Transcription:

this is the first unofficial GTA San
Andreas remake ever
made the first beta dropped in 2011 a
whole 10 years before the defective
Edition even launched it’s called GTA 4
San Andreas a total conversion mod for
GTA 4 that brings the entire San Andreas
map into the rage engine the last
version beta 3 was released in 2012 and
while it didn’t include story missions
it was still way ahead of its time the
starts off perfectly we spawn in
Idlewood Los Santos with the legendary a
[ __ ] here we go again from there we’re
free to explore the entire map unlike
Vice City nextg Edition there are no
story missions but back then porting
missions between games seemed impossible
today modders know how to do it but at
the time this was as close to a remake
as we could get the first thing that
stands out is the graphics there’s no
advanc Graphics mod applied here the
team simply tweaked GTA 4’s visuals to
fit the San Andreas world and honestly
they nailed it back in 2012 this looked
like a true nextg remake even today it
still holds up but there’s plenty of
room for improvement especially when you
compare it to what Revolution team did
with Vice City adding a custom ENB
series that made the visuals a lot
better as you’ve probably noticed San
Andreas vehicles are present in the mod
which is a great touch but they aren’t
without issues even while driving
something as simple as the Greenwood
it’s easy to see that the tail lights
look a bit off and the textures could be
higher quality another issue is the
license plates or rather the complete
lack of proper ones in the original San
Andreas plates were Dynamic generating
random seven character numbers on every
vehicle but for some reason GTA 4’s rage
engine abandoned that system and all
plates simply read Liberty City The Mod
authors used empty San Andreas plates
and vehicles but because of GTA 4’s
limitations all cars now drive around
with completely blank plates or these
saying San Andreas it’s not a huge
problem but it’s definitely noticeable
another limitation of the GTA 4 engine
is the lack of planes in Vice City nextg
Edition this issue was worked around by
replacing planes with helicopters in
missions that originally used them and
honestly it wasn’t that noticeable since
Vice City’s map is relatively small but
here it’s a much bigger issue planes
technically exist here but they don’t
seem to work properly they spawn in the
world but they lack sounds and don’t
function as they should making them feel
unfinished San Andreas is massive
compared to Vice City to put it into
perspective Vice City’s map covers
approximately 3 .5 square miles while
San Andreas spans about 13.9 making it
nearly four times larger not having
planes makes traveling between cities
feel way slower and while using
something like a Hydra would have been
the perfect solution well it is what it
is when we arrive at Grove Street we’re
immediately attacked by the Ballas even
though we didn’t provoke them at all
fighting back turns into a mini gang war
shootout which is honestly a pretty cool
feature since GTA 4 didn’t have gang
territories like San Andreas the modders
had to create this system from scratch
rch which is pretty impressive CJ’s
house is fully enterable straight from
the street and they even kept the
floating save disc icon just like in the
original game the interior looks great
overall but it’s missing the Wardrobe
likely because in San Andreas the
Wardrobe wasn’t actually part of CJ’s
house model instead it was a separate
interior that loaded when stepping into
a yellow marker right next to CJ’s house
there’s a BMX and this is where things
get interesting since GTA 4 doesn’t have
bicycles the modders had to get creative
so they replac the f iio with a BMX the
result is both hilarious and
cursed CJ doesn’t pedal at all and the
bike still makes foggio engine sounds
when moving it almost feels like an
electric BMX but considering this is
said in the 9s that wouldn’t make much
sense another thing worth mentioning all
radio stations are included along with
their classic Radio icons I can’t show
them here because of copyright but
you’ll have to take my word for it
they’re all there just like in the
original game and as you’ve probably
already noticed the mod also includes
the classic San Andreas HUD which is
almost fully functional time money
Health armor and of course the mini map
radar all work exactly as they should to
be fully functional though it would
still need the statistics list with
respect stamina muscle and the rest of
the original San Andreas attributes but
even without that it captures the
classic feel really well and while we’re
on the topic of muscles as soon as the
game starts CJ is already bulked up
there’s a simple reason for that the
gyms don’t work work in this mod this is
yet another feature that Rockstar
abandoned when transitioning from the 3D
to the HD era neither GTA 4 nor 5 have
functional gyms and players can’t change
their character’s physique anymore
there’s a good chance GTA 6 might bring
it back but that’s a topic for another
video as I mentioned earlier this
project doesn’t include missions from
San Andreas which is completely
understandable but there was definitely
room for more activities to make the
world feel more alive unfortunately
that’s where the mod Falls a bit short
the gang war I talked about earlier are
in the game but they feel pretty limited
and sometimes buggy from what I’ve seen
they only take place around Grove Street
so it was probably just a preview of a
bigger feature that the authors may have
planned to expand later another activity
the mod offers is street races which
sounds exciting until you actually try
them after the countdown starts none of
the AI opponents move the cars just sit
there so instead of a proper competitive
race it ends up being more of a
checkpoint challenge where you just
drive through the course alone after one
attempt there’s really no reason to come
back to it since it just doesn’t work as
intended at this point it might seem
like this project doesn’t offer much
Beyond a simple map Port with working
traffic and maybe it’s not really worth
playing but before jumping to that
conclusion there’s one huge feature that
was added in beta 3 multiplayer Yes you
heard that right this 2012 mod had fully
functional multiplayer it only worked on
patch 1070 but even with that limitation
it was still an incredible thing
multiplayer completely changed the
experience making the mod way more
meaningful we could roleplay set up
death matches organize street races or
just mess around with other players it
gave so much more purpose to the game
even without story missions or other
singleplayer activities surprisingly it
