I finished off the rest of the tags in San Andreas tonight, giving me a set of weapons back at the house, and then figured I should make a bit of money. Fortunately this is trivially easy in SA thanks to the betting parlor. With some save game abuse, I soon had over $5 million, and went around and bought up all the safe houses I could.

Next up I should probably collect the pearls that I can, and then maybe do some of the side missions like the burglaries or pimping (both also new to SA).

I started San Andreas today, but a lot of this will be familiar ground since I completed the first third or so on the PS2 version (up to where you get kicked out of Los Santos, at least). I was thrown a bit at first by the mouse and keyboard controls being a bit different from the previous GTA games (e.g., run and jump have been switched around), but I’m sure I’ll get used to them.

As usual, I’m going to “cheat” by jumping straight into the collection tasks in order to get easier access to weapons at my safehouse, this time by spraypainting over the tags of rival gangs (though I did have to do a couple of missions before getting access to the spraypaint can). Tagging is actually much easier in the PC version, since you just have to hold down the left mouse button, while the PS2 version required some gyrations on the controller. I only managed to get the first 50 tags tonight though, and there’s no reward for partial completion, also unlike the previous games. There will also be other things to collect, like pearls in the water and horseshoes in a later city.

Oh yeah, you can finally actually swim in this one, whereas water was near-instant death in the previous ones. There are also stats for your character that cover things like your stamina, sex appeal, fatness, and strength, and you have skill levels in how well you can use various firearms and vehicles, all of which can be raised through use.

And in other differences, the textures are much better than the earlier games, you can have your gang take over enemy gang areas (though I know that it’s not worthwhile this early since you wind up losing them and having to retake them later on), there are a lot more simultaneous cars on the road, the drivers in this one are much more aggressive, and I’ve had a few actually follow me around and ram me in retaliation. Oh they’ll be sorry when I get that AK-47 spawn at the house…

I went and did one more asset mission tonight, the boatyard race I complained about before, even though it took a good half-dozen frustrating tries. The reason? Doing so made the next story mission easier; without the boatyard, some thugs would head straight for the car showroom to steal my money, but with the boatyard completed, they’d head there first, giving me time to get to the showroom before them. A tank I’d parked there then made dealing with them much easier when they showed up.

And after that it was on to the last storyline mission. This one was fairly tough, as you might expect for a final mission, since there are multiple phases to it (defending my office, bumping off Lance after he goes traitor, and dealing with Sonny), and Sonny apparently has an infinite number of bodyguards streaming in from out of nowhere. A few attempts were also cut short by bad rocket targeting, where it would explode in my face because it got caught on some railing or something that I couldn’t see very well. But I persevered and eventually finished Sonny off with no armour and only 50 health left.

And that was Vice City. As with GTA3, there’s still stuff to do afterward (I never even started the Haitian and Cuban missions), but I don’t really have the time. Instead, since I’m on a roll, I think I’ll jump straight into San Andreas. There are plenty of other good games coming out right now, but the PC version of GTA4 has been delayed, Saints Row 2 isn’t out for the PC yet either (I’m waiting to see comparisons between it and the 360 version before deciding), and it could be a while before I get my Fable 2 LE key or copy of Fallout 3 (should be shipping soon).

Since I couldn’t progress any further in the Vice City storyline, I decided to spend tonight working on the asset missions.

The Kaufman Cabs ones were fairly easy and I can now get a zebra-stripe-painted cab from there anytime I want. The printing works missions were fairly straightforward, and then I did the ones for the movie studio. This one was notable for having the only plane mission I’ve seen so far, where I had to drop flyers advertising a porno the studio is shooting. It took a few tries to get used to the controls, but once I was out of the cramped downtown area it was fairly easy.

Then I went back and did the ice cream mission, where I had to sell it to 50 people. I got busted by sudden cops out of nowhere the last couple times I tried, but this time I kept flipping to the backwards camera to keep an eye out for them and finished it without trouble.

And then I finally got the call indicating that trouble is brewing, and the main story will soon continue. I only have 52% completion overall, but I think there are only two more main missions left.

I started on Vercetti’s missions in Vice City, and the first one unlocked the ability to buy companies around the city. They’ll earn money for me, and have some extra missions and rewards associated with them. I did the car collection one, which lets me pick up four unique car types at the showroom. I also tried the boat race at the boatyard, but gave up after a few tries. The boat handling is just frustrating in a race scenario like that.

I completed a couple more of Vercetti’s missions, and in one amusing incident, I had just finished a mission and was standing around answering a cell phone call afterwards. Someone then casually just strolled up, got into the bulletproof Admiral I had been using, and started driving away. Since I was still on the cell phone, I couldn’t jack it back or even run, so I had to walk after him as he drove away. Fortunately he didn’t drive very quickly and was slowed down by several corners, so he was still in sight as the lengthy cell phone call ended and I could finally run up and get the car back. I did not want to lose that one in particular.

I think I’m actually fairly close to the end of the main storyline, though there are still plenty of those side missions left to do. Things are looking a little strained between me and Lance, though…

I finally started on the main storyline missions in Vice City, and it actually wasn’t too long before I’d unlocked the other islands anyway, unlike GTA3 where you didn’t unlock the third until fairly late. Out of the early missions, the most notable ones were one where I had to control an RC helicopter to plant bombs — the controls were extremely hard to get used to, so it took a good half-dozen tries. And in another one I got to play gunner in a helicopter while we strafed the hell out of a few gang-infested buildings. Along the way I also got a Tubbs-like partner named Lance, and a glitched, nearly indestructible car from one of the missions.

With the islands fully open, I could finally do the vigilante mission, too. My first try failed when I got busted trying to swap tanks, but the second one was successful, if chaotic. It’s hard to control a tank when it’s constantly getting slammed by police cars.

Eventually, Lance got captured trying to take revenge against the crime boss who killed his brother, so I had to go rescue him. In retaliation, we stormed the boss’s mansion (reminiscent of the one in Scarface) and took him out (in a scene also straight out of Scarface), so it’s mine now. There are some missions I can do for myself, but I went and finished off some other missions for a biker gang and a stereotypical British metal band first.