Los Santos Missions Help
Walk-Through
As with previous GTA games, San Andreas will see you obtaining missions from a
number of different individuals. These will come in fits and bursts; occasionally
you’ll run out of missions from a character, only to get more later on. For
simplicity’s sake, I've listed each mission under the character that gives them,
even though you usually won’t be able to run through all of a character’s missions
in one go.
Los Santos
As with the previous GTA games, San Andreas begins with your character at a low
point in his life. Your mother’s dead, crooked cops are hassling you, and you can
feel the pull of the gangsta life that you left Los Santos to escape. Luckily for
you, there’s nowhere to go but up, so get out there on the streets and start gettin’
paid.
After the initial cutscene, you’ll have to make it back to your home before you can
start taking missions. If you want to go by the book, grab the bike near you and
pedal it back; knowing how to use it will come in handy shortly. If you’re in a
hurry, though, jack a car from the road nearby and head south until you hit the CJ
icon. When you reach your house, get out of your vehicle and head into the red
mission icon to head out to your Mom’s gravesite.
Big Smoke
Your first real mission here is to escape from the Ballas gang members that are
trying to gun you down while you bike away from the graveyard. Certainly not a proud
moment in CJ’s life, and it can actually be a difficult task compared to some of the
previous starter missions, so stay frosty! You’ll have to be conservative with your
sprint, both because of the fact that you can’t pedal quickly for too long before
you get tired, and because you have to make sure that you stay behind Sweet or Ryder
as they lead you back to the hood. The Ballas are more trigger-happy than anything,
so they won’t try too hard to run you down; just stay clear of the sides of their
car and you should be able to avoid most of their gunfire.
When you get back to CJ’s house, the mission will end. You can now enter the house
to save your game and start with the game’s core missions, but you’ll want to outfit
yourself before you do so! There isn’t a whole lot of equipment within easy walking
distance, but you can grab a couple of submachineguns if you look around. The first
is atop Sweet’s house; if you jump to the top of the wall that the basketball rim is
attached to, you should be able to spot it and jump from there. The second is
obtained by jumping down into the canal behind the houses and walking south a bit;
the gun is located beneath one of the bridges. Between the two of them, you should
be able to net 110 rounds of ammo each run, and they’ll respawn each time you exit
CJ’s house, thus giving you an easy way to stay strapped in the early game. Try to
get the gun atop Sweet’s house first, then pick up the one from the sewers, as the
MicroSMG in the sewers is the superior of the two weapons, and you can no longer
grab the ammo from a pickup without getting the gun itself.
Now that you’ve got a place to hang low, you can start taking missions, or start
exploring the game world. The early missions are given by the other leaders of the
Grove Street Families, namely Sweet, Big Smoke, and Ryder.
Your primary objective in Los Santos is to return your gang, the Grove Street
Family, back to prominence in the city. Of course, you can’t make an omelette
without breaking a few eggs, and there are plenty of eggs looking to get broke,
mostly members of the other street gangs that have expanded their influence while
C.J. was out of town. To that end, you’ll have to follow the lead of the other gang
members in setting a course for the rest of the soldiers.
Sweet
Tagging Up Turf
This serves as your introduction to the spraypainting mechanic in San Andreas. You
and your brother will have to spread out a bit and tag up the neighborhood,
obscuring the tags of the Ballas and the Front Yard gangs. This is simple enough to
do; just find the tags of the opposing gangs and spray over them with the normal
weapon buttons. The first three are in Idylwood, and won’t be a problem to find;
just make sure there aren’t any cops around when you spray, as it does get you a
wanted star.
After you make your way through the Front Yard turf, you’ll have to head into Ballas
territory and spray over three more tags. You’ll probably come into your first
direct contact with hostile characters here, as one of the tags is guarded by a
couple of Ballas; if you took our advice and got some SMG ammo, you can just blast
them. Otherwise, you’ll have to spraypaint them in the face so that they bend over
in pain before hitting the tag and running away. The last tag is atop a building;
you’ll need to jump up to it. After you jump the second fence, turn left to find
another jumpable block leading to the roof. After you tag that one, return to
Sweet’s car and book it back to the hood.
