GTA: San Andreas
 

Well well well. It seems the next GTA installment is now officially GTA: San Andreas. (Told ya!) This is pretty much the opportunity I've been waiting for to ask around what you hope will be in it. Just pure and idle speculation...

Setting:

- I think it would be cool to have it play in the Sixties or early Seventies (I mean... San Andreas/Francisco, WHEN ELSE?), of course with original music.

- Also on that note, I'd like a kinda Manson Family as a gang, and a Charles Manson character. It just fits. Of course, certain groups would likely cross this (soccer moms, I'm looking at you).

Engine:

- Shoot behind while running. Please. It's needed. You spend way more time on foot and having shootouts with every new installment, it seems. Make it so you can use handguns to shoot while looking over your shoulder, with worse aim of course, just to drive off your pursuers. And to give the handguns a purpose beyond Mission 3 where you get the Gatling with the explosive rounds.

EDIT: Hey, good idea... (expensive) explosive rounds would kick ass.

- The "here today, gone tomorrow" thing should really be fixed. Y'know, where you get out of your car, turn around so you can't see it, turn around again and discover that in the meantime David Copperfield has come along and hexed your ride away.

- This has been going around in my head since VC was announced: it would be cool to have a hitman running around town, or even several, who are after you and can randomly appear in each and every situation, regardless of what you're doing at the moment. The only way to get rid of them would be to seek them out and kill them.

Imagine it: it would add a whole new level of difficulty to your missions when you could never be sure if your nemesis doesn't wait behind the next corner with an AK47... to keep the suspense level high, you could be not able to kill him up to a certain point in the game... *swoon*

(And a sidenote: If a Rockstar employee happens to read this [you never know...], feel free to use it. Really. Take credit for it all you want, get awards for it, I don't care, if it's only in the freakin' game! :D)

So, whatcha all say?

Some pretty good ideas there.

I'd like to see some kind of manual aim for all weapons, the lock on aim is nice but it sucks when your trying to shoot a guy with a shotgun and you lock onto a civilian rumming down the street.

I like the Hitman/Assassin idea, but you'd have to give him a weird gimmick if he can't be killed until a certain point in the game.

As for the time period, Rockstar's alreeady done the 90's and the 70's, so we'd need the 60's or the 80's. I'd pick the 60's.

Actually, VC was based in the 80's.

I just hope it doesn't turn out like mafia where the speedsters go all of 35 mph... Slow chase scenes not as much fun.

And, while we're on the subject.. What about bounty hunters who come after you if you kill enough people? Eventually the cops stop chasing you, but if bounty hunters got some cash for offing your from a family member of the person you ran over for no more reason then they were there, it would add another dangerous element... And more excitement!

You could even combine it: say one early mission requires you to kill someone, whose next of kin subsequently set a hitman on you, and before you can kill him, you have to get a certain clue as to who he is, where he lives...

... well, I actually thought of that to prevent people searching him out first thing and killing him, but then again, you could run around in the city forever...

... but if you knew where he lives, he'd be bound to appear there more often.

And after you kill him, you get his apartment as a save point.

Something else: I think the PC versions had manual aim. I knew there had to be an advantage to them (well, other than the mp3 player). Of course, with the mouse it probably evens out.

I really hope they keep the ability to buy property and make money off them after you do a few missions. That's what really sold VC to me. I loved the fact you could sit around at the strip club for a few hours and suddenly it'll make you money. Though staring at those polygons for awhile can't be healthy...

Ray Liotta did an awesome acting job in GTA and I can't really think of someone who could do a better one in GTA:San Andreas. Ya'll guys know any voice actors?

I think that the Hitman idea is a good thing...Perhaps there should be like 12 and if you kill them all, you get a certain bonus in addition to the appartments?

I'd also want to see less/more spawning cheats. I mean- the spawning cheats work 90% on the road. If you try it in a junkyard- no show. Even then you probaly can't get the cars you want...

Aside from that- a longer game would be awesome. I mean, if 40% is just doing jumps, buying property, and doing missions for that property it gets boring. Make the real gameplay 80% & the other missions 20%. It just makes it look better in my opinion...

And another thing, perhaps if you could like...Hire people to work for you? Like you go into a building and you talk to this guy. A screen pops up. Depending on your actions and how you respond- you might get to hire them. Also depending on your actions- you could get him for cheaper than usual. And maybe, just MAYBE you can go to taverns and stuff and look for jobs...

I? I'd like to see a Vice City in the modern period. Oh yeah, they already had a GTA in the 60's. Grand Theft Auto: London 1969.

I thought the GTA-style game set in London wasn't actually a GTA game, made by Rockstar. Am I thinking of something different? Was this a PS2 GTA, or one of the old top-view sprite graphics games?

Does anybody know what city San Andreas is supposed to be standing in for? I'm hoping that's what they're calling LA, because there's too much potential for a game like that.

In the right hands, of course, because if you're going to do LA, you have to include the whole sprawling complex that ensnares a half-dozen different counties. They've got to have Downtown, the LA Basin (because someone said "hey, you know what would be a brilliant idea, would be if we took all the rivers and paved them), the ghettos, miles of pleasantly bland suburbia, the beaches (including some fucked-up ones so polluted that if you walk on the sand you get oil on your shoes), and highways like mad (especially the 5 level interchanges).

I remember years ago in LA there were a bunch of highway slayings -- someone'd cut someone else, and the someone else would pull up next to someone #!, stick their arm in the window, and ensure that the first someone was never going to cut any other someones off ever again. Clearly this is a must for such a game -- you should both be able to specifically target the driver of another car, and NPC cars that you cut off should occasionally speed up and come after you.

...

Oh yeah, and there's a strip club roughly every 3rd highway exit in LA, a demographic distinction which such a game would really be obligated to represent.

...

Well, I need to get going -- I've got to start getting my hopes up and developing wildly high expectations.

(Although I must add -- after GTA III came out, I said "man, you know what would be incredible? Would be if this game had motorcycles on which you could zip around and gun down crowds of people unrestricted. And it'd be cool if they made it Scarface style, especially the part with the chainsaw." So who knows?)

One of the things they need is a new model for the tank...
Two games in a rown same model and such...

WOW. I had THE EXACT SAME IDEA. Sorta like in Need For Speed: Underground, it'd be great if cops suddenly showed up and interrupted the race, you had to evade them, the whole city got unlocked, and you had to find a safehouse. That'd be SICK