GAME · 2004 · UK
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
- Platforms
- PlayStation 3, Windows Phone, Microsoft Windows, macOS
119 archived facts 6 topics 2 sources Last reviewed Sep 2026
119 Interesting Facts About Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Interesting Facts (44)
- #001
When CJ is in any of the game's police stations picking up a firearm will give him a two star wanted level but picking up a melee weapon will not however activating the disable wanted level cheat allows CJ to pick up a firearm inside the police station without attracting a wanted level at all.
- #002
From 2000s-2010s, it is the only installment in which carjacking any ambulance, fire or SWAT emergency vehicle is no challenge at all especially as the occupants will not immediately assault Carl and will simply eject him again or run away. Every previous installment always included a minimum of one who would not immediately defend themselves against the carjacking before the ultimate GTA V Los Santos revisiting where all three will defend themselves.
- #003
- #004
- #005
One cutscene shows Wu Zi Mu beat Carl "CJ" Johnson at playing video games, all despite his blindness. A blind person playing (and beating) video games may seem like an impossible task in Real Life, but a gamer named Terry Garrett, who lost his eyesight when he was 10 years old in 1997, managed to beat The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) all by using positional audio cues, albeit in a span of five years and on an emulator using save states. And as for Woozie's driving, it is possible for a blind or blindfolded man to drive through a course assuming you know the route or are given the exact directions through it.
- #006
After CJ obtains Barbara as a girlfriend he will not lose his weapons after being busted as she herself is a police officer and after CJ obtains Katie as a girlfriend he will not lose his weapons after being wasted as she is a paramedic and also, if Carl is wasted within San Fierro while he's dating Katie he will respawn in front of her place instead of at the hospital and if CJ gets busted in or near El Quebrados while dating Barbara, he will respawn behind the police station instead of in front of it.
- #007
After the player obtains 100% from Barbara CJ will obtain a cop uniform however this will not give him freedom from police attention as he will still recieve a wanted level if he commits a crime however if the player uses the disable wanted level cheat CJ can commit crimes without attracting police attention.
- #008
- #009
While DJ Pooh was meeting with the game's creators to discuss the music, he received a call from Young Maylay, an artist with whom he was working. Pooh put the call on speakerphone and the creators felt that Maylay had the right voice for the character. They hired Maylay even though he had no previous acting experience.
- #010
- #011
In the repartee between Reflection's Driver series and Rockstar Game's Grand Theft Auto series, GTA once again pokes fun of Tanner. In the mission where you must steal Madd Dogg's rhyme book, one of the guards plays a video game and swears at the game company "Refractions", stating "Tanner, you suck."
- #012
- #013
The protagonist of Grand Theft Auto III (2001) formerly known as "Fido" (among various other aliases) is actually named Claude. This is discovered during one of the phone calls from Catalina, who becomes Claude's girlfriend when they leave San Andreas. It is assumed that Claude is Claude Speed, the main character from Grand Theft Auto 2 (1999).
- #014
Wil Wheaton got his role as Richard Burns after being interviewed by Lazlow, the writer of the radio station dialogue for the Grand Theft Auto video game series. Wheaton admitted his abundant admiration for Jones' work on the games, and Jones eventually worked out the Richard Burns character specifically for Wheaton. He recorded the voice work in a Rockstar Games studio in about two hours.
- #015
- #016
- #017
- #018
Many of the vehicles in this game were also featured in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002), and a few in Grand Theft Auto III (2001). Because this game takes place in 1992 (between the events of Vice City, which took place in 1986, and GTA III, which took place in 2001), many of these vehicles were rendered to look as if they were combined models. For example, the Landstalker (an SUV) is modelled to have the body of the Landstalkers from 1986, but it has the headlights and front grill of a Landstalker from 2001. The Banshee (a sports car) is modelled to look exactly like its 2001 counterpart. The Comet (another sports car) looks exactly like it did in the beta versions of Vice City. That version of the Comet had been redesigned, yet its original version was brought back in this game.
- #019
The rail bridge from San Fierro is modelled on the Forth Rail Bridge, which runs north from Edinburgh, Scotland, where Rockstar Games is based. The road bridge next to it, presumably modelled on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, also bears more than a passing resemblance to the Forth Road Bridge, which lies right next to the Forth Rail Bridge.
