GTA: San Andreas – Video Game News, Reviews, Walkthroughs And Guides | GamingBolt

15 Dumbest Video Game Mechanics

Shubhankar Parijat — Fri, 15 Nov 2019 10:21:18 +0000

Like all of us, video game developers make mistakes every now and then, and these mistakes often take the form of in-game mechanics that are either poorly thought-out, poorly implemented, overused, or a deadly combination of all three. This is a feature about 15 video game mechanics that have over the years, for one reason or the other, gotten on our nerves. Without further ado, let’s get started.

QTEs

Quick time events can be a great tool when executed properly. The Greek-era God of War games, for instance, used them to great effect to punctuate high octane action sequences in a great blend of cinematic and gameplay. The problem is, games that do that are very rare. QTEs more often than not feel unnecessary and arbitrary, and for every God of War, we have a dozen games that fall on the other end of the spectrum.

15 Insane Moments That Made You Delete The Game

Shubhankar Parijat — Fri, 20 Sep 2019 10:54:18 +0000

No game is perfect. It’s a harsh lesson we’ve all learned over the years. Sometimes, even great games can do things – intentionally or otherwise – that really grind your gears. In this feature, we’ll be talking about fifteen such moments.

BLADES OF HADES (GOD OF WAR)

As compared to God of War 2 and 3, the very first God of War game had a lot more sections that put emphasis on pure platforming (or something close to platforming anyway). One such section was the Blades of Hades, and as anyone who’s played the game would tell you, it was a nightmare. Walking over thin wooden logs while trying to avoid all manner of massive axe heads and saw blades was even worse in practice than it sounds, and countless players died more than just a few times trying to get through this part.

15 Times Video Games Were Tired of Your Nonsense

Shubhankar Parijat — Mon, 26 Aug 2019 16:17:37 +0000

When we’re playing games, no matter what type of game it is that we’re playing, we can’t help but test its boundaries, see how far the game is willing to let us go before pulling us back and telling us we’re stepping outside the bounds of the intended experience. And a lot of the times, games do that in very different ways. Sometimes, we might not even be stepping outside of those aforementioned bounds, and doing something that the game pretty much allows us to do, and the game might still react in interesting ways. In this feature, we’ll be taking a look at fifteen games that do just that.

SKYRIM

Skyrim is the sort of game that is built around the idea that every player will tackle it in completely different ways, and that is something it encourages. But the one unspoken rule that every Skyrim player knows by heart is this- never attack the chickens. Most of us learned this lesson the harsh way, when we first entered Riverwood on our first playthrough. As we lay our eyes on the street right after entering the village, we took in the sights, an spotted a chicken walking down the road. And like we do in every other game, for some inexplicable reason, we attacked that chicken- only to realize that the chicken holds a dear place in the hearts of all Riverwood inhabitants, and that they will take any attack on it as an attack on themselves, and will come at you with everything that they’ve got, until you’re dead.

15 Games That Mocked Other Games

Shubhankar Parijat — Mon, 08 Jul 2019 07:56:07 +0000

Every so often we come across games that decide to cut lose and have a little bit of fun, and do so at the expense of their peers. These can be fun easter eggs poking fun at other games, games slyly mocking other titles, or even openly ridiculing them. Sometimes they’re somewhat subtle, other times, not so much. In this feature, we’ll be taking a look at fifteen of our favourite moments where games poked fun at other games.

SPLINTER CELL: CHAOS THEORY

Splinter Cell and Metal Gear Solid are the old guard of stealth games in our industry (both are, sadly, off on a break for now), and both these franchises are well aware of that fact. For instance, Metal Gear Solid 2 allowed players to hold enemies at gunpoint, at which point they’d goofily shake their bodies and drop some ammo. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory poked fun at this mechanics, with Sam holding a guard in his grips in one scene and demanding ammo, to which the guard glibly tells him that it’s not like he can just make him shake and drop some ammo.

Grand Theft Auto – Is Rockstar Destroying Its Essence?

John Cantees — Tue, 05 Feb 2019 14:46:06 +0000

The Grand Theft Auto series is one of the most universally praised franchises in video game history, if not the most. There’s plenty of reason for that too, as it has gotten progressively sharper with its game-play, narratives, and overall production quality with every release throughout its 20-plus years on our game consoles and PCs. Not every single Grand Theft Auto game clicked with every single gamer, sure, but it’s impossible to deny that, throughout the years, the franchise has certainly climbed a steep hill with it’s overall quality, making the current GTA, by all reasonable metrics, the best in the series.

This is not because of it’s fabulously successful and lucrative online mode though. While GTA Online has served as much more than just the cherry on top that most probably expected it to be, people generally hadn’t bought these games for online experiences. Gamers generally buy Grand Theft Auto to experience a massive, enthralling trip into organized crime with gritty, realistic characters and unparalleled freedom to unfold the story the way they see fit.

