*Contains Spoilers*

First of all, this awesome guide was written by Undergroundarts, and provides instructions on how to explore areas of Liberty City during the mission 'Saint Mark's Bistro'.

Once you arrive at Saint Mark's:

• Shoot off all of Forelli's bodyguards, but do not kill Forelli.
• When you are at the back of the bistro (outside), push the car away from Forelli. To do this, you will need a light weapon that you can run with, to give you the body strength to push the car away from him. The reason for this being, Forelli will shoot the vehicle when he is trying to shoot you, and blow the vehicle up (which will also kill Forelli, and end the mission).
• Move right, into the area (with the trees) that stem's off from the courtyard, and walk towards the top left corner of that area (on the very top of the peak of snow).
• Face towards the corner where the two walls meet, and throw a grenade. The grenade will bounce back, and explode after about 3 seconds (this will reduce your health greatly). You must jump as the grenade explodes. The grenade will act as a boost, and send you high into the air. Time your jump correctly (moving forward whilst you are in the air) and you should end up on the other side of the wall.

Be careful from this point onwards, as most of the scenery is not solid. If you'd like to test which areas are solid and which are not, shoot at the buildings/ground around about you, and if you see sparks it is definitely solid. But for now, you are safe. Most of the snow on the other side of that wall is solid, and you are able to walk on it.

Unfortunately the road leading to Saint Mark's is not solid, so do not attempt to go there! Infact, none of the roads in that area are solid -- only patches of the snow. You can adjust the camera (using the right analog stick) to see through some of the walls, and witness some of the scenery in Portland.

If you fall through one of the roads/buildings, it will take a long before you reach the ground. The reason being, Liberty City is hundreds of miles high above the maximum height that planes can fly, in South East San Fierro -- so be sure to save your game before starting this mission.

If you do happen to fall through the ground, there's still a little something for you to see. None of the scenery in San Fierro will load, except for a few roads, Cranberry Station and CJ's garage (you may have to look around first) The entrance to the garage is now open, and you can explore the interior of the building.

The characters page has been updated, and lots of new screenshots have been added to the gallery. In additon to this, we have added a San Andreas Java Map (Created by Azkoyen) with locations marked for two-player, oysters, weapons and so on.

Yesterday, a group of 5 people representing various parent, church and women organisations, and also a New York City Council member, released what they call a "10 worst violent video games" list.

The purpose of the list is, as you can imagine, to improve the ratings placed on video games such as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (which earned 2nd place) and Halo 2, and to ensure that young children don't have to witness the violent and unsocial acts in these games.

The list contains a number of mispellings and misidentified games -- Mortal Kombat: Deception, for example, which was listed as 'Mortal Combat'

Related Links: Worst violent video games, IGN & GameSpot

Just a quick reminder that the San Andreas Soundtrack Double CD is available in stores, now.

We reported last week that the package includes a bonus DVD called "The Introduction", a cinematic prologue to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Be sure to check out the screenshot gallery for some images of the movie.

On Wednesday we reported that the San Andreas double CD soundtrack would feature a 22-minute bonus DVD titled 'The Introduction' -- a cinematic prologue to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

IGN have released the official trailer, some images and a corresponding article. Be sure to check it out. You can watch the full resolution trailer direct from Rockstar if you're not paying for IGN Insider, by going to the trailers page.

Related Links: IGN Article, Screenshots, Trailer (Direct: High/Low).

MC Eiht, voice actor of Ryder from San Andreas has been interviewed and a interview/article has been posted at top40-charts.com. Go have a peek to see what he's saying. Here's a snippet:

Thanks to PlanetGTA for bringing this to my attention.

With Half Life 2 having been released and Halo 2 out for a bit, it seems San Andreas is getting some very tough competition for the upcoming holiday season. Have a look at what the Philadelphia Inquirer had to say:

The article can be read online, and might require a free registration (no email validation).

Spike TV today announced the nominees, categories, and live performances for its upcoming 2nd annual Video Game Awards. The awards will take place in Los Angeles and will be broadcast live on December 14 - hosted by Snoop Dogg.

