7 things I didn't know existed in San Andreas

I've been trying to think about when I first played Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. I originally released in late 2004, but I know I didn't play it immediately so I'm going to say sometime around 2005.

I spent an insane amount of time playing it on my trusty Playstation 2, I do remember having to purchase a second copy as the disc on my first one ended up being scratched too much to actually play.

Since 2005, I've always been under the impression that I 100% completed San Andreas, that I'd done everything there was to do in the game, I know I spent long enough playing it!

When Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - The Definitive Edition was announced, I was super excited to be able to go back to my childhood and take over territories in Los Santos and gamble in Las Venturas, even better that it was being added to Game Pass!

I started it mid-November as I knew I could make it last until Christmas, which I did! I got to 100% on December 29th after about 70 hours of gameplay. In going for 100% though, I realised there was a bunch of content in the game, that I had absolutely no memory of playing back in 2005, at all. It's possible I've just forgotten some of it, but this leads me to believe I never actually 100% completed it 16 years ago 😭

Here are 5 things that I didn't realise existed in San Andreas, until now:

Granted, these 2 missions were ridiculously boring but given how much time I spent driving trains in the original game, I would've remembered doing these missions. Each mission has you simply driving around the map, making sure you get to the next station within the time limit.

I feel like Rockstar intended to do more with these missions as having only 2 of them, that both had the same requirements seemed very random.

Each of the 3 islands had a set of missions that involve you being a delivery driver. Los Santos was the worst as you had to cycle everywhere but San Fierro and Las Venturas had a motorcycle for them which made them much quicker to do!

The set of missions was the same for each island, the number of packages you had to deliver would increase each time you moved onto the next one, but you got a decent amount of money for doing them!

Once you'd completed a set, that shop would then become an asset that generated up to $2000 dollars for you to periodically collect.

Each island has a Stadium and in that Stadium you could do an event (Las Venturas actually had 2 events that differed depending on the day it was). These events are pretty simple, but actually really fun and consisted of either racing NPS's on bikes or in cars, navigating an obstacle course on a bike, collecting points in order to pass the mission or trying to boost your time whilst ensuring your car doesn't get destroyed by being shot at by other drivers.

Mount Chilliad is the massive mountain south of San Fierro at the bottom of the map. I remember there being a bicycle at the top which if you used, it would then trigger a race from the top of the mountain to the bottom.

I didn't realise that upon completing it, it unlocked a new race and then upon completing that one, it unlocks a 3rd race! The 2nd race is from the top to bottom but a different route and the 3rd race has you navigating board walks, and then a quick sprint to the finish.

Las Venturas has a pretty big quarry, at the entrance of the quarry you can trigger a small set of 7 missions. The first 2 have you driving a dumper, moving stuff out of the way in the quarry and they seem fairly boring. However, it gets much more fun in subsequent levels as the game has you chasing a rival dumper to destroy it, helping cover up a murder and clearing a train track of explosives before a train arrives.

The trucking missions are a set of 8 missions that have you driving a HGV to various places across the map to a final destination. To make it more interesting, you're given either a time constraint, a damage constraint or the goods are illegal and you are given a 3/4 wanted level.

These were a lot of fun, the 8th one was the most troublesome as the police set up road blocks and start shooting you, it doesn't take long for the truck to catch fire and explode.

Las Venturas Airport has a set of checkpoint races you can do, some in a helicopter and some in a plane. The most frustrating one here was the military jet one as some of the checkpoints were at really awkward angles which meant you had to really focus on getting the jet at the right angle whilst also remembering how fast you're going!

That's it! Those are the things that I immediately had no recollection of having ever played before and it was fun discovering them for the first time. I am now wondering what my actual completion percentage was on the Playstation 2 version though, as I'm pretty sure it wasn't 100% 😂

I think I'm going to get Vice City next, that's another game that I spent a lot of my childhood playing however I can't remember much of it at all so it'll be good to rediscover it all again!