Dramatis Personae [CHAR]
8-Ball [CHAR001]
'Big' Mitch Baker [CHAR002]
B Dup [CHAR003]
Big Bear [CHAR004]
Big Smoke [CHAR005]
Ned Burner [CHAR006]
Michelle Cannes [CHAR007]
Avery Carrington [CHAR008]
Catalina [CHAR009]
Vincenzo 'Lucky' Chili [CHAR010]
Marty Chonks [CHAR011]
Ma Cipriani [CHAR012]
Toni Cipriani [CHAR013]
Cisco [CHAR014]
Juan Garcia Cortez [CHAR015]
Mercedes Cortez [CHAR016]
Ricardo Diaz [CHAR017]
D-Ice [CHAR018]
Dwaine [CHAR019]
El Burro [CHAR020]
Emmet [CHAR021]
Claude Fido [CHAR022]
Frederico Fido [CHAR023]
Sonny Forelli [CHAR024]
Luigi Goterelli [CHAR025]
Guppy [CHAR026]
Officer Jimmy Hernandez [CHAR027]
Jethro [CHAR028]
Jizzy B [CHAR029]
Jonnie [CHAR030]
Beverly Johnson [CHAR031]
Brian Johnson [CHAR032]
Carl 'CJ' Johnson [CHAR033]
Kendl Johnson [CHAR034]
Sean 'Sweet' Johnson [CHAR035]
Cam Jones [CHAR036]
Kasen Asuka [CHAR037]
Kasen Kazuki [CHAR038]
Kasen Kenji [CHAR039]
Kasen Toshiko [CHAR040]
Kasen Yuka [CHAR041]
Ernest Kelly [CHAR042]
Hilary King [CHAR043]
King Courtney [CHAR044]
Joey Leone [CHAR045]
Salvatore Leone [CHAR046]
Jeffrey 'OG Loc' [CHAR047]
Donald Love [CHAR048]
Love Fist [CHAR049]
Ran Fa Li [CHAR050]
Maccer [CHAR051]
Ray Machowski [CHAR052]
Madd Dogg [CHAR053]
Maria [CHAR054]
Leon McAffrey [CHAR055]
Miguel [CHAR056]
Mike [CHAR057]
Misty [CHAR058]
Wu Zi Mu [CHAR059]
JD O'Toole [CHAR060]
Kent Paul [CHAR061]
Officer Ralph Pendelbury [CHAR062]
Millie Perkins [CHAR063]
Auntie Poulet [CHAR064]
Officer Eddie Pulaski [CHAR065]
Umberto Robina [CHAR066]
Denise Robinson [CHAR067]
Ken Rosenberg [CHAR068]
Ryder [CHAR069]
Barbara Schternvart [CHAR070]
Steve Scott [CHAR071]
Alex Shrub [CHAR072]
Johnny Sindacco [CHAR073]
The Snakehead [CHAR074]
Candy Suxxx [CHAR075]
Suzie [CHAR076]
T-Bone [CHAR077]
Officer Frank Tenpenny [CHAR078]
Mike Toreno [CHAR079]
Massimo Torini [CHAR080]
The Truth [CHAR081]
Lance Vance [CHAR082]
Tommy Vercetti [CHARO83]
Cesar Vialpando [CHAR084]
Vinnie [CHARO85]
Helena Wankstein [CHAR086]
Zero [CHAR087]
Katie Zhan [CHAR088]
Hives of Corruption [HOC]
Liberty City [HOCLIB]
Vice City [HOCVIC]
Los Santos [HOCLOS]
San Fierro [HOCSAN]
Las Venturas [HOCLAS]
Gangs [GAN]
Bikers [GANBIK]
Blood Feather Triads [GANBFT]
Da Nang Boys [GANDNB]
Diablos [GANDIA]
Forellis [GANFOR]
Golfers [GANGOL]
Handlers [GANHAN]
Leones [GANLEO]
Liberty Cartel [GANLCC]
Liberty Triads [GANLCT]
Los Santos Vagos [GANLSV]
Mountain Cloud Triads [GANMCT]
Orange Grove Families [GANOGF]
Port Authorities [GANPOR]
Purple Nines [GANNIN]
Red Jacks [GANJAC]
Rollin' Heights Ballas [GANBAL]
San Fierro Rifa [GANSFR]
Seville Boulevard Families [GANSBF]
Sharks [GANSHA]
Sindaccos [GANSIN]
Street Wannabes [GANSTR]
Temple Drive Families [GANTDF]
Varrios Los Aztecas [GANVLA]
Vercettis [GANVER]
Vice Colombians [GANVCO]
Vice Cubans [GANVCU]
Vice Haitians [GANVCH]
Yakuza [GANYAK]
Yardies [GANYAR]
Legal Garbage [LEG]
Thanks [THA]
In Closing [CLO]
Those letters in square brackets are handy-dandy codes. Use your browser's
Search function (Ctrl+F in Internet Explorer) and type in the letters, square
brackets and all, then click "Find" or whatever. Click it again and you'll be
instantaneously transported to the desired section. So for example, to find the