Cleaning The Hood
Three tasks here:
First, check in on a pair of your friends. (They’re not interested in joining
up...yet.) Secondly, find and beat up the crack dealer. This can be easily
accomplished with your fists, but if you’ve obtained a gun, killing the guy works
just as well. Lastly, clear out the crack den! As with the previous mission, you can
either use your fists, or go straight for the Uzi and get right to the wetwork. The
latter is a bit simpler, as there are multiple enemies to deal with.
Drive-Thru
Get to the Cluckin’ Bell drive-thru window. When the Ballas drive by, start
following them and try to get alongside their car; your passengers should eventually
deal enough damage to it to set it on fire. It's best to try and get alongside them,
as that way, both Sweet and Ryder will be able to fire simultaneously; if you just
chase them, only Ryder will be able to shoot. When the car finally does catch on
fire, the Ballas will get out, so either run them down or let your passengers finish
them off before getting back to your head.
On a literary sidenote, the poem that Big Smoke quotes at you while you're driving
back to his house is Rudyard Kipling's "If". Slightly modified, of course.
Nines and AK’s
This mission serves as your aiming and firing tutorial. If you’ve played any
previous GTA games, you likely won’t need the help, as the mechanics haven’t changed
too much, save for the manual aiming mode. The sole new inclusion is the ability to
fire at gas tanks to instantaneously blow up cars, but this is difficult to do when
someone’s actually shooting at you.
Next up, Sweet will ask you to get some new clothes. Buy anything you like; the
Binco store doesn’t have a huge selection of stuff, so you might not be straight
ballin’ just yet, but you should be able to upgrade yourself from the plain t-shirt
look that you’ve been sporting thus far.
Although this isn’t part of the mission, the Binco is right around the corner from
the gym, so you might want to head inside and work out for a bit. If you hit the
exercise bike and do four kilometers at level six or seven, you should be able to
burn off almost all of the fat that you’ve built up so far; you can also use the
weights to buff up a bit. There is a limit to how much muscle you can build per day,
though.
Drive-By
You’ve got four groups of Ballas to get dead before you can complete this mission,
so you’ll have to be watchful of your car’s health. Sometimes it’s easier to just
run the Ballas down rather than stop and let your friends shoot them, but again, you
can’t switch cars, so try to avoid taking too much damage. Actually, if you manage
to roll on top of a Ballas and pin them underneath the car, your passengers will
usually finish them off if they don't get killed by the rundown.
After you finish off the Ballas underneath the bridge (you'll definitely want to run
these guys down), you’ll get two wanted stars, so you’ll have to hit the Pay N Spray
before you can clear the mission. It’s a few blocks to the south, so try to keep
your car at or near max speed on the way, if only to avoid any police entanglements.
Your car will likely be on its last legs at this point, and the cops will try to ram
you when they spot you, but the faster you go, the less likely they’ll be to hit
you.
After you hit the shop, you'll have to escort your homies back to Sweet's house. Now
isn't the time to go cowboy, so take it steady and make sure you don't flip your car
or anything like that; if it blows, your friends will go with it, leaving you with a
bloody mess on the streets and a mission to retry. Sweet’s Girl
Sweet’s pinned down in Seville, and needs a quick extraction from a sticky
situation! Unfortunately, after you get his call, you’ll return outside to find that
there isn’t a single vehicle on the street, so before you pick up this mission,
you’ll want to stow one inside your garage and grab it. Sweet won’t stay alive
forever, so you’ll have to get over to his location before his life meter runs out.
If you’ve been faithfully getting the SMG ammo from atop Sweet’s house, you
shouldn’t have to make a side-trip to Emmet’s to pick up any weapons, so just get
over to Seville.
When you arrive, you’ll find no fewer than five gangsters trying to take out your
brother. You can cap four of them with a standard drive-by motion, but the fifth
one, who’s crouching on the steps, will likely require you to exit the vehicle and
take him out on foot. After they’re all dead, grab a four-door vehicle and get back
to your house before the Seville Families destroy your car! They'll attempt to ram
you, as usual, but your slick driving skills should put them to shame; book it back
to Sweet's house to finish the mission.
Cesar Vialpando
Sweet wants you to check out your sister’s new boyfriend, the eponymous Cesar. In
order to do so, you’ll have to engage in a bit of a lowrider competition. This is
set up like a rhythm game, where arrows will float across the screen; if you push
your right analog stick in the direction of the arrow just as it passes through the
circle, you’ll gain points. Your opponent won’t do too well, so if you want a bit of
easy money, save your game before attempting this mission, then bet the full
thousand dollars on the competition; you should make it all back if you’re at all
decent at hitting the buttons in time. That said, the timing is a bit sensitive, so
don’t bet more than you’re willing to lose. (You can always just reload your game if
you lose all your cash, though.)