San Andreas has been nominated for:

• Game of the Year
• Best Performance by a human male (Samuel L. Jackson - Officer Frank Tenpenny)
• Best Action Game
• Best Soundtrack
• Designer of the year (Sam Houser and Rockstar North)

Visit GameSpot for further details.

Vote now!

Related Link: SpikeTV, GameSpot News

This news piece was originally meant to be posted yesterday, when I was sent Take2's press release concerning the San Andreas 8-CD box set, but due to some minor complications this news is reaching you today.

Order

The official 8-CD box set containing the full San Andreas soundtrack is scheduled to be arriving in stores on December 7th in North America and December 6th throughout Europe. The box set will contain seperate CDs for Bounce FM, Radio Los Santos / Playback FM, Mastersounds 98.3, K-ROSE, CSR 103:9, K-JAH West, K-DST and Radio X.

In addition the licensed tracks in the 8-CD box set, you will be hearing the great radio commercials and DJ commentary that is unique to the Grand Theft Auto series. So if you're a fan of the music from the 90's, or if you're a fan of the GTA series, this soundtrack set should definitely set you up with enough diverse music from the time period.

Order

The release of the box set will be following the release of the double CD soundtrack, expected to reach retailers on the 22nd of November in Europe, and 23rd of November in North America. The double CD soundtrack also features a 22-minute bonus DVD entitled 'The Introduction,' a cinematic prologue to the San Andreas storyline. A definite must-see for San Andreas fans.

You can find more information on the soundtrack on our soundtrack page, and if you are interested, you can also order either the 8-CD box set or the double CD soundtrack today.

IGN is continuing their in-depth breakdown of the San Andreas radio stations, which basically consist of a description of the radio station at hand, and paragraphs about the different songs on those radio stations.

So far IGN has managed to publish 4 pieces of their series, including K-DST, Bounce FM, Radio Los Santos and Playback FM. If you're interested in reading about the music played on these radio stations, go and pay IGN a visit.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Vs. Halo 2

Forbes online has put up an interesting comparison of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Halo 2, including information about the publishers of both companies and sales expectations over the upcoming holiday season.

Along with today's update of the official site's wallpaper section, Rockstar also sent word they've added some new gear to the Rockstar Warehouse.

The San Andreas official desktops series has received an update with a bunch of new wallpapers, as well as some new postcards. The wallpapers are based mainly on the available artworks, and the postcards on the screenshots.

Just want to give you guys a heads-up on what's moving and shaking on the site. I'm sure you don't check every page daily for updates (if you do, you need a head check), so here's a quick overview.

We've started working on a little guide of our own, focusing on the main storyline missions. Available right now are the introductory, Los Santos and the countryside missions. The page replaces the old missions page from prior to game release, when we knew the details of only a handful of missions. The walkthrough will be expanded in the upcoming week to include San Fierro, Las Venturas and the final missions, and a notice will be posted on the front page to signify completion.

The new weapons page has been completed, and is now replacing the old one. Along with lengthy descriptions and weapons statistics, every weapon has a little icon, to represent what it would look like in the game.

Because of popular demand, a 100% checklist page was put together. Along with a list of missions for the cities and the countryside, it also includes a list of all the odd jobs you will need to complete to acheive that 100%. You may also want to use our flash map to find the exact locations for the hidden horseshoes, spray tagging spots and the photo ops. On that topic, the map has been slightly adjusted to correct a few errors that were brought up in the feedback.

Keep enjoying your San Andreas game, and feel free to contribute to topic on our San Andreas forums, for example to what does your CJ look like. You can count on us to keep you up to date with the latest San Andreas news.

The runner up in the 2004 Presidential Election, John Kerry, has been elected the President of the fictional city San Andreas. The city, featured in the latest instalment of the Grand Theft Auto series, and although fictional has a population of over a million.

Kerry, who ran for President, admitted he is addicted to the game and stated he believes his addiction to the game probably cost him the Presidency.

“It’s terrible to say this,” Kerry admitted, “But when I was supposed to be working hard on last minute tactics to win the public support I was glued to my Playstation robbing banks, shooting police and stealing cars. If the game’s release had been delayed until after the election then I would probably have been moving into the White House next January.”

