I finished off the last handful of story missions in San Fierro in San Andreas tonight, and basically wiped out the Loco Syndicate in the process, including Ryder, Toreno, and Jizzy. That opened up the last area of the map, so it was time to get back to side missions.

I tried doing the Vigilante mission with a motorcycle, now that my bike and SMG skills were maxed out and I could just shoot at them from behind, but I couldn’t pass it in the half-dozen or so attempts I tried. I could often get up to level 10 or 11, but something would screw up the run, like getting three stars and being constantly assaulted by police vehicles, making it impossible to get to the target, or trying to go for a pay-n-spray only for no cars to spawn nearby (you can’t spray the police bike), or a cop to appear out of some obscured spot and bust me, or for the targets to wander into the city where they’re much harder to chase down and shoot, or… Oh well, apparently it’ll be easier once I get access to the Hunter helicopter.

I did the photo ops in San Fierro, and I should have actually done them sooner in order to get the weapons at the garage there. Along the way I discovered how to get into the airport without having done Pilot School, and could get the heat-seeking rockets there. I also did the NRG-500 challenge, though I used a small glitch to give me unlimited time to complete it, since it’s really tricky. It wound up taking me over 11 minutes, whereas you normally only get a few.

And I finished off a series of missions that unlocked the obligatory car collection mission. I could only get the first list of cars done tonight, since few of the cars are common ones you’ll find nearby like in previous games and the huge distances you have to travel make it slow going. But at least this time they made it so that they’re guaranteed to spawn in certain spots, so you don’t have to go waste time wandering around and waiting for them to spawn.

Today was mainly spent working on story missions in San Andreas, and I managed to finish off Woozie’s tasks and do enough from a pimp named Jizzy to meet Mike Toreno, who is somehow involved in the plot that betrayed CJ and got his mother killed. Again, there was one mission that I had to redo a number of times thanks to bad luck right at the end, where I had to find a van at the airport, get rid of the bodyguards on bikes, and then take care of the occupants when they got out. It wasn’t really that long or difficult though, so it wasn’t too frustrating.

I also did a bit more weapons practice and maxed out my skill with silenced pistols, shotguns, and SMGs. It doesn’t really seem to make that big a difference (careful aiming is far more important), but the faster rate of fire is nice, at least.

I only had time for a few missions in San Andreas tonight, so I started on the ones for “Woozie”, a blind Triad boss. The first one was a bit frustrating because the first few parts to it were really easy, but then you have to evade some cars chasing you while letting Woozie shoot at them, and I would either get my tires popped or they’d blow up too close and take us with them.

The next two were much easier though, and I’m glad I didn’t have to redo them since one of them involved driving fairly far out of the way and a checkpoint race through the hilly backroads.

I did the Driving School tasks in San Andreas tonight, and although most of them were reasonable, there were two that were fairly frustrating: a cone slalom where the camera made it hard to see where you were headed after pulling a handbrake turn, and the final task that sent you in a car with terrible handling across the city and back within a time and damage limit, which was subject to all sorts of bad luck. I don’t think I’ll bother trying to get all gold medals in those. I did wind up getting a gold on that cone slalom, but that was pure luck, as it took dozens of attempts and none of those were even a bronze.

After that I did a couple more gang missions, and then headed back to Los Santos to restock on the sniper rifle (it’s not available in the store yet, so I have to get it from a ground spawn), and to finish dating Denise.

Yes, you can date girls in San Andreas, though it’s not really all that deep. Once a day you can take a girl on a date, either to a restaurant or bar for food, or to a disco for dancing, depending on what she asks for, to raise your standing with her. You can also give her a gift (flowers, a dildo, or a vibrator) for a bonus, though it’s a pretty small one. I eventually maxed Denise out, which gives me a pimp suit in my wardrobe. I hope I never see that damn dancing minigame again though, as it’s always the exact same song…

I first finished off Catalina’s robbery missions in San Andreas tonight. There was always some kind of twist to them, like someone else getting there ahead of us and robbing the place first so that we had to chase down the robbers and take the case for ourselves. The next mission was a race that also involved Catalina, who at that point had hooked up with the GTA3 guy, and I finally made the connection to what happened in the start of that game.

Then I got called over by The Truth and we had to burn his weed field to keep the cops from getting it, and then headed off to San Fierro. I have a garage there that I need to build up into a business, and I bought all the other properties there that I could, including the infamous Zero’s RCs. People have complained that his missions are among the hardest ones and near impossible at times, but I’ve also heard that they’re supposed to be a bit easier on the PC version. I only did his first one for now, which involved destroying waves of bomb-dropping RC biplanes with a minigun, and the mouse aiming again made it fairly easy.