Who on this planet have not heard about Grand Theftt Auto: Vice City, especially after its successful debut on the Playstation 2 last year. So it's not surprising when Rockstar Games announced they are porting San Andreas to the PC and Xbox. And now, the PC version of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is finally here!

Grand Theftt Auto: San Andreas takes the series back to the early 90's, set in the fictional California-ish state of (what else?) San Andreas. It follows a young thug named Carl Johnson (CJ) who returns to Los Santos (modeled after Los Angeles) from Liberty City to bury his mother who was murdered. CJ's own family and friends care little for him, though, since he's spent the last five years on the other side of the country. He's going to have to start completely over, and regain the respect of his gang as well as his friends.

The first thing you'll notice when playing the game is that San Andreas is a state, not a city. San Andreas, loosely based on California, is made up of 3 cities (each roughly the same size of Vice City). Los Santos is based on Los Angeles, San Fierro is based on San Francisco and Las Venturas is based on Las Vegas. Each city has their own unique look (style of terrain, vegetation, architecture) that is specific to their real-world counterpart, which helps created a sense of authenticity even though you're playing in a game world. The map is really huge! It takes at least 30 minutes to drive from one end of the world to another, although you can at least skip the drive if you're redoing a failed mission.

As with the previous Grand Theft Auto games, there's one epic storyline that you go through. The majority of the game revolves around completing missions rather than simply jacking cars and running over people as in the early versions. The missions range from completing simple drive-bys and getting your gang back on the map when you enter Los Santos to much more complex and interesting ones later in the game. Despite all the missions (almost) boil down to some combination of driving, shooting and collecting, even after the nearly hundred missions that make up the core story, they stay unique and interesting. The number of time also extends if you partake in the vigilante missions, optional races, robbery missions (all you need to do is hop in a van at night), dating missions (which typically require you to take a girl out to eat without upsetting her), dance missions (DDR-like rhythm games), etc. Then there's also gambling, pimping missions, jumping from really high skyscrapers with a parachute, and much, much more! Driving and racing is a total blast, as usual. You can crash into everything, run over people, antagonize the police, lead chases, etc.

To add even more depth to the gameplay, the developers added a skill-based system for CJ. For most tasks, CJ will fare poorly at the beginning, and slowly improve as he gains more experience. CJ needs to eat and be in shape, but more importantly needs experience with weapons if he wants to hit something besides his foot. Once you get CJ to a certain point with certain types of guns, his range and accuracy will improve (he will be able to run and shoot at the same time, etc)You're also rated in a lot of different vehicle categories, like driving, riding motorcycles, bicycling, and piloting aircraft. There are numerous schools that will test and grade you in all sorts of maneuvers, from wheelies to stoppies to 180's and driving a car on 2 wheels. However, the most important skills are his strength, stamina, amount of body fat, respect amongst the gangs, sex appeal and his ability to swim. You have direct control over CJ's physique, by controlling when and what he eats, and how much exercise he gets. If you don't eat, you will get weaker. If you eat too much junk food, you'll get fat and slow. You can also customize CJ's looks by changing his hairstyle, tattoos, and clothing. The types of clothes you wear and the cars you drive determine how your in-game girlfriend will respond to you. Girlfriends give you bonuses such as holding your cash and "equipment" while you get "wasted" or "busted".

What is different between PS2 and PC version of GTA: Vice City? In terms of content, the PC version of Vice City is identical to its PS2 sibling. Of course, the PC version look much better than PS2 version, especially if you've got the rig for it (don't forget to remove frame eate cap and pump up all the settings!) Control in the PC version is full of options. You can decide to hook up a dual analog gamepad so that you can play it just like the console versions, or you can instead opt for mouse-and-keyboard control. Needless to say the mouse-keyboard combination does take some time to get use to - my one real beef with this is that you'll now have to constantly hold down the "aim" key if you want to pop up a crosshair on the screen. Also flying with keyboard & mouse is almost impossible. Because of the terrible flight controls with a mouse, you'll probably need some sort of gamepad or Prozac :P The PC version also comes on DVD only and is packaged with a fully bound book that serves as the manual and a full-size poster with a map of San Andreas on it.

Overall, there is plenty of stuff I said about San Andreas but I've only scratched the surface. The endlessly free roaming world makes this game well worth the six months wait and is a must play for all who hasn't played the game yet.

Warning: The M rating is highly appropriate and parents should absolutely not let kids play this.

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System Requirements:
Minimum : 1GHz Intel Pentium III or AMD Athlon Processor, 256 MB of RAM, 64 MB Video Card with DirectX 9 compatible drivers ("GeForce3" or better), DirectX 9 compatible Stereo Sound Card, 8 speed DVD-ROM Drive, 3.6 GB of free Hard Disk space for a minimal install, Keyboard, Mouse

Recommended: Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon XP processor (or better), 384(+) MB of RAM, 128(+) MB Video Card with DirectX 9 compatible drivers ("GeForce4" or better), DirectX 9 compatible Surround Sound Card, 16 speed DVD-ROM drive, 4.7 GB of free Hard Disk space for a full install, Game pad with twin axis analogue controls (USB or Joystick Port), Keyboard, Mouse

Supported Operating Systems are: Windows 2000 Pro SP1 (Workstation)  / Windows XP (Home and Professional) SP1 or higher plus DirectX 9