20 years... 20 years since this masterpiece released. Actually, the game will complete 20 years only day 26, this review is being written at 12th of October, so there is still a few days till' it launches, so I took the time to replay this game.
Every year and then, I feel the urge to replay GTA IV, Vice City or San Andreas. These games have a very special place in my heart, as a kid with access to the internet in the end of the 2000s and through the 2010s, San Andreas was my first gateway to the other genres of games, my parents that are still to this day very strict, never let me had a game console or something, so the family PC was my main way of passing time alongside books and movies. They never let me play GTA, but they always let me play many types of FPS and I never understood that logic, maybe it was because of the atmosphere? Or the type of story the game was trying to tell? While I replay the game with a more mature mind, I can't forget about these old thoughts.
GTA San Andreas is more than a game, it is a time capsule alongside the other titles of the franchise. Through all the parody, satire, there is reality. San Andreas take place in Los Santos, an alternate version of Los Angeles, during the early 90s. During a time where the rise of Hip-Hop was taking over the United States. The lowlifes, the crooks and the thugs of the west coast were getting bigger and more organized, before being gentrified into what they were during the 2010s and even nowadays. The consequences of the Crack Epidemic and the cocaine wars of the Miami Drug Wars during the 80s were sprawling through the entire country. It was a time of violence between gangs, between drugs and success, between police brutality and protests. With many of the low class youngsters being inspired and manipulated by the overall gang culture and pressure of that time, joining gangs in the promise of a better life, or sometimes for protection. Quoting 2Pac:

"And still I see no changes, can't a brother get a little peace?
There's war in the streets and war in the Middle East
Instead of war on poverty, they got a war on drugs"

GTA San Andreas is a timeless game, that can be played by any person right now, or even a thousand years to come, the fact that Rockstar was able to create a game like this in only two years is almost scary. Im only talking about the game concepts, I don't really wanna make an essay, but I could write for hours about how on the technical side, this game was an insane evolution compared to GTA 3 and Vice City. A classic, and an experience for anyone that wants to relive the volatile times of the early 90s, riding through the sunny skies of Los Santos, ready to get jumped by enemy gangs and drive-bys, while Biggie Smalls and Pac play on the radio. Cruisin through the territories of foreign organized crime syndicates, or getting lost into the countryside and the solemn yet calming desert hidden from the flashing lights of Las Venturas. On a personal journey where the protagonist moves heaven and earth to protect the only thing he has in this world, his family.

Today was a good day.

All they had to do was fix this and add achievements. An incredible game ahead of its time. But instead they made the crappy defective edition ones. All it needed was a remaster similar to the Quake games.

The only ones complaining are kids it seems "mouse dont work, graphics suck" classic in the review section, these were fixed by modders, we have everything for the old games, well enjoy the defective edition since the younger generation are all lazy. The graphics and the art direction are perfect. The map despite being so small at the time felt like it was bigger than GTA V's and the mission design was fine, planes were also introduced which on PC a lot easier than the console versions. A lot of unique side activities, not only just a million collectibles thrown on the map.