Doberman
After you take the Cesar mission, Sweet will likely stop giving you missions for a
while. After you pick up some CRASH missions, he’ll pop back up on your cell phone
and send you out to take over Glen Park, which is Ballas territory. The Ammu-Nation
store has a bunch of expensive weapons, but you should be fine for this mission so
long as you have a few hundred rounds of ammo for your machine pistol.
When you’re ready to move on, head over to Glen Hill and start offing gangbangers;
you should have plenty of targets to choose from. After you cap a couple, you’ll
start the gang war. You’ll now need to survive against three waves of enemies, and
you have to fight them all on foot, so stay crouched and fire at them from as far
away as possible. If you stick to the middle of the park, you should have a clear
view on all sides, and since the gangstas appear on your radar, you shouldn’t have a
hard time locking onto them with your Uzi and taking them out from a distance. The
game will explain a bit of the mechanics of the gang war mechanism here; when that
little tutorial is through, the Grove Street traitor will pop out of a house and
make a beeline for you. All you need to do to end the mission is take him out.
Although you can proceed onto another mission after this, you should probably take a
little time to expand the Grove Street turf around your house. Gang wars are a great
way to get money, both because of the tribute that will appear at your house, and
because the bangers will often drop tons of cash. You can also find plenty of SMGs
and AK-47s, so it’s a wise idea to get at least a little turf before saving your
game and moving on. Check our extras chapter for more details on making the most of
this mini-game.
Los Sepulcros
Sweet’s climactic mission revolves around ambushing a Ballas funeral which Kane, a
Ballas bigwig, is attending. You’ll have to bring along a couple of gang members to
the party, and use them to cover your approach while you focus on killing Kane.
There are plenty of Ballas in the cemetary, though, so when the shooting starts,
proceed with caution and use your SMG to drop any bangers that you see; when Kane
pops up in your vision, though, switch over to your AK and use that to blast him
from long range. He’s got armor, so he’ll take a few more rounds than usual, but you
should be able to take him out without a problem.
Unlike a normal gang war, though, all this killing will attract the cops, so you’ll
probably have a star or two before you get done. After you get into the getaway car,
then, you’ll have to avoid any cops trying to bust you; if there are officers on
foot, run them down and keep your car on them to prevent them from getting up while
your homies get back in the car. After that, make a beeline back to the Grove before
you get taken out.
Reuniting The Families
As always, the grandest plans are the most likely to go awry, and Sweet’s mission to
reunite all of the families against the Ballas gets spectacularly upset by an influx
of police. You’ll have to rescue Sweet from inside the motel in another corridor-
crawl level before you finally reach the exterior. The one important bit here is the
fact that there’s a body armor atop the stairs near where the SWAT team busts in
through the skylight; if you can get that, you should be able to sweep through the
rest of the building without a problem.
When you do leave the motel, though, you’ll face off against no less than a
helicopter, so focus on taking down the SWAT members before killing off the
helicopter itself, using your most powerful weapon (likely an AK) to blast its
underside until the "Follow Sweet" message pops up. After you head down the steps,
Smoke and Ryder will pull up, resulting in another rail-shooter mission. The cops in
the passenger seats of the cars are really difficult to hit, so you might want to
concentrate on shooting the cars themselves until they get set on fire. You can
expect to take a lot of damage, but you’ll hopefully reach the end of the rail
before your car blows up. After you bust through the billboard, check out the
modified tagline on it for a chuckle.
The Green Sabre
After you get through Sweet’s pep talk about destroying the Ballas, you’ll have to
hook up with Cesar, who’s apparently been keeping an eye on Tenpenny & Co.
Unfortunately for you, but perhaps not too unexpectedly, he’ll reveal that Smoke and
Ryder have been working with the cops - and the Ballas - all along. You’ll need to
rescue Sweet from the Ballas ambush, so get a car and get over to where the battle’s
going down before Sweet’s life meter runs out!
Unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do for Sweet. He’ll live, but he won’t be
able to help you kill off the Ballas in the vicinity. There shouldn’t be too many of
them, though, so use whatever weapons you have at your disposal to off them.
