You could still do all the silly open-world stuff too, with a massive list of side quests to complete, cars to drive, and weapons to master. From the moment he arrived on a boat from Eastern Europe his pursuit of the elusive American Dream had us hooked, and we couldn’t help but root for him. But by focusing more on its characters, Rockstar made us genuinely care about Niko’s tale. And yes, your cousin Roman constantly bothers you to join him at the bowling alley. Yes, the tone shifts wildly from poignant to absurd, and supposedly emotional cutscenes are interspersed with open-world chaos. GTA 4 was ridiculed for its self-seriousness story, but Niko’s journey from nothing to hotshot is what we loved most about it. It was, and remains, the best GTA game of all time. You could visit the barber, show off your new trim on an evening date, play pool with your crew, or hit the basketball court, and an RPG-like stats system for every vehicle and weapon type in the game added extra customisation. At times, San Andreas felt almost like a life sim: you could build muscle at the gym provided you ate enough to maintain your bulk, but if you stuffed yourself too often you’d put on weight.
The bit we remember fondest is the roleplaying. You went from pinching sports cars to stealing combine harvesters.
The ambitious plot wasn’t afraid to change pace, and at one point plucked you from the streets of Los Santos and dumped you in the hilly countryside between the three cities. Protagonist and gangster Carl "CJ" Johnson managed to keep the story on track despite the absurdity of everything you could do, from robbing a casino to stealing a jetpack from a top-secret government bunker and blasting away from the scene. San Andreas built on the brilliance of Vice City in every way: it was more than three times the size, and each of its cities - Rockstar’s versions of LA, San Francisco and Vegas - felt unique.
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