- #020
- #021
- #022
The random plane crashes were a glitch Rockstar discovered during beta testing, a result of a less-than-airtight approach to random generation of flight paths that allowed the possibility of planes' trajectories intersecting with the ground. They found the crashes so funny and appropriate for the comedic Crapsack World setting that they left the glitch alone. (Though it did tend to annoy the occasional player who suddenly found their character wasted because of being in the path of said plane crash!)
- #023
- #024
- #025
- #026
- #027
The exterior of Liberty City is only used in a cutscene and can't be accessed normally. But, when accessing it through a glitch or mod, the player can see that it is much bigger than it appears (but incomplete) as it was supposed to take a larger role in the mission "Saint Mark's Bistro".
- #028
Like in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002), some songs had to be removed from the game after their contract ended. Unfortunately, while those who owned the Steam version of Vice City beforehand got to keep the songs, San Andreas' songs went bye-bye from earlier owners as well, likely because of how the radio works (Before San Andreas, all radio channels were a single file, while San Andreas plays individual songs in random order). Because of this, some re-releases lack some of the songs the original had.
- #029
The Andromada plane and the FBI truck are two vehicles that can't be obtained by the player in a normal gameplay, but everything indicates that it originally could, as both are fully functional when accessed with a mod or trainer. The Andromada can still be seen in-game in a mission and flying in the sky sometimes, but the FBI truck never appears under normal conditions.
- #030
The state of San Andreas is missing the interior for the San Fierro Police Department (which is why your character respawns on a nondescript street corner near the building and you can't enter it, unlike the other ones), presumably because entering it crashed the game or they didn't have time to clean up the programming for release, same for the interior of the hospital as well. Several other interiors were dummied out as well, including some that seem to be brothels and were probably intended to be related to the "Hot Coffee" mini-game.
- #031
One cutscene shows Wu Zi Mu beat Carl "CJ" Johnson at playing video games, all despite his blindness. A blind person playing (and beating) video games may seem like an impossible task in Real Life, but a gamer named Terry Garrett, who lost his eyesight when he was 10 years old in 1997, managed to beat The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) all by using positional audio cues, albeit in a span of five years and on an emulator using save states. And as for Woozie's driving, it is possible for a blind or blindfolded man to drive through a course assuming you know the route or are given the exact directions through it.
- #032
In 2024, programmer Obbe Vermeij commented there was an originally intended plan to include earthquakes into the city landscape but with considerations to replacing road spawns once it was over and with no relation to the story mode, it was removed. To this day, GTA V still had no earthquakes at any time of its natural gameplay, with any supposed features only being mod programs.
- #033
- #034
In 2023, Rockstar North's Obbe Vermeij shared several revelations about working on the game including that, whereas it was a lesser workload than Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002) including considering the massive map size as well as detailing cities in the countryside, the company hired a chef to cook meals for late-working employees.
- #035
In 2023 and 2024, developer Obbe Vermeij shared that the game code was limited for PS2 which resulted in car population quantity being reduced after 8 models to preserve game efficiency, as well as garages deleting the cars once the garage doors closed to not overload the game. He also noted San Andreas received an improvement from GTA III in that cars would despawn after 2 seconds, instead of GTA III where changing the player camera view would eliminate what was not currently focused on in real time.
- #036
At the north terminal entrances and exits of the GTA IV-era Francis International Airport, 2 FlyUS billboard advertisements mention $200 Las Venturas tickets, a location that has only appeared in San Andreas and then $299 Los Santos tickets. Weazel TV also airs the Cerveza Barracho and eCola-sponsored Venturas Poker Challenge as a second clue to a location otherwise never mentioned in the IV game, but instead displaying the exact same Las Venturas strip, Welcome and the San Andreas-game footage of the Las Venturas freeway.
- #037
- #038
- #039
In 2024, Lazlow revealed that, though he went into the first creative content development meeting in GTA III with the same yellow legal notepad and the same clipboard he had used before, he quickly realized he needed something to actively collect everything that was emerging in ideas which is when he started and continued using a laptop to the final game.
- #040
It was the first 3D title and later of any GTA title, to not feature any police reaction in physically colliding or pushing into them and this resulting in a solid statue collision frame from the police officer, as both previous titles featured a constant police reaction if the character bumped into them and HD titles always featuring constant reaction varieties.
