The architecture looks outstanding, and the game has some new effects to match. The old trails effect from Vice City and GTAIII is history. Now, you'll see everything pretty clearly, but when you're in warm areas, the game has a nice heat-shimmer effect. When you're moving at or near top speed in a car, the screen blurs a bit, which does a fantastic job at conveying an extreme sense of speed. Also, the game takes on a grainy, filtered look when it rains, which also looks really good. The character models throughout San Andreas look very good as well, though some aspects, like the characters' blocky hands, look a little weird at times.

It's not all fun and sun when it comes to San Andreas' graphics, though. As in previous GTA games, the frame rate in San Andreas is pretty unstable. It always runs at a playable rate, but depending on what you're doing, how fast you're doing it, and how many other objects are onscreen, the frame rate can vary wildly. Additionally, there are some occasional level-of-detail issues, where you'll be able to get pretty close to an object before its “looks good up close” texture can load in. This sort of problem will probably vary, depending on the condition of your hardware. If your PS2 is new and fresh, you probably won't see it too often. But if your system has seen better days, it might have trouble keeping up with you when it comes to streaming in the new textures and landscapes. The draw-in distance seems a lot further out than Vice City's, but you'll still see some structures pop into view, especially when flying overhead at high speed. But even when you take these issues into consideration, San Andreas delivers a really impressive-looking graphical package on the aging PlayStation 2 hardware.