Why do people complain about GTA San Andreas having gangsters?

[watersgta3]

I know that there are GTA fans who dislike GTA San Andreas, and I respect everyone else's opinions. But one of the reasons that I don't get is that folks say that they hate GTA SA because "it has gangsters". One user said "I despise gangsters, which is why I hate SA" in another site. Okay, I really don't see how that can be a reason to hate the game. All GTA games have gangsters. Does no one know what a gangster is? A gangster, as defined in many dictionaries and other sources, is a member of a gang of criminals. SA is NOT the only GTA game that has criminals. ALL the GTA games have criminals. That's why the series is called "Grand Theft Auto". So I don't understand why there are people who hate GTA SA because "it has gangsters", which they say they despise, when every last GTA game have gangsters too.

[DOUGL4S1]

AFAIK, It's not about because 'it has gangsters', it's more like 'It's focused around gangsters', kinda like "A Hitman fights for the interests of those who pay him, a Cartel leader fights for his wealth and power, a Gangster fights for a color". Even tho you only really do things for GSF for about 10% of the story.

 

I do like GTA San Andreas' story, but my main complaint is how CJ does nothing for the Grove for 90% of it and yet he's the one who did everything. If anything, the story would make more sense if GSF was more present.

 

And no, nobody is complaining about GTA having criminals, and if they are, they should be on a My Little Poney forum.

Edited October 19, 2017 by DOUGL4S1

[Official General]

I know that there are GTA fans who dislike GTA San Andreas, and I respect everyone else's opinions. But one of the reasons that I don't get is that folks say that they hate GTA SA because "it has gangsters". One user said "I despise gangsters, which is why I hate SA" in another site. Okay, I really don't see how that can be a reason to hate the game. All GTA games have gangsters. Does no one know what a gangster is? A gangster, as defined in many dictionaries and other sources, is a member of a gang of criminals. SA is NOT the only GTA game that has criminals. ALL the GTA games have criminals. That's why the series is called "Grand Theft Auto". So I don't understand why there are people who hate GTA SA because "it has gangsters", which they say they despise, when every last GTA game have gangsters too.

I believe you meant gangstas, which specifically denotes black gang members that make up one of the many, various African-American criminal organizations.

 

In response to your question, the truth here lies within the boundaries of personal preferences of what kind of criminal group in GTA fascinates or interests a GTA player the most. Very often, these preferences may be laced with racial bias or or slightly racist outlooks on what appeals to the individual.

 

In short, some people say they "hate GTA because it has gangstas" simply because they do not like playing as a black protagonist in a predominately black-themed, black character-casted game. For what exact reasons, are subjective and varied, but essentially that generally that seems to be the case based on what I've seen from comments of GTA fans who don't like San Andreas.

Edited October 19, 2017 by Official General

[simonp92]

It doesn't even focus that much on gangbangers, which I assume that person you're refering to actually meant. It's only about 1/3 of the story that revolves around gangbangers. I personally doesn't like it for that reason, It doesn't know what it wants to be, it's all over the place thematically and it doesn't feel like a natural believable progression for CJ, a gangbanger somehow ends up robbing a Casino and aswell as stealing a jetpack from the military.

The gameplay and mission are all exellent though, just don't care much for the overarching story.

 

As for why people may dislike it for revolving around gangbangers could be, as Official General stated, racially charged.

[KayLaJay15]

 

I know that there are GTA fans who dislike GTA San Andreas, and I respect everyone else's opinions. But one of the reasons that I don't get is that folks say that they hate GTA SA because "it has gangsters". One user said "I despise gangsters, which is why I hate SA" in another site. Okay, I really don't see how that can be a reason to hate the game. All GTA games have gangsters. Does no one know what a gangster is? A gangster, as defined in many dictionaries and other sources, is a member of a gang of criminals. SA is NOT the only GTA game that has criminals. ALL the GTA games have criminals. That's why the series is called "Grand Theft Auto". So I don't understand why there are people who hate GTA SA because "it has gangsters", which they say they despise, when every last GTA game have gangsters too.

