When comparing GTA San Andreas vs GTA: Chinatown Wars, the Slant community recommends GTA San Andreas for most people. In the question“What are the best Android games without in-app purchases/paywalls?” GTA San Andreas is ranked 11th while GTA: Chinatown Wars is ranked 58th. The most important reason people chose GTA San Andreas is:
You could spend days going through just the main story itself, but there is a ton more content as well. Side missions add numerous more hours of gameplay, and one-off encounters can help keep you entertained as well. Depending on your mood, you might even just want to try abiding by all the laws and driving around. In-game, there's always something to do, and you have a choice of what you want to do during that particular gaming session.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Tons of content will keep you entertained for a long time
You could spend days going through just the main story itself, but there is a ton more content as well. Side missions add numerous more hours of gameplay, and one-off encounters can help keep you entertained as well. Depending on your mood, you might even just want to try abiding by all the laws and driving around. In-game, there's always something to do, and you have a choice of what you want to do during that particular gaming session.
Pro A classic that translates great to mobile thanks to attention paid to the port
This game was originally launched on PlayStation 2 and Xbox. Tweaks were made to make it more mobile friendly - multiple ways to control the UI (optimized for touch), as well as cloud-saves which let you pick up where you left off on different devices (for example a tablet or a new phone).
Pro Familiar multi-city world that is actually based off of real locations
There are 3 huge cities to explore: Los Santos, San Fierro and Las Venturas - each loosely modeled after certain real-world cities. In addition to the static map, other aspects of the game make it feel even more immersive. There's a fairly wide selection of vehicles, minigames and weird one-off events to find and take part in.
Pro Tons of vehicles
Tons of cars, bikes, planes, jets, tanks, jetpack, KTM rc, etc.
Pro 0sam
Pro Compelling events make the story interesting
The power struggle between gangs has resulted in the death of your father. You have flown from Hong Kong to avenge your father's death. The missions vary, and all could be plausible making it easy to get lost in the story.
Pro Local multiplayer is more fun than you'd think
The local multiplayer takes advantage of this open-world game in the best ways possible. You can challenge another player to different activities - including Death Races (last alive or first to the finish wins), Stash Dash (get to a delivery van first and make deliveries while the other player tries to stop you), Liberty City Survivor (1v1 battle against your opponent with many police around), and Defend the Base (co-operatively protect targets from incoming bad guys).
Pro Decent graphics
The graphics and lighting effects have been improved over the original version (on the Nintendo DS) to a point where they're good enough for modern mobile gaming.
Pro Controller support for improved controls
GTA: Chinatown Wars has built in controller support which means it is compatible with the Google Nexus Player as well as the Amazon Fire TV. This means you can play it on your phone/tablet with a Bluetooth controller, or on an Android console on the big-screen TV with a Bluetooth controller for an even more console-like feeling.
Note: not all Bluetooth controllers are supported
Cons
Con The control scheme doesn't translate well to touchscreens
For a game that was originally designed to be played with 14 physical buttons it can be difficult to translate that to a touch screen interface. Sadly, this shows when trying to play on a tablet or phone. To get the best experience, you're going to want to grab a compatible bluetooth gamepad/controller which adds cost, and you'll need to carry it around if you want to play on the go (likely at home you'll be playing on a console or computer).
Con Doesn't load on a Galaxy s20+
Hasn't worked for years. The game shows a black screen then immediately crashes.
Con Choppy performance at times
Sometimes framerates will drop, even on high end hardware. Typically framerates are good, but when there is a lot going on at once there will be dropped frames while the device tries to catch up with whatever is happening in-game.
Con Takes up a lot of space for an Android game
The game is 2 GB and does not fit most memory cards. but it's a very good game.
Con Expensive considering it's a port of an old game
The app costs $7, which is very expensive for a mobile game. In addition, this game is just a port of the original game (with a few mobile-focused optimizations) and there isn't any new content.
Con Bad graphics
The graphics aren't very good compared to newer games. Considering GTA SA is pretty old, it stands to reason that the graphics won't hold up as well as something newer.
Con Controls on touchscreen are not that good
Driving can be pretty difficult with the touch screen controls, though there are two different settings, so one may work better than the other.
Con Not an original game
While not a con for everybody, this game has virtually nothing new about it. It was originally launched for the PSP (PlayStation Personal) and Nintendo DS (dual screen - new generation of GameBoy). The tutorial is borrowed from the PSP version, while it retains the mini games from the DS version.