Here's what MTV.com had to say about San Andreas:
Its titles have sold more than 30 million copies worldwide. It's been name-checked by hardcore rappers in mixtapes and hardcore politicos on the Senate floor. But perhaps most importantly, it has raised the bar for violence in video games and furthered a trend toward cinematic gameplay.

Rockstar Games' "Grand Theft Auto" series opens yet another chapter on October 19 when "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" hits store shelves.

While "GTA" has already taken fans to Liberty City and Vice City — inspired by New York and Miami, respectively — San Andreas is a fully conceived digital state many times larger than those environments. Loosely based on California in the early '90s, there are three major cities: Los Santos (based on Los Angeles), San Fierro (modeled after San Francisco) and Las Venturas (inspired by Vegas, baby) as well as 12 small towns, badlands, deserts, forests and highways on which to rack up a body count.
In "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," players control Carl Johnson, an ex-gangbanger who returns home after a five-year hiatus from Los Santos. CJ is a much more mutable character than his predecessors, capable of improving his driving and shooting skills as well as gaining weight and changing haircuts. The "hardware" — cars, boats, choppers, planes and guns — featured in "GTA: San Andreas" includes an impressive array of vehicles, from monster trucks to ATVs, and era-appropriate weaponry.

As always, the game also provides a genre-hopping choice of radio stations as a soundtrack for cruising around San Andreas. For more on the game, check out Rockstar Games' Web site.

Here's the link to the trailer and preview(I don't know all this HTML stuff so you'll just have to copy and paste): http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1490428/20040819/story.jhtml