I believe you meant gangstas, which specifically denotes black gang members that make up one of the many, various African-American criminal organizations.

 

In response to your question, the truth here lies within the boundaries of personal preferences of what kind of criminal group in GTA fascinates or interests a GTA player the most. Very often, these preferences may be laced with racial bias or or slightly racist outlooks on what appeals to the individual.

 

In short, some people say they "hate GTA because it has gangstas" simply because they do not like playing as a black protagonist in a predominately black-themed, black character-casted game. For what exact reasons, are subjective and varied, but essentially that generally that seems to be the case based on what I've seen from comments of GTA fans who don't like San Andreas.

 

You're probably right

[Algonquin Assassin]

It doesn't even focus that much on gangbangers, which I assume that person you're refering to actually meant. It's only about 1/3 of the story that revolves around gangbangers. I personally doesn't like it for that reason, It doesn't know what it wants to be, it's all over the place thematically and it doesn't feel like a natural believable progression for CJ, a gangbanger somehow ends up robbing a Casino and aswell as stealing a jetpack from the military.

The gameplay and mission are all exellent though, just don't care much for the overarching story.

 

As for why people may dislike it for revolving around gangbangers could be, as Official General stated, racially charged.

 

Pretty much this.

 

The beginning is the best part to me. After that it becomes a confused and inconsistent mess that it makes me wish it focused more on street gangs/gangbanging.

[HeteroDahmer]

I have seen literally zero people state they don't like it because it has a black protag, that's a strange & baseless assumption to make & it would be a minuscule minority.

I honestly thought that was the best part, I have said before the San Andreas plot is the strongest with the family betrayal etc when it comes to the 3D era, really it's after that which I'm not that fond of, as I felt it tried to cram in SO many illogical & silly plotlines within the narrative.

Edited November 1, 2017 by HeteroDahmer

[Algonquin Assassin]

I have seen literally zero people state they don't like it because it has a black protag, that's a strange & baseless assumption to make & it would be a minuscule minority.

.

This was probably more true of the game’s release, but really it’s because CJ’s a little bitch.

[Alexander]

I have never seen anyone complain about that lmao. Literally 0, none, nada.

Even the police officers are criminals in GTA games, and that's cool, I like that.

 

This was probably more true of the game’s release, but really it’s because CJ’s a little bitch.

 

I never agreed with this. In my opinion if anyone is a little bitch is Sweet.

 

I do however think the story is all over the place, and a little more gangbanging would be better for story's sake. But if we talk about gameplay, missions after LS are more fun imo.

Edited November 1, 2017 by Alexander

[Official General]

I have seen literally zero people state they don't like it because it has a black protag, that's a strange & baseless assumption to make & it would be a minuscule minority..

Come on don't be silly.

 

Of course you're not gonna see or hear anyone openly say that, especially in a public gaming forum. No one is gonna shout out loud they don't like CJ or SA because of the black theme. And it's not baseless - you can clearly see what some SA-haters are getting at judging by certain comments that make. They very simply disguise their real feelings within their opinions, expressions, and use of certain words, being very careful not to be outright offensive with it. I have seen it many times and I've been on these forums a very long time, long enough to come to this conclusion. Just seen your join date, a week go, that may easily explain why you have not seen it to understand what I'm getting at, but just because you haven't seen it, that does not mean what I'm saying is baseless or without justification. Certain other long-standing forum members will also tell you they have seen it. Even Rockstar themselves in a past interview (Dan Houser)stated that they had been noting there may have been concerns about some members of the GTA fan community not wanting to play as a black protagonist during the making of SA, and that even if they did, they would not want them playing their games anyway.

 

However it's a very small minority that express this view of SA. It's clear the overwhelming majority of gamers were fine with CJ and the black gangsta theme - the fact that SA was hugely commercially and critically successful, and still is probably still the most popular GTA in the entire series speaks huge volumes in defiance of such suspected racial bias that exists among the extreme minority of GTA fans. It's certainly not an issue when consider the the great legacy in gaming SA has left behind, so thankfully it does not really need addressing as a result.

