With over 17.5 million copies sold, San Andreas is PlayStation 2's best selling game of all time. You might remember it from the old days when you'd sit in front of your CRT and spend your afternoons, or from the countless of memes you see online today. Either way, this is a classic and for many the best entry in the franchise. San Andreas, alongside Vice City, arrived together for GTA 3's 20th anniversary in the DEFINITIVE package. Definitive money making package at least...



Much like all 3 definitive versions, this one is also based on the mobile port from 10 years ago. San Andreas was notoriously the worst mobile port of the original trilogy and is absolutely the worst definitive edition as well. Countless of bugs, physics issues, missing textures and so much more. Pair that with lighting that is completely screwed in some places and controls that will make you want to question your sanity. The technical aspect of SA is mostly the same as GTA 3 with a few exceptions, which are mostly negative.


This is something that is puzzling me. San Andreas had vehicle camera movement ever since its original release and somehow out of all 3 definitive editions the mouse movement in this one is the worst. Vertical camera movement is basically non-existent and the camera constantly fights with you to snap in place when you try to move it. In GTA 3 it also tried to snap in place but for some reason everything feels worse in San Andreas.


"Hardworking professionals" decided to max out the draw distance because, you know, new hardware and whatnot. In the original game a sort of fog effect was used to hide the low draw distance present in the PS2 version. In the definitive edition you can see all parts of the the map from anywhere. I don't know about you, but seeing Mount Chilliad from Grove Street just doesn't feel right. This is another one of those changes that was never really tested properly. After some backlash on social media they added a "Ground Haze" effect to try and fix this, once again it was made very lazily and only renders at very high altitude.



Notorious bug that has plagued San Andreas since day one of its release. In short, after getting into a car the AI in the game becomes more accurate to accomodate for the large object you are driving. All fine and dandy as when you get out of the car the accuracy would reset... right? It does not and people in the mid 2000s were constantly complaining about this on various forum threads. It was quickly understood that taking a car to a shooting mission will almost certainly cause death. Later it was found that taking a bike instead will help lower the accuracy. Well in the definitive edition, instead of trying to fix this bug, they decided it would be a great idea to make the AI just have 100% accuracy all the time. No need to bother looking for a bike now, chump!


SA is THE GTA when it comes to physics issues related to FPS (at least from the 3D era). Playing on more than 30 will break animations, swimming, some cutscenes, ammo depletion and much, much more. Unlike 3 and VC, here you pretty much can't play with anything other than 30. Well the "hardworking professionals" decided that variable physics were not needed anymore and just decided to lock them to their 60 FPS behavior. Yep, I was sure that they would never fix physics for these definitive edtions but hoped that they would at least lock them at 30. Because of their laziness we are now stuck with this mess and while there is a Frame limiter in-game it won't do anything to help with the problem.


Major changes were made to the control scheme of San Andreas when it was released on mobile phones. These changes were mostly ok for a touch screen device but questionable for a big console and PC release. Most gym minigames are a cake walk now with these changes and menus in stores are also very odd (shoutout to the "T" on your keyboard). The biggest problem are helicopters, they fly with the mouse now and it's really unintuitive and annoying to use them. Most people just plug in a controller for this part but that's not something you should have to do when playing on PC.


Like in all 3 games, the atmosphere and feel of the original version is completely gone. San Andreas had 16 different weather types on PS2. Definitive Edition has about 6 and they are almost all identical with only minor changes. It really is a shame as these effects looked great in-game. There's no need to mention the goofy character models and AI upscaled textures, most of them look cheap and worse than many fan made projects.


Another absolute classic butchered by Rockstar and Take-Two's corporate greed. A shameless slap in the face to the millions of fans who've grown to love these games over the years. While 3 and VC may be barely salvageable if you look past their many issues, San Andreas Definitive is not. Not for a dollar and certainly not for $60. The best thing you can do is get the original version on PC and mod it. If you have a PlayStation 2 lying around, you can also get it there for the REAL definitive experience.

You can click here to check my review for the OG version of SA.


While this is definitely the biggest update released for DE so far, I still stand by most things I wrote in this review. A step in the right direction for sure, however, I am incredibly doubtful that they'll release any further updates. If they continue releasing updates Definitive might become a good version, as it stands though, it's still not worth it.

