The GTA Trilogy is here. Rockstar Games rebuilt GTA3, GTA: Vice City, and GTA: San Andreas for a next-gen audience. The GTA Trilogy introduces new modern controls and upgraded graphics that honor the originals while ridiculously upscaling the resolution. This is the way we all imagined the 3D GTA Trilogy looked all along. The games don’t look that different until you put the pictures side-by-side. Then you’ll absolutely notice exactly how much work went into this massive remakes.
And the real draw of the trilogy is in GTA: San Andreas, one of the biggest and most ambitious entries in the series. The gangster saga of CJ is burned into our collective PS2-era memories, but its been a long time since the initial release way back in 2004 (!). As a kid, I didn’t know much about San Andreas outside of schoolyard rumors of UFOs and bigfoot. While the rumors are false, there’s plenty of other secrets in San Andreas you might not know about.
To help ease you back into this old-school entry, we’ve got 10 tips — activities you need to complete, methods for infinite money, and tons of bonuses you can unlock. Who knew dating could be so lucrative? Here’s everything you’ll wish you remembered about GTA: San Andreas.
#1: Get These Guns Right At The Start
You start GTA: San Andreas with basically nothing, so there’s no reason to not stock up immediately by collecting a few easy guns around your neighborhood. Grab a basic Pistol out back, behind the corner brown house in your starting neighborhood. You can also get a Tec-9 on the roof of Sweet’s House, and a Micro-SMG under the bridge behind Carl’s House. There’s a set of Body Armor back there too. Easy for quick refills between missions.
If you’re looking for real firepower, you can acquire an M4 Assault Rifle from the San Andreas International Airport. Go to the guard post, park a car, and climb over it to gain access without instantly tripping the wanted level alarm. You can always brave the wanted level and grab it — if you dare. One of the other better guns in the game is the SPAS-12, but that only becomes available once you can access Las Venturas. So grab it ASAP once you’re far enough in the story.
#2: What’s The Point Of Gaining Weight / Becoming More Muscular?
San Andreas went all-in with the weird customizable CJ. By working out or eating too much, you can turn your skinny CJ into a hulking mass of muscles or a pokey tub of fat. By completing mini-games in the gym, you’ll gain muscle — and muscle basically improves everything about your stats. Gaining muscle improves your Max Health, Max Stamina, and increases your Sex Appeal rating, which is only handy for dating. To quickly build muscle mass, just go to the gym and complete workout mini-games until you’re literally not allowed to continue. Just repeat, repeat, repeat!
After you’re locked out, you can revisit later. Take a break. Eat a burger. Do a mission or two. There’s literally no reason to gain weight. Some characters and NPCs will comment on your size, but it won’t improve your stats. If you really must gain weight, just go to the nearest burger joint and purchase as much food as you can. Eat and eat and eat. That’s all there is to it. No, this system isn’t incredibly realistic.
#3: How To Become Immune To Fire
Fire is one of the deadliest elements in San Andreas. Even getting close to fire will melt your health bar ridiculously quickly. It makes using molotov cocktails or the flamethrower an exercise in extreme caution. You can just as easily burn yourself alive as all the other bad guys running around. To make your life easier and your rampages a lot more fun, you can become completely immune to fire by completing Firefighter Missions.
To begin Firefighter Missions, you need to steal a Firetruck with a mounted water cannon on the back. Once you do that, you can begin quick missions where you’re tasked with putting out random fires. Travel to Grove Street (the Cul De Sac) and begin the side-quest. The fires all spawn nearby, so you can quickly drive to eat spot, put it out, and rank up. Once you reach Rank 12 in Firefighter Missions, you’ll unlock fire immunity. Not a bad upgrade.
#4: Easy Trick To Level Up Your Guns
Every gun has a different “Weapon Skill” stat. By shooting well, you can increase your proficiency with any weapon — going from Poor, to Gangster, to Hitman. To make your guns worthwhile, you’ll want to reach Gangster Weapon Proficiency ASAP. And you can do that easily at CJ’s local garage. There’s a sneaky trick you can use to make leveling up your guns easy. No need to actually shoot anyone.
Park two cars in CJ’s House — in the garage. This will work with any garage you own. Shoot the car with the weapon you want to level up. Once the car starts smoking, run away until the garage door automatically closes. That will repair the parked car. Run back toward the garage and the doors will open, revealing your fully repaired cars. Just keep unloading ammo into these cars then repairing them to rapidly earn Gangster Level Weapon Proficiency with any weapon.
#5: Do Ambulance Missions To Increase Your Max Health Easily
Working out isn’t the only way to improve CJ’s Max Health. You can also earn more health by completing side-quests like Ambulance Missions. It works a lot like the Firefighter Missions — steal an Ambulance, activate it, and travel around picking up randomly generated wounded civilians. Just make sure you don’t accidentally run any of them over.
