History VideoGame / GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas

** The three fast-food cashiers found in the game: The Burger Shot one is a NiceGirl who geniunely expresses concern when the player vomits after eating too much, the Cluckin' Bell one is basically the ''GTA'' equivalent to [[WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants Squidward Tentacles]], while the Well Stacked Pizza one is apathetic, but not as contemptuous as the Cluckin' Bell cashier.

* NiceMeanAndInBetween: CJ's friends: Big Smoke is the nicest to C.J. and enjoys his company the most, Ryder is the mean one who constantly berates C.J. and [[BrutalHonesty never hesitates to call him out on leaving five years ago]], and Sweet is in-between, as while he's just as much of a {{Jerkass}} to C.J. as Ryder, he still shows love towards him when C.J. does help out [[spoiler:and is the only one who doesn't stab C.J. in the back.]]

** C.J. [[spoiler:murders the entire staff of a construction site and buries the foreman alive]] because someone whistled at his sister. And in an earlier mission, he breaks into a mansion and injures a rap star and all of his bodyguards, kidnapped the star's manager and trapped him in a car and ran it into the sea, all so his friend (who he doesn't even like) can steal his music or something. [[spoiler:In a bizarrely ironic twist, much later in the game, he saves the rapper from committing suicide, and then hunts down his former friend to reclaim the rhymebook ''he himself'' stole in the first place. Conveniently for C.J., his former friend never brings this up during the confrontation]].

* AscendedMeme: ''The Definitive Edition'' has an achievement titled "They Can't Stop All of Us"[[note]] A UsefulNotes/{{Facebook}} Event - really a sardonic shitpost - that took place in 2019 which involved raiding Area 51... except not really. [[/note]], which requires CJ [[spoiler:to successfully sneak inside the military base during the mission "Black Project" without setting off any alarms.]]

** Zero to Creator/DavidCross, Jizzy B. to Creator/CharlieMurphy, Mike Toreno to Creator/JamesWoods, Cesar Vialpando is Creator/CliftonCollinsJr and Officer Eddie Pulaski to Creator/ChrisPenn.

* BigEater: Big Smoke not only orders enough food for all four people in the car [[IllTakeTwoBeersToo for himself]] when the player takes C.J.'s friends to the drive through on a mission, but he actually manages to eat all that ''and everyone else's meals'' as well in the few minutes it takes to finish the car chase immediately after.

** Officer Tenpenny was clearly designed with the knowledge that Samuel L. Jackson was going to be his voice actor, because he looks exactly like Samuel L. Jackson.
** Likewise, Zero looks exactly like his voice actor, David Cross. And Jizzy B. looks just like ''his'' voice actor, Charlie Murphy. And James Woods, the voice of Mike Toreno, could easily play the role in a live action adaptation.
** Cesar Vialpando is clearly modeled on Clifton Collins, Jr.
** CJ himself, at least in his default appearance, bears resemblance to his voice actor Young Maylay.

* EveryPizzaIsPepperoni: Not only are all the pizzas CJ can get at Well-Stacked Pizza pepperoni, the restaurant's logo and radar icon depict a slice of pepperoni pizza. As with Black Mesa, looking at their menu reveals alternate toppings.

* SimpleYetAwesome: The mountain bike. Unlike the Bike and the BMX[[labelnote:+]]listed above under BoringButPractical[[/labelnote]], it's a really fast vehicle with an acceleration rate that puts even motorcycles to shame if you pedal fast. It also has the benefits of the Bike and BMX of being indestructible and very agile in cramped quarters. The only downsides are that it's ''very'' rare, and bunny hops with it are rather short even on max cycling skill (although there's a trick to jumping higher by shooting your gun at the precise moment you let go of the jump button).

-->'''Toreno:''' I wanted to see what you were made of.\\

--->'''Ryder:''' I know this cat. He a punk who used to run with a Front Yard Balla OG from Idlewood. I know his place! It's just across the tracks there! Let's check it out.\\

-->'''Lianne Forget''': Staying in Venturas -- it used to be a patch of desert, then it was a mob town. Now, it is the corporate headquarters of America. Richard explains from the streets.
-->'''Richard Burns''': That's right, Lianne. It used to be a patch of desert, then it was a mob town. Now, it is the corporate headquarters of America. Back to you in the studio.