- #041
- #042
- #043
Contains a major spoiler — show
At the beginning of the game, Officer Tenpenny says "I'll see you around like a doughnut Carl" as he and Officer Pulaski throw him out of the police car, and at the end of the game, Carl says to Tenpenny "I'll see you around Officer" skywriting a doughnut to his now dead body.
- #044
Contains a major spoiler — show
There are quite a few things that foreshadow Big Smoke's betrayal to CJ and the Grove Street Families (GSF) Like when CJ first returns, Smoke is alone at The Johnson House instead of at his mother's funeral with the rest of the gang. Many fans speculate that he was actially there to assassinate Sweet. and in the mission "Drive-Thru" Smoke refuses to shoot back at the Ballas car claiming that he needs to finish his food order while the others return fire. In early cutscenes, Smoke repeatedly tries to convince Sweet to let thr GSF enter the crack cocaine arguing that this is the only way to compete against the Ballas. He also changes the subject when CJ or Ryder bring up his mother's death or the "Green Sabre" Smoke often shuts down the conversation or shifts the focus to something else. He moves into enemy territory as he moves out of Grove Street and into Idlewood which is deeply Ballas Territory. C.R.A.S.H. officers Tenpenny and Pulaski are seen leaving his house on multiple occasions. Smoke dismisses then as "nosey", but he is actually working for them. He also bosses his own missions (unlike Sweet's missions), which focuses on gang territory and loyalty, Smoke's missions (like "Wrong Side of the Tracks" or "Just Business") often involve external groups like the Vagos or the Russian Mafia and primarily benefit his own growing interests. and during missions, enemy AI is often programmed to ignore Smoke and focus entirely on CJ, even when Smoke is alone much easier and larger target. and last but not least the betrayal is confirmed in the mission "The Green Sabre" where Ceasar Vialpando shows CJ a meeting with Big Smoke, Ryder, Officer Tenpenny, and The Ballas all standing around the green Sabre used for the drive-by shooting that killed CJ's mother.
Production Story (24)
- #045
The state of San Andreas is missing the interior for the San Fierro Police Department (which is why your character respawns on a nondescript street corner near the building and you can't enter it, unlike the other ones), presumably because entering it crashed the game or they didn't have time to clean up the programming for release, same for the interior of the hospital as well. Several other interiors were dummied out as well, including some that seem to be brothels and were probably intended to be related to the "Hot Coffee" mini-game.
- #046
The film Boyz n the Hood (1991) was one of the biggest influences in creating the story of the game. Grove Street bears a striking resemblance to the street, on which the main three characters in the film grew up, and there is a random NPC pedestrian who resembles Cuba Gooding, Jr.'s character, Tre Styles. Also, songs by Ice Cube (who played Darrin "Doughboy" Baker in the film) are featured on the in-game hip-hop radio station "Radio Los Santos". Sweet Johnson, the brother of protagonist Carl Johnson, bears a resemblance to Ice Cube. This game is set in 1992, one year after the film was released.
- #047
There has been a thoroughly documented glitch that originates in visiting AmmuNation, purchasing and selecting the specific weapons in any order, M4, SMG, Tec9 and the combat and sawnoff shotgun before entering the gun range, exiting and coming back out to see ammunition has doubled each time. Continuously repeating this over and over maximizes the ammunition count, resulting in never decreasing and never reloading either. Code programmer Obbe Vermeij accounted this as having resulted from the scripting phase where this was implemented for guaranteed ammunition at gun ranges and never remodified for the final release.
- #048
While DJ Pooh was meeting with the game's creators to discuss the music, he received a call from Young Maylay, an artist with whom he was working. Pooh put the call on speakerphone and the creators felt that Maylay had the right voice for the character. They hired Maylay even though he had no previous acting experience.
- #049
Wil Wheaton got his role as Richard Burns after being interviewed by Lazlow, the writer of the radio station dialogue for the Grand Theft Auto video game series. Wheaton admitted his abundant admiration for Jones' work on the games, and Jones eventually worked out the Richard Burns character specifically for Wheaton. He recorded the voice work in a Rockstar Games studio in about two hours.
