The Japanese GTA:SA Release

Last month saw the long-delayed Japanese release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas finally materialize over two years after it was released in the rest of the world. I've actually been playing this game in Japan since last year on a mod-chipped PS2 and can understand why it was the world's best selling video game in 2004. Like previous installments in the Grand Theft Auto series it has fun movie-inspired missions, entertaining storylines, humour, and meticulous attention to detail, all of which make it a joy to play.

Also like its predecessors it has the eclectic radio station soundtrack, wide range of vehicles and interesting game environment that make it enjoyable to just drive around exploring, causing havoc with guns and stolen cars, and blatantly ignoring the missions you're supposed to complete in order to progress in the game. Perhaps originally a form of emergent gameplay in earlier GTA games, this alternative use of the game is actively encouraged in GTA:SA with its much bigger, more varied landscape, as well as the addition of 'insane stunt bonuses' and more 'easter eggs' (including gang graffiti and insane stunt locations) to find.

Another feature of the GTA series is violence, and GTA:SA is certainly the most violent in the series. While the two previous GTA games, GTA3 (2001) and Vice City (2002), were released at the same time in Japan as the rest of the world, Capcom got cold feet about releasing GTA:SA following the banning of GTA3 by Kanazawa prefectural government. Now that that furore has died down and a new Z rating has been introduced for excessively-violent video games in Japan, the game publisher has been able to get GTA:SA on the shelves.

Anyway, better late than never as they say!

Japanese GTA:SA Trailer


GTA:SA Stunt Video
The phenomenal success of both GTA:SA and YouTube has led to a lot of fans creating their own stunt videos, like this one.



Dead Rising Commercial
GTA:SA is the second game to get the Z rating in Japan. This is the first one, Dead Rising, also from Capcom.

Caution: contains scenes of violence with some humour!