Eventually you’ll get a pop-up message alerting you to the presence of a Ballas car;
use your R1 and L1 buttons in conjunction with the right analog stick to blow it.
After this little series of events unfurls, you’ll have to take a bit of a breather
from Los Santos; you’ll lose all of your weapons and be forced to play around in the
countryside for a while.
Big Smoke
OG Loc
Before you can open up OG as a mission-giving character, you’ll have to pick him up
as he walks out of jail. As soon as he hits the bricks, though, he wants to get
right back into the gangsta life, and asks CJ to help him kill someone who
disrespected him in prison.
When you reach the marker that leads you to the target’s house, he’ll hop out onto a
bike, forcing you to give chase. Despite Loc’s best effort, he won’t be able to kill
the guy while you’re riding around, so you’ll have to follow the mark until he gets
off his bike. (And it’s going to be a looong ride, so keep the guy in front of you
and watch his tire tracks to get an idea of where he went if you lose sight of him.)
When he finally does de-bike, he’ll wander into a group of comrades, so take them
out with extreme prejudice.
OG won’t give you missions just yet, though; you’ll have to drop him off at his job
before that occurs. If you got wanted stars during the chase, it’ll be difficult to
get all the way to the restaurant without getting arrested, so you may want to check
your map for a Pay N Spray before heading out.
Running Dog
Running Dog is one of the simplest missions in the game! Just drive Big Smoke to
the "meet," then, after the cutscene’s over, chase down and kill the marijuana
dealer. You'll have to jump over some fences to get to his position, and don't
forget to use your sprint by tapping X rapidly. Luckily, the dealer doesn't fight
back, so you can just run until he's in your sights, then shoot him in the back with
one of your weapons. You don't need to return to Big Smoke after killing him; you'll
automatically get mission complete and the respect bonus that comes from completing
a mission.
Wrong Side of the Tracks
This is another simple mission, in theory, although it can be difficult. After you
escort Big Smoke to the marker, you’ll have to hop onto a Sanchez and chase a train
that’s loaded up with rival gangstas. Smoke will fire away as you drive, so long as
you can stay near the front of the train, he'll automatically lock onto one of the
gang members and start plugging away, but you'll have to keep him in position for a
while before each gang member dies, as they have a ridiculous amount of health. Also
note that Smoke aims at the rearmost banger first, then switches to the guy in front
of him, and so on; thus, you should keep a little bit behind the train's engine car
to prevent the gang members that he's not shooting at from having an easy shot at
you. Also note that you need a bit of clearance from the train in order for him to
hit the fools; if you stay right alongside it, his bullets will hit the side of the
train instead. So try to stay a car width or so off to the right of the train when
Big Smoke is firing.
The train is about as fast as your bike - faster when you’re going uphill - so
you’ll have to avoid accidents and crashes if you want to take out all four of the
foes. You may notice jumps on either side of the train tracks on occasion; if you
can run your bike off of one of these and land on the train itself, you can shoot
away at the gang members yourself, but you may leave Smoke a ways behind if you do
so.
Eventually you’ll take them all out, though, although it’s likely to take some time,
so enjoy your little trip through the backcountry before escorting Smoke back home.
Just Business
The last two missions can’t quite prepare you for Just Business, a sprawling two-
parter that will probably take you a couple of dry runs before you succeed. Be sure
to save your game before attempting it, if you don’t want to lose all of your
weapons when you get processed through the hospital!
The first segment here sees CJ and Smoke fighting their way through a horde of
Russians. Why? We’re only left to wonder; the Russkies don’t really figure into the
rest of the game’s plot. Anyway, you’re going to be in a ton of trouble if you don’t
have a couple hundred rounds for your SMG; if you do, though, you can just cycle
your locks to clear out most of the first room. You may also want to grab some armor
before you go in. Quickly scoop up any cash or ammo on the floor after the Russians
get offed, and be certain to grab the body armor from the rear of the room before
meeting up with Smoke near the door. You’ll have to make your way through another
gauntlet outside, but you’ll get a health refill after you do so, so stand up and
take them down any way you can.