 

I don't think the story was a total mess, it was actually for most part very good and nicely structured - I felt it's main problem was that there was a bit too much filler missions tacked on, made worse by some of them being way too over the top (government missions, green goo etc). The gang stuff should have remained central to the story rather than divert sharply into the Mafia angle dominating the scene once again at the LV section of the game.

Edited November 2, 2017 by Official General

[RaMMy]

Can't comment more on this topic since most of it was all ready said, but for me, it's CJ, he came in so hard, you look at him and think, man, now this is what a true gangster probably meant back in '92, but after a while, you realize that even Tenpenny is more of a gangsta' than CJ (''Ah sh*t, here we go again'')

Also, remember, CJ was more like Claude, a blank character, with little to no personality at all, it was more of a tool for you to interact better with the game, nothing more, this changed with Niko, but that's another story. So I think the main problem with SA was the convoluted story and CJ still being a little boy with adult pants.

 

Edit: nah, people were ok with CJ being black, I mean, WTF a white character with the story being focused around families, gangbanging and street rule? That sounds more of a comedy movie (The only time I saw stupid people complain about the racial features of a protag was with Crysis 2, damn... people complained about the game before release because the protag was a black dude )

Edited November 1, 2017 by RaMMy

[Algonquin Assassin]

 

Edit: nah, people were ok with CJ being black, I mean, WTF a white character with the story being focused around families, gangbanging and street rule? That sounds more of a comedy movie

Sounds like Malibu’s Most Wanted: The GTA Edition.

[iiCriminnaaL]

It doesn't seem to be due to the 'Gangsters' issue, actually most of GTA players and fans liked the gangster theme of GTA SA, although around only %10-20 of the game's storyline is related to the Families.

 

I guess the game's theme seems dark, for the following reasons (maybe there're more reasons):

- No more health pickups outside hospitals.

- No more adrenaline pickups.

- No more taxi rides after dying (Wasted) or getting arrested (Busted) during a mission.

- Weapon pickups and other pickups don't have lights, glows and object background (blue in GTA III/LCS and pink in VC/VCS) anymore, which makes the game look kinda dark or calm-y, which also makes finding weapons, collectables and pickups a bit harder and less noticeable.

- Vegetation isn't that good in LS (which is the main city and includes around %40 of the game's storyline), I'm not even sure if I can see real green areas or grass, most of them are brown grass/plants, weak green, or either dead grass/plants.

- The main environment of the game is more to a desert environment, which is noticed like I stated above, lack of green areas in Los Santos while it's the main city of the game and the storyline. Even the army's color is brown/desert camo and their vehicles have the same color, while the other 3D Era games have green camo as the army's color instead, as well as their vehicles' color.

- Unlike GTA VC, robbing stores isn't available anymore in GTA SA.

- Completing the %100 of the game is harder in GTA SA. (some people find it good and some other people find it bad, but this would be a reason)

- Most of gangs in GTA SA carry 9mm pistols and Micro Uzi, seems boring.

- Gangs don't carry melee weapons anymore. They only do that in a few missions.

- No more special vehicle colors for gangs. (GTA III had Mafia Sentinel for example, and VC had Cuban Hermes, there're even more as well)

- Unlike GTA III, VC, LCS and VCS, GTA SA doesn't have a unique ambient of cities, which makes you feel empty. In the rest of the 3D Era's games you can hear some unique ambient in cities, and sometimes you hear voice of birds (mostly in VC and VCS), as well as a special ambient in the beach of GTA VC and VCS. All you can hear in GTA SA is shots of 9mm pistol and AK-47 as an ambient, and that's only in Los Santos.

- A secondary reason; some people wouldn't like GTA SA so much if they played it on the PC, that's because PC version has more bugs and glitches than PS2's version, and misses some stuff, one of them is the orange atmosphere, which actually makes sense for MANY players, especially old players of GTA who played each game in its release date and cared about classics.