information for Las Venturas, hit Ctrl+F (in Explorer), type in "HOCLAS" (with
square brackets), and hit Find twice. You're there! Maybe I'm explaining this
too thoroughly though; unless you've never read a FAQs before this shouldn't be
anything new.
I've tried to dictate the GTA plot by year because of the problems there
might be otherwise. The codes for them are derived from a combination of
which game the year relates to and which part of that game's story it
involves. Here's the key:
VIC = Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (PS2)
SAN = Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS2)
LIB = Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (PSP)
ADV = Grand Theft Auto Advance (GBA)
III = Grand Theft Auto III (PS2)
Grand Theft Auto is a great series of games. Actually, organized crime in
general seems to be in vogue right now. Visual entertainment such as The
Godfather or (more recently) The Sopranos are much-loved in North America as
mafia epics, and across the pond from me there are so many countries with
their own brand of gangster classics (Chinese movies about the Triads,
Japanese movies about the yakuza, European movies about biker gangs...) And
why not? It's compelling subject matter, after all. The freedom and poor
morale standards of the gangster are what attracted gamers to GTA in the
first place, after all.
If this is getting too cerebral, I apologize. My point is, I've seen a lot of
Plot Guides, Ending Guides, and whatnot on GameFAQs, so I was dimly aware
that I wanted to write one of my own. I enjoy that sort of analysis. I
noticed there was no such guide for the GTA series, and it was all over.
As you can see, this is a SERIES plot guide - I'm going in all the way, baby.
(Or at least as far in as I can go, which is not all the way, as I'll explain
in a minute.) I'm going to detail every aspect of the series, but only to a
certain degree - obviously, digging into the history of every radio station
and exploring every shop and hangout in the series would not only result in a
monster of a document mostly comprised of uninteresting information, it would
be hugely taxing on me personally! Never mind, rest assured I'll deliver the
best guide I possibly can.
I explained part of the format earlier, in regards to the over-arcing plot
itself. You should also know much of what you read here is possibly just my
interpretation of the events portrayed. That said, I'll try to keep the guide
relatively free of personal narrative, but I will sneak in random thoughts
that occur to me while reading as well as additional notes that may be of
use. This shouldn't be surprising - take a look and you'll see it's hardly a
formal FAQs!
We're not quite ready to begin - for the pedants among you, and I know there
will be a few, there are a few extremely important notes on how I wrote the
FAQs, and why I chose to do it the way I did.
Regrettably, I could not include GTA or GTA II in the FAQs, nor the
original's two London expansion packs. It's definitely a shame, but there are
several very good reasons for this:
1) The games aren't very good. They're also radically different from the
other five. Actually, this reason is weak, I direct your attention to the
other three.
