How similar do you find Los Santos to it's real life equivalent LA

[DaWiesel]

 

LS is tiny. Again, the map is one of the few things I dont like about V

lolyallacrazy.

 

LS is big. Try walking around it or riding around on a BMX for a while. It's really big.

Yeah, V's LS is actually the biggest city in the series. IV's Liberty City is around 2/3 as big as LS, if you add Alderney to the comparison it's pretty much the same size. So yes, LS is pretty big.

[J Cobra]

I've been to LA, 6 times before, and I'll say LS is an amazing replica of it.

[J Cobra]

LS is tiny. Again, the map is one of the few things I dont like about V

Bigger than LC, and it's tiny? Do you know what tiny is?

[CarnageRacing00]

 

 

LS is tiny. Again, the map is one of the few things I dont like about V

lolyallacrazy.

 

LS is big. Try walking around it or riding around on a BMX for a while. It's really big.

Yeah, V's LS is actually the biggest city in the series. IV's Liberty City is around 2/3 as big as LS, if you add Alderney to the comparison it's pretty much the same size. So yes, LS is pretty big.

 

 

Yep, and we're only speaking about LS itself, not the surrounding areas too so that should put the overall map size into perspective.

 

It's like if they took IV's map, then added some mountains, some sand, and a lake. I'm OK with that, because that's basically what a lot of people asked for when IV came out.

[XCalinX]

 

LS is tiny. Again, the map is one of the few things I dont like about V

Bigger than LC, and it's tiny? Do you know what tiny is?

 

Bigger than LC? Holy f*ck. Where did you guys came out with this sort of bullsh*t? Oh, you've seen some 'comparison' maps with sh*tty scaling, that's why. LC > LS.

[XenoxX]

 

 

LS is tiny. Again, the map is one of the few things I dont like about V

Bigger than LC, and it's tiny? Do you know what tiny is?

 

Bigger than LC? Holy f*ck. Where did you guys came out with this sort of bullsh*t? Oh, you've seen some 'comparison' maps with sh*tty scaling, that's why. LC > LS.

 

Of Course V's Map is bigger than LC...nothing to do with sh*t scaling its just bigger

Everyone would objectively verify this...

[woggleman]

I think LC looks best without the Filter. It's the reason I think TBOGT is the best looking game of the IV trilogy.

[Ewok626]

They did a good job but the scale is no where near what the real LA/socal is and a lot of landmarks are in the wrong spot.

Edited July 9, 2015 by Ewok626

[Gnocchi Flip Flops]

Not sure about the vibe and the lack of places to enter definitely hinders the vibe, BUT, and it's a big but, they both look very similar. The amount of real-life buildings they've shoved into Los Santos from Southern California as a whole is astonishing. People really only make note of landmarks. Me, I don't care about those. It's random sh*t like this:

 

- There's a vegetarian restaurant in Vespucci named Lettucebe. That tiny little slot of a building has always intrigued me. One day I searched up vegan restaurants around the Venice area and in just five minutes I found Lettucebe's real-life counterpart. Sadly I forgot it's name but I had it bookmarked on my currently incapacitated laptop.

[Landotel]

I went to California a few weeks ago and they nailed it. I even went to the Salton Sea which smells god awful in real life and they nailed Sandy Shores. I don't understand people who complain about the map because they seriously did their research.

Did you see Salvation Mountain? I was indeed close to the RV Village (I can't remember the name, but it was near it). Salvation Mountain is a lot bigger than the one in GTA V. I just think they didn't spend a lo of time on that specific landmark, but that's alright.

 

Los Angeles is obviously and consists of many cities surrounding it, but in GTA V terms, it's pretty darn good compared to The Crew which was a big disappointment. It would still be cool though if R* would have put Anaheim or San Diego, Riverside, or maybe even San Bernardino. It would have truly made sense.

[CarnageRacing00]

 

 

LS is tiny. Again, the map is one of the few things I dont like about V

Bigger than LC, and it's tiny? Do you know what tiny is?

 

Bigger than LC? Holy f*ck. Where did you guys came out with this sort of bullsh*t? Oh, you've seen some 'comparison' maps with sh*tty scaling, that's why. LC > LS.

 

 

Put down that peace pipe dude, you're wrong.

 

LS is bigger than IV's entire map. Not by a LOT, but it is.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIxjhVr33po

Edited July 9, 2015 by MichiganMuscle77

[XenoxX]

I said LS not the entire map lol guys you're sh*t

Sorry I was wrong...chill out no need to insult..

[CarnageRacing00]

 

I said LS not the entire map lol guys you're sh*t

Sorry I was wrong...chill out no need to insult..

 

 

You don't need to apologize to him, he's still wrong even if he was only talking about the city itself. This isn't the first time he's posted nonsense like this.