--> '''C.J.''': Here we go again with the kinky shit...

-->'''Sweet''': Ryder, give C.J. a break, man. He practically turned the Families 'round all by himself.

* FanDisservice: Maccer is revealed to have had a liason with a hillbilly woman, giving her an ugly case of "the red bumpies". That, and most of Maccer's masturbation fantasies are nauseating in general.
--->"I LOVE YOU [[UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher MAGGIE!]]"

* FatalMethodActing: In universe example. Early on, the player can listen to [[Radio/GTARadio WCTR]] and hear an example. Jack Howitzer appears on "Entertaining America" to promote his new film and brings a gun with him. He tries to calm host Billy Dexter by saying that it's not loaded, then fatally shoots him. On the bright side, Dexter is replaced by Lazlow.

--> '''C.J.''': Uh... Woozie... [[YouKnowImBlackRight You do know I'm]] ''[[YouKnowImBlackRight black]]'', [[YouKnowImBlackRight right? And not Chinese?]]\\

-->-- '''From the second commcercial'''

-->'''Ken''': Just like old times, [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoViceCity Tommy]]!\\

-->'''The Truth:''' You know, I mean, you beat the system! I tried for thirty years to cross over, but you've maaaanaged it, man! I mean, man, you're an icon, man!
* SlidingScaleOfVideoGameWorldSizeAndScale: The game would fall under a form of '''real-time, small scale world''' (for example you can drive across San Andreas in a couple of minutes, even though it's meant to represent a whole state). However, the game also features the '''locked doors everywhere''' feature, in that there's usually tons of buildings but few, if any, are actually enterable.

-->'''Carl:''' "Can't believe you bought that same bucket ass car, man!"\\

* ChoosyBeggar: In one early mission, CJ and crew are fleeing from enemies, with CJ complaining that all they have to defend themselves is an AKA47 ("this fucking antique", as he puts it). He's told to shut up and shoot back.

Despite its age, it has been reported to still be one of the most-played games on [=PS2=] to this day, largely due to being so big and having so much to do. As such, a remastered version was made for the IOS and Android systems, and later ported to the UsefulNotes/Xbox360 (on October 26th, 2014, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the game), and then the UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 on December 1st, 2015. On October 8th, 2021, it was announced that ''San Andreas'' would see a CompilationRerelease alongside ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIII'' and ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoViceCity'' for for UsefulNotes/PlayStation5, UsefulNotes/PlayStation4, UsefulNotes/XboxSeriesXAndS, UsefulNotes/XboxOne, and UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch as part of the 20th anniversary of ''Grand Theft Auto III'', with a version for mobile devices planned for the first half of 2022.

Despite its age, it has been reported to still be one of the most-played games on [=PS2=] to this day, largely due to being so big and having so much to do. As such, a remastered version was made for the IOS and Android systems, and later ported to the UsefulNotes/Xbox360 (on October 26th, 2014, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the game), and then the UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 on December 1st, 2015.

** Same with every villain towards C.J. as well, an example being [[spoiler:when you first meet Big Smoke, he could have just easily bashed C.J.'s head in, seeing his true nature and all that. Big Smoke's approach may be justified, though, in that he may have preferred to convince C.J. to come to his side a la [[StarWars Emperor Palpatine to Luke Skywalker]], especially when Sweet early was the guy heading the Families and C.J. at that point was his [[TheLancer lancer]].]]

* UnwinnableByMistake: There's a well-known glitch occurring in the later mission "Madd Dogg". You're supposed to line up a truck full of hay under down-and-out rapper Madd Dogg before he jumps to his death, but for still-unconfirmed reasons he can commit suicide as soon as the mission cutscene ends. Fans speculate that this is caused by too many cheats being saved, though this has been mostly discredited. Another theory is that the pedestrian riot cheat has been activated, which makes Madd Dogg walk off the roof to attack the nearest person. There is no way to complete the story mode on the same save file if this happens.

