My 360 stopped playing 360 games, and I don't have $99 to fix it now, so I'm back into Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
My current goal is a "clean start" game where I can complete as many of the side missions as possible, without doing the story missions. Here's what I've got so far:
After In the beginning and Big Smoke, I grabbed a taxicab and drove around until I had enough cash to buy the safehouse in Jefferson. Then I did the rest of the Taxi Driver mission, which is kind of cool because now any cab you get it in is magically equipped with nitro.
Then I did the Los Santos Courier mission which gives you some cash flow. Not that I needed cash, because I went to the OTB parlor and played the ponies until I made about $50K.
At this point I wanted to do that Gang Tags mission, but it's not unlocked yet. So I did Tagging up Turf first. Apparently since the restaurants aren't open, either, you don't get hungry. I did eventually do Ryder so I could get a phat cornrow do.
Then I did Cleaning the Hood and Drive-thru so I could go to the gym and get all pumped.
Then I got more serious about the side missions. I did Pimping by grabbing the Broadway that spawns behind the Going gas station in Little Mexico. Then I did the BMX challenge. Then I went up to Montgomery to do the Paramedic mission. It took me a couple of tries, but it's much easier than doing it in Los Santos.
Because of the free weapons that the Tags mission unlocks, I'm flush with molotovs. I used some to start a fire on Ganton boulevard, then stole the firetruck and drove it to northeast Red County to do the Firefighter mission. That didn't take too long. Now that I'm fireproof, the molotovs are much more fun.
Vigilante[edit]
Next I want to do Vigilante but I'm not sure how to do this in Los Santos/Red County. My first time through I stole a tank and did the mission with that vehicle, which is nice because they can't blow you up. I don't know if I can get to the restricted areas and back with the automatic four-star rating that straying into unlocked areas earns you. So the choices are to try to attract a tank by getting a five-star rating or use another vehicle.
I tried to get a five star wanted rating in Palamino Creek, where there's a nice building with a two-level roof. Using molotovs I blew up cars, then cop cars, then I could hide in the corner of the rooftop and shoot down the helicopters. But eventually they got the better of me before I could get more than 4 stars.
I also tried to get to the restricted area for the tank by breaking into the LS airport. The Shamal was too fast to bail out of, I took the Dodo (right by the pilot's entrance) and was able to land in the restricted area without hurting myself. You get a four-star rating for crossing into Las Venturas/Bone Country, and then Hydras show up to try to shoot you down. You can dodge the missiles by pulling up quickly.
What's cool is that the cops won't enter the Restricted Area, so if you land there you can hang out and taunt the cops. What sucks is that there is no tank. The only vehicle in the Restricted Area at this point of the game is a Barracks and a cargo helicopter. What a drag!
In the meantime, I knocked out teh 8-Track race pretty quickly; much easier than the first time around. I guess I'm just better at driving; all I had to do once I go into 1st place was not crash. I also hit the ponies a few more times to get up to almost $1 million; then I bought all the safehouses in Los Santos. I think Vigilante is the only non-story mission open to me at this point.
So I made several tries at this on the HPV1000, but couldn't get past level 10 (bastids spawned on the tarmac of the airport and I couldn't get over the fence and away from the cops in time!). So I decided to work on my weapons skills. I got up to Hitman on the Machine Pistol, AK, and sawed-off shotgun (since I did the Tags side mission I have these spawning in the Grove St. safe house). Also tried to improve my bike skills by riding around a lot.
Red County is nice for open spaces, but there's a lack of goodies to help with the cops. There's the one bribe under the bridge at the Montgomery intersection, and the one body armor in Palamino Creek, but the Pay-N-Spray is in Dillimore, quite a ways away.
I'm finding it convenient to do the mission in Los Santos. The Well-Stacked in front of the Pay-N-Spray in Willowfield always has a vehicle by it. So you can pull up on your police vehicle, ho p in, drive it into the Pay-N-Spray, and your stars are gone (you need to wait a little bit before re-stealing the cop vehicle, lest your stars come riht back!). There's also the bribe on Ganton blvd. behind the Binco.
But the cop motorcycle is really key here. You need to get good at weaving it in and out of traffic.
When there are multiple cars, it's probably best for time purposes if you take out the bad guys once a car stops, then move on to the next car. They don't seem to stray too far away.
Shoot at the cars until they stop, then once they stop park a safe distance away, get off and fire at the baddies with the SMG or AK. Take care that they get better at shooting you as the mission progesses so be quick and power up as needed.