Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas – The Definitive Edition Reviews

---{Graphics}--- ☐ You forget what reality is ☐ Beautiful ☑ Good ☑ Decent ☑ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ MS-DOS ---{Gameplay}--- ☐ Very good ☐ Good ☑ It‘s just gameplay ☐ Mehh ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't ---{Audio}--- ☐ Eargasm ☐ Very good ☑ Good ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ I'm now deaf ---{Audience}--- ☐ Kids ☑ Teens ☑ Adults ☐ All ---{PC Requirements}--- ☐ Check if you can run paint ☐ Potato ☑ Decent ☐ Fast ☐ Rich boi ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer ---{Difficulity}--- ☐ Just press 'W' ☑ Easy ☐ Significant brain usage ☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☐ Difficult ☐ Dark Souls ---{Grind}--- ☐ Nothing to grind ☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks ☑ Isnt necessary to progress ☐ Average grind level ☐ Too much grind ☐ You‘ll need a second live for grinding ---{Story}--- ☐ No Story ☐ Some lore ☐ Average ☐ Good ☑ Lovely ☐ It‘ll replace your life ---{Game Time}--- ☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee ☐ Short ☐ Average ☑ Long ☐ To infinity and beyond ---{Price}--- ☐ It’s free! ☐ Worth the price ☑ If u have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ You could also just burn your money ---{Bugs}--- ☐ Never heard of ☐ Minor bugs ☑ Can get annoying ☐ ARK: Survival Evolved ☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

They didn't even try: original shitty controls, original shitty camera, original shitty shooting. But now with shitty performance. I should have refunded it.

The ultimate GTA experience in my opinion, the amount of stuff that you can do in a 2004 game is astonishing. A very good story with an amazing set os 3 cities in the background makes this game still holds up now. In this remaster there are still some bugs but it´s playable now. I recommend. Grove Street 4 Life

good game, but this is far too overpriced and so much uglier than the original.

Rockstar are refusing to give me access to my account as it is using my old email account. I cannot play any of their titles as a result of this

Back in 2021 the GTA trilogy remasters had one of the worst launches of gaming in history. Later came to be known as the "bugfinitive edition" online. It later cemented itself as one of the worst remasters ever made at the time. The three games in it were basically unplayable due to the large amount of bugs, glitches, and crashes filled in the games. Is this still the case today? Yes and no. Most of the game breaking bugs and visual bugs have since been patched out. Models deemed poor quality were updated to be more tolerable, and some graphical options were fixed. The main reason people will play this nowadays is A. the original was removed from sale B. Modern QoL updates Pros: Easily the best of the trilogy in terms of open world game play and customization Three separate cities which are essentially their own world spaces to explore and play in Story is great especially at the beginning and the final acts. Neutral: Modern gaming QoL updates. Checkpoints: Checkpoints were added into missions to allow redoing them without having to go back to the original mission startup. easily the best of these features if you plan on doing the story, Difficulty re-balancing: story missions across the trilogy were made easier and less frustrating, and updated mini map to locate and find collectibles easier. Cons: Graphic style while okay. Could have been done MUCH better especially with them using Unreal engine. Online DRM: requires the rock-star launcher to be able to play. No major mod support: Major appeal of San Andreas was the mod support and some of the things people did with are truly amazing. Removing it removes incentive to go back and replay it. Soundtrack: due to licensing some of the soundtrack of the original was removed. Would give a neutral score if there was one. Only incentive to play over the original is beating the story is less of a pain due to QoL updates. If you plan on just doing that get it on sale. If you want to either mod, do more in the open world, or don't like the idea of having DRM for the game. Play the original though since its no longer for sale digitally. you will have to find other means of obtaining it.

If you loved San Andreas before this Definitive Edition will definitely catch your eye. The game’s been nicely updated making everything run super smooth and fun with no issues at all. The world is huge, diverse, and packed with cool places to explore. The missions are varied and you have plenty of freedom. You can follow the story or just roam the streets, play gangster, or collect oysters. The strong 90s vibe is still there and works perfectly. The Definitive Edition improves the graphics and smoothness but keeps the original spirit alive. It’s still full of adventure and nostalgia. I had a great time playing it, and earning the platinum trophy made me love it even more.

Worst remake ever, its full of glitches, almost unplayable in some parts. Its expensive for what they actually cooked. Better mod original game and play it. Destroyed a piece of art.

Honestly it is not fixed, no. It has pretty lightning and cars reflections and that's the only good thing. And checkpoints in missions. Otherwise it is just downgrade everywhere. Ugly LODs, ugly characters, cut features, worse controls, physics is broken sometimes, you also need RS launcher (and always online i guess?). You might think it has mods at least (since it is Unreal Engine) but no, modding community is dead after the last patch which broke every mod out there. Achievements? They didn't bother, most of the achievements are "complete mission X". Look at what fans made for Retro Achievements for comparison (260 achievements there), so creative!