[h1]Classic butchered by corporate greed[/h1] With over 17.5 million copies sold, San Andreas is PlayStation 2's best selling game of all time. You might remember it from the old days when you'd sit in front of your CRT and spend your afternoons, or from the countless of memes you see online today. Either way, this is a classic and for many the best entry in the franchise. San Andreas, alongside Vice City, arrived together for GTA 3's 20th anniversary in the DEFINITIVE package. Definitive money making package at least... [h2]Technical Aspect[/h2] [h3]Another disgusting mobile port[/h3] Much like all 3 definitive versions, this one is also based on the mobile port from 10 years ago. San Andreas was notoriously the worst mobile port of the original trilogy and is absolutely the worst definitive edition as well. Countless of bugs, physics issues, missing textures and so much more. Pair that with lighting that is completely screwed in some places and controls that will make you want to question your sanity. The technical aspect of SA is mostly the same as GTA 3 with a few exceptions, which are mostly negative. [h3]Mouse movement is messed up[/h3] This is something that is puzzling me. San Andreas had vehicle camera movement ever since its original release and somehow out of all 3 definitive editions the mouse movement in this one is the worst. Vertical camera movement is basically non-existent and the camera constantly fights with you to snap in place when you try to move it. In GTA 3 it also tried to snap in place but for some reason everything feels worse in San Andreas. [h3]Draw distance and fog[/h3] "Hardworking professionals" decided to max out the draw distance because, you know, new hardware and whatnot. In the original game a sort of fog effect was used to hide the low draw distance present in the PS2 version. In the definitive edition you can see all parts of the the map from anywhere. I don't know about you, but seeing Mount Chilliad from Grove Street just doesn't feel right. This is another one of those changes that was never really tested properly. After some backlash on social media they added a "Ground Haze" effect to try and fix this, once again it was made very lazily and only renders at very high altitude. [h2]Bugs and changes (Honorable mentions only, it will take ages to list all)[/h2] [h3]AI accuracy bug[/h3] Notorious bug that has plagued San Andreas since day one of its release. In short, after getting into a car the AI in the game becomes more accurate to accomodate for the large object you are driving. All fine and dandy as when you get out of the car the accuracy would reset... right? It does not and people in the mid 2000s were constantly complaining about this on various forum threads. It was quickly understood that taking a car to a shooting mission will almost certainly cause death. Later it was found that taking a bike instead will help lower the accuracy. Well in the definitive edition, instead of trying to fix this bug, they decided it would be a great idea to make the AI just have 100% accuracy all the time. No need to bother looking for a bike now, chump! [h3]60 FPS physics all the time[/h3] SA is THE GTA when it comes to physics issues related to FPS (at least from the 3D era). Playing on more than 30 will break animations, swimming, some cutscenes, ammo depletion and much, much more. Unlike 3 and VC, here you pretty much can't play with anything other than 30. Well the "hardworking professionals" decided that variable physics were not needed anymore and just decided to lock them to their 60 FPS behavior. Yep, I was sure that they would never fix physics for these definitive edtions but hoped that they would at least lock them at 30. Because of their laziness we are now stuck with this mess and while there is a Frame limiter in-game it won't do anything to help with the problem. [h3]Controls make no sense[/h3] Major changes were made to the control scheme of San Andreas when it was released on mobile phones. These changes were mostly ok for a touch screen device but questionable for a big console and PC release. Most gym minigames are a cake walk now with these changes and menus in stores are also very odd (shoutout to the "T" on your keyboard). The biggest problem are helicopters, they fly with the mouse now and it's really unintuitive and annoying to use them. Most people just plug in a controller for this part but that's not something you should have to do when playing on PC. [h2]Art direction[/h2] Like in all 3 games, the atmosphere and feel of the original version is completely gone. San Andreas had 16 different weather types on PS2. Definitive Edition has about 6 and they are almost all identical with only minor changes. It really is a shame as these effects looked great in-game. There's no need to mention the goofy character models and AI upscaled textures, most of them look cheap and worse than many fan made projects. [h2]OG is the way to go[/h2] Another absolute classic butchered by Rockstar and Take-Two's corporate greed. A shameless slap in the face to the millions of fans who've grown to love these games over the years. While 3 and VC may be barely salvageable if you look past their many issues, San Andreas Definitive is not. Not for a dollar and certainly not for $60. The best thing you can do is get the original version on PC and mod it. If you have a PlayStation 2 lying around, you can also get it there for the REAL definitive experience. You can click [url=https://steamproxy.net/id/HarmlessCat/recommended/12120/]here[/url] to check my review for the OG version of SA. [h2]A massive update for DE was released that brings all 3 games to v1.112[/h2] While this is definitely the biggest update released for DE so far, I still stand by most things I wrote in this review. A step in the right direction for sure, however, I am incredibly doubtful that they'll release any further updates. If they continue releasing updates Definitive might become a good version, as it stands though, it's still not worth it.