2) Temporal ambiguity. I have one source that both the first and second GTA
take place in the 30s, then another that says GTA takes place in the 60s and
GTA II at some undefined time in the near future. What the heck? Time is all-
important in plot, and if I'm having difficulty even getting the DECADE
straight, it just gets harder from here on in.
3) Geography issues. All the cities in the games I'm covering are based on
real cities, but aren't; London, on the other hand, is in fact a real city.
(Sure, it's specifically said that Vice City is in Florida, which is a real
state, whereas San Andreas is not, but that was ONE instance, so I'm willing
to let that one slide.)
4) The lack of a reliable source. If I can't prove the sequence of events to
myself, the entire story is discredited.
The player-controlled character in GTA III does not have an official name. So
I picked one for him. I decided his name is Claude Fido. I can't just not
give a name, because that would get EXTREMELY annoying for me as the typist,
and lots of people decide to call him Claude, because, I'm told, this was the
name of the character in GTA II. Furthermore, after you beat all missions in
San Andreas, CJ gets a call from Catalina while having sex, in order to make
him jealous - as the call goes on she calls out the name Claude. And Maria
calls him Fido once - and there is a character in GTA Advance named Fernando
Fido, whom Mike kills. I put two and two together and ended up with Claude
Fido. It doesn't really matter anyway. And no, Mike does NOT kill GTA III's
main character, he kills some random drug dealer - Advance takes place BEFORE
III (believe it or not, a lot of people don't realize this.)
I shift between past- and present-tense as the situation demands it. If
you're a writer you'll understand why I do this when I do it, if not, just go
with it.
WHOA! L'KOUT!
THIS GUIDE CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS.
And I mean major.
I shouldn't have to actually say this, but I don't want to ruin anyone's
enjoyment of a game. There's no way I'm shying away from anything here.
You'll be treated to all the plotlines and endings of the series. This is
great for those of you who want it, but you may want to tread lightly.
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
\/ \/
| VERSION HISTORY [VER] |
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
\/ \/
Listed sequentially, with newer edits at the bottom.
Version 0.0
My first attempt failed spectacularly due to my horrendous inexperience.
However, the advent of Liberty City Stories inspired me to completely
overhaul it and try again.
Version 1.0
The initial version of this FAQs, the state it was in when it was first
posted on GameFAQs.
Version 1.1
I was floored by the amount of e-mail I received in response to this FAQs,
and most of it had to do with minor corrections and continuity issues. After
consolidating all mail on the subject, I've finally gotten around to making
the edits.
Version 1.2
I've finally, finally been able to add the Liberty City Stories stuff! No
more will my inbox overflow with mail asking about when it's going up! That
includes seven new profiles and updates to a number of others. Also added a
bunch more tiny additions that nevertheless improve the overall quality of
the guide, mostly to the Characters section.
The Forelli crime family has Liberty City in its iron grip. Tommy Vercetti is
the right-hand man of the Don, Sonny Forelli. This has been a way of life for
him for quite some time now.
One day, Tommy is ambushed and arrested by the local police department. Tommy
is charged and convicted of drug dealing and serial murders (he killed eleven
men). He's sentenced to fifteen years in federal prison with mental
counselling and no chance for parole. His bosses could easily make bail, but
instead they disown him. Without outside help, he's doomed to serve the
entire term.
After a decade and a half, Tommy Vercetti is finally released from prison
after serving his sentence. Sonny Forelli consults with his partners on how
to handle his problem student. Tommy caused a lot of trouble in the
seventies, and his sudden reappearance is liable to upset the locals.
With a view of continuing to keep his operations out of sight, Sonny
immediately carts him off to Vice City. The Forellis' man there is a crooked
lawyer called Ken Rosenberg. He'll be in charge of directing Tommy. Sonny
really doesn't care what Tommy does as long as he stays far away from Liberty
City.