The second part is by far the harder, as it sees CJ hop on the back of a motorcycle,
firing away at Russians as Smoke attempts to escape through the crowded city
streets. The Russians will pursue you in cars and motorcycles, as well as in a car-
transport truck. You can’t hurt the truck, which is the source of most of the
scripted events during the chase, so focus on the motorcycles first. Both the
drivers and the passengers of the motorcycles will fire at you, so pick them off
(you’ve got unlimited ammo) before moving on to the cars. The Russians in the
passenger side seat of the cars will shoot at you, as well, so you’ll need to shoot
them (either through the side or through the windshield) to eliminate that threat.
It’s a long, long chase, so you’ll have to keep your finger on the trigger if you
want to survive. You’ll know that you’re almost near the end when you jump over the
exploding truck. Like I said, though, it’ll likely take a few runs before you
actually beat this mission, so don’t feel too discouraged if you happen to die.
Ryder
Your first mission with Ryder is a simple tour of the shops around the neighborhood.
You can get a haircut at the barbershop, if you wish, although you shouldn’t spend
too much before you have time to go shopping for clothing; you might want to get a
hat that’ll obscure whatever you get done now. Next up is learning how to buy a
meal; you’ll need to do this occasionally to prevent the loss of health. The
cheapest meal is only two dollars, though, so you shouldn’t have to worry about
going broke.
Unfortunately, Ryder will try to rob the place after you get your meal, and you’ll
have to beat a hasty retreat. If you want a shotgun, run down the pizza clerk after
he follows you outside and grab his; otherwise, just get back to your house to end
the mission. Next up is Sweet’s Tagging Up Turf mission.
Home Invasion
Your first Home Invasion mission is relatively simple; just take Ryder’s truck to
the house marked on your map, tilt the right analog stick very gently to sneak
around, and grab three or more of the crates within the house and return them to the
truck. There are two on the ground floor (one by the cannon and one in the kitchen,
through the door), and one at the top of the stairs. Three is all you really need;
you can grab more, but it doesn’t seem to have any effect on your mission rewards.
When you’ve loaded the truck, drive it to the storage facility and enter it to end
the mission.
You'll unlock the ability to run burglary missions after completing Home Invasion.
This isn't going to be a big moneymaker for you, or at least not a very efficient
one, but you will need to do quite a bit of it if you want that elusive 100% game
completion mark. Catalyst
There are three parts to this mission. In the first, you have to hijack a train
laden with crates of ammo (which obviously pass through inner-city LA all the time);
unfortunately, by the time you reach your destination, the train is already under
siege by a rival gang. You’ll need to kill them and the trainworkers. It's best to
try and use Ryder's truck to run down as many of them as possible before hopping out
of the car and finishing off the remainder. Even after you take down the Vagos, more
foes, in the form of Ballas, will arrive and attempt to jack the train themselves,
so kill all of them before hopping onto the rear car of the train.
After you get onto the train by entering the red trigger area near the end, you’ll
have to throw the delicate and highly explosive crates to Ryder as he trails the
train in a car, due to the fact that the train will seemingly start up by itself.
This isn’t too difficult to pull off; just aim a bit above his head and hold down
the O button for a longer period of time if the car falls farther behind you.
When Ryder has his ten crates, you’ll have to make it to the Pay N Spray to the
southwest to avoid the police. Hit it up, then return to the hood.
Robbing Uncle Sam
Ryder’s role as unofficial armorer of the Grove Street Families encourages him to
come up with some pretty crazy schemes, but knocking over the National Guard seems
to betray some kind of deathwish or sociopathic tendencies. Regardless, you’re going
to be along for the ride, so hop into the truck and make your way down to the Ocean
Docks.
When you arrive at your destination, you’ll have to hop over the wall and get into
the National Guard compound. When you’re inside, kill the guard and shoot the switch
on the wall near the gate, then repeat the process for the warehouse, but watch out
for more Guardsmen, as they’ll continually pop out of the buildings nearby during
this mission.
After you’ve opened the warehouse and killed the soldiers within, grab the forklift
and use it to fill the truck with crates. You’ll need six crates in all, but you
can’t leave Ryder unprotected, or he’ll get swiss cheesed by the soldiers. After
every crate loading, then, hop out of the forklift and blast any Guardsmen in the
area; this should keep Ryder above half health until you finally get into the truck
and make your way back to the hood. You’ll have to make your way back to Emmet’s
place to end the mission, so check your map and plot a course ahead of time. If you
get followed by the National Guard hummers, you can have Ryder throw explosives at
them from the back of the truck by clicking on the left analog stick, but you should
be able to outrun them if you stick to the middle of the lane on the bridge out of
the docks.
