GTA - San Andreas

Plot Summary

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas takes place within the fictional state San Andreas, which is based on sections of California and Nevada. It comprises three major fictional cities: Los Santos corresponds to real-life Los Angeles; San Fierro corresponds to real-life San Francisco; and Las Venturas and the surrounding desert correspond to real-life Las Vegas and the Nevada and Arizona desert.[16] Players can climb the half-mile (800 m) tall Mount Chiliad (based on Mount Diablo), parachute from various peaks and skyscrapers, and visit 12 rural towns and villages located in three counties: Red County, Flint County, and Bone County. Other notable destinations include Sherman Dam (based on the Hoover Dam), a large secret military base called Area 69 (based on Area 51), a large satellite dish (based on a dish from the Very Large Array), and many other geographical features. San Andreas is 13.9 square miles (36 square kilometers),[21] almost four times as large as Vice City, and five times as large as the GTA III rendition of Liberty City. While its predecessors' areas were limited to urban locations, San Andreas includes not only large cities and suburbs, but also the rural areas between them.

Los Santos

Like its real-life counterpart of Los Angeles, Los Santos comprises several diverse areas. This includes the gang-ridden neighborhoods of Ganton, Willowfield, Jefferson, Idlewood and East Los Santos, based on their actual counterparts of Compton, Willowbrook, Watts, Inglewood, and East Los Angeles, respectively.[citations needed] Also located in the city is a busy downtown section based on Downtown Los Angeles; the wealthy Rodeo and Mulholland districts (Rodeo based on Beverly Hills and named after Rodeo Drive); the beach-side districts of Santa Maria Beach and Verona Beach, Virgin Islands Santa Monica and Venice Beach; and the glitzy Vinewood and the giant Vinewood Sign are based on Hollywood and its Hollywood Sign. Los Santos features landmarks reminiscent of Los Angeles, which include the Watts Towers, the Los Angeles Convention Center, the Capitol Tower, the Los Angeles City Hall, the U.S. Bank Tower, the Griffith Observatory, the Forum, the Santa Monica Pier, the Vincent Thomas Bridge, Rodeo Drive, the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, and Grauman's Chinese Theater.

San Fierro

Like its real-life counterpart of San Francisco, San Fierro is characterized by a prominent cable car system and hilly terrain. San Fierro features several interpretations of many of San Francisco's districts and landmarks, including the Haight-Ashbury district (Hashbury), the Castro district (Queens), Chinatown, and the Golden Gate Bridge (Gant Bridge). Several other familiar landmarks have been recreated, from the Embarcadero clock tower and the Transamerica Pyramid (Big Pointy Building) to Lombard Street (Windy Windy Windy Windy Street), and the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge (Garver Bridge). San Fierro's City Hall closely resembles San Francisco's ornate city hall. San Fierro also contains remains of the Cypress Street Viaduct which collapsed in 1989 during the Loma Prieta earthquake. A naval base near the city's airport also has an aircraft carrier and submarine docked in the bay.

Las Venturas
 
Like its real-life counterpart of Las Vegas, Las Venturas is home to legalized gambling and several casinos. In these casinos, the player can partake in blackjack, video poker, wheel of fortune, roulette, or play slot machines. In addition to gambling, strip clubs are also prevalent in Las Venturas. Many real Las Vegas Strip casinos are faithfully interpreted on Las Venturas' Strip, including the Excalibur Hotel and Casino (Come-a-Lot), the Sphinx and pyramid of the Luxor Hotel (The Camel's Toe), Treasure Island (Pirates In Men's Pants), The Mirage (The Visage), Circus Circus (The Clown's Pocket), Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas) (V-Rock Hotel, which is named after the Vice City radio station), Flamingo Las Vegas (The Pink Swan), Imperial Palace (The Four Dragons Casino), Caesars Palace (Caligula's Casino), Bally's Las Vegas (The High Roller), Barbary Coast Hotel and Casino (Starfish Casino), and Casino Royale & Hotel (Royal Casino). Other landmarks include a replica of the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign and interpretations of Vegas Vic and Vicki as Vice City characters Avery Carrington and Candy Suxxx.[22] Suites in several of the hotels are available for purchase. In addition, Las Venturas features a large surrounding desert region, residential areas, and strip malls, as well as a seedy area (Old Venturas Strip ) with several strip clubs and gambling parlors based on Las Vegas's downtown area.