It’s hard to explain what Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas really means to me. To some, it’s just a game—a chaotic sandbox with guns, gangsters, and a whole lot of swearing. But to me? It’s something else entirely. It's not just a chapter in gaming history. It is my history. It was my childhood. I remember being just a kid, booting up my beat-up old PC, the fan roaring louder than a jet engine, just to escape into the sun-drenched streets of Los Santos. That opening theme—those few notes—already had me hooked before the game even began. It was more than entertainment; it was an escape, a lifestyle, a ritual. Whether it was single-player or SAMP (San Andreas Multiplayer), San Andreas was the game. The game that defined what gaming could be. San Andreas wasn’t just a game; it was a world. A living, breathing world full of character, chaos, color, and charm. I used to roam the cities aimlessly, not even following missions sometimes. Just... existing there. Driving around, listening to K-DST or Radio Los Santos, vibing with the weather effects, watching random NPCs fight on the streets or get arrested—everything felt dynamic and alive. But what really cemented this game in my memory forever was SAMP. Oh man, the community servers. That’s where magic truly happened. From roleplay servers where I tried to become a humble cab driver to wild stunt servers where I launched cars off impossible ramps—it was limitless. I made friends I never met in real life. I joined gangs, I ran casinos, I played ridiculous Cops vs Robbers. It was chaos and joy, completely unscripted and full of laughs. It wasn’t just me playing a game—it was me living inside one. But even beyond the multiplayer madness, the single-player story of San Andreas is one of the best-written, most engaging tales I’ve ever played through. It starts simple—you return home to Los Santos after your mom dies. But quickly, it spirals into something far deeper and more powerful. Carl “CJ” Johnson is hands down one of the most iconic, relatable protagonists in gaming history. He’s not some overpowered superhero. He’s not a soldier of fortune. He’s just a man trying to do right by his family, caught between loyalty to his crew and a city that’s crumbling around him. CJ’s growth throughout the game—from a scared, unsure guy to a total boss who owns properties, flies jets, and topples entire crime empires—is legendary. Each mission reveals more layers: the betrayal by Big Smoke and Ryder, the manipulation of Officer Tenpenny (voiced chillingly by Samuel L. Jackson), and the eventual rise of CJ from the streets to the top of the food chain. The narrative is dripping with drama, corruption, family ties, survival, and ambition. It never feels fake. It hits hard. It tells the story of an underdog rising from the dirt—and you live every step of that climb. This game was ahead of its time. I didn’t realize it as a kid, but now, looking back, San Andreas was ridiculously ambitious. The amount of content they packed into this thing is insane. Want to be a bodybuilder? Hit the gym. Want to eat until CJ gets fat? Sure, go ahead. Want to customize cars, spray tags, find collectibles, gamble in casinos, pilot planes, drive trains, or just ride a bike through the hills of San Fierro at sunset? You can do all of that. Even now, decades later, I’ve never played a game that gave me this much freedom. It didn't force you to rush through missions or follow a linear path. It gave you a world, and it said: “Go live in it.” And I did. Over and over again. And let’s not forget the cheat codes. Who among us didn’t summon a tank on the freeway just for laughs, or spawn a jetpack to fly around the desert like some kind of cartoon superhero? Even cheating was part of the fun. San Andreas didn’t punish you—it let you go wild. San Andreas oozed style. From the 90s West Coast aesthetic to the music that plays through your ears long after the game’s closed, everything had flavor. Radio Los Santos, Bounce FM, K-Rose—all legendary. Each radio station was a time capsule of genre, mood, and soul. I discovered music I’d never have listened to otherwise—now burned into my memory. Even the fashion, the slang, the graffiti, the hairstyles—all of it captured that gritty, raw feel of 90s LA-inspired culture. You felt immersed. You felt cool just walking around. It didn’t feel like you were playing CJ. It felt like you were CJ. Here we are—years and years later. Dozens of consoles, hundreds of new titles, groundbreaking graphics—and still, people talk about GTA: San Andreas. Still. Memes, quotes, remasters, mods, debates, speedruns, replays. This game refuses to die. And rightfully so. It didn’t need ray-traced graphics or bloated DLC. It had heart. It had style. And it had that inexplicable something that so many modern games lack: soul. People from all over the world—different backgrounds, different cultures—all know the pain of hearing “Ah s***, here we go again.” Everyone remembers their first drive across the countryside, or the mission where you sneak into Madd Dogg’s mansion, or flying a rusted crop duster to complete a secret mission in the desert. These are memories. Not pixels. Not polygons. Moments. I don’t know if the developers ever realized what they were creating. I don't think they could’ve guessed this game would shape the childhoods of millions. That it would be the reason kids made new friends online. That it would inspire modders, artists, musicians, writers, and dreamers to express themselves through this chaotic, beautiful game. San Andreas is not perfect—no game is. But it doesn’t have to be. Because it meant something. It still means something. It’s more than just nostalgia. It’s a legacy. Even today, I sometimes reinstall it. I mod it, I play it raw, or I dive back into SAMP for that sweet, chaotic energy of yesteryear. No matter how much gaming evolves, no matter how advanced the tech becomes, no matter how many blockbusters release every year—San Andreas will always be the gold standard. A monument. A vibe. A revolution. If you’re reading this and you haven’t played it—don’t just play it. Live it. Let yourself sink into that world, those characters, that music, that wild and wonderful place where anything felt possible. Thank you, CJ. Thank you, Grove Street. Thank you, Rockstar. 10/10 – “Grove Street. Home. At least it was before I f*ed everything up.”**