Cesar
High Stakes, Low Rider
This is a simple checkpoint race against five other cars; if you’ve played either of
the other GTAs, you should know the drill. To enter the race, you’ll need a low-
rider, but don’t worry if you don’t have one, as there should be a Blade parked a
couple doors down from Cesar’s house that’ll do the job fine. One of the nice new
additions here are the inclusion of arrows in the waypoints, which’ll let you know
which way to go. Once you see the pier, you’ll know that you’re at the homestretch,
so floor it and take home your thousand dollar reward.
OG Loc
Life’s A Beach
Life’s A Beach is another funkdafied rhythm contest for you to get frustrated with.
This one’s a lot, lot tougher than the lowrider competition, as instead of simple
analog stick movements, you’ll have to hit the face buttons of the controller as
they scroll by. The timing here isn't quite exactly timed to the beats from the
music, so if you find yourself having a real tough time completing the challenge,
you may want to just turn off the sound and rely solely on the timing that you glean
from the buttons as they scroll across the screen. This can make it a bit easier to
get the precise timing down.
It’s all in the name of music, though; the end goal of the dancing contest is to
steal a sound truck for Loc’s rap party. When you’ve proved yourself a master
dancer, get in the truck, kick out the DJ, and cruise back to the stash and drop the
vehicle off. Unfortunately, you're going to be followed by a couple of lowriders
from the beach, so make your way quickly to the garage before they ram you enough to
destroy the van.
If, for some reason, you really like dancing, you can hit up clubs that are
scattered throughout the cities in San Andreas for more fun.
Madd Dogg’s Rhymes
Loc seems to be catching on to the fact that he’s not a very talented rapper, so
your next task is to find and retrieve the lyrics journal of one Madd Dogg,
presumably a rapper himself. You’ll have to find his home before you can break into
it, which can be easier said than done, as it’s high up in the Mulholland hills. If
you find yourself passing underneath the bridge leading to the house, you can get
out of your car and climb up the hill on foot; it’s much easier to ascend slopes
while running than it is while driving.
When you reach the mansion, you’ll be pointed to the back of the house; after
heading inside, you’ll get a little tutorial on stealth kills. If you happened to
play Manhunt, Rockstar’s other paean to mindless brutality, you should recognize the
mechanic, since it’s fairly similar (in manner, if not in pure cathartic violence)
to those of that game. You’ll need to sneak up behind the guards while crouched,
wait for CJ’s hand to raise, then hit the O button for a stealth kill. You may get a
tooltip telling you that your radar indicator will turn blue when you're actually
hidden in shadow, but this may be a bug, as it never turned blue for us.
There are two more guards between you and the recording studio, where the rhymes are
kept. The first paces around the swimming pool, so wait until he turns his back to
you, then follow him along - at a distance - until you reach the next room. Another
guard will approach, so duck into one of the changing rooms and wait for him to
assume his position before moving on. When you hit the bar, sneak past the first
guard, then stealth kill the man playing video games. The recording studio is right
around the corner, so grab the body armor, knife the sole guard, then grab the
rhymes.
After you obtain your treasure, new guards will spawn in, carrying silenced pistols.
If you wait for a minute, one will take up position near where the body armor was,
so sneak up behind him and knife him to obtain the new weapon. You only have five
rounds for it, but you should only need two to kill a guard, so make your way back
to the door through which you entered and escape. There's no real need for stealth
during your exfiltration; just walk along until you spot a guard, pop him twice in
the chest, then keep on moving. You should still have plenty of body armor, so you
shouldn't need to worry overmuch about taking damage.
Management Issues
Now that you have Madd Dogg’s rhymes, it seems that his manager is putting the
squeeze on Loc. Since CJ seems somehow compelled to help him out no matter what the
cost, it’s up to you to kill off the manager while he attends an awards ceremony.
Before you can get close enough to the manager, though, you’ll have to steal one of
his cars. A driver is eating at a burger shop nearby, so head there, then damage the
car enough to force the driver out. You can ram it with your own car, after which
the driver will step out and start firing at you.
Now comes the hard part! You have to meet up with the other drivers before ten
o’clock (22:00), but you have to arrive in a pristine car, meaning that it can’t be
damaged at all. Since you've already damaged the damn thing, you'll have to hit up a
spray shop before you head out to the rendezvous with the other drivers. Luckily,
there's one in the Temple district, just southwest of the burger shop, which is
fairly close to the rendezvous point, so head there, then gingerly drive to meet up
with the other drivers. If you damage it en route, you'll need to return to the
spray shop and try again.
