Grand Theft Auto V vs. San Andreas (compared in individual aspects)

[godforgivesthelostdont]

Visuals - V

 

No contest. GTA V is one of the best looking, technically and aesthetically, open-world game on the X360/PS3. San Andreas even for it's time was below average visually, suffering from lots of N64 quality textures.

 

Sound - SA

 

GTA V had quality voice acting and a good OST of it's own, but the majority of the time it is the radio soundtrack that counts. San Andreas wins easily on this front. The music consist of the big 80's early 90's hits that add to the atmosphere of post Cold War LA. GTA V is unfocused, feels like a random collections of songs. And on a totally subjective level, most of those songs are bad.

 

Story - SA

 

Both stories had their share of levity and grandiosity, but San Andreas knew how to keep the two apart from each other. In V, the silly and serious collide into each other and make it unfocused. Having one antagonist made it much more focused for SA. While 3 protagonists, 5 antagonists and inconsistent character behavior overwhelmed V's story.

 

Missions - Tie

 

San Andreas had a greater variety of missions and more creativity put into the mission design. Even though the core game mechanics aren't really changed, each mission felt creative (setting up the DA, driving a decoy truck, etc.). GTA V's missions are on that level but not quite. San Andreas did have some sharp difficulty spikes and its share of frustrating missions while V had some great heist/heist set-ups, so it's a tie.

 

Overworld - SA

 

I'm excluding visuals here since we already covered that. GTA V is much much bigger, but it is also full of more emptiness. San Andreas overworld represents more of a place, is more interconnected and densely packed together. You can fluidly move from one area to the next. The size of Los Santos in V is overwhelming and doesn't beat the folksy nature of SA's Los Santos.

 

Gameplay - V

 

V refined a lot. Shooting is tighter. Driving is smoother. Car upgrades as well. It also added the mission checkpoints that San Andreas sorely lacked.

 

Impact - SA

 

GTA V was not nearly as revolutionary as it was marketed to be, especially with the flop of its online. San Andreas for it's time greatly expanded the size of open-world sandbox games, as well as adding a vertical aspect to it. GTA V is largely derivative with the same formula. For it's time, SA was one of the best of the year. GTA V on the other hand was forgotten by many players after 2 weeks.

[Raavi]

http://gtaforums.com...ta-v-vs-gta-sa/

 

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