- #050
- #051
Many of the vehicles in this game were also featured in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002), and a few in Grand Theft Auto III (2001). Because this game takes place in 1992 (between the events of Vice City, which took place in 1986, and GTA III, which took place in 2001), many of these vehicles were rendered to look as if they were combined models. For example, the Landstalker (an SUV) is modelled to have the body of the Landstalkers from 1986, but it has the headlights and front grill of a Landstalker from 2001. The Banshee (a sports car) is modelled to look exactly like its 2001 counterpart. The Comet (another sports car) looks exactly like it did in the beta versions of Vice City. That version of the Comet had been redesigned, yet its original version was brought back in this game.
- #052
The mission "Doberman" as seen in the final game is repurposed from a completely different mission that was cut, which would've seen Officer Tenpenny ordering Carl "CJ" Johnson to murder an informant named Poncho to prevent him from potentially talking to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) about C.R.A.S.H.'s corruption. This was changed to Sean 'Sweet' Johnson asking CJ to help kill a drug dealer who had been selling to the Grove Street Families. Two major aspects from the original mission remain despite now lacking their necessary context. First, the name "Doberman" references the original introductory cutscene, where Tenpenny said it as a nickname for CJ. Second, after finding the drug dealer, he exclaims that Tenpenny set him up. This dialogue makes perfect sense for Poncho, but is an odd non-sequitur when said by the drug dealer.
- #053
In 2023, Rockstar North's Obbe Vermeij shared several revelations about working on the game including that, whereas it was a lesser workload than Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002) including considering the massive map size as well as detailing cities in the countryside, the company hired a chef to cook meals for late-working employees.
- #054
The random plane crashes were a glitch Rockstar discovered during beta testing, a result of a less-than-airtight approach to random generation of flight paths that allowed the possibility of planes' trajectories intersecting with the ground. They found the crashes so funny and appropriate for the comedic Crapsack World setting that they left the glitch alone. (Though it did tend to annoy the occasional player who suddenly found their character wasted because of being in the path of said plane crash!)
- #055
In 2023 and 2024, developer Obbe Vermeij shared that the game code was limited for PS2 which resulted in car population quantity being reduced after 8 models to preserve game efficiency, as well as garages deleting the cars once the garage doors closed to not overload the game. He also noted San Andreas received an improvement from GTA III in that cars would despawn after 2 seconds, instead of GTA III where changing the player camera view would eliminate what was not currently focused on in real time.
- #056
In 2024, Obbe Vermeij returned to note that, because during the game development there was no video memory for rendering effective mirror visuals, the scene was mirrored to duplicate the scene itself at the same time. However, the problem with this was the surrounding objects in the scene would be seen backwards in the mirror as well as the character submerging themselves inside the mirror.
- #057
In 2024, Lazlow revealed that, though he went into the first creative content development meeting in GTA III with the same yellow legal notepad and the same clipboard he had used before, he quickly realized he needed something to actively collect everything that was emerging in ideas which is when he started and continued using a laptop to the final game.
- #058
Grand Theft Auto (1997) included three cities: Liberty City, Vice City, and San Andreas. Since the first two cities were remade for the PS2 (Grand Theft Auto III (2001), Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002)), it made sense that the third city, San Andreas, would be the third game in the PS2 series. This, of course, held a huge role in the on-going debate on whether the game would be titled "San Andreas" or "Sin City".
- #059
There is text data for a skateboard hidden in the game's main files as well (which is why Los Santos has a skatepark). The skateboard was scrapped for the presumably much easier to program and animate bicycles. Programmer Obbe Vermeij later commented there were also plans to include the skateboard as a dual transport and weapon but those two challenges were, animation to physics combinations and the weaponry challenge being controls and user interface reasons.
- #060
Originally, the Grove Street Families were going to be called Grove Street Alliance (GSA) or the Orange Grove Families (OGF), and the originally gang color was going to be orange instead of green. Proof in the game pertaining to both of these assumptions are easily findable because Rockstar did not delete the references to the GSA or OGF at all. For example, you can get tattoos saying Orange Grove. Furthermore, some graffiti in the game will read Orange Grove Families, rather than Grove Street Families and a drawing of CJ dressed up in orange appears in the game loading screen.
- #061
Tommy Vercetti, the protagonist of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002) was meant to return in this entry. However, after Rockstar North's dispute with Ray Liotta, these plans were subsequently scrapped with Tommy only being mentioned briefly in the mission, "The Meat Business", during Ken Rosenberg's and Carl "CJ" Johnson's shootout at the Sindacco Abattoir.