When you actually get the car to the rendezvous, though, things get a bit easier.
You have to stay between the other two cars until you get to the awards show, but
it’s a straight shot there and the drive only lasts 30 seconds or so. When the
manager gets into your car, jam on the gas and head towards the pier marked on your
map. When you're near the end, hit the triangle button to bail out and watch the car
soar into the ocean!
House Party
After you finish off Management Issues, Loc wants to throw a party. He’ll relocate
back to Grove Street, so head back home and hit up his house after ten o’clock, when
he’ll start showcasing his NBA superstar-grade rap talents. Things quickly take a
somewhat less-than-festive turn, though, as the Ballas gang initiates an ambush!
You’ll have three waves of enemies to deal with here. The first will be on ground
level, and will hide behind their cars, so you may have to maneuver a bit in order
to hit the last stragglers. The second group is atop the bridge that runs over your
hood; these are easy to kill, since they have no cover. The last and biggest group
will attack from the alleyway nearby. If you have some body armor, you should be
able to just stay in the open and blast away, but it really helps a lot if you have
a lot of SMG or AK-47 ammo. Watch your targeting, and make sure no one (especially
Sweet) gets between you and your target. After all of the enemies go down, you can
rest easy knowing that the Ballas won’t try anything that stupid again.
C.R.A.S.H.
Burning Desire
After you pick up your first mission from the cops (at a donut shop, yuk yuk), track
down the Molotovs and head over to the gang den. There are plenty of bangers around
the house, so make the rounds and clear them out before you start chucking firebombs
through the windows. When the house does get nice and toasty, though, you’ll
discover that you’ve stranded a girl inside, and it’s up to you to get her out.
After heading in through the front door, locate the fire extinguisher in the kitchen
(to the right of the entrance), then proceed to the rear of the house to find the
steps. You can use the extinguisher with the normal weapon keys to extinguish any
fires in your way; just use the R1 key to automatically point it at the base of a
fire, and spray away.
When you reach the girl, you can start escorting her out, but stay close to her,
because her pathfinding isn’t all that great, especially on the first floor. Be sure
to stay out of the fire, though, as you’ll lose around half a health bar when you
get set aflame. Eventually you’ll get the girl out of the building, and will be able
to drop her off at her house, where she’ll become your first girlfriend. If you want
to fool around with this feature, feel free, but if you haven’t made enough money to
buy a new house near the OG Loc and CRASH missions, you should probably pinch your
pennies until then.
Gray Imports
Tenpenny’s got a tip for you: the Ballas and the Russians are meeting at a shipping
facility near the docks. It seems that the Ballas are looking to bring in some more
firepower with which to finish off the Grove families, and it’s up to you to stop
them.
Begin by heading down to the warehouse and clearing out the exterior. Watch out for
the forklifts which’ll come to attack you; one of them has explosive barrels loaded
up, so manually aim for them to destroy the whole vehicle, as well as any nearby
workers. To get into the warehouse, you’ll need to shoot the switch on the wall, but
be careful, as there are three gunmen just beyond the doorway.
When you reach the interior, you’re going to have to clear it out row by row. Get
used to manually aiming and firing with the L1 button; if you stick with the O
button, you won’t be able to fire very quickly due to the fact that you’ll also need
your thumb for the right analog stick. There are health and armor pickups inside the
warehouse, so walk over them if you’re running low.
After you clean out the bulk of the Ballas, you’ll have to head upstairs to find the
Russian arms dealer. He’ll attempt to escape, and will probably make it to his car
before you can kill him due to the fact that he has an insane amount of health. Just
keep on his tail, ignoring the gunfire of the guards outside unless you’re near
death. The key thing to know here is that he'll head for a Banshee that's near the
gate through which you entered the warehouse; if you can beat him there and jack it
before he arrives, then he'll be a bit confused, and just keep on running, allowing
you to easily run him down to finish the mission. If he makes it to the car before
you, though, you'll need to jack another one and give chase! You’ll have to destroy
his car in order to complete the mission, so bang him around and do drive-bys while
you coast alongside him.
That pretty much wrapps it up for Los Santos