Tommy catches the next flight to Vice City, where Rosenberg meets him at
Escobar International Airport. Unfortunately, things almost immediately take
a turn for the worst.
Ken's worked for a while now to set up a drug deal between the Forellis' Vice
City men and some suppliers. As Ken intends it, they got to the grower, then
fly it every so often in their helicopter to a pre-decided point, where one
of his boys picks it up. They in turn send it off to Liberty City, where
Sonny makes a whole lot of money off it through re-sale, and rewards them
handsomely for their efforts.
Tommy, Ken, Harry, and Lee meet on the Vice City docks as planned, but the
brothers quickly double-cross them. They kill Harry and Lee as Tommy and Ken
narrowly avoid the same fate, then run off with both the drugs and Sonny's
capital - three MILLION dollars.
Needless to say, Sonny is not impressed. Anybody else would be dead for this,
but because it's Tommy, he gives him a chance to redeem himself. After
swearing to return the money and put those responsible to justice (?), Tommy
regroups with Ken at his law office off Vice Beach.
Retired colonel Juan Garcia Cortez is holding a big party out on his yacht
and all the big names in Vice City are going to be there. Cortez was the man
who helped Ken set the cocaine deal in motion. Rosenberg obviously can't
attend, but he still has his invitation, and since Tommy is new in town, he
can go in his stead. After a quick trip to Rafael's to update his wardrobe,
Tommy jumps on board (literally) and rendezvous with Cortez. He has other
matters to attend to, being the sorta-life of the party after all, but asks
his daughter Mercedes to show Tommy a good time. She takes the liberty of
pointing out all the Vice City players.
This is valuable information, but she is soon distracted by the appearance of
Ricardo Diaz, one of her daddy's army buddies, and Tommy is left alone for
the rest of the night. He returns to the office. Now Tommy figures they need
a streetear, so Rosenberg suggests Kent Paul, an old friend, at The Malibu.
Tommy 'persuades' Paul to give up some information. Paul admits that the chef
at the Oceans hotel might be involved. The conversation with the chef isn't
productive, but Tommy meets Lance Vance in the kitchens. Lance shows him
around town and gets him a piece.
Tommy's already made some connections, but things aren't going so well - he
still hasn't found the money and his bosses are coming down to Vice City to
check up on him. To buy more time, Tommy has to intimidate a jury into
letting Sonny's cousin Giorgio go. Then, in another bid to keep the
barbarians outside the gate, Ken speaks with Avery Carrington, whom Tommy saw
at the yacht party. Carrington is interested in some land, but the owners
won't sell - Tommy convinces them it might be a good idea. In return,
Carrington promises to keep the locals off his back.
Meanwhile, Tommy has also been working for others, including Cortez and Diaz.
Cortez, for example, requests that he takes care of the shamefully behaving
Gonzalez, yet another face TV recognizes from the party. Next, he steals some
kind of mysterious technological wonder from a Frenchman, and along with
Lance Vance he oversees a business transaction between Ricardo Diaz and some
Haitians. But the Haitians betray Diaz and run off with the money and their
produce - this is starting to sound familiar. Diaz is almost killed, but
makes it through thanks to Lance's quick trigger finger. Tommy gives chase,
kills the snakes and returns Diaz's property.
Cortez really loves his toys. Being retired military, things that blow stuff
up are the best. He gives Tommy a big chance to put a bit of a dent in his
debt, hiring him to steal a bit of fancy new military hardware. Tommy duly
acquires it, but the French are quick on the riposte. Cortez now has two
pieces of their missile technology, and that's two more than they want him to
have. Cortez does the smart thing and quits while he's ahead, and alive.
Tommy escorts him to Vice City Docks and he races off back to his home
country, but not before offering Tommy his reserved boat launch as a token of
his appreciation.
Cortez may be gone, but Diaz is intrigued after Tommy's performance at the
exchange. They at the horse racetrack (ever the popular gangster place of
good times.) Diaz, like so many others in this town, is obsessed with making
money, which is why he bets so heavily, and why he hires Tommy to track down
one of his minions who is scalping him for 3% of what he should be getting.