 

(Thank god there're mods to restore those features, thanks for everyone who worked on a mod that restored a feature from a previous GTA game. Of course, I had to work my a** out to fill LS of green areas and change most of its grass colors to green, as well as making palms full green colored instead of yellow-ish green, which mostly looked dark, and also changed a palm file so it'll be sloped/rotated just like Vice City's palm style, and now LS has many sloped palms in my game. I'm using PS2 textures btw, so a lower quality.)

 

 

Some people would say "What does vegetation do with the quality/fun of the game?"; well, it actually does make sense, playing in a city which got many green plants, grass and cool palms (especially sloped/rotated ones in Vice City) gives a great feeling, which makes the game look more beautiful and enjoyable. Vice City is a good example of such a city (Liberty is cool too).

 

Although there're some negative points in GTA SA comparing to GTA III and VC, but in the other side it has many positive and kinda new things which were added to the game, such as the engine, purchasing clothes from many different clothing shops, girlfriend dating, gang wars, graffiti tag spraying, jetpack, driving/boating/flying schools, gyms, restaurants, player stats and skills, ability to hold 2 pistols and machine pistols when filling the bar of the weapon's skill, ability to recruit gangsters (GSF only), and more... Most of players (including me) prefer GTA SA over III, VC, LCS and VCS due to the reasons I stated and maybe many more reasons that I can not think of atm.

Edited November 3, 2017 by Kane49

[Evil empire]

Like many other persons I think many persons denigrate the game because they are racist.

 

It seems even clearer given the number of mods to make CJ white, whereas I don't remember having seen any mod to make Tommy or Claude black.

[Official General]

 

- Most of gangs in GTA SA carry 9mm pistols and Micro Uzi, seems boring.

- Gangs don't carry melee weapons anymore. They only do that in a few missions.

 

In real life, LA gang members are almost always are armed with guns, it's a 99 percent certainty at least. It's almost unheard of for them to walk around armed with only weapons like baseball bats, knives etc - maybe back in the 1970s, but certainly not by the 1990s.

[iiCriminnaaL]

 

 

- Most of gangs in GTA SA carry 9mm pistols and Micro Uzi, seems boring.

- Gangs don't carry melee weapons anymore. They only do that in a few missions.

 

In real life, LA gang members are almost always are armed with guns, it's a 99 percent certainty at least. It's almost unheard of for them to walk around armed with only weapons like baseball bats, knives etc - maybe back in the 1970s, but certainly not by the 1990s.

 

I know they carry weapons in LA, but what I meant, most of gangs repeatedly carry the 9mm pistol and Micro Uzi, it'll be cool if a gang had an MP5 (just like GSF after spraying all of the graffities), another one carried Tec-9 (just like GSF), a gang carries a Desert Eagle, etc.

 

There's a mod that allows the player to change weapons of the gangs as well.

Edited November 6, 2017 by Kane49

[ViceBoy69]

San Andreas is my least favourite GTA, i do play it still i just cant get my head round the story, it seems to start off well then lose itself doing pointless missions that feel as if they have no bearing on the story.

I dont dislike CJ i just wish there was more to like about his character.

[Official General]

San Andreas is my least favourite GTA, i do play it still i just cant get my head round the story, it seems to start off well then lose itself doing pointless missions that feel as if they have no bearing on the story.

I dont dislike CJ i just wish there was more to like about his character.

 

Most of the story was not pointless. The part that got silly was the unrealistic Mike Toreno stuff, which only made up one section of the story line. The rest was very good.

[Lancerator]

There was a point during the beginning of the game and later on SF which involved CJ in returning back home, putting in work and then moving on, everything went to inconsistent when the LV thread went off. That's why I personally dislike the Venturas' stay, there's nothing specifically definite within the storyline while there was something concrete in LS and SF, in Santos, CJ's focus was gangbanging and his family while in San Fierro was moving on with life then in LV he's aimed to do all kind of surreal tasks like stealing a multimillionaire project.

[Evil empire]

Even if the missions in San Fierro and Las Venturas are a bit far from the Grove street-Ballas struggle they make sense. CJ needs to have strong allies to reconquer the lost territories, prove them his loyalty and he doesn't want to work again for nothing explaining why he buys assets like Zero's RC shop, Wang cars and becomes co-owner of the 4 dragons casino.

