Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - Follow the damn train, CJ!!

Without a doubt the Grand Theft Auto saga is one of the most controversial and famous video game sagas in the industry, with a large number of titles and sales around the world. My first contact with the GTA saga was with Vice City, I still remember the first time I saw this game, it was in the years when I went to the cyber cafe, that is, I was very small and what impressed me most of Vice City was the freedom and the wide map, in its time was something that impressed me very much, since the only game I could compare it with was Driver 2, which in its time when I first played it I was really impressed that the character could get out and into the car, you could say that Driver 2 was my first contact with open world games.

However, after having played Vice City, he would finally play what could be called "the most beloved game of the GTA saga" and is nothing more than the famous Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. It's strange to find a person who hasn't played Grand Theft Auto San Andreas and this is because, at least in my country, this game marked a time in the ciber cafe, as it did in its time Counter Strike, everyone wanted to play GTA: San Andreas and we would spend many hours playing, doing the game missions or simply causing a total disaster throughout the city. Grand Theft Auto San Andreas brought with it a greater freedom than Vice City and both the location, as well as the date on which the events of the game occur, gave it a level of charisma that very few games in the GTA saga have.

GTA: San Andreas also brought with it many playable improvements such as: being able to swim, one of the most annoying resources of many video games is that our character by touching the water dies instantly, in this case, GTA: San Andreas changed that with respect to his previous games, since our protagonist, CJ, could swim without any problem and even dive if we wanted, in this way, the feeling of freedom that we had at the time of controlling CJ was much greater than with the other games of the saga and even in other similar games, but not only that, we could also improve our character physically, giving a customizable feature to the game quite decent and entertaining.

And speaking of the argument, GTA: San Andreas tells us the story of CJ, a young man who fled the neighborhood to make a better life for himself, after some time, he returns to his old place of origin due to the death of his mother, when he comes back to his neighborhood, he realizes that everything is in decline, his gang has lost control of much of their territories, drugs take over the inhabitants and the gang members themselves and the corrupt police control much of what happens in the city, so we must take control of the gang, strengthen it and end the rival gangs and corrupt police. In short, this is GTA's main argument: San Andreas, a story full of gangs, money, weapons, deaths, violence, drugs and treason, an argument that occurs at a time very characteristic of the Saints and this is further improved by the excellent soundtrack of this game, because we can find many emblematic songs that represent the era in an excellent way.

GTA: San Andreas is one of the few games that have managed to survive through the years and it's incredible that with the passing of the years even becomes more popular, gradually becoming a cult game, (although I think it already is), what has achieved this game is to admire, but of course, much of this merit is due to their fans, because they are the ones who keep this game still alive, thanks to their memes and mods, because you could say that GTA: San Andreas is one of the games with more mods created by the community, the number of mods of all kinds is incredible, from the impressive to the most absurd, the GTA community, in general, do not stop creating mods, being GTA: San Andreas the one that has more mods in its catalog, remaining in force no matter how many years have passed.

Another recurrent phenomenon of the GTA saga are its memes, the number of memes that have been made of these games is incredible, we all know or at least have seen one or two memes of GTA: San Andreas, is one of the most popular memes on the Internet because many of the situations that occur in the game can be captured in any type of situation, then turn it into the form of meme and many of them fit perfectly with our daily lives and that's why they were and are so popular today. The famous Big Smoke phrase, when we failed the mission to follow the train: "All you had to do, was follow the damn train, CJ", is one of the most parodied phrases and moments of a video game over the years and this is partly due to the "difficulty" of the mission itself, but not due to the fact that it is very difficult to chase the train, no, is that besides following the train we must place ourselves in a certain position so that Big Smoke shoots the enemies that are on the train, but the problem is that our companion has bad aim and in many occasions it will make us lose the mission and just when we lose Big Smoke tells us that phrase so characteristic of the character that it was impossible that it did not become a meme.

After passing me the history of GTA: San Andreas and having tried to meet the % to complete the game, I set out to play San Andreas Multiplayer or also known as SAMP, I remember the first time I entered a San Andreas Online server, was a total disaster, shots, explosions and death everywhere, that server in which between was completely chaos, however, it was quite fun to walk through the modified cities and meet a lot of people from other parts of the world playing, that was really exciting. I remember an anecdote about a server that its main function was to eliminate as many other players as possible, the greater the number of players eliminated, the more money you earned, but the greater the reward for your head, ie, the more you killed other players, for you increased a reward and therefore you were the most sought after on the server.

When I entered the server I already knew the rules about the reward, but what I didn't know was that when I killed the first one on the server's "most wanted" list, I was replacing him, so I was going to become the most wanted by killing the "most wanted". And so it was, I killed the most wanted of the server at that time, but it was by pure chance, and suddenly, behind me began to appear a lot of users chasing me, at least 20 users were after me looking to eliminate me, it was a funny moment to see that many other characters chasing me, I think I stayed alive for at least 30 mins, all the time I spent fleeing and I toured almost the entire map of San Andreas, the advantage of being at the top of the list of most wanted of that server was that they gave you certain advantages such as: more life, more endurance and more speed, that's why I was able to endure 30mins without dying, then obviously I was killed, but no doubt that was one of the funniest moments I spent playing San Andreas Multi Player.

Perhaps Grand Theft Auto San Andreas is not the best in terms of the playable aspect or in some other characteristics, but in terms of atmosphere, music and charisma of characters manage to position it with great ease as the Grand Theft Auto most beloved and remembered of all the saga.