stars and millionaires do their best to avoid the dealers and gangbangers.

Now, it's the early 90s. Carl's got to go home. His mother has been murdered, his family has fallen apart and his childhood friends are all heading towards disaster.

On his return to the neighborhood, a couple of corrupt cops frame him for homicide. CJ is forced on a journey that takes him across the entire state of San Andreas, to save his family and to take control of the streets."

When you really take a look at the story, it could easily be the set up for a blockbuster motion picture, but it’s not, this is the story of GTA: San Andreas. Even Vice City didn’t have such a dynamic opening concept for a storyline.

The Players:

Of course, no story can be told without characters, right? Right. While Rockstar hasn’t officially announced the entire cast from the game, we do have a list of the known personalities that will appear in the game, and we know a bit about their purpose. The list goes a bit like this:

Carl Johnson - The main character of the game, as well as (we assume) the to-be leader of the Orange Grove Families Gang. Carl was imprisoned for 5 years before taking up in Los Santos, San Andreas, and now he has an agenda for revenge against the people responsible for the death of his mother and younger brother.

Sweet Johnson – Sweet is Carl's older brother, as well as a member of the Orange Grove Families Gang. Sweet blamed Carl for the death of their youngest brother (an event that takes place 5 years before the game).

Brian Johnson - Carl's 10 year old brother who was killed in a tragic car accident 5 years ago. Sweet blames Carl for his death.

Kendl Johnson – Carl and Sweet’s sister. She apparently has some personal issues with Sweet. Not much else is known of her yet.

Smoke – Friend to the Johnson family and another member of the Orange Grove Families gang.

Ryder – One of Carl’s old friends, and another Orange Grove Families Gang member. Ryder is said to have one hell of a short fuse and a mean streak the likes you have never seen.

Old Reece – The local barber. Players will be able to visit Reece and change their hair styles in the game.

Eddie Pulaski – A corrupt cop; one of the officers responsible for Carl’s framing. Eddie will apparently be causing trouble for Carl during the game, along side his partner.

Frank Tenpenny – Eddie’s partner, and the second of the two officers responsible for Carl’s framing.

Cesar – Not a whole lot is known about Cesar, except that he’s Latino, has a body chock-full with tattoos, and a .45 at his side at all times.

Some extra characters you’ll come across include the Ballas and The Flats. These two gangs are the Orange Grove Families biggest rivals, and current ‘owners’ of San Andreas territory.

San Andreas: The City:

As a lot of you may (or may not) know, San Andreas is the third, and last city to be used from the original GTA game. San Andreas is broken up into 3 sub-cities (like the islands from GTAIII): Los Santos, San Fierro, and Las Venturas; each with their own distinct personality and each the size that Vice City was! That’s right. Each of the games 3 cities will be the same size that the whole of Vice City was. The entire game as a whole will be roughly about 5 to 6 times bigger than Vice City was! Those of you trying to grasp that concept: think huge.

Between cities, players will be able to traverse the desert, which we’re to believe will be full of interesting things, drive through the country-side and travel on a huge mountain. What interesting bits we may come across while traveling between cities is still unknown, but if we know Rockstar, we’re pretty sure it’ll be sweet.

In Vice City, players were able to walk around in a few select buildings, which really helped open up the gameplay. Well, San Andreas is taking the interior concept touched on in Vice City, and cranking it to 10! Rockstar promises a whole slew of indoor environments this time around, dwarfing the number we saw in Vice City.

A noticeable improvement on the games engine will be no outdoor loading times. Rockstar promises us that while moving around San Andreas, players will never see a single loading screen. The only loading players will experience will be during indoor-outdoor transitions, and even that, we’re told, will be minimal.

Draw distance has been improved incredibly for the latest GTA outing, as Rockstar says the new engine boasts a whole 6x further draw distance than Vice City had. This means a more in-depth, realistic presentation for gamers. The idea that Rockstar will be able to do this, while at the same time keeping their no-load promise is just mind boggling, to say the least.

Graphics for the San Andreas have been significantly boosted from the visuals seen in Vice City: people now look a lot more realistic than the past games, while the car models now have real-time reflection, improved damage, and will accumulate dirt and rust while you play, depending on where you’ve driven the vehicle. A new lighting system has been implemented in the game, making for more dynamic shadows and lighting. Light will be reflected off of people/characters in a much more realistic fashion than seen in previous GTA titles, as well as lighting that adjusts with the time of day.

New abilities/features:

With a new engine comes new abilities and features for the game. Thanks to the new lighting system, Carl will be able to make use of shadows to hide from enemies, or shoot from a dark corner. Of course, the new lighting system doesn’t only benefit Carl, as Police choppers will not be able to use their spotlights to search you out when on-foot officers can’t find you.

Whereas previous GTA games have used traditional animations for damage detection, San Andreas will utilize rag-doll physics, or ‘Impact Animation’, as Rockstar likes to put it. This means realistic reactions from NPCs when you attack/shoot them, instead of the cut-out animations you’re used to from GTA.