- #062
The music you hear when doing the "Car Bounce Challenge" with Caesar is from an episode of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979). Season one, episode twenty-one, "Space Rockers" aired on February 21, 1980 and featured a futuristic band called Andromeda playing this song with outlandish instruments. The song is called "Odyssey" and was written by Johnny Harris. It appeared on the San Andreas soundtrack and can be heard on the in-game radio station Bounce FM.
- #063
In 2024, programmer Obbe Vermeij commented there was an originally intended plan to include earthquakes into the city landscape but with considerations to replacing road spawns once it was over and with no relation to the story mode, it was removed. To this day, GTA V still had no earthquakes at any time of its natural gameplay, with any supposed features only being mod programs.
- #064
Like in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002), some songs had to be removed from the game after their contract ended. Unfortunately, while those who owned the Steam version of Vice City beforehand got to keep the songs, San Andreas' songs went bye-bye from earlier owners as well, likely because of how the radio works (Before San Andreas, all radio channels were a single file, while San Andreas plays individual songs in random order). Because of this, some re-releases lack some of the songs the original had.
- #065
- #066
- #067
- #068
In July 2005, a sex-minigame called "Hot Coffee" was discovered in the game's assets (the title is a reference to CJ's first girlfriend inviting him inside for "some coffee"). Because the developers merely deactivated the minigame, it could be accessed on both the PC and the console version by using a patch or a hacking tool. Because of that, the game's rating in the USA was changed from "Mature" to "Adults Only", and as a result, many stores couldn't sell this game anymore due to strict regulations in regards to ratings. In Australia, the game was revoked its MA15+ rating and consequently pulled from stores.
Characters & Cast (5)
Easter Eggs & References (41)
- #074
The Andromada plane and the FBI truck are two vehicles that can't be obtained by the player in a normal gameplay, but everything indicates that it originally could, as both are fully functional when accessed with a mod or trainer. The Andromada can still be seen in-game in a mission and flying in the sky sometimes, but the FBI truck never appears under normal conditions.
- #075
In the horse racing mini-game, there is a horse with the name "Henrik's Jaw", in reference to the former Celtic F.C. striker Henrik Larsson, whose jaw breakage saw him sidelined from soccer for a while in 2003, during the time this game was in development. Considering Rockstar North is based in Scotland, it would seem likely that some of their employees working on the game could be Celtic fans. Also, there is another racehorse featured in the horse racing mini-game called "Scotland's Shite", a reference to the fact that the Scotland national football team never usually makes it past the qualifying stage for the FIFA World Cup, and on the rare occasions when it has managed to do so, it usually gets defeated in the first round.
- #076
- #077
The protagonist of Grand Theft Auto III (2001) formerly known as "Fido" (among various other aliases) is actually named Claude. This is discovered during one of the phone calls from Catalina, who becomes Claude's girlfriend when they leave San Andreas. It is assumed that Claude is Claude Speed, the main character from Grand Theft Auto 2 (1999).
- #078
- #079
- #080
- #081
- #082
Most characters have their own unique license plates: * The license plate on Sean 'Sweet' Johnson's car is "GROVE4L", meaning Grove for Live showing his love for the Grove Street family's gang. * The license plate on Lance 'Ryder' Wilson's car reads: "SHERM". Throughout the game, CJ continually calls Ryder "sherm-head", a reference to his drug taking habits. * The license plate on Cesar Vialpando's car is "LVA4L". * The license plate on Denise Robinson's car is "HOMEGIRL", a reference to her affiliation with the Grove Street Families. * The license plate on Jizzy B's car, a.k.a. "The Pimpmobile", is "Ho 2 Ho". * The license plate on Mike Toreno's vehicle is "OMEGA". * The license plate on Millie Perkins' vehicle is "spank". Spank is the fictional name of Crack Cocaine in the Grand Theft Auto universe.
- #083
In the repartee between Reflection's Driver series and Rockstar Game's Grand Theft Auto series, GTA once again pokes fun of Tanner. In the mission where you must steal Madd Dogg's rhyme book, one of the guards plays a video game and swears at the game company "Refractions", stating "Tanner, you suck."