[Fuzzknuckles]

I have never been in LA but It's probably 100 times bigger.

I'm declaring this the best example of stating the obvious of 2015. Of course it is, there's no way they could have done it 1:1. Los Angeles in LA Noire felt huge, but it was largely the same all over and had some large wasted areas. It fel massive, though.

 

 

LC from IV was the only GTA city that's wasn't small IMHO

LS is indeed a little smaller than LC, but not much. Not noticeably. And in LC, particularly in Algonquin, it's really samey and a bit dull. I'd say of all the many hours I've spent in LC, only 5% of that was spent in Algonquin. It's kind of a waster, really, especially the acres and acres of boring industrial areas.

[CarnageRacing00]

XCalinX has a history of these kind of idiotic posts about the map. Seems to be all he does, when he's not taking upskirt photos of Molly Schultz. Probably best to ignore him from here on out.

 

On V's map compared to SA's map

 

 

No way, SA is bigger IMO no matter what people say. Driving from LS to Paleto Bay = Driving from LS to SF in SA

http://gtaforums.com/topic/805350-can-the-gta-v-map-fit-gta-vice-city-gta-4-gta-san-andreas-gta-3-red-dead-redemption-and-bully/?p=1067683944

 

 

Maybe it's a little bigger than SA but not by much

 

http://gtaforums.com/topic/805350-can-the-gta-v-map-fit-gta-vice-city-gta-4-gta-san-andreas-gta-3-red-dead-redemption-and-bully/?p=1067684483

 

 

Because it is bigger. At least in my opinion

 

http://gtaforums.com/topic/804261-my-honest-option-on-the-los-santos-and-blaine-county-map/?p=1067659737

[SuperGTFan]

 

LS is tiny. Again, the map is one of the few things I dont like about V

lolyallacrazy.

 

LS is big. Try walking around it or riding around on a BMX for a while. It's really big.

Because the cars are way too fast which makes the gigantic map feels a bit smaller than it looks.

[TestX]

 

 

They really are second to none when it comes to the designing of their city/world clones.

Quite true, and I would fully agree with respect to IV more than V when it comes to re-imagining a modern city.

Just like OP, I too felt that the modern LS just "feels like something is missing" than the old LS in classic GTA SA.

The modern LS seems more like a movie studio than an actual city. boring ..artificial.. lacks interesting things happening around.. and lacking the feeling of a living, breathing world.

Even from the gameplay perspective, I think people only judged GTA V for the amount effort they put up in developing the open world and all the details instead on the actual game itself. There are many obvious flaws beyond those details as already proved since the release. LS is surely pretty good to look at but feels awfully limited in interactivity and severely lacking in world reactivity. The game mechanics, missions design, choice of content, players freedom etc. are also pretty bad.

Basically, putting aside the technical limitations, the gameplay and the open world featured in classic GTA SA still blow me away, and never get bored of exploring and just having fun time.

 

 

I've tried, many times, to determine just what it is that people feel is missing from V's interpretation of Southwest Cali, but nobody ever seems to be able to put a finger on it.

 

So here are my theories:

 

1. You expected the early 90's version of LA, which is the version you've seen in nearly every major action movie ever made. Think about it - Terminator, Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Beverly Hills Cop, Naked Gun, Speed, and an ungodly large list of other movies. That's not even mentioning movie like South Central or other gang-themed films.

 

If you've never been there, those movies are most likely how you view LA. But the thing is, that LA is from the late 80's and early 90's, a unique time period for Los Angeles. Things have changed.

 

I still stand by my Last Action Hero theory - that Rockstar, however unintentionally, was following Last Action Hero's portrayal of LA and NYC. I mean, it fits so perfectly:

 

LA - bright, colorful, clean, like a hollywood set where real life physics and rules don't apply:

 

 

NYC - brown and grey, cold, miserable, dirty where reality is something we go to the movies to escape:

 

 

Just watch that movie (great movie) and tell me you don't at least see some merit to my theory.

 

 

2. Rockstar intentionally made LS to feel superficial, as LA (mostly the richer areas) are well known as being full of fake, superficial people who are completely up their own asses. It's a main theme throughout the course of the game - just look at Michael's family, and you need no more proof that this is what Rockstar were going for. They were criticizing the superficiality of much of California. V's story was about how all that fame and fortune just isn't enough, that success doesn't make you happy, that there's more to life than how much money you have or how well known you are. It is a stark contrast to how they designed Liberty City, which featured a story about real people trying to survive in a sh*tty world that seems designed to hold them down. So in other words, New York vs. Los Angeles. They're not the same place, and Rockstar represented each of them very faithfully, under the lens of satire.

 

3. There's no lens filter. Yep, like it or not, GTA V is one of few games that doesn't apply a color filter to the screen, so you're seeing "natural" lighting and colors everywhere you look - unlike GTA IV, which intentionally muted its color palette to begin with, then added a filter on top of that to muddy things up.