On hearing Kerry’s confession, George Bush responded by stating it was no excuse. He explained that the game’s developers had lent him an early beta of the game early in its development – long before the election campaign began:

“John Kerry is right about one thing,” Bush conceded, “The game is criminally good. By day I may have only been President of the United States – but at night and weekends I was hanging with my homies dealing drugs and shooting people in the face. What a fantastic experience.”

The popularity of the game has become so widespread, that US soldiers operating in Falluja have been granted 15 minutes in every hour to play it.

“Since I’ve arrived in Iraq I’ve killed 16 Iraqi insurgents,” Captain Chuck Hankman recounted, “However I killed 20 police with one rocket in the first 5 minutes of San Andreas. Admittedly I had used a cheat to get the rocket launcher but I couldn’t wait. People think that the excitement doesn’t get any thicker than being on the front line in the war on terror but they’re wrong. You don’t get a god mode in real life – I walked into a bank whilst police unloaded round after round into me… suckers!”

The Iraqi militants made sure to make the most use of the regular 15 minute pause in the American onslaught as one terrorist explained to us:

Related link: Random Perspective.

Having previously reported on the tremendous and literally record setting success of San Andreas in the UK, US sales numbers have finally seen the light of day.

An enthusiastic technology news article by Reuters reports that "October U.S. Games Sales [are] Up 35 Percent." Data from the NPD Group points out that San Andreas moved a spectacular 2.1 million units in its first 5 days, generating over $100 million. In comparison to 2002's game of the year Vice City, San Andreas brought 48% more profit and moved 45% more units.

Citing the same NPD Group source, Gamespot shines a very clear light on the success of San Andreas:

We are also told that Take-Two shipped 4.5-5m units worldwide on release date, 3m of which went to the U.S. market. With just 4 days, 2/3 of that was sold.

* Don't read any further if you don't want the game spoiled!

Many people wondered if it was possible to cruise Liberty City during the mission 'St. Marks Bistro' and PS2-Scene have discovered a way that makes this possible. However, you can only roam a small area in Portland (it's an interior high up in the sky, for sake of interest). Gameshark codes are required.

Related Link: GTAForums Topic

San Andreas State Map

For the last two weeks an outstanding member of our forums, Pine, has been working hard on developing a map of San Andreas for our site. This map is made completely out of Flash, and shows you the locations for oysters, spray tags, horseshoes and photo ops for the whole state.

These are things you will need to achieve 100% completion in the game (if that is your aim), and by fulfilling these side tasks you are awarded in different ways in the game.

Leave your feedback at the forums as per usual.

If you've reached San Fierro yet, you'll have no doubt come across Zero's mission "Supply Lines" (or, maybe not if you're still having trouble with "Air Raid"). It is, without a doubt, one of the toughest missions in the game. The Untouchable has written a fantastic guide to passing this mission, one that will surely be of help to you if you're still having problems. Be sure to check it out at our forum.

Expect many updates in the coming weeks, along with many new guides and maps to help you with San Andreas. As always, we are open to suggestions on how to improve the site.

San An is bringing down the house yet again - minus Queen Latifah, unfortunately.

Four days ago, we enthusiastically reported on the 677,000-some copies that have been torn from store shelves across the UK; a record-breaking first week sale that beat down the first week release of Vice City - which sold 250,000 in it's first week - by over 400,000 units.

Well, I'm proud to now report that San Andreas has officially smashed industry records yet again. In the nine days since San Andreas was released in the United Kingdom, over one million copies of the game have been sold. Do the math, and you'll find that in the past 4 days, more copies of SA have been sold than in the entire first week of Vice City. Yikes!

This puts San Andreas on the map as the fastest selling PS2 title, the first PS2 game to hit a million units this quickly, and the 4th largest Playstation 2 title to reach our grubby little hands thus far.

Hopes in the GTA community are that San Andreas will become the top selling game in UK history - and with a start like this, it's a definite possibility.

Related Links: GamesIndustry.biz Article

I'd just like to give StuckGamer a mention here. If you are still stuck somewhere in the game, they have a partial video walkthrough for the missions.

Following up on San Andreas sales expectations we reported on previously, we now have some hard numbers to finally crunch down on.