He pays up...and not literally, either.
When Tommy sees him next, he's in a fury. Somebody's selling real estate on
his watch, and that's simply unacceptable. He orders Tommy to meet his friend
Quentin, who will fly him in so that Tommy can take care of business. In
reality, Quentin has Diaz completely fooled: He's actually Lance Vance. Diaz
killed Lance's brother and he suspects he intends to kill Vercetti as well.
Lance flies him in on a helicopter as Tommy rides shotgun. Eventually Lance
manages to land, then takes off, leaving Tommy to finish up.
It's also become clear that Diaz is insane. Tommy finds him shooting at
pigeons who land on his car. Diaz has heard that the Vice City boatyard has
just completed work on a boat that's even faster than his, and he wants it.
Tommy, of course, steals it for him. Tommy sure must be one smooth thief. He
soon finds a use for the speedboat he just stole, however. Every month a
freelancer moors off Vice City's coast and sells his cargo to the first guy
there. With Lance in tow and the speed demon dinghy, Tommy beats the other
bidders to the yacht, though not without a fierce gunfight. Now he knows Diaz
is responsible for the deal going wrong and he's collected more than enough
information on him.
Lance sees an opportunity and jumps Diaz, failing completely. Diaz holds him
at the junkyard. Kent Paul contacts Tommy unexpectedly and delivers the news.
Tommy breaks in and busts Lance loose, but thanks to that bit of idiocy all
his careful planning has gone to waste. Lance has forced Tommy's hand.
It's time to move. Lance reveals that he has saved up an impressive armoury
over the year. Tommy and Lance assault Diaz's mansion and kill him. With Diaz
out of the picture, Tommy is free to turn his old haunt into the Vercetti
Estates, and also to buy other real estate as it suits him. Ken Rosenberg and
Avery Carrington join them and the newly inaugurated gang, the Vercettis,
sets up shop. Everyone agrees that Tommy needs to start earning some respect
and getting his name out there. He starts by extorting the overdue protection
racquets from local small business owners.
Some problems arise when one of the Vercetti thugs is supposed to light up a
mall, but he gets the fuses wrong and the bomb ends up not going off. The
police are all over it like your dad on Velveeta. The cops are liable to
figure out who it was any second, and the Vercettis better not be at Vercetti
Estates when they do. Tommy thinks for a moment, then proposes the solution:
They steal some cops' uniforms, poke around the crime scene, then torch the
place, destroying all the evidence. They jump a few cops, steal their
uniforms and squad car, and take a look around the mall. When nobody's
looking, they set the bomb to blow and get the hell out of there.
This is all well and good, but Sonny Forelli is quite tired of waiting at
this point. He sends a man down to collect his money. Tommy takes it in
stride and just caps him, but he has to work fast. He has Rosenberg load up a
briefcase with three million dollars in counterfeit cash. Tommy grudgingly
gives him the fakeitude, but all is not well. Lance Vance sold him out to the
Forellis. A gunfight ensues. Tommy kills first Lance and then Sonny. Now he
has his three million dollars back (he recovered the original paper) and his
revenge is complete.
Ken returns and is aghast at the carnage. But he soon brightens up when he
realises what's happened. For now, Liberty City is out of the picture; it's
all about Vice City now. The remains of the Vercettis control the south.
Tommy has won.
Carl 'CJ' Johnson was born in small-town Los Santos - hardly the greatest
place for a kid to grow up, but he called it home for a long time. Despite
his mother's Christian influence he wasn't exactly a model individual,
though, and on top of that the crooked police officers who roamed his
neighbourhood constantly harassed him - and the rest of his family, for that
matter, but they took particular pleasure in pushing CJ around. In 1987, he
leaves to pursue bigger opportunities in Liberty City - and because he
allowed his brother Brian to die. He stays for five years.
