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GTA: San Andreas - The Great Outdoors Preview
Chris Leyton
27/09/2004
TVG goes on an adventure into the San Andreas countryside...
TVG was recently asked to attend yet another presentation of GTA: San Andreas in action (itās a hard life), and yes once again the game literally left us having to collect our jaws from the floors of RockStarās office as the guys in charge took us for a stroll in the country.
Although the cities of San Andreas offer a complete experience that shadows those seen in GTA3 and Vice City, itās fair to say that the majority of people will know ālooselyā what to expect; however stretch outside of the suburbs of Los Santos and youāll find mile after mile of luscious countryside to explore and the accompanying small-town life of San Andreas ā“ as the guys during the presentation stated, itās pretty much the first game where āsightseeingā is a valid option.
Itās this element that divides the GTA series from its imitators in our opinion; as many will testify itās quite often more enjoyable to go and do your own thing in the GTA series then concentrate on your missions, itās this issue of choice and freedom that marks the series out. Certainly many have tried to emulate the design, however often youāre either forced down mission structures too rigidly with little option to go off and explore the locations that theyāve spent months creating, or you discover that thereās very little to sustain your interest once you stray off the beaten path ā“ we donāt need to name names, but weāre pretty sure you know exactly what we mean.
Itās this philosophy that guidelines the creation of the state of San Andreas; sure the sheer scope of the game virtually makes every other game on this generation look lazy in comparison, however you can trust that the talented team of 160+ at RockStar North wonāt just put things into the game for the sake of making it big. Every square mile of the state has something worthwhile to take away your interest and entertain you once you begin to get weary of a certain mission, and that can certainly be levelled towards the open stretches of the country along with the streets of Los Santos, San Fierro and Las Venturas ā“ itās not just dead space, itās interactive, itās living and breathing, more importantly itās one hell of a lot of fun.
As with the three cities that dominate the state of San Andreas the countryside locations have to a certain extent been based around the surrounding locations of Los Angeles, with rolling hills and mountains to the north, crossing over into sandier desert stretches towards the east.
The country regions of San Andreas encompass 12 different towns away from the major three cities, the monumental Mount Chiliad and a range of winding rivers that stretch from end of San Andreas to the other. Our demonstration began on an unassuming farm in the San Andreas countryside, complete with the traditional red barns, wheat silos, white picket fences and weather vanes. Rather handily CJ found himself standing next to the ultimate vehicle for the terrain, the Monster Truck!!!
The 4WD x 4WS rolled across the steep hills of with ease, truly the vehicle of choice for such extreme terrain ā“ āGrand Theft Auto ā“ The Great Outdoorsā. As weāve already talked about, creating such luscious locations required the team to develop a radical new technology entitled āProcedural Renderingā. Instead of requiring the level designers to map every single bush, tree and blade of grass, Procedural Rendering allows the team to designate areas that require trees for example, whilst the engine then automatically renders these within the specified area. Itās this technique alone that has allowed the team to truly go to town and create such a wide and varied environment, resorting to traditional techniques alone, itās likely that San Andreas would have taken many more years to complete.
The Monster Truck neatly highlighted an aspect of the new physics system behind San Andreas, which accurately handles the likes of bicycles, monster trucks and airplanes with ease ā“ not to mention the sheer number of more conventional GTA motors. Although we were happy to just sample the sights of the San Andreas countryside and chase after a few rednecks in the Monster Truck, the demonstration soon moved over to a mission within the region to highlight the differences between those featured within the cities.
A friend of CJās finds himself in a spot of bother with a rival gang, and asks him to drive a truck to act as a decoy so that he can make a safe escape from the sleepy town. What basically entails is a mad chase, up and down hills, squeezing in between the tight gaps of a forest and hopefully making it in time, before the pursuing gang-members on Sanchez dirtbikes armed with sub-machine guns can blow open your doors to reveal that youāre not the guy theyāre trying to catch.
Navigating through the tricky and extreme terrain looked hard enough, whilst the task of keeping damage to a minimum and fending off the gang-members ensured that this was certainly a ferocious and brutal example of the tasks to be found within San Andreas. Sadly for the man in charge you canāt shoot the guys from their bikes, although youāre free to ram them into trees and off their bikes, but you can be sure theyāll soon be back on your tail putting bullets through your windscreen. Despite a brave attempt, the man in charge failed to throw off his relentless pursuers and was ultimately caught; now we can only imagine how many demonstrations the guys at RockStar had to perform, but it certainly gives a suggestion of the difficulty to be faced within San Andreas and should shut up those who consider the previous two titles too easy.
Needing a new vehicle, we found CJ strolling down the main street whilst keeping an eye out for a suitable vehicle; the ensuing hi-jack was brutal to say the least, as CJ opened the door and threw the occupants head against the dashboard and chucked him from the car.