looks like this multiplayer still works
today I came across a YouTube video
uploaded just a few months ago showing
people actually playing Deathmatch on it
at this point I plan to improve the game
with some graphics mods but that turned
out to be nearly impossible on beta 3
this version seems to be incompatible
with such mods causing the launcher to
complet completely sto working or if the
game somehow launched the game kept
freezing after a few seconds but there’s
also another musthave mod a vehicle pack
by Zol he released it a few years ago
and honestly it’s a GameChanger for this
mod he noticed how inconsistent the car
models are and how it feels like each
one was converted by a different person
with some looking okay and others
completely awful zol’s pack fixes that
issue by converting every San Andreas
vehicle to GTA 4’s Engine with the same
level of quality everything now looks
much more authentic to the original San
Andreas style while also taking
advantage of newer modding techniques
the pack includes fully working
breakable glass dirt Maps just like in
San Andreas and even tuning features
that work with zela’s trainer planes
have been adjusted for proper taxiing
meaning they don’t spin out like crazy
when turning and cop cars now spawn
properly based on the region so you’ll
see LSPD in Los Santos sfpd in San Fiero
and lvpd in Los Venturas and while there
are still some unconverted cars
appearing in traffic it’s a massive
improvement over the original mod but I
wasn’t ready to give up with the
graphics improvements just yet after
some digging I found out that beta 2
handles additional mods way better so I
decided to give it a try getting it to
work wasn’t easy though official links
for beta 2 no longer work so I had to
track it down elsewhere and even after
installing it the game kept crashing
while loading and now a huge shout out
to Robert toam for helping me figure it
out it turns out I just had too much
leftover junk in my game folder and
after cleaning it up beta 2 launched
perfect the time cycle is slightly
different compared to Beta 3 but that’s
fine because now I could finally install
the graphics mod I wanted cryb version 3
luckily it runs perfectly on beta 2 and
San Andreas looks so much better the
lighting shadows and overall visuals
feel way fresher making the entire game
look more modern but I’m not going to
lie it’s not exactly NextGen graphics
and honestly I’d say the defective
Edition actually looks a bit better
especially with the fog and atmosphere
improvements added in recent updates but
even with that I still think this looks
better than vanilla San Andreas and
since this is beta 2 that means we can
finally install the snow Edition which
was only released for this version for
me this is a huge throwback to 2009 when
I was messing around with the old snow
Andreas mod for the original San Andreas
with snow Edition installed the entire
map is covered in snow and while the
textures are pretty low quality it
somehow fits the game’s overall
atmosphere the snowy streets give San
Andreas a completely different vibe
making it feel like an alternate winter
version of the game we never got driving
on icy roads is also an interesting
experience some cars slide all over the
place like they’re still on summer Tires
While others handle surprisingly well
it’s a bit random but it makes driving
way more unpredictable especially at
higher speeds it might not be perfect
but as a bonus feature for beta 2 it’s a
really fun addition to mess around with
overall installing the mod is pretty
straightforward as long as you have some
basic knowledge of modding GTA 4 the
most important step is downgrading your
game preferably to version 1070 once
that’s done everything else is smooth
sailing the mod comes with an auto
installer and a launcher which you’ll
use to apply the hot fix patch replaying
this mod after all these years really
hit me with Nostalgia for the early
2010s that was a time when the GTA
modding scene was thriving with some of
the best mods ever created dropping
during that era mods like GTA 3 Rage gos
Town Paradise tons of superhero mods and
many others pushed the limits of what
was possible in GTA games it truly felt
like the golden age of modding and the
best part back then Rockstar actually
supported the modding Community they
even promoted fan-made mods on their
news wire and acknowledge the work of
modders and this was the era when this
project was born at the time it was
revolutionary and to be honest it still
holds up today what’s even more
surprising is that the Project’s
official website is still online usually
I’d expect it to be taken down after a
year or two especially since development
stopped a long time ago it’s hard to say
why the team left the mod in a estate
maybe they lost motivation or maybe it
was because of the upcoming release of
GTA 5 at the time we’ll probably never
know the real reason and in contrast to
the revolution team which consisted of
three people a surprisingly large team
worked on this project bringing together
so many people for a fan-made mod is no
easy task especially for a
community-driven project after the huge
success of Vice City nextg Edition I
started wondering is there a chance that
modders now with better tools and more
experience might take on similar remakes
of GTA 3 in San Andreas and of course
I’m talking about the key missing piece
that only Vice City nextg Edition
managed to include fully playable story
missions imagine if modders actually got
together to finish this project I can
already picture how it could turn out
the perfect inspiration would be the
fanmade renders by welcome to the80s if
you haven’t seen his work he created an
absolutely mind-blowing animation of San
Andreas reimagined with modern Graphics
realistic lighting and insane detail
it’s exactly what a real remake should
look like and as much as I’d love to see
that happen realistically the chances
are pretty low a mod like that would
almost immediately get taken down by
take two and the creators would be at
risk of legal action the only tiny
chance of it ever happening is if a
group of passionate fans decided to take
on the challenge spend hundreds of hours
recreating these games and then release
the mod anonymously through something
like Torrance of course I’m not
encouraging anything just letting myself
daydream about how incredible that would
be so what do you think does this mod
feel like a true remake of San Andreas
even though it was released over 13
years ago and have you ever tried it out
before or is this your first time
hearing about it let me know in the
comments down below

Watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1axrbeIqu8U