- #084
- #085
- #086
- #087
Ken Rosenberg, the coke-addled lawyer introduced in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002), and returned in this game, is based on David Kleinfeld, Sean Penn's character in Carlito's Way (1993). Penn's brother Chris Penn appeared in this game as a C.R.A.S.H. Officer Pulaski. Sean Penn played a C.R.A.S.H. Officer in Colors (1988).
- #088
- #089
- #090
- #091
- #092
- #093
- #094
The rail bridge from San Fierro is modelled on the Forth Rail Bridge, which runs north from Edinburgh, Scotland, where Rockstar Games is based. The road bridge next to it, presumably modelled on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, also bears more than a passing resemblance to the Forth Road Bridge, which lies right next to the Forth Rail Bridge.
- #095
- #096
The Spanish word ese, meaning "dude", would be used a lot in dialogue which would primarily consist of English vocab. Interestingly, the phrase ese would have a pronunciation which would sound like "SA" being said, since SA is the abbreviation for San Andreas, which itself is also of Spanish origin, which translates to "Saint Andrew".
- #097
- #098
The "Cluckin' Bell" franchise in the game may be a reference to the popular British historical comedy Blackadder Goes Forth (1989). During the episode "Goodbyeee", the title character "Blackadder" Rowan Atkinson attempts to call in a favour to avoid "The Big Push". After his idea falls through, he claims "I think the phrase rhymes with 'Clucking Bell'".
- #099
At the north terminal entrances and exits of the GTA IV-era Francis International Airport, 2 FlyUS billboard advertisements mention $200 Las Venturas tickets, a location that has only appeared in San Andreas and then $299 Los Santos tickets. Weazel TV also airs the Cerveza Barracho and eCola-sponsored Venturas Poker Challenge as a second clue to a location otherwise never mentioned in the IV game, but instead displaying the exact same Las Venturas strip, Welcome and the San Andreas-game footage of the Las Venturas freeway.
- #100
- #101
- #102
- #103
The exterior of Liberty City is only used in a cutscene and can't be accessed normally. But, when accessing it through a glitch or mod, the player can see that it is much bigger than it appears (but incomplete) as it was supposed to take a larger role in the mission "Saint Mark's Bistro".
- #104
In the horse racing mini-game, there is a horse with the name "Henrik's Jaw", in reference to the former Celtic F.C. striker Henrik Larsson, whose jaw breakage saw him sidelined from soccer for a while in 2003, during the time this game was in development. Considering Rockstar North is based in Scotland, it would seem likely that some of their employees working on the game could be Celtic fans. Also, there is another racehorse featured in the horse racing mini-game called "Scotland's Shite", a reference to the fact that the Scotland national football team never usually makes it past the qualifying stage for the FIFA World Cup, and on the rare occasions when it has managed to do so, it usually gets defeated in the first round.
- #105
- #106
- #107
Most characters have their own unique license plates: * The license plate on Sean 'Sweet' Johnson's car is "GROVE4L", meaning Grove for Live showing his love for the Grove Street family's gang. * The license plate on Lance 'Ryder' Wilson's car reads: "SHERM". Throughout the game, CJ continually calls Ryder "sherm-head", a reference to his drug taking habits. * The license plate on Cesar Vialpando's car is "LVA4L". * The license plate on Denise Robinson's car is "HOMEGIRL", a reference to her affiliation with the Grove Street Families. * The license plate on Jizzy B's car, a.k.a. "The Pimpmobile", is "Ho 2 Ho". * The license plate on Mike Toreno's vehicle is "OMEGA". * The license plate on Millie Perkins' vehicle is "spank". Spank is the fictional name of Crack Cocaine in the Grand Theft Auto universe.
- #108
All the games in the 3D universe refer to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) by their actual names, unlike in the HD era counterparts where they are parodied as the Federal Investigation Bureau (FIB), the International Affairs Agency (IAA), the Drug Observation Agency (DOA) and the National Office of Security Enforcement (NOOSE).
