G-pinions

The new Grand Theft Auto game was finally announced today. They went with the subtitle San Andreas, and it's coming out October 19th for PS2. I'm assuming that San Andreas = San Francisco, which should make for some interesting architecture. I think that the architecture in GTA3 was about the only thing better than Vice City, so I'm hoping this'll be the best of both worlds. And although I doubt there's going to be any vast innovation over Vice City (they're saving that for GTA4, a rumored PS3 launch title), I'll be more than happy with a new city to explore, a few new vehicles to romp around in and some new weapons to play around with. If they wanted to make me really happy, the developers would add some of these requests of mine:

Destructable environments - This is a bit much to ask, but if I could drive through a building, get out of the car, and turn around just to level the rest of it with a rocket launcher, I would be in miscreant's heaven. Construction crews could show up with scaffolding and repair the place as time passed, so if you killed a couple hours (or killed for a couple of hours) and came back to that area, everything would be fixed.

Deeper property owning - I liked being able to buy property in GTA:VC, but the scope of it was fairly limited (saving and sometimes a garage). I would like to see buildings whose architecture and paint job you can customize and expand. I want to be able to run a brothel out of my hotel if I so choose. I want to be able to own almost every building in town, and go inside them all as I buy them for the hell of it (many of the insides could be randomly generated to save in development time). I'd like to be able to rent out my property to tenants and businesses, and come collect rent and kill them if it's not paid on time.

I want to feel like a big shot - When I make it to the top of the crime chain, I want lesser criminals to come to me with requests. And if I grant their wishes, I want to see the results as I drive around (such as their gang having gained power over a particular neighborhood). I want to be able to pay off the police for limited time periods, especially during some missions, I want women to flock to me as I walk the streets (without game-ruining codes), and I want gang turf immunity/assistance depending on whom I side with (optional NPCs for any mission).

Taller buildings, crazier means of transportation - I want to hanglide off of a skyscraper only to land in the living room of my enemy in his summer house across the lake. I want to scubadive up into the aquarium and ride a dolphin off into the sunset (when I said crazy, I meant crazy). I want an experimental army mech to romp around the streets with, taking out tanks like flies.

Seasons and weather - I want to be able to run over kids playing in their yards in the summer (suck it, Lieberman), and drive over the frozen lake in the winter. I want ramps of snow to drive on, and earthquakes to terraform the whole city.

I want to be able to scan in my face to map to the main character, T.H.U.G.-style.

I want customizable, upgradable weapons.

I want money to mean something, and for there to always be something you can just barely not afford.

I want optional side-missions in every car I jack.

I want a lot, but I know that I'll be thrilled with whatever they give me. They're not going to screw up the biggest videogame franchise in the world, and I have faith that San Andreas will be every bit of an improvement over VC that VC was over GTA3. I'm hoping that the new PSM will have a huge gallery of exclusive screenshots like they did for VC two years ago, because I'm dying to see what Rockstar has created. Damn, this makes me want to go to E3 more than ever. We'll see what happens...