History VideoGame / GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas

* HardCodedHostility: The game gives us a case of GameplayAndStorySegregation: Los Aztecas will always mob and eventually attack both you and other Grove Street members outside of missions if given a chance, no matter how close C.J.'s bond with their leader, Cesar Vialpando, is, or that you eventually help them regain their lost territory from the Vagos. Averted in the PC version where no matter what you do, they won't attack unless provoked or in very rare occasions.

** The name of the town El Quebrados is gramatically incorrect -- it should be either "El Quebrado" or "Los Quebrados".
** "Los Flores", the correct form being "Las Flores".

* BringingBackProof: In one mission, {{DirtyCop}}s Frank Tenpenny and Eddie Pulaski order CJ to gun down one of the witnesses in the corruption case against them, and take a photo of his corpse.

* BringingBackProof: In one mission, {{Corrupt Cop}}s Frank Tenpenny and Eddie Pulaski order CJ to gun down one of the witnesses in the corruption case against them, and take a photo of his corpse as "evidence he ain't talking".

** The game features pretty solid AI in most cases, but it breaks down in some areas. On the freeway, the AI can't seem to handle the speed at which it drives, resulting in a lot of accidents, even with no player intervention. If the player stays put long enough, massive pileups and riots inevitably occur and don't end until the player leaves the area.

* BaldBlackLeaderGuy: Frank Tenpenny is bald, black, and the leader of an evil band of {{Dirty Cop}}s, making this overlap with BaldOfEvil.

* SeparateButIdentical: The Grove Street OGs hate the palette-swapped Ballas. The only real difference between the two crews is the Ballas sell cocaine; otherwise both are filled to the brim with violent psychotics.

* MyHeroZero: Zero is an irritating HollywoodNerd who gives you some of the worst {{Scrappy Level}}s of the game. One gets the impression ''he'' is thinking of the "special and badass" sense of the name, while everyone else is thinking "loser". He does make weaponized RC planes though...

* HollywoodNerd: Zero. For instance, he quotes ''Franchise/StarWars'' during his rooftop defense mission.

** Flying very far into the ocean is a GoodBagBug in the [=PS2=] version as it triggers the territory glitch, but in the PC and XBOX, it corrupts your file and prevents the game from spawning clients during the taxi sidequest. Considering the taxi sidequest ''is'' needed for HundredPercentCompletion, it's a big deal if it hadn't been completed before.

* IronicEcho: Carl, after coming back home after years of being away, meets Officer Tenpenny looking to "chat". Tenpenny proceeds to start screwing around with Carl and coerces Carl into his service via blackmail and a frame job. Tenpenny ends their "chat" by saying: [[spoiler:''See you around, Carl"]] before walking (then driving away). Guess what Carl says later in the game when [[spoiler:[[ItMakesSenseInContext Tenpenny ends up dying on the street due to driving a firetruck off a bridge while being chased by Carl and Sweet.]]]]

* AluminumChristmasTrees: While the Drive-Thru Confessions Church in Palomino Creek, Red County may seem like a rather irreverent joke towards the sacrament of confession by Catholics, there was actually a RealLife version of it [[https://abcnews.go.com/US/priest-offers-drive-confession-coronavirus-pandemic/story?id=69726217 carried out]] by an enterprising priest in response to church closures in the US following the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic.

** Civilian drivers are actually dumb cars-on-rails until nudged, shot, or otherwise "awakened", at which point they become truly AI controlled and subject to proper physics (almost certainly for performance). In some places, the map's "rails" seem to be set up wrong, and vehicles either accelerate or turn well beyond their actual capabilities, or outright spawn facing the wrong way then tween into place. Freeway pileups are usually a result of "rail" and "true" vehicles trying to interact and failing badly at it.
** Planes are also tied to 'rails'. This frequently makes them disregard tall buildings, trees, particularly steep hills or other particularly tall objects. Supposedly, the devs found this bug in development [[AscendedGlitch and chose not to fix it because it's funny]] (though not as much when those rails end up with them trying to land a plane on your forehead or a rare car you want to put in your garage).
*** Also, pretty much every car that needs to make a right turn, is going to do so from the left lane, and vice versa for left turns. And that seems to be the most basic rule for the game's driving AI, but apparently it wasn't. It seems like the only realistic thing the other drivers do in the game is to high-tail it out of there when if they hear gunshots.