- #109
The mission "Doberman" as seen in the final game is repurposed from a completely different mission that was cut, which would've seen Officer Tenpenny ordering Carl "CJ" Johnson to murder an informant named Poncho to prevent him from potentially talking to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) about C.R.A.S.H.'s corruption. This was changed to Sean 'Sweet' Johnson asking CJ to help kill a drug dealer who had been selling to the Grove Street Families. Two major aspects from the original mission remain despite now lacking their necessary context. First, the name "Doberman" references the original introductory cutscene, where Tenpenny said it as a nickname for CJ. Second, after finding the drug dealer, he exclaims that Tenpenny set him up. This dialogue makes perfect sense for Poncho, but is an odd non-sequitur when said by the drug dealer.
- #110
Contains a major spoiler — show
While Ryder, who has Lance as his real first name, would be a so-called "best friend", or "loyal" crime partner who betrayed the protagonist by joining a rival gang, and then killed by him in GTA:SA as revenge of that betrayal, Another character named Lance, that being Lance Vance in GTA: Vice City would also have similar circumstances followed by a killing by his "best friend" or "loyal" crime partner. While Vance got killed by the end of Vice City, Ryder would get killed roughly halfway through the mission list of San Andreas.
- #111
Contains a major spoiler — show
Big Smoke's license plate is "A2TMFK". This abbreviation is seen as a reference to several things, including the Cypress Hill songs which contains words "A to the motherfucking K". It could also mean "A two-ton motherfucker", referencing Big Smoke's weight, or "a two-timing motherfucker", referencing Big Smoke's betrayal to CJ and the Grove Street families.
- #112
Contains a major spoiler — show
At the beginning of the game, Officer Tenpenny says "I'll see you around like a doughnut Carl" as he and Officer Pulaski throw him out of the police car, and at the end of the game, Carl says to Tenpenny "I'll see you around Officer" skywriting a doughnut to his now dead body.
- #113
Contains a major spoiler — show
There is a "blink and you'll miss it" reference to another Rockstar game, during Catalina's 4 robbery missions, when you go to the gas station in Dillimore and she starts pointing her gun at the men inside, you will see a sticker on the window that says "Max Pane Bulletproof Glass" which, seeing as she shot a shotgun point blank into the window and it barely cracked, it's most definitely effective.
- #114
Contains a major spoiler — show
There is a "blink and you'll miss it" reference to another Rockstar game, during Catalina's 4 robbery missions, when you go to the gas station in Dillimore and she starts pointing her gun at the men inside, you will see a sticker on the window that says "Max Pane Bulletproof Glass" which, seeing as she shot a shotgun point blank into the window and it barely cracked, it's most definitely effective.
Deeper Meaning (3)
- #115
- #116
In 2024, Obbe Vermeij returned to note that, because during the game development there was no video memory for rendering effective mirror visuals, the scene was mirrored to duplicate the scene itself at the same time. However, the problem with this was the surrounding objects in the scene would be seen backwards in the mirror as well as the character submerging themselves inside the mirror.
- #117
There has been a thoroughly documented glitch that originates in visiting AmmuNation, purchasing and selecting the specific weapons in any order, M4, SMG, Tec9 and the combat and sawnoff shotgun before entering the gun range, exiting and coming back out to see ammunition has doubled each time. Continuously repeating this over and over maximizes the ammunition count, resulting in never decreasing and never reloading either. Code programmer Obbe Vermeij accounted this as having resulted from the scripting phase where this was implemented for guaranteed ammunition at gun ranges and never remodified for the final release.
Career & Awards (2)
- #118
Chris Bellard, aka Young Maylay, once infamously lashed out at Rockstar Games on Instagram after being badgered by fans who relentlessly asked the rapper if he was going to reprise his role in a future Grand Theft Auto game, stating "No disrespect to Dan Houser at all, but... they're Culture Vultures MF's from London making billions off LA n***s and we don't see 10% of that...", implying his contempt over his earnings from the game - he would later bluntly state he would never voice CJ again. After a series of tirades and arguments with fans, Maylay's cousin Shawn Fonteno, who went on to voice Franklin in Grand Theft Auto V (2013), both clarified his cousin's outburst and offered to apologies to those offended by Maylay. Fonteno later reasoned with his cousin and explained to him the impact both Grand Theft Auto San Andreas and Grand Theft Auto V had on the two actors, and how Maylay could have shown his gratitude both to Rockstar and their fan-base.
- #119
Related pages
- Bully — Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas comes up in the facts on that page
- Grand Theft Auto III — Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas comes up in the facts on that page
- Iron Man 2 — Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas comes up in the facts on that page