Ever since the new wave soundtrack of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Rockstar Games has become famous for its brilliant use of music. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas™ is no different. You might find yourself peeling donuts in a parking lot before hitting up a mission just because you want to finish listening to the song on the radio. Even better, the Xbox® version of San Andreas offers a very satisfying exclusive treat, which I'll get to in a moment. For the uninitiated, here's a quick look at what sort of music you can look forward to and how the game manages to implement it (which is nearly as important as the music itself).
That Baller fool is in trouble.
Pump Up the Volume Play through your average game and you may hear enough tunes to fill a CD. Examine Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and you find a game that actually released its own eight-disc box set soundtrack, featuring over 80 songs. Impressive as that may be, it only represents about three quarters of the music that's in the game itself. Rockstar has brilliantly eschewed any one style in favor of an all-encompassing musical experience that reflects the pop culture of the early nineties. There's reggae, rap, gangsta rap, alternative, rock, pop, and some surprisingly well selected country songs (featuring legends like Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard).
On Your Radio Dial The volume and quality of the songs is an accomplishment in and of itself, but the way it's presented must also be applauded. TheGrand Theft Auto franchise has always done a fabulous job of immersing the player into its extravagantly irreverent environments, largely due to the sound design. You don't hear music unless you should be hearing music. In other words, you hear it on the radio in the car, over the speaker in a restaurant, bumping from a sound system at a party, etc. While in a vehicle, you have a choice of what you listen to. The game breaks down the music into different radio stations to flip through, so if Public Enemy isn't your thing, you can switch from Radio Los Santos to something more your style. Perhaps Radio X for some alternative, K-Rose for a little country, K-DST for some classic rock, or any of the other five stations (WKRP is, unfortunately, not included).
On a steel horse I ride….
Be Your Own DJ The big bonus that Rockstar gives Xbox owners comes in the form of music as well: You can listen to the songs you've ripped to your Xbox in-game. Even cooler, it's implanted the same way the rest of the music in the game is presented, as a radio station. In this case, your custom soundtrack will exist as another selectable radio station while you're driving around. This has the added benefit of not excluding the already extensive soundtrack San Andreas possesses, so you can switch over from your own stuff to the regular radio stations at will. You can even plug some of the hilarious radio ads and commentary from the game into your own soundtrack!
No other title can lay claim to the sheer volume, quality, and presentation of music that San Andreas provides. No more repetitive and uninspired MIDI scores that do nothing for the game experience. The last few years have brought an end to all that, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the shining example of a new glorious age of customizable game soundtracks.