* BlackComedy: In "Ice Cold Killa", C.J. needs a silenced pistol, but cannot find one. So Cesar takes out his silenced pistol [[HyperspaceArsenal out of nowhere]] and gives it to C.J., whom asks where he got that. Cesar's answer? '''"Same place I buy my pants, holmes. This is America!"''

* BottomlessBladder: This game, more than any ''GTA'' before or since, pays great attention to personal matters -- keeping fit and requiring CJ to eat occasionally, with penalties associated with eating too much or too little (or being not fit enough). But bathroom breaks are never factored in (which is probably a good thing).

* CameraScrew: The game had the "Helpful" camera change problem. While driving the camera focuses ''directly'' behind your vehicle, meaning you can't see what's in front of you on the road. There's a button you can hit to move it to a much more useful angle, but as soon as you let go of said button, the camera slides riiiiiight back into crap-town. Of course, you can drive in first person mode, but then you can't see anyone pulling up behind or to the side of you; it becomes incredibly difficult to extricate yourself from the kind of 46-point turn scenario that often comes up when trying to drive through alleyways, and over everything else; and of course not forgetting, the car ''inexplicably gets wider when you're in first person view''.

* CaptainCrash: Woozie, a very bizarre ally, can drive magnificently. Walking into walls, however, is a frequent occurrence. Even more amazing is the fact that he can drive while being blind.
** Even more amusing is that his gang acts like he isn't blind at all. It is rather confusing especially since you meet him during a high speed race. Through the countryside. ''Eventually'' he confesses to C.J. that he is blind. You can almost see C.J. trying and failing to contain himself before he replies, "no shit!"

* ChoosyBeggar: In one early mission, CJ and crew are fleeing from the police, 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.

* CountryMatters: This word is dropped several times through the course of the game. Considering the other [[NWordPrivileges offensive words that are used]] and the overall [[BlackComedy cringe worthy]] [[CrossesTheLineTwice subject matter]] of the game, it's not surprising.

* CrapsaccharineWorld: Los Santos, whose representation of gang wars is largely based on ''Film/BoyzNTheHood''. On the other hand, San Fierro is not even better, since it's a city where [[GangBangers street gangs]], drug manufacturing and Asian organized crime are prominent. The only quietest and safest areas in the state of San Andreas are the towns of the rural areas.

* CriticalExistenceFailure: Played straight with cars, motorcycles, boats and helicopters; you can damage these vehicles as much as you want with no effect on their performance whatsoever, up until the moment they [[EveryCarIsAPinto catastrophically explode]]. The engine will release smoke as a damage meter of sorts, and fire means it's going to explode in the next ten seconds.

* CrueltyIsTheOnlyOption: One of the missions involves burying a construction foreman alive in concrete merely because his workers [[DisproportionateRetribution made catcalls at your sister]]. Oh, and what you buried him inside with concrete poured around it? A Porta-Potty.

* DiscOneNuke: If you look underneath the two bridges right behind Grove Street (to the immediate east of it on the map), you can find a submachine gun and some body armor, long before unlocking Ammu-Nation. There is also at least two AK-47 and a Desert Eagle lurking around Los Santos, waiting to be picked up. Those makes the earlier missions a lot easier. Actually knowing where the various weapon pickups are scattered throughout the cities is much more convenient than saving up to buy at Ammu-Nation.

** Cutting ahead of [[spoiler:officer Pulaski]] in "High Noon" and shooting his tires out avoids a lengthy chase against his far superior car. [[NoFairCheating However, attempting to do it before the chase actually starts doesn't do anything.]]
*** You can also just jack his car from the right side, [[AntiClimax which kills him as soon as he's shoved out]].

* SmartCopDumpCop: The game provides a more malicious take on this trope. Frank Tenpenny is the EvilGenius, while Eddie Pulaski is the dumb racist (though not towards his boss).

