GTA:SA In a New Light

What I can say is wow. And no, I did not download a PC version yet (the newest download is only at 18%) but I played Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on the newest and small as hell PS2.

First off, I never thought that new PS2 was so small. When Shawn brought that out of his sleeping bag at Craig's, I stared at it amazed. I could hold that thing in the palm of my hand. Even a three-year old could. But also at the same time he brought out the slm PS2 and I remembered I had GTA:SA with me, I almost cried. Why? I heard that the overall performance of GTA:SA is better on the newer PS2, including draw distance. No, AI is still low as could be. The overall graphics and draw distance was probably the same as you'd play it on the computer. All the textures loaded correctly, if you went on top of Mt. Chillad you could see pretty darn far (however it was getting foggy at the time), and you never ran into sprites that never loaded. Everything was smooth. I was making a big deal about the draw distance while Craig and Shawn were yelling at me to shut up.

To me, draw distance is important in a game like GTA:SA. I can never play that game again on my old used PS2 because there's hardly any draw distance to it. Another reason why I need it for the computer. I don't care what graphics are like in a game too much. They have to be good, but not amazing. It's all about the gameplay, creativity, performance, presentation, and the cheat codes. But draw distance to me is right there in the performance catagory.

I saw an new light to the game of GTA:SA. I just love the looks of far away objects and how the shadows of them loom across the landscape. It was amazing hovering above some town in the desert (not Fort Carson, some other desert town to the west of the Giant Cock) and seeing San Ferrio, the Gant Bridge, and the Big Ear all at once. The only problem that happened was in two-player roam-the-desert when the both of the players were on a Sanchez and going into San Fierro on the train tracks and the textures of the whole track in front of us didn't load. Everything else was perfect. But two-player is buggy like that. I'm also looking forward to San Andreas Multiplayer for the PC. Don't they have a beta version out already or an offical release? I just went to the gtasanandreas.net site and went to the forums and found nothing about it so...I'll have to look again.

I'm probably going to be yelled at soon for not putting my stuff away from Craig's. I just come home, throw everything on the couch, and sit in front of the computer. And that file is now 28% done so far and it's going about 31 KB per second so hopefully it'll be done by three, it'll actually be San Andreas, and I'll be playing all night long. Also I have CCD tomorrow night. Good day.