The Legacy of GTA: San Andreas: How Rockstar's Project Influenced the Gaming Industry
On October 26, 2004, GTA: San Andreas was released on PlayStation 2. Over the past 20 years, the gaming industry has changed beyond recognition. Moreover, the story of CJ has influenced it in the most direct way. You will learn how this happened from our article.
San Andreas Multiplayer (SAMP)
Many games, such as Skyrim and Fallout 4, remain relevant to this day thanks to user modifications. With San Andreas, the situation turned out to be even more interesting, because enthusiasts added a full-fledged multiplayer to it, which was not in the original version. Before the release of Grand Theft Auto 4, players simply had no alternative. But even today, during the popularity of GTA Online, SAMP is still of interest to players. This mod first appeared on the Internet in 2006, about a year after the release of the PC version of the game. Over the years, the project has been refined and improved. Today, dozens of servers are functioning.
The most popular is the RP mode. It assumes that each player takes their role in a big city. You can work as a policeman, a fireman or a simple worker, win the elections and become a mayor or go broke and become a homeless person. It turned out to be a kind of life simulator, like The Sims, but based on GTA and with much greater possibilities.
You can also note the Deathmatch servers. Everything is much simpler here — players fight each other in arenas. Various weapons and vehicles are used.
Note that some people were able to monetize SAMP. Real money is used to sell in-game items, such as cars, firearms, and real estate, as well as ready-made servers.
Grand Theft Auto 5
If in GTA 4 the developers focused on seriousness, then in the fifth part they again turned to the concept of San Andreas. Together with Los Santos, the recklessness of individual missions in the spirit of hijacking planes right in the air or fighting with the police using a tractor with a large bucket returned. In GTA: Online, you can also find references to the events of San Andreas. For example, "The Diamond Casino Heist" made me remember how CJ raided Caligula's Palace in Las Venturas.
Saints Row
The first two parts of the Saints Row series showed what GTA would have been like if the developers had developed the mechanics of San Andreas, and not gone the other way in the fourth part. Here, the main focus is on gang wars and various funny activities in the spirit of pouring sewage from a sewage truck onto houses in order to reduce real estate prices. There is no deep plot in these games, but if you liked participating in the confrontation between African-American gangs, then Saints Row 2 is an excellent choice.
In the third part, the developers made an even bigger bet on madness, and the fourth game in the series finally moved away from the concept of Grand Theft Auto. It became a kind of superhero action game in the spirit of inFamous.
Mafia 3
"Mafia" has always been the antipode of GTA — instead of cheerful mayhem in a separate city, it offered a bet on seriousness. Meanwhile, in the third part, you can see references to San Andreas. For example, interrogation of informants using aggressive driving. Similar mechanics were encountered in the first mission for Woozy called Tender Ketchup.
Ghetto theme in games
Thanks to this game, the publishers decided that people are interested in African-American gangs and everything connected with them. Perhaps this judgment is wrong, because the Grand Theft Auto series has always been played for the sake of gameplay. Meanwhile, after San Andreas, we saw many games that worked with the theme of American ghettos.
Bright examples are the action games 25 to Life and 50 Cent: Bulletproof, as well as the GTA-like True Crime: New York City. Unfortunately, all these projects turned out to be mediocre. San Andreas remained the best statement on the topic.
Mobile GTA clones
You can find dozens of games for smartphones that use the mechanics of San Andreas. Of course, by today they have been influenced by the fifth part, which is made in a similar concept. We talked about the best GTA clones for mobile phones in a separate article.
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What references to San Andreas have you seen in other games? Share your opinions in the comments!
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