Characters

The characters that appear in San Andreas are relatively diverse and relative to the respective cities and locales which each of them based himself in. This allows the game to include a significantly wider array of storylines and settings than in Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City. The player controls Carl "CJ" Johnson, a young African-American gang member.

The Los Santos stages of the game revolve around the theme of the Grove Street Families gang fighting with the Ballas and the Vagos for territory and respect. East Asian gangs (most notably the local Triads) and an additional Vietnamese gang are evident in the San Fierro leg of the game, while three Mafia families and the Triads who all own their respective casino are more prominently featured in the Las Venturas section of the game.

Like the previous two GTA games, the voice actors of San Andreas include notable celebrities, such as David Cross, Andy Dick, Samuel L. Jackson, James Woods, Peter Fonda, Charlie Murphy, Frank Vincent, Chris Penn, Danny Dyer, Sara Tanaka, William Fichtner, rappers Ice T, Chuck D, Frost, MC Eiht and The Game and musicians George Clinton, Axl Rose and Shaun Ryder.[23]

Plot

After living in Liberty City for five years, Carl "CJ" Johnson returns to Los Santos in 1992 for his mother's funeral. There, he finds his family and gang, the Grove Street Families, in disarray. While ironing out issues with his fellow gang members and fighting enemy gangs for territory within the city, Carl begins to bring the Grove Street Families back to prominence. However, with the Families on the cusp of retaking control of Los Santos, he discovers that his best friends, Big Smoke and Ryder, are working with the crooked Officer Frank Tenpenny and Grove Street's rival gang, the Ballas. Smoke and Ryder set a trap and help the Ballas ambush Sweet, Carl's brother. Tenpenny sends the police to arrest Sweet and kidnap Carl, whom Tenpenny ditches in the distant rural countryside. Carl, realizing Tenpenny is his only hope of staying out of jail or getting Sweet released, continues to run the cop's crooked errands, in the process killing or discrediting people involved in building a criminal case against Tenpenny.

Carl steadily befriends new allies throughout the game, among them: a blind Chinese Triad leader and businessman Wu Zi Mu, who is currently fighting a war with the Da Nang Boys, a Vietnamese Criminal Organization; an old hippie called The Truth, who for unknown reasons is under Tenpenny's control just like Carl; and Cesar Vialpando, the leader of the Varrios Los Aztecas who, like Carl, has been betrayed by his old friends. Carl, Kendl (CJ's Sister), Cesar and his friends open a garage in San Fierro while they wait for an opportunity to return to Los Santos.

While in San Fierro, they hitch a plan to destroy the Loco Syndicate, a drug empire that is responsible for the large amounts of drugs spread throughout Los Santos, after killing Jizzy B, San Fierro's Biggest Pimp, Carl gains a phone which gives him the location of where the Syndicate (who will be using the San Fierro Rifa and their leader T-Bone Mendez, who is the muscle of the Syndicate) will be meeting Ryder and the Ballas. Carl, Cesar and some Triads ambush the meeting at Pier 69, killing T-Bone Mendez, and blowing up Ryder in a boat chase. Mike Toreno, the Loco Syndicate's leader, is currently at a Police Helipad in Downtown San Fierro, Carl finds and destroys the Helicopter, and Toreno is presumed dead. After the presumed death of Toreno, Wu Zi Mu informs Carl of the Loco's Drug Factory, Carl blows up the factory with a car bomb and the Loco Syndicate are put out of business for good. Carl becomes immersed in the affairs of Mike Toreno, who wasn't actually in the Helicopter at the time and but was at his Ranch in Tierra Robada, Toreno also mentions he is a government agent, and implies that he will release Sweet if Carl helps him with his covert operations.