Hold your hats for this one kiddies: Carl can swim! Yes indeed, Carl will be the first of the GTA characters ever to be able to swim instead of drown hopelessly. Now when you send your vehicle careening into a nearby lake, you can get out and (try to) swim for safety.

The length you can swim is determined by your stamina meter, another new feature for San Andreas. Many conditions will affect your stamina, including how much your work out, how much fast food you eat, etc. If Carl eats too much fast food, and doesn’t exercise enough to burn it off, he’ll get fat, and people will make fun of him when he walks down the street. To top off your humiliation, you will move slower, and only be able to run for short distances. On the other hand, if you keep Carl in good shape by taking him to the gym every once in a while, while eating the right amount, Carl will be in peak shape for swimming, sprinting long distances, etc. This new feature really opens up the gameplay to limits past GTA titles could have only dreamed to achieve.

Aside from physically changing your appearance by eating too much, Carl will also be able to change his hair, much like Tommy Vercetti in Vice City changed his outfit. Players will be able to choose from numerous possibilities of hair styles. NPC characters you pass on the street will comment on your hair too, depending on what your style is. IF you’ll still be able to change your clothes is still undetermined, but I wouldn’t be too surprised to see it come into play before it’s over.

Likely the single biggest improvement made on the previous efforts, and probably the largest gripe everyone had for the last 2 GTA games is the targeting. In GTAIII and Vice City, your character was something of a horrible shot, due largely to a sloppy targeting system that felt very rushed. Seems Rockstar has been listening, and has since improved significantly on the targeting system for San Andreas. Now, when players aim, the camera will move to an over-the-shoulder perspective, akin to Manhunt, or the new Resident Evil. This will allow for a much more accurate shot, instead of only being able to have decent accuracy with the machine guns or sniper rifles, as seen in previous titles. Your target, while also providing you with a clean shot, will now inform you of your targets current health. When you aim at someone with full health, your aimer will turn green, yellow for half health, and red for near death. This will help you choose your targets more carefully, so that you don’t bite off more than you can chew in a given situation.

The melee combat system is also said to be being treated to an overhaul of sorts. Apparently now when players decide to whip out the fisticuffs, you’ll have a variety of moves to choose from, including various ‘stances’, and even combos! This will lead to some much more interesting fights than seen in GTAIII, or even Vice City, which basically saw you in a ‘punch, punch, kick them while they’re down, repeat’ nightmare of blandness.

Much like in Vice City, San Andreas will see you taking control of different establishments, and earning profit from them. We’re told though, that the number of establishments you’ll be able to take over is much larger than Vice City, and will play a much more significant role in gameplay. And if buying out stores wasn’t enough, San Andreas will allow you (at some point) to design and build your own casino from scratch, have it built, and be able to walk around in it and gamble your hard earned cash away. Pretty sweet, huh?

Aside from earning cash by buying out stores, and winning big at a casino, San Andreas will also allow you to rob peoples homes! Rockstar says that this will be no easy task though, and that it will take cunning, skill, and some significant planning. We’re not completely sure on whether or not robbing homes will be a mission-based affair, or if it will be something you can just up and do at your own convenience, but I would guess the sooner of the two most likely.

NPC AI is going to be completely re-done for San Andreas in order to provide you with realistic reactions from civilians depending on your actions, and cops that aren’t so completely mindless. Gone are the days where you can beat an innocent old lady in the streets while civilians pass by like it’s an every day event. Civilians will now react properly, either by screaming out for someone to help, or even maybe by coming to the rescue, if they’re ballsy enough that is. Overall, this should help give San Andreas that life-like, organic feel that GTAIII and Vice City were lacking.

The Soundtrack:

Vice City basically caused an audio gaming revolution when it was released with a slew of licensed music. It gave the game such a real life feel; instead of listening to fake (and often annoying) tunes over your radio as seen in GTAIII, you got to listen to tons of different music from the era the title took place in, while still holding on to the completely hilarious talk-radio stations. San Andreas looks to bring that sense of radio realism back, and on an even larger scale. Being said to have a licensed soundtrack three times that of Vice City, San Andreas could really end up being quite an aural experience... Being set in the 90’s, you can bet Rockstar is doing its best to grab the biggest and best of last decade to provide gamers with an authentic experience. While no artist or songs have been officially announced, we wouldn’t be surprised to see some classics in there.

The End:

There you have it folks. Hours of searching and scrapping seems to have paid off to some extent, eh? Every solid detail you could possibly know about San Andreas in one spot. If, by some chance, I seemed to have somehow missed something, we wouldn’t mind you dropping us an e-mail to let us know about it, so we can add it in. No rumors though, please, only facts. October 19th is a long way away, and there’s still plenty about San Andreas to learn, and we’ll be here every step of the way. Until next time, stay tuned.