Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas legacy review by Luke Reilly. Reviewed on PlayStation 2.
“Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the single bestselling game on the most successful console in the history of the business. That’s not an accolade you can just earn by accident. Its unprecedented scope and astonishing depth were nothing short of witchcraft, and the incredible attention to detail was staggeringly impressive for something of its size. Its ability to support endless experimentation kept my friends and I busy for years, fooling around with its industry-leading list of cheats and its same-screen co-op chaos long after we’d all finished the story mode several times. Its soundtrack is the stuff of legend; so one-of-a-kind that not even Rockstar itself could quite reassemble the complete thing for subsequent re-releases. In 2004, GTA San Andreas was one of the most extraordinary games I’d ever played. In 2026, the hood done took me under all over again. Sure, the technical limitations of the mid 2000s are always obvious through a modern lens, but you can’t measure ambition in polygons – and GTA San Andreas is overflowing with it.”