 

The stories with the mafias and the triads add more diversity to the game and I like it.

Edited November 8, 2017 by Evil empire

[KingD19]

The "gangsters " Part of the story is not even that big so I don't get why people would complain about that part I think a reason why people would sorta dislike gta sa is because how long the story is with half of it having no point with hard ass missions even do I just recently beat this game in two days basically but I skipped the last two missions so I can keep all gangs on my map and not have the l.s riot going on but the missions get way too stupid after a while to a point A LOT of people don't even finish the game like if you went to you friends house and turn on gta v the whole story would probably be completed if you go to a friend house and turn on gta sa they probably would still have only the Los Santos part of san Andreas unlocked and plus after Grove Street missions the game gets so long and uninteresting that people would just stop playing the story like it goes from gang banging to working with triads to working with somebody from the government and flying toy plays shooting cars working for a pimp and working for the mafia flying planes doing hiest for a casino that has like 20 missions the story line is just to inconsistent they fixed that in gta iv I still like Niko better than CJ and even sweet because their storyline isn't just all over the place like how sweet had to buy kendle shoes and robbing people for their moms operations the only thing we know about cj past is that he swimmed in the Santa Marie Beach and got a condom stuck to his face other then that its him going around saying yes to everybody's request I like him better in freeroam

[Official General]

Even if the missions in San Fierro and Las Venturas are a bit far from the Grove street-Ballas struggle they make sense. CJ needs to have strong allies to reconquer the lost territories, prove them his loyalty and he doesn't want to work again for nothing explaining why he buys assets like Zero's RC shop, Wang cars and becomes co-owner of the 4 dragons casino.

 

The stories with the mafias and the triads add more diversity to the game and I like it.

 

I actually liked the fact that SF part of the story strayed away from the Families v Ballas gang war scenario, it was good to get away to a very different environment with a very different atmosphere and criminal underworld. Even so, the SF part still tied in with the Ballas when they show up in SF to do a drug deal with the Rifas.

 

It made sense for the Mafia to be in LV, simply because the strong history and connections the Mafia had with the real life Las Vegas. Besides they only played a small part too, and the variation was nice.

Edited November 16, 2017 by Official General

[nick rynearson]

Because people are stupid most of the time

[Journey_95]

The gangbanging stuff was by far the best part of the game, don't understand why people would hate it.

[Sleepwalking]

Gangster theme is the best part of the GTA games. (Both in San Andreas & V) They make you feel like a real criminal.

 

I hope they use this theme in more games.

[Lazlo_]

oh boy...

 

I guess it depends on who is doing the complaining. For example, I have heard people complain about being a 'black protagonist', either because they have ethnic issues or are in some way ethnic themselves, so CJ and gangsters portray ethnics as criminals.

 

It makes my head spin if I think about it too long, because the whole bloody point of a fantasy game is that you get to do things you would never do in real life. Contrary to any rumors, I have never actually pimped hookers from beneath the 101 overpass and was rewarded with a new car for it.

 

Some people will complain no matter what. Or some people will complain either way. If you dont include everyone, its discriminatory. If you do, you're painting them in a bad light unless everyone is a heroic angel in the game. And if you do that, others will complain it isn't realistic. If its not complaining about ethnic portrayals, its gender. And if you're making the wrong complaint, your opinion and likely your account will get vaporized. No one will see it, so everyone assumes theres no complaint.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Rockstar forced to release a version of Vice City where all the lines that refered to the Haitian gang by name cut because a group of Haitians (probably egged on by someone who wasn't) complained that it portrayed Haitians badly?

 

Lemme find a link

 

Thats what Im talking about. It never ends.

 

 

 

And thats before you even get to the nuts blaming GTA (always blame the leader, not the competition) for shootings. Never. Ends.

Edited March 7, 2018 by Lazlo_

[Johnny Spaz]

Anyone who hates on GTA SA for the whole gang aspect is stupid, after SA dropped everyone made GTA clones involving street hoods, it literally sparked something new and everyone copied it for a reason.