To rapidly boost your Ambulance Missions to Rank 12, travel to Angel Pine. There’s an easy-to-find Ambulance in this very small town, and if you activate the Ambulance Missions, your customers are all located in this small area near Mt. Chilliad. The area is very small, making each ambulance job a breeze. Just save often. These can take awhile to complete.
#6: Fastest Way To Make Money
Money makes the world go round in San Andreas, and there’s one sure-fire simple way to make a ton of cash very quickly. Actually, there are three very good ways to make almost infinite cash. Let’s break them all down. Two are doable right from the start of the game. The third is only for advanced money-makers, but you’ll get a payout that’s worth the wait.
- Just shoot Drug Dealers. Drug Dealers always drop $2000~ in cash. You can just drive up and down your neighborhood, blasting any you spot. As long as you only take out the Drug Dealers, you don’t draw as much police attention. Your Wanted Level barely makes a blip if you target them.
- Bet at any Inside Track Betting. Save your game, then put down $10,000 on a horse with 12-to-1 odds. You’ll get a huge payout if you win, and the odds of winning seemingly have nothing to do with the ratios or odds. A horse with incredible low odds of winning is just as likely to win as any other horse. You’ll have to save / reload often, but you’re guaranteed to eventually get a big payout.
- Go for 50/50 odds at Roulette. In the Four Dragons Casino, you can be a cool $1,000,000 at Roulette if your Gambling is fully ranked. Save your game, put money on White or Black, and reload if you lose. You can never have enough money, so why not farm for even more.
#7: Date To Make ER Visits Free & Keep All Your Guns
Dating actually has a few benefits in San Andreas. If you date an NPC named Katie Zhan, you’ll gain an incredibly useful upgrade — free ER visits and you no longer lose your guns after dying. You can find her in Avispa Country Club in the San Fierro area. She’s a picky dater, so you’ll need to approach her with a strong Sex Appeal stat. If she agrees to date CJ, then you’ll instantly gain her perk. Death won’t stop you from retaining all your weapons. Not a bad trade — just make sure to keep dating her every once in awhile. Don’t want her to dump your dead butt.
#8: How To Start Flying (And Unlock Permanent Parachutes)
To start flying, you just need to steal an airplane and go. But, if you want to fly without robbing the International Airport every single time, you’ll need to earn a Pilot’s License. There are two ways to get the Pilot’s License — you can complete Flight School lessons, or you can just fly around randomly until your flight skill is 20%. You can get the Dodo in the Los Santos International Airport and start flying pretty quickly. Just climb over the fence… or break in.
There’s another option. You can steal a helicopter in the Easter Bay Airport, in San Fiero. Southeast of the airport, there’s a tunnel through the cliffs that can give you access to the airport — drive through the tunnel fast enough to launch yourself into the airport area. Along with basic planes, you can also grab an early helicopter.
What’s the benefit of getting a Pilot’s License? You’ll unlock parachutes when flying any aerial vehicles. If you ditch, you will always have a parachute handy. If you don’t have the license, you just drop to your doom. Having a license also gives you access to more airplanes in the hangars at all airport locations. Don’t ask why. It just does.
#9: How To Unlock Infinite Sprinting, Cycling & Swimming Through Burglary
CJ isn’t exactly a cat burglar, but if you steal lots of stuff you will get a big reward. The mission is introduced early in the game, but you can start it right from the beginning — you just need to travel to any Lock-Up Location and drive the black van. You’ll get different locations to sneak in and steal. Be wary of your noise or you can draw the attention of police. Taking items back to the lock-up will reward you with cash and inch you closer to completion.
Fully completing the Burglar Mission requires stealing $10,000 worth of stuff, or about 25~ items total. You can find your first black van at Ganton Courts in Ganton, Los Santos. Look opposite the gym. Bring a Silenced 9mm to make your burglary jobs so much easier.
Seriously, this can be done before completing your first story mission in San Andreas. You’ll get lots of spending money, and if you complete the mission requirements, you’ll earn an Infinite Sprint perk. That covers your stamina, so you can also swim and cycle forever. Perfect for those on-foot getaways.
#10: How To Unlock The Final Missions
To unlock the final missions of San Andreas, you need to capture 35% of the territory in Gang Wars. As you progress through the game, you’ll learn all about gangs — recruiting them, earning respect, and leading raids to take over territory from rivals. You don’t need to wipe out all your rivals to earn the ending… just 35% of them. To provoke a Gang War, you need to kill three rival gang members while on-foot. This initiates a fight. If your respect is high, you can recruit a large number of allies by pressing [D-Pad: Up] to follow you into a fight.
Homies aren’t going to win wars for you, but they will distract your enemies temporarily. Load up on body armor and bring your best weapons — you’ll have to do a majority of the killing to claim enemy territory. It is worth it. You’ll finally be able to finish one of the longest and most gruelingly difficult entries in the entire series.
That covers just a fraction of all the stuff you need to know about in San Andreas. There are annoying missions with simple solutions, cheat codes, and so much more. We’ll let you discover some of those secrets yourself.
