Hard to believe but I bought this game according to my Amazon instant update in 2006, but had not started playing it until this past month. I had my reasons for waiting. I was behind on several other game series' that I've enjoyed over the years and didn't see those as time consuming as this one. I can remember spending months on Vice City to reach 100% and had read all the reviews that said this was even deeper and better than Vice City.You know the majority of positives, open area, free roam style play, loads of weapons, vehicles and violence, not to forget the language. Some may see some of those as negatives.I enjoyed the Midnight Club Light modding and street races as well. Taking over gang territories was also a new added twist to this that reminded me of the rampages from Vice City.The dating is a little overrated in my opinion. Several times I would be in a gun fight only to get a call from one of the girlfriends wanting to go out. If you don't go that night, the relationship progress drops. On the other hand, to get it to go up was a lesson in frustration. I finally gave up on trying to figure out where to take them and looked online at a strategy guide. It still progressed painfully slow.Not a big deal though, it was their first try at the dating portion and there was expected problems.Now for why I only rated the fun factor a 3. I modded countless vehicles and stored them in my garages from the Loco Low and Arch Angels mod shops. I go back to get them and the custom paintjobs have changed. I even had a Sultan that changed back to the basic one, losing the nitrous, spoilers, exhaust and ground effects. After that, I lost all interest in modding. Making that two parts of the game that were useless to me.Both of those could be excused to some point. The problem is, the things that can't be excused are the continued use of illogical missions, completely ignorant AI characters and worst of all, in my opinion, the continued planned events that stop you from progressing. I will explain each.Illogical Missions - Flying remote controlled planes and helicopters to, ready for this, kill people. Why not just shoot them like you do the other 10,000 or so people? I understand that they needed to make a way to work "Zero" into the story, but it still makes no sense to have a street gangster flying RC weapons when he has 5,000 or so bullets. And you guessed it, without question, these were the hardest missions in the game. The RC missions were also the hardest in Vice City. Maybe Rockstar sees these missions as adding time to complete to the game, but I see them as knocking nearly a full star off the fun factor.Ignorant AI characters - They have tried to incorporate something like Rainbow Six. Load up your gangster friends, give them orders and they will help you take over neighborhoods. The few times I have tried this, at least one each time, has died after being ran over. One of the later missions in the game where you take Sweet with you, at one point, against 20 or so Ballas, he was standing away from them while they shot him in the back.Lets add to it the fact that every gang in the game can shoot at you without bothering the police. They can stand right beside a cop and shoot at you, the cop goes "La-da-dee Ho Hum" and walks along. As soon as you fire back, your wanted level goes up and now, you are not only fighting the rival gang, but also the cop who is also shooting at you.Then my favorite, my wife laughed endlessly watching this one happen. You will be driving along a sidewalk, on the road mind you, and a cop or a pedestrian will suddenly decide to dive in front of your car. How many times have we saw a person do this? You can dive away from traffic or into traffic, I would guess at least half of the pedestrians on here, pick into traffic. When you run over them, it is all but guaranteed that a cop will be right behind you and you get a wanted level.The Timed Events - How many times have you been on a mission, maybe even a race, and be within eyesight of the finish line/marker only to have a car come sliding out of nowhere and crash you? I had it happen 5 times on one mission, same exact place, so the next time, I slowed at the intersection and the charging car went by me. The point is, if it wasn't a timed event in the programming, that wouldn't have happened 6 times in a row at the same exact intersection.I also know that many were very unhappy with the flying missions, but those didn't bother me too bad. I can understand the helicopter, but I do agree with others that the Rambler mission N.O.E. was downright stupid.A few more things that I thought took away from the game. After totaling around $20,000, I headed to the horse betting with the plan that I would not save and reload if I lost. I bet all $20,000 on the 12 to 1 horse and won. I lost 4 in a row after this betting $20,000 each time, before hitting not once, not twice, but three times in a row. Raising my money from $20,000 to around $1,000,000. I did a few more before finally getting in the $50,000,000 range and stopped there. I didn't have to do those, but who doesn't want the best weapons and to buy the real estate?The eating part was annoying as well. I finally realized to get Carl's muscle up to 100% and fat around 30% and he could go weeks without eating.Now sure, I have a fair amount of pretty big complaints here, but I did still enjoy the game and after 127 hours had 100% with no cheats, but I really don't think they improved this game that much over Vice City. Bigger area to play in was a plus. Same stupid missions and AI were negatives. Most of the new things added to the game like the dating/eating were good ideas, just not executed well.A little nitpicking as well, while I understand the need to make the human playing the game, hate the opponents, I don't agree with some of the dialogue in the game. Especially when Pulaski makes the remarks about his mom's face hanging off after being shot and adding to this with the part about him and the other cops were touching her dead body. There is a line, at least in my opinion, and they crossed it there. I can just see some person playing this game who maybe lost their mother to a murder, and that line just adding to their grief.Last thing, the game is always mentioned as a non-linear game. This couldn't be more from the truth. I pull up in races in a modded car or a fast car only to see the race start and me with an average car. I have loads of weapons only to see them taken away and having to use one weapon Rockstar picks. I want to go chase the couriers down that Zero is after, but instead, I have to do it with a RC plane. That is linear. Just because the story can be skipped around doesn't mean it is non-linear. There are plenty of parts of the game that you cannot open unless you finish such and such mission.I would recommend the game, but would also warn those buying it that if they were tired of the previous GTA games, don't even fool with this one.If you don't know this game already it's really odd to me, ya FREAKWas actually kind of nervous the disc was going to be scratched or a used version like some of the other reviews stated but it came exactly as the description said. Not sure what happened with the negative reviews but I even got the original poster.The game works okay, but there's scratches on the disk and the cover has an indent/scratch. I'd prefer to have a REAL brand new copy, not one with a scratches on it.Probably couldnt recommend this game. Its rougher than remember. Excessive langusge and criminal activities. Glorifies it as something cool. Quality was clear and typical.I purchased the PS3 version a few years back without knowing about it's faults.(glitching/freezing) I've been wanted to revisit this great entry in the GTA series, so I figured the PS2 greatest hits version would the best and most economical!The seller listed it as "like new", and that's exactly how I would call it too! Already played through a few missions and I have to say it doesn't look that bad compared to the PS3 version. It helps to have a component cable to get the best picture through an HDTV. I'm using the Retrovision's PS2 component cable for my PS2 games, and this one has stood out among the best looking without needing any tweaks to the picture settings! Time to relive my high school years!Its good just really darkGot the game case,cd and map so would say a good buy runs good on my ps2, cd looking brand new.jogo (gta sa) 100% original funcionou perfeitamente no meu PlayStation 2 Slim (PS2) desbloqueado.Nostalgia na época quando eu tinha na facha dos 10 anos que eu ia na ferinha com meu melhor amigo, comer pastel de vento, comprar bombom caseiro, depois um chips ou um biscoito recheado e por ultimo compra jogos de Play 2 no camelo lá na ferinha.El empaque llegó bien, el videojuego es totalmente nuevo, no es usado o una copia pirata, lo probé en mi PS2 y funcionó perfectamente.El empaque llegó en su caja con una bolsa protectora e incluye el poster que a su vez también es el mapa. Me llené de mucha emoción al ver el videojuego me recordó al que compré cuando era niño allá por el 2007.Lo único malo que tiene es que no viene la guía, solo viene con el mapa/poster por eso lo dejaré en 4 estrellas. Todo lo demas, el disco y el poster y su caja son completamente nuevos y originales, volvería a comprar mas videojuegos de PS2 aquíDidn't get the game, just a blank CD in a beautiful little flimsy plastic sleeve; fraudulent seller, beware.Unfortunately this game did not work when we got it. It wouldn’t load or play so I can’t rate the quality of the game. Amazon were very good at returning it and giving me a refund. It did arrive very quickly and the CD, cover and poster were clean, and in good condition. Shame it didn’t work.It's a utter waste of money don't buy it just got a blank disk. The seller was telling we would get map and stuff but got nothing.Please tell me how to return it.