Mechanics

Three of the systems we cover in San Andreas have nothing to do with each other on the surface, and one question sorts them cleanly: what does Carl have to have before the thing works at all? A cheat code needs nothing, not even a menu. A new fighting style needs a body stat first and a beaten trainer second. A safehouse needs a story mission in thirty of the thirty-seven cases, and a stack of cash in thirty as well. Each also charges something afterwards, and the table below carries both sides.

Needs nothing: the cheat codes

Our cheats page lists seventy PC codes for the Definitive Edition, and the entry method is the old one: type the letters while playing and watch for Cheat Activated in the top right corner. There is no console to open, which the page contrasts with GTA 5. The list runs from the practical to the absurd. HESOYAM restores health and armour and adds $250,000; three Weapon Set codes (LXGIWYL, PROFESSIONALSKIT, UZUMYMW) hand over a loadout each and FULLCLIP makes the ammo infinite; ROCKETMAN spawns a jetpack, AIWPRTON a Rhino tank and JUMPJET a Hydra; TURNDOWNTHEHEAT and TURNUPTHEHEAT move the wanted level in either direction; and BUFFMEUP, WORSHIPME and HELLOLADIES max out muscle, respect and sex appeal. Beyond those sit the weather, traffic and pedestrian toggles, from black or pink cars to riots and a beach party.

The price is paid later rather than up front. Entering any code switches off achievements and trophies, a handful of codes are reported not to work in the Trilogy at all, and the page warns that firing off several in quick succession can corrupt a save. Two of the stat codes touch the other systems on this page: the muscle code reaches the figure the gyms ask for, though our fighting styles page only ever describes earning it on the machines, and the sex appeal code is the stat our Millie Perkins guide says makes picking up a date easier. The jetpack code, meanwhile, is the shortcut to several rooftop horseshoes in our collectibles guide.

Needs a stat: the three fighting styles

The trainers are off limits until Carl's muscle stat reads 35%, so the gym comes before the fight. Our fighting styles page describes four machines and what each moves. The treadmill and the stationary bicycle build stamina and burn fat, both with ten speed settings, and on the treadmill the higher ones pay better; the bench press and the dumbbells build muscle and burn fat, the bench by filling a power gauge through reps and the dumbbells at weights between 10 and 50 kg. Only the last two raise the number that matters for training.

Past 35%, any trainer in any gym will teach, with on-screen prompts showing the moves and a bout against him to finish the lesson. Lose the bout by forfeiting and Carl loses every weapon he was carrying, so go in empty-handed if you are not sure. Each gym teaches one style, and each style is a running attack, a ground attack and a combo: Kung-Fu at the Cobra Martial Arts Gym, boxing at the Ganton Gym and kickboxing at the Below the Belt gym. On our page the inputs for all three are the same lock-on-and-strike pattern, so nothing in the controls separates them. The catch is that only one style is held at a time; learning a second at another gym overwrites the first.

Needs a mission, then money: the 37 safehouses

Safehouses are where progress is saved, and our safehouses page ties unlocking them to 100% completion, in a sentence it attaches to the eight main safehouses the story hands over. Eight of them arrive through the story: the Johnson House in Ganton is among the first available, free and with a medium garage, and the other seven are handed over by missions, six of them free and the Verdant Meadows airstrip, hangar included, at $80,000. The remaining twenty-nine are bought, and which ones are on the market depends on how far the story has gone.

Added up from the page's own figures, buying every house and suite plus the airstrip comes to $959,000, and the spread is wide: the four Las Venturas hotel suites cost $6,000 each while the Mulholland house in Los Santos asks $120,000 and the Flint County farmhouse and the Calton Heights place $100,000 apiece. Garages are worth reading before you pay, because eight of the houses priced at $10,000 or $20,000 are listed as having none, and two more at those prices, the Blueberry apartment and the Doherty apartment, say nothing about one either way. The Hashbury apartment's big garage at $40,000 and the free Doherty Garage's large one are the stand-outs on the page, the farmhouse comes with a Tractor, a Sanchez and a Walton parked around it instead of a garage, and Madd Dogg's crib has a Sparrow on the roof.

Paying for the houses without a code

If HESOYAM is off the table because you want the trophies, our own pages price out the alternatives. The snapshot and horseshoe sets in the collectibles guide pay $100,000 each on completion, the Freight Train Challenge pays $50,000 for its two levels, and the export crane on our wanted cars guide adds $350,000 in list bonuses on top of what each car fetches. Where each of those sits on the map, and in which city, is the subject of our San Andreas guide.