Safe in the knowledge that the bikes had long left us behind, the demonstration took us the scenic town of Angel Pine, replete with a trailer lot, single-screen cinema, bait shop, liqueur store, hicks and its very own scenic view of the awesome Mount Chiliad. To be entirely honest the feat of this mountainous range is quite staggering to begin with, itās the type of thing that games used to display in the background, teasing the player with the fact that they would never be able to scale it.
At over 2,500 ft Mount Chiliad represents the biggest object in the game; just to give you some indication of the sense of scale, it would take 1-2 minutes to scale it within a helicopter, or the healthy-concerned players could choose to ride up on a BMX ā“ provided the 30 minute duration doesnāt put them off!
The second mission of the day took place a short distance up Mount Chiliad, and unsurprisingly once again sees CJ in a bit of a dilemma. GTA fans will know that CJ is framed for murder upon his return to San Andreas at the start, and somebody is using this against him to blackmail him into killing a witness holed up in a log-cabin under FBI watch. Not content with just knowing that CJ agrees to the blackmail, the blackmailer demands proof of the murder and hands CJ a camera to take photos of the dead body (yes you can keep on to the camera to take photos of San Andreas to show the family).
Once again it was time for a change of vehicle, introducing a new addition to the GTA series ā“ the quad bike. Much like the monster truck, the quad bike is ideal for the terrain and also great for a quick getaway; as with all the vehicles featured within the game, the handling looked absolutely spot-on, and more importantly itās just fun to drive - as with the BMX CJ can perform a variety of tricks on the quad-bike including endos and wheelies. The mountain has numerous dirt-tracks crossed against it, suffice to say our mission didnāt take us across that much of the mountain ā“ as with most things RockStar want to keep most of the secrets a surprise. Despite the fact that we didnāt reach the summit of Mount Chiliad, it did highlight the heavy improvements that RockStar North has made to the draw-distance within the game, which had once again been enhanced since the last time we saw it. This has been attributed to a number of factors that the developers have implemented, including mip-mapped textures and a hierarchical level-of-detail (LoD) structure.
Although we could have just gazed lovingly at the sights from Mount Chiliad all day, there was the small matter of blackmail and a mission to complete. Having reached the log-cabin, it doesnāt take much before the witness is sent scrambling in a desperate attempt to escape, whilst the FBI agents soon begin to pursue. Again itās a mission that is brutal and intense, however this time around it wasnāt long before CJ was standing over a dead body and taking the photo as evidence. One particularly noteworthy mention about this mission must go to a previous demonstration, which perfectly highlighted the random yet believable nature of the AI behind the citizens of San Andreas. Having ditched the FBI agents CJ found himself close to the witness, however before he could reach him, a circling plane made a crash landing into the witnessās car, sending it into one massive fireball and completely destroying the body beyond all recognition before CJ could take a photo!
The final and perhaps most impressive part of the demonstration took CJ out into a field, in order to take control of what was described as a āclassic modelā but one that has certainly undergone a number of improvements since its appearances in GTA3 and Vice City ā“ yes you guessed it the Dodo and this time around itās got wings!!!
Giving us an aerial tour of the relatively small distances that the demonstration focussed on, our aerial trip took us to the town of Dillamore, just north to Los Santos. From our location just outside of Angel Pine it would have taken close to 15 minutes to drive, however the luxuries of the Dodo ensured this was closer to a couple of minutes ā“ yes airplanes are certainly essential to traversing through the great expanses of San Andreas. Once again the handling looks to strike a perfect balance between accuracy and enjoyment, as the little Dodo struggled to get off the ground and looked slightly wobbly on a number of occasions in its climb. However once in the safety of a few thousand feet the joys of finally having a proper plane within GTA took over; the radar handily displays an altimeter along with a gyroscope to ensure youāre in (relatively) complete control. Our accent into the sky took us towards the clouds (making a first appearance in GTA), which have been completely modelled within the game, so you can find yourself flying through them and perhaps even hiding within them. The team have created pretty much every type of cloud formation there is, so the scientific bods out there will be able to distinguish their Stratus from their Cumulus.
Making a sudden landing amongst a tractor pile-up, our demonstration concluded with a journey into Los Santos to highlight the differences between the relaxed, laid-back country towns and the gritty city streets. Despite the two being at opposite ends of the spectrum, the way in which the fields and barns merged seamlessly into the affluent Vinewood area, the skyscrapers of Downtown and eventually the run down areas of Los Santos was outstanding to say the least; moving the clock forwards, the differences in a red drenched sunset in the countryside to the light-polluted town was profound to say the least and created an entirely new vibe.
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