GTA 5 has arguably satisfied that particular need for gamers more than any other entry to the series and perhaps more than any other game, as evidenced by the massive, unprecedented profits that the game has raked in over the years since its release that are well into the billions. Out of all of the benchmarks that the fifth entry in the Grand Theft Auto series has broken, one of the more intriguing ones is the amount of online content that the game offers. Rockstar is no stranger to online modes that offer a fair amount of fun and longevity, but GTA 5’s online mode is an entirely different beast altogether.

In microtransactions, and microtransactions alone, GTA 5 has pulled in over 500 million dollars. The success of the ever-growing online mode for the game is not too surprising to those who have been playing it for a while, as they have seen the beefy list of options grow steadily with new content being added on a regular basis for a long time now. There’s no two ways about it; GTA Online is an incredibly successful endeavour in it’s own right, and due to this the amount of players engaging with it continue to fuel its expansion with their multiple purchases.

One question that seems to be inevitably barreling towards us, however, is whether or not Rockstar is losing sight of the essence of Grand Theft Auto at this point. It is a question that many are starting to ask, and understandably so. It’s true that the online modes are wildly popular and successful, and of course there’s nothing inherently wrong with Rockstar continuing to support it, but what is just as true is that many fans of the franchise are in fact single-player offline gamers, who have by now exhausted most if not all of what Los Santos has to offer, and are understandably starting to wonder about the next major entry.

After all, GTA 5 did come out in 2013, which is over a whopping 5 years ago. Granted, this is also roughly the same amount of time we had to wait between GTA 4 and 5, but even then, by 2011 we at least knew that GTA 5 was coming. Which was just 3 years after the launch of 4, so if Rockstar had any interest in sticking to that timeline, we would have had at least some sort of official word on Grand Theft Auto 6 by 2016 or so.

But here we are in 2019 without so much as a peep about another game. You could say that Rockstar is just focusing on Red Dead Online right now, but that doesn’t really explain the absence of 6 being on the way. Remember, Rockstar put Red Dead Redemption out in 2010, between GTA 4 and 5, and surely was working on both for a fair amount of time, so either Rockstar has lost the ability to multitask since the release of Grand Theft Auto 5, which is stupefyingly unlikely, or they are purposefully holding off on a new game in the franchise. This is counter to what GTA players have grown to expect from the series up to this point, and does add some fuel to the suspicion that perhaps Rockstar is indeed more interested in squeezing more money out of the current iteration for several more years.

Another noteworthy about-face for the attitude that Rockstar seems to have about it’s flagship series is the lack of offline DLC expansions to the main game. For a game that has been out for this long and seen this much success to not have gotten any major offline expansion to the stories of the characters is pretty weird. In fact, Rockstar has gone so far as to officially clarify that they are intentionally focusing on GTA Online because of how well it has exceeded their expectations, and that single-player DLC for the game was neither “possible nor necessary”.

Great news for fans of the online mode, not so great for everyone else. There are many possible reasons for this, and to be fair the fact that the console generation changed right after the initial launch of the game, forcing Rockstar to devote a fair amount of resources to immediately get next-gen versions of the game running, potentially setting other plans back, is worth considering. But at the end of the day what we are seeing here is a focus on microtransactions and online content, which until recent years would never be associated with Grand Theft Auto games this heavily.

Is Rockstar truly changing how they view GTA? Are they no longer interested in supporting single-player experiences with that particular franchise? The suspicions that GTA is headed for an online future don’t seem to be as concrete as some may think, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have merit. It’s hard to imagine any developer turning away all of the money that can be made with microtransactions, which basically have no overhead compared to what they bring in when comparing that to the cost and benefit of adding stories and offline content.

To be sure, we’ll have to wait and see how Grand Theft Auto 6 turns out. Surely some clues as to where Rockstar is headed was in Red Dead Redemption 2, but to be totally sure where Rockstar wants to take GTA, we’ll have to see what they do with it. GTA 6 is coming, it’s just a question of when. If they choose to focus on online content with the next game primarily, surely the essence of what makes those games great will be gone to some degree.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

15 Times Your Favorite Video Games Were Too Realistic

Shubhankar Parijat — Wed, 16 Jan 2019 18:07:29 +0000

Though it’s often against the very point of the medium of video games, more and more we look for realism in video games- realism in visuals, in the way they tell their stories, in their mechanics, in the world. And there’s a very good reason for that- that greater sense of realism lends more believability to the virtual world we find ourselves in, making it more immersive and easier to invest in. Sure, realism isn’t something that’s required in every game – in fact in many kinds of games it actively works against them – but where it fits, and is done well, it can be a powerful tool. It can be something that’s found throughout the game, or something that defines singular moments in games that might not otherwise be too realistic.

