Chased by the eye in the sky.

Your criminal pursuits in San Andreas will be made a little harder than in previous Grand Theft Auto games thanks to a smarter and tougher police force. Police in San Andreas will be able to fire their weapons at you during pursuits and will do much more than just try to chase you down from behind. Look for the police to coordinate their pursuit and do their best to cut you off by taking side streets, cutting of your angle of escape, and coming at you head-on. They will even bump and ram your car to prevent your escape. The enhanced police AI also extends to gunfights as the cops will now have a strong interest in their own safety by seeking out cover and using it for protection.

Trying to lose cops by taking alleyways and shortcuts will not always work as the San Andreas police force includes motorcycle cops who can pursue you where the cruisers can’t. Even if you can ditch the motorcycles you may have to contend with the police helicopter. The police helicopters are equipped with powerful spotlights that will make it impossible for you to hide under the cover of darkness. What’s even worse for you is that the cops will use the light to blind you and make it very difficult for you to fire at the helicopter or nearby cops.

To keep the odds from tilting too far in the police’s favor, San Andreas will feature a new camera and control scheme. The camera can be left on its own, in which case the new camera AI will strive to always give you the best view of the action. When you want to take over either in car or on foot, the right stick can be used to freely move the camera. This left stick to move, right stick to view scheme will be very intuitive for first-person shooter gamers to use. When you switch to weapons mode, you’ll be able to use the right stick to aim freely. This opens up the option to strafe while attacking as you can run with the left stick while aiming with the right. This also means that you can look in a different direction than the one in which your moving, both while running and driving.

As you can see, these two aspects of play – cops and control – are receiving a lot of attention from Rockstar. These aspects alone will ensure that San Andreas is a lot more than same stuff, different city. When taken with the myriad of other new game features you’ll find Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas a new experience and one to really look forward to playing.