After learning how to fly aircraft and doing two jobs for Toreno and The Truth, Carl works alongside Wu Zi Mu to promote the growth of a new casino (The Four Dragons Casino) in the Mafia-Run Las Venturas, and to create a robbery to steal the mob's money and to force the mob out of Venturas. During Carl's stay in Las Venturas, Carl rescues failed rapper Madd Dogg and becomes his manager, and turns out better than Madd Dogg's previous one, who Carl killed for OG Loc before his exile from Los Santos. Consequently, Carl enjoys newfound wealth and eventually returns to Los Santos. Toreno makes good on his earlier promise to release Sweet, but much to Carl's surprise, his brother wants no part of Carl's new lifestyle. Sweet insists on returning to the hood and working to reestablish the Grove Street Families rather than rest on the laurels of Carl's success.

Tenpenny goes to trial for several felonies, but the charges are dropped for lack of evidence, as all the prosecution's witnesses are either missing or dead.(Most of the jobs Tenpenny forces CJ to do throughout the game involve killing or discrediting people involved in the case against him.) Tenpenny's release sends the citizens of Los Santos into a violent citywide riot, similar to the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. Fueled by Sweet's resolve to topple Big Smoke, who has become the city's biggest drug kingpin, Carl reacquires lost gang territory and hunts down the traitors responsible for pushing drugs that destroyed the Families. He kills Big Smoke in a shootout, escapes from the burning crack palace and pursues Tenpenny, who has fled with Smoke's drug fortune. Sweet and Carl chase Tenpenny through the streets of Los Santos until Tenpenny loses control of his firetruck and drives it off a bridge, right onto Grove Street. Carl is about to shoot him, "just to make sure it's finally over," but is stopped by Sweet. Sweet simply tells him, "It's just a cop that died in a traffic accident." Tenpenny then dies from his injuries. The final scene shows the Johnson family reunited. As his friends and allies celebrate their success, Carl turns to leave. When asked where he's going, he replies, "Fittin' to hit the block, see what's happening."

Many characters, locations and fictional elements from previous Grand Theft Auto games reappear in San Andreas. Catalina, the main antagonist in GTA III, accompanies CJ on a number of robbery missions. Claude, GTA III's protagonist, also makes a brief appearance as Catalina's new boyfriend after she dumps Carl. They proceed to compete in a street race, which Claude and Catalina ultimately lose. Catalina hands Carl a deed to a garage in San Fierro instead of the car's pink slip, stating that, "He needs his car to get to Liberty City". In a bit of an inside joke, numerous remarks are made about Claude's apparent muteness, due to the fact that he had no spoken lines in GTA III or San Andreas ("That mute asshole" and "That fuckin' snake without a tongue"). Catalina also continues to call Carl through the rest of the game in an attempt to make him jealous of her new relationship.

Ken Rosenberg and Kent Paul, from GTA: Vice City, feature prominently in several Las Venturas missions in connection with Salvatore Leone, the Liberty City mob boss featured in GTA: III and Liberty City Stories. Maria, who later becomes Salvatore's girlfriend, also appears as a waitress in Caligula's Palace. CJ also mentions that he worked for Joey Leone, Salvatore's son.

During the events of the game, Carl briefly returns to Liberty City to assassinate a high ranking Forelli Mafia member at Marco's Bistro, under orders from Salvatore Leone. The mission takes place in a section of southeast Saint Mark's, where Carl must fight through attacking Mafia members in Marco's Bistro and kill his target in the back lot of the restaurant.

Jethro and Dwaine also appear in San Andreas, they were seen when Tommy Vercetti buys a boat yard in Vice City, The Truth mentions that their business was bought by the mob.