San Andreas has broken the first-week sales record for videogames in the UK. San Andreas sold approximately 677,000 copies, Beating the previous record holder, Vice City, which sold 250,000 in its opening week. This information comes from UK research body Chart-Track, who estimates that Rockstar and Take2 have already made £24 million on sales in the UK.

Yahoo reports on videogame rentals for the week from October 26th to October 31st. Apparently San Andreas broke through big time in videogame rentals, collecting $1,627,351 in its first week in rentals only. We have yet to see a press statement for actual sales figures for the US.

The Take2 stock numbers are not looking as good as people would guess with these immense sales, though. Take2 (NASDAQ: TTWO) has been trading at a steady $30-34 for a while, yet the stock slumped down to §31 on the eve of San Andreas release, but has since come back to just over $34, and at the time of writing TTWO is valued at $34.61. More info at Yahoo finance.

There are no Easter Eggs up here. Go away.

This interesting piece can be seen at the top of the south tower of the Gant tower, my recommendation would be jetpacking up there. Thanks to Enzyte from the forums for this one.

The Official Playstation 2 Magazine of the Netherlands has seemingly reviewed San Andreas, and placed a review on their website, unable to place it in their November issue. Their score leaves me wondering what the priority is in video games nowadays. OPM2 NL gave San Andreas the total score of 88/100, after criticising the graphics, aiming setup and boring, uninspired missions. As positives, they welcomed the two-player function, the scope of the state and the amusing dialogue and voice acting.

Their conclusion is:

Related links: GTAForums topic, online review.

Here's a few useful topics that have emerged from our San Andreas forums on GTAForums.com.

Screenshot Exported Using Gallery Viewer

Feel free to come and look around our San Andreas forums, no registration required to look around, so everyone's welcome. Oh, and hoping this page won't have its bandwidth raped within an hour, here's someone who is seriously obsessed with his copy of San Andreas.

GameSpot: San Andreas Gameplay Guide

Gamespot have put up their own San Andreas gameplay guide, which covers all the basics and walkthroughs for all of the core missions. It consists of 32 pages and from what I've seen, is very thorough. It is also free, but I believe it requires a Gamespot Basic (free) registration to view.

If you visit our San Andreas forums, none of this will be new to you, but if you don't, here's some things that might help you through the game.

These maps were created by a few members of the modding community and posted at GTAForums. If you want to give any feedback please head there. These might not be fully accurate, especially the parked vehicles map, but coordinates were exported from the game to create these, so any inaccuracies are probably because of your game progress.

Parked Vehicles

Packages

Properties

Weapon Spawns

The San Andreas FAQ is still being updated by tehhunter and is a great place to check for answers or just read through and find things out. PlanetGrandTheftAuto also has an FAQ going.

If you haven't read yet, 1UP put up a Mini Survival Guide, consisting of 3 parts, and which covers lots of useful aspects and is very well illustrated. I definitely recommend looking through this one.

And to top it off, GameFAQs already has 9 different general FAQ/Walkthroughs for the game, as well as 3 in-depth guides. If you're stuck, have a look through those and your problem should be solved.

San Andreas has been receiving tremendous coverage online, in the form of reviews and recommendations. If you've taken a break from playing San Andreas or just want something to read, have a look at the articles below.

Digit Online news did "an in-depth look" at San Andreas comprising of their impressions and some in-house screenshots.

The Chicago Tribune has done an article about the race-factor in San Andreas, titled If you play 'San Andreas,' you'll be a black male. Does it matter? It's an interesting read, yet you must fill in an annoying subscription form which includes your name, address, phone number and some other information.

Back a week ago MTV.com did a little article called My First Night In San Andreas: One 'GTA' Addict's Account. Obviously it's about the writer's first impressions of San Andreas, and unsurprisingly it's pretty addictive.

The Technology section of BBC News gave our new GTA a review score of 9.5/10, which seems to be in tune with what everyone else is saying. No new screenshots in their article, they just used the promotional material sent out by Rockstar.

On another topic, we've close to 50 new screenshots to the official publicity screenshots page, and some 20 to the in-game play page.

Disco Down

Chase

Sunshine