Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas at 20 – the blockbuster gaming crime saga and the films that inspired it
After 20 years and 17 million copies sold, the fifth instalment of Rockstar Games’ notorious game series remains one its most filmic, drawing inspiration from Get Carter, Bullitt, Casino and Boyz n the Hood to weave together a rags to riches narrative, served as bloody as the player wants it.
The fifth entry in the controversial crime sim franchise, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004) – released 20 years ago this month – marked the point at which the series went stratospheric. Shifting over four million copies in its first week, 17 million copies to date and going on to become the bestselling game on the PlayStation 2 console, it took five Golden Joystick awards and the 2004 Game of the Year gong from GamesMaster magazine.
In every sense, San Andreas was a behemoth. Its virtual landscape measured 36 square kilometres – approximately five times the size of its ‘80s-set predecessor Vice City (2002) – and each pixel oozed sass. A billboard alongside one of the game’s bridges declared “11 textures. Takes up a staggering 1.27mb of disc space.”
Taking up greater space in San Andreas’s arsenal was its A-list voice cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Peter Fonda and Ice-T all signed on to a script that, despite being remembered for its cartoonish mayhem, is ostensibly a murder-mystery. Players took control of Carl ‘CJ’ Johnson (voiced by and modelled on newcomer Young Maylay) as he returned to his crime-ridden neighbourhood in 1992 to find who killed his mother. His search saw him fight for his own life amid a turf war between his gang, the Grove Street Families, and rivals seeking to paint the San Andreas street map in their own colours.
As with Vice City the movie references came thick and fast, but this time the picks were broader than just the rags-to-riches handrail of ‘80s screenplays. CJ’s attempts to escape his violent heritage echo Boyz n the Hood (1991) and Carlito’s Way (1993), while the gambling-related missions in the Las Venturas district draw from Casino (1995). One high-octane driving sequence in San Fierro is a straight lift from Bullitt (1968).
The game enjoys an even bolder link to cinema: San Andreas’ release came in the wake of 2004’s The Football Factory, a film in which protagonist Tommy (Danny Dyer) walks in on one of his mates (Kill List’s Neil Maskell) playing Vice City (2002). That game’s main character, Tommy Vercetti (Ray Liotta) has forged an allegiance with sleazy music promoter Kent Paul – who’s also voiced by Dyer.
Given the input of violent movies into the GTA franchise, it’s perhaps no coincidence that Rockstar Games’ co-founder Sam Houser once claimed that he wanted to rob a bank for real after watching The Getaway (1972). Or that he and his sibling co-founder Sam are the sons of actor Geraldine Moffatt. To gangster movie fans, Moffatt will forever be remembered as the duplicitous Glenda, a criminal mistress who has a pivotal encounter with Michael Caine in 1971’s Get Carter.
A film that once attracted claims of gratuitous violence itself, Carter may possibly have served as an influence on an earlier Grand Theft Auto title: 1999’s expansion pack London 1969. The franchise’s first sequel proper, GTa2 of the same year, featured a New York-shot “movie” where main character Claude Speed (EastEnders’ Scott Maslen) jacks cars and is trailed by an assassin.
On its release, San Andreas marked the peak of GTA’s cinematic city-roaming. One of the game’s most interesting features was that CJ wasn’t forced to be overly violent: of the game’s 300 NPCs, only 18 were required to be fatally assaulted to advance the plot. A lot of the pleasure of San Andreas came in taking advantage of its life simulator features. Players could customise their hairstyles, vehicle horsepower and tattoos, and even moonlight as a firefighter or a cabbie. Streamers today take part in pacifist runs, trying to get through as much of the game as possible without indulging in unnecessary destruction.
More bloodthirsty gamers might recognise some of San Andreas’s set pieces referenced in modern titles. The expanded life sim elements of Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018) – where the game’s story could be abandoned for days to hunt and forage in the wild – arguably began with CJ’s courier missions and valet parking gig. Meanwhile, there are echoes of the jetpack-stealing Black Project mission in Avalanche’s Just Cause 4 (2018), and CJ’s journey up and down the criminal ladder is mirrored in Sega’s crime sim Yakuza 0 (2015).
Although not without its detractors (the notorious, pornographic ‘Hot Coffee’ hidden minigame forced a ban in Australia), revisiting San Andreas today reveals a crime sim with a streak of morality. It was the first Grand Theft Auto game to show us what the series can do best: swiping at the hypocrisies of modern America while allowing players to enjoy the ride, being as sanguine or sadistic as they see fit.
Nineteen years after San Andreas’s release, the trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI (due out next year) landed. It notched up 93 million views in 24 hours. It will be interesting to see whether Lucia, the new game’s anti-heroine, goes on to become as iconic (and as heavily memed) as the Grove Street originals.