* FatBastard: Big Smoke. Also C.J. if you have him eating a lot to rack up fat.

* ForgotTheDisability: Wu Zi Mu is first met during a car race, with TheReveal that he's blind coming as a surprise to CJ. There are a few scenes where the joke is that he's blind (running into a wall or shooting randomly) and a few where other people forget about it, such as the heist planning scenes.
--> '''Woozie:''' Hey, are you pointing again?

* FatBastard: Big Smoke is quite heavy and usually lets the player and the other homies do all the work. In one mission, a rival gang attacks your gang in a car and during the firefight, Big Smoke eats everyone's food that they ordered instead of shooting back. [[spoiler:This becomes more clear when C.J. later on finds out Big Smoke is actually on the side of the rival gang and is selling drugs, something that C.J.'s gang was fighting to get rid of.]]

* InterchangeableAsianCultures: The {{Yakuza}} cheat code fills the streets with [[TheTriadsAndTheTongs Triads]] using katanas and bikes.

* SuperDrowningSkills: The first game in the series to [[AvertedTrope avert]] this... unless your name isn't Carl Johnson and you're not a mission critical NPC. Then you die the second you hit even a shallow pond.

* GameBreakingBug: The infamous Madd Dogg glitch. A glitch in a mission where you had to save him from his own suicide attempt by positioning a truck full of hay under him before he could jump off a building would become {{unwinnable}} because he would jump off the building before the cutscene ended. This glitch also made the ''game'' unwinnable, and this is compounded by the fact that no one is certain what triggers this glitch; it seems to be completely random. Many suggestions have been made, the most commonly accepted "cause" being that it's caused by cheating extremely often, or using common cheats. This is discredited, since many people who never cheated once the entire game still had the glitch occur, while some that cheated extensively never saw it. One cause is the "pedestrians riot" cheat (which cannot be turned off), causing everyone to become hostile to each other. This mission is affected because Madd Dogg's character attempts to run to the nearest NPC to fight them, and in doing so, runs off the roof and dies. This is made even worse by it being one of the last missions in the game, meaning that if you get this glitch, you're screwed and have to start all over and pray you don't get the glitch again. Though, mercifully, it seems as though it never happens in two new games in a row.
** Also, if you attempt to play basketball in Madd Dogg's mansion, all basketballs on the world map will be deleted from the game, meaning you can't play it again in that particular save. This one is minor, since basketball is not needed for HundredPercentCompletion, but another glitch involving the mansion that you should worry about involves saving there, which corrupts your file.

* DummiedOut:
** There is the "Hot Coffee" minigame. The sex minigame had to be removed in order to avoid an AO rating, but deleting the code for it would've required delaying the game by a few months to fix the girlfriend system. Apparently, some of the resources used in the {{Hot Coffee minigame}} actually were used in other parts of the game, which is why the data is on the final version of the game files. So Rockstar, to meet their release date, simply buried it under layers of code. The result, after a modder re-enabled the minigame, was the Hot Coffee scandal. The "Second Edition" version, however, did omit the code. Also, lots of other stuff was coded, but never implemented. A GameMod by Deezire restores a crap ton of content, including cutscene dialogue that fills in so many plot holes you'll wonder why the hell Rockstar never bothered to activate it. It's also (most likely) thanks to Hot Coffee that the ESRB now asks game developers to see any dummied data when rating games.
** ''San Andreas'' is also missing the interior for the San Fierro Police Department (which is why you respawn 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, and hospital interiors as well.
*** Several other interiors were dummied out, including some that seems to be brothels and were probably intended to be related to the "Hot Coffee" minigame.
** There is also 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.
** 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. [[note]]Although the Andromada's door is not animated, CJ simply pass through it [[/note]] 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.
** Some missions got cut during development, including one involving rescuing The Truth in Bayside after he stole the green goo.
** The exterior of Liberty City is only used in a cutscene and can't be acessed normally. But, when acessing 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".
** There is a model for the fat Big Bear completely unused, in contrast to his [[IronicName emaciated look]] in his sole appearances in two cutscenes, one in early game and other one late game.