In this feature, we’re going to take a look at fifteen games that fit the bill- games that were either almost too realistic or times, or had maybe a few choice moments of realism, but made it all work surprisingly well. Do keep that last bit in mind- we’re not suggesting that a game with dinosaurs in it or another where you can slow down time to gun down your enemies in a single flurry are realistic- only that they offer moments of realism.

With that out of the way, let’s jump right in.

SURVIVAL MECHANICS IN RUST

By definition, survival games are built around some degree of realism, where your character is much more vulnerable, and there’s a lot of things you need to be mindful of to make sure of your, well, survival. But Rust often take is one step further. From diseases to weather, from health to severely limited resources, from the game itself to the hostile environment it creates for all players (who’re all constantly turning on one another), Rust is a game that can actively stress you out. That, of course, means, that it isn’t for everyone, but for those who get into it, there’s a lot to lose yourself in.

GTA: San Andreas, Midnight Club LA, and Table Tennis Being Added to Xbox One Backward Compatibility

Pramath — Thu, 31 May 2018 22:49:53 +0000

While Rockstar was a bit iffy on Xbox’s backward compatibility initiative to begin with, they have since come around. One of the most successful games on the service has been their seminal Red Dead Redemption, and the company also spearheaded the 4K update initiative for older Xbox 360 and original Xbox games with that same title.

Now, more Rockstar games will be getting added to the lineup of older games playable on Xbox One- starting next week, GTA: San Andreas, Midnight Club LA, and Table Tennis will all be playable o the Xbox One (and before you ask, yes, both, the Xbox and Xbox 360 versions of San Andreas will be playable on Xbox One).

This is, of course, fantastic news- GTA San Andreas especially is, for my money, still the best game in that series, and getting to play it on a modern console will be great (especially since, unlike on the PS4, I won’t have to pay again to be able to play it, I can just use my existing copy).

GTA San Andreas, Midnight Club LA and Table Tennis coming to @Xbox One Backward Compatibility next week: https://t.co/Np5mu7mTTE pic.twitter.com/t7DbA27jUY

— Rockstar Games (@RockstarGames) May 31, 2018

GTA San Andreas PS2 vs PS4 Graphics Comparison

Pramath — Mon, 07 Dec 2015 16:26:22 +0000

The entire controversy around having to pay for your previously owned PS2 games on the PS4 aside, one must wonder- exactly how good is Sony’s emulation software here? Since they are upscaling the graphics of the games to 1080p, does it actually have any noticeable effect on how the games look? Is that effect at least good?

You can judge for yourself- GTA: San Andreas, one of the PS2’s best and most ambitious games, is also one of the ones that Sony’s PS2 emulation initiative is launching with. And now, thanks to this new comparison video from Next Gamer below, we can see just how much the game has benefitted from the graphics upscaling technology.

The answer? I mean, the PS4 version definitely looks a bit cleaner, but I can’t say the difference is night and day (the PS3 remasters for PS2 games that were released at retail were far better than this, as an example). The difference is definitely there– it’s just nothing special.

See the video for yourself, and tell us what you think.

There Is No Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas 2 Coming Next Year

Pramath — Thu, 18 Dec 2014 06:43:17 +0000

Apparently, a fake press release was posted that confirmed the release of a brand new GTA: San Andreas 2, which would be coming some time next year, and would be set in the same version of San Andreas as San Andreas itself was, following the original characters on more of their misadventures throughout the west coast state.

The ‘press release’ apparently confirmed multiple big name celebrities working on the game to provide voice talent (including Kevin Hart, Larenz Tate, and Mike Epps), as well as the return of the roleplaying features that have so far been exclusive only to the original San Andreas game.

All of this is false. There is (obviously) no new GTA: San Andreas 2 coming out next year. Frankly, I am surprised that any of you actually even fell for it, given how long Rockstar takes on making a new game, and how they have so far resisted the temptation to follow up any of their games with direct sequels. I understand that San Andreas was the peak of GTA, and many of us want to go back (and no, the HD re-release on Xbox Live does not count, and GTA V certainly does not count), but could we… please, maybe think more about stuff?

GTA: San Andreas, GTA III & Vice City 40 Percent Off On Mobiles

Martin Toney — Fri, 24 Oct 2014 18:31:38 +0000

Rockstar, the studio that only ever lives up to its name and seemingly never falls short of busting our expectations has decided to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of GTA: San Andreas with a 10th Anniversary Sale.

So what kind of sale are we looking at? Basically, a shed load of goodies that you probably already own on other platforms, but lets not look a gift horse in the mouth. If you fancy taking a bike ride through the streets of GTA: San Andreas, you can find it on Android, iOS and Amazon supported mobile devices for $3.99, that’s 43 percent off! Vice City will only set you back $2.99 to enjoy its funky neon vibes and GTA III is going for the same $2.99 price tag.

This sale comes hot on the coat tails of the news that Rockstar are releasing an upgraded version of San Andreas on Xbox 360, there are also some upcoming special multiplayer events being hosted on GTA Online.