 

It's a VERY well known and popular method of playing with your brain. Dull, brown colors are depressing. Red colors are stressful, scary. Bright blues and greens are peaceful, serene.

 

Read:

http://www.cracked.com/article_18664_5-annoying-trends-that-make-every-movie-look-same.html

 

Joy Ride used lots of red to make the viewer constantly feel the threat of danger:

 

The Matrix used green, because for some reason we associate green with sci-fi and technology.

 

GTA IV used brown and grey to depress us and make us sympathize with the depressed characters:

 

 

With GTA V, Rockstar broke this trend, and that very well could be what's so off-putting to some people. You lack that disconnect because something as simple as color design isn't triggering that emotional response in your brain.

 

 

 

In conclusion, I think the issue is far deeper than people realize. That it's not a fault with Rockstar's design of San Andreas, it's that we're so conditioned to viewing things a certain way, that when something attempts to alter our perception of that thing, it's jarring.

you got liberty city right. and at the same time i do find it pretty similar vibe wise to NYC like you said that grey dark depressing cold world feeling to it, which is what NYC was in the late 90s and early 2000s. and at the same time they got the people, cops, crimes, the streets in broker, dukes, alderney with those old abandoned buildings, garbage beside them, the steam coming out of sewer grates at night, homeless people, the cars around there are nothing but taxies and rusty classics, old, cheap hatchbags and bandwagons etcc.

 

and everything you said here explains my view on LS and LA. as i said the details surrounding LS in GTA V are incredible and even some of them are tie to tie with their real life equivalents. but i might have just had that ''90s or even early 2000s movies, golden age of LA gang drama that was going on in the rap industry, gang themed movies etc lowriding and street racing'' type of things i'm myself have never been to LA before and grew up watching movies and other stuff that affected my view on LA which is probably why i find LS in GTA V is missing something that could be that ''golden age 90s vibe''. with that said design wise i wish if R* could'v made it a little bit bigger than that maybe have areas like vinehood hills, the beaches and airport, and the LS river and whats behind it a bit far away from downtown because it kinda feels awkward having the downtown buildings close as hell to these areas. you can basically see the skyline from the top of mount chilliad aka mount shasta. like how is that even possible lol.

Edited July 9, 2015 by AminB

[GTA-Biker]

I´ve never been to LA (or anywhere else in the US),but I think Los Santos should have larger ghetto and more middle class suburban areas,rich areas feel too big compared to middle class and poor parts of the city,almost half of LS are rich neighbourhoods (Vinewood, Vinewood Hills, Richman, Rockford Hills, Chumash...).And also,if Route 68 is based on Route 66,it should end on Del Perro pier.

[XCalinX]

@MichiganMuscle77 So I am, once again getting hated on for posting my opinion?

[XenoxX]

@MichiganMuscle77 So I am, once again getting hated on for posting my opinion?

You are getting hated because you are insulting people....

[SuperGTFan]

 

@MichiganMuscle77 So I am, once again getting hated on for posting my opinion?

You are getting hated because you are insulting people....You're not making this any easier.

[XCalinX]

@xenonxx Alright, I admit I shouldn't have insulted anybody. But this forum is about a pegi18 game so it shouldnt be an issue

[The Dedito Gae]

GTA IV used brown and grey to depress us and make us sympathize with the depressed characters:

IV used grey and brown because it was autumn/winter in the game, just like in V is spring/summer.

[Geralt of Rivia]

@MichiganMuscle77 So I am, once again getting hated on for posting my opinion?

I mean, when your opinion is factually wrong...

 

(The one about SA being bigger than V)

[Gnocchi Flip Flops]

Will you all stop being provocative twats and shut up? God, not one interesting thread can go on without petty arguments.

[Geralt of Rivia]

Will you all stop being provocative twats and shut up? God, not one interesting thread can go on without petty arguments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ZHPbim]

I wish the map was a bit bigger to include culver city though. it would be nice to have two spaced out sections of higher sky scrapers like LA does.

[S1N0D3UTSCHT3K]

the most incredible thing is how many obscure stores, restaurants, and apartments in LS are exact counterparts of other obscure buildings in LA

 

you can tell that R* did indeed spend a year doing photography in LA as they've said

 

 

by FAR the best open world game in terms of raw graphics assets (not open world life... not freedom... gameplay, etc) just pure outer game world

[A.O.D.88]

The biggest missing part is the San Fernando Valley.

[Algonquin Assassin]

And in LC, particularly in Algonquin, it's really samey and a bit dull.

 

 

I really don't agree with that at all. I've walked end to end in Algonquin many times and it always feels like I'm transitioning through distinctive parts where the architecture and people change. Maybe you just don't have any love for NYC, but every borough looks and feels different.