* CombatPragmatist: You, C.J., come up against the head of the local Triad. In the final showdown, he tosses you a Katana and you duke it out with him using Katana swords. Sounds fun right? But this is ''Grand Theft Auto''. Most players will more than likely have a couple guns on them. [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim Why bother fighting the guy when you can just pump him full of lead, right?]]

* PausedInterrupt: There is a segment where an {{NPC}}, Catalina, calls the protagonist up on his cell phone to chew him out. As with most phone conversations in the game, this happens in real time. She flies into her usual rage, and hangs up on the player -- but the game doesn't know how to handle a dramatic mid-call hangup. She just stops talking, there is no click or dial tone, and the protagonist calmly folds up his phone and puts it away without a second glance, precisely the same way he is animated to end every (complete) phone conversation.

** In ''San Andreas'', they added the ability to swim to the player, the girlfriends and some other {{NPC}}s. Note that cops are not on the list.

** Well, technically Ryder ''deserves'' it that the soldiers on the basis you are robbing use him for target practice, since he insulted them as hobby soldiers, but unfortunately, a dead Ryder means a failed mission. Carefully drive the Packer under him and drop him off around a corner where he doesn't stand in the way of fire anymore (note this tactic is worth a try in all similar ''GTA'' situations).

* BaldBlackLeaderGuy: Subverted with Frank Tenpenny: he's bald, he's black, and he's a leader... of an evil band of {{Dirty Cop}}s.
* BaldOfEvil: Officer Tenpenny has a shaved head. C.J. can have his head shaved if the player chooses to do so, making it BaldOfAwesome.

** Despite being the main antagonists, the C.R.A.S.H. unit are a downplayed case of this: Officer Hernandez is the most moral one of the trio, only killing Pendlebury and warning Carl not to leave Los Santos because Tenpenny forced him too [[spoiler:and selling them out to InternalAffairs, along with taking a bullet for Carl when Pulaski tries to kill him]], Pulaski is an short-tempered "asshole to the end" who ''definitely'' isn't above snide and racist remarks, while Tenpenny is equally malevolent, but much more laid-back.

** Despite being the main antagonists, the C.R.A.S.H. unit are a downplayed this: Officer Hernandez is the most moral one of the trio, only killing Pendlebury and warning Carl not to leave Los Santos because Tenpenny forced him too [[spoiler:and selling them out to InternalAffairs, along with taking a bullet for Carl when Pulaski tries to kill him]], Pulaski is an short-tempered "asshole to the end" who ''definitely'' isn't above snide and racist remarks, while Tenpenny is equally malevolent, but much more laid-back.

* Despite being the main antagonists, the C.R.A.S.H. unit are a downplayed this: Officer Hernandez is the most moral one of the trio, only killing Pendlebury and warning Carl not to leave Los Santos because Tenpenny forced him too [[spoiler:and selling them out to InternalAffairs, along with taking a bullet for Carl when Pulaski tries to kill him]], Pulaski is an short-tempered "asshole to the end" who ''definitely'' isn't above snide and racist remarks, while Tenpenny is equally malevolent, but much more laid-back.

** The three fast-food cashiers found in the game: The Burger Shot one is a NiceGirl who geniunely expresses concern when C.J. vomits after eating too much, the Cluckin' Bell one is basically the ''GTA'' equivalent to [[WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants Squidward Tentacles]] in terms of attitude and customer service, while the Well Stacked Pizza one is apathetic and somewhat rude (and certainly no pushovers, as C.J. and Ryder learned the hard way), but not as contemptuous as the Cluckin' Bell cashier.

* StealthPun: Big Smoke icon on the radar is "BS", which while those are his initials, it's also short for "bullshit". It foreshadows that his missions [[spoiler: are done in benefit of C.R.A.S.H, not the Grove Street Families, despite he claiming otherwise]].

* StealthPun: Big Smoke icon on the radar is "BS", which while they are his initials, it's also short for "bullshit". It foreshadows that his missions [[spoiler: are done in benefit of C.R.A.S.H, not the Grove Street Families, despite he claiming otherwise]].