CJ gets a call from his brother Sweet. Their mother is dead. Murdered,
perhaps. CJ returns to attend the funeral, but he arrives too late and misses
it. He takes a taxi away from the airport, but his old nemesis officer
Tenpenny and his cronies Pulaski and Hernandez pull him over and arrest him,
'confiscating' his money while they're at it. Tenpenny killed another officer
only moments ago because he threatened to expose them, though at this point
only the three officers know who did it, and tries right there to pin it on
CJ. On their way to the station, they receive a radio message regarding the
officer they just killed. Forced to abandon CJ and return to the crime scene,
they drop him off in Rollin' Heights Ballas turf. He finds a wreck of a bike
and makes his way to his old house, now owned by Big Smoke.
After Big Smoke's initial consternation at having a stranger in his house,
the two reunite as old friends. Big Smoke suggests they visit Sweet at the
cemetery, where CJ's mom is being interred momentarily. It is not a
particularly happy reunion. Sweet now leads the Grove Street Families, doing
his best and often failing to keep them clean, and in CJ's five-year absence
a lot of good boys have been killed in their turf wars with the Ballas, the
Grove Street's rivals since CJ was a kid. Meanwhile, Kendl is dating Cesar
Vialpando, whom Sweet heartily disapproves of. Los Santos has turned into one
big gangster battleground. In short, it is not a fun place to be. CJ is
determined not to get involved in all this, but he isn't given a choice. The
Ballas, knowing where they were going to be, have been staking out the
cemetery, and do a drive-by. Nobody is hurt, but Big Smoke's hot vintage car
gets caught in the crossfire and is totalled. The homies grab bikes and pedal
for all they're worth back to Grove Street, narrowly avoiding the Ballas'
wrath.
CJ intended to pay his respects and then get right back to his clean,
legitimate life in Liberty. He gets a haircut and puts on his colours, then
helps Ryder reclaim some of the Grove Street's tags, meanwhile blotting out
the Ballas. They're starting to reclaim their old hood. The former splendour
of Grove Street is starting to be restored. CJ and Ryder try to recruit their
old associates B Dup and Big Bear back into the fold, but are refused. CJ is
starting to realize that Los Santos, and Grove Street in particular, is way
more messed up than he thought. He's come home to a city of crackheads. He
resolves to start taking out the pushers. Several more confrontations with
the Ballas soon ensue, all of which CJ is involved in. They then strive to
procure firearms. All the gangsters have gotten more sophisticated and more
dangerous weaponry since CJ was last in town; their old supplier can hardly
even keep up nowadays. Nonetheless, they purchase some guns from him in case
the Ballas come marching down Grove Street. But with their new arms, they
strike back at the Ballas with a drive-by of their own.
The Seville Boulevard Families aren't pleased with the Grove Street
activities. Word gets out and Sweet has to hole up with his girl inside a
Seville Boulevard house. CJ rushes over and drives them away in the nick of
time, but the damage is done.
Sweet's dislike of Cesar Vialpando continues. When Kendl storms out of the
house to get to him and away from Sweet, Sweet tells CJ to follow her and
make sure Cesar doesn't try to pull anything cute. Kendl meets Cesar at a
low-riders car club, where CJ quickly schools Cesar. CJ and Cesar are
uneasily acquainted face-to-face. Afterwards, alone, CJ and Cesar decide that
although they aren't exactly friends and they definitely don't agree about
Cesar's relationship with Kendl, that doesn't mean they have to be on each
other's cases all the time. So they're cool, sort of.
Even though Big Bear and B Dup have become slaves to drugs, rapper (and self-
proclaimed gangsta) OG Loc is only too happy to rejoin them; he's just been
released from prison for a relatively minor infraction, and CJ, Sweet and Big
Smoke pick him up. OG Loc's first prerogative is to take his revenge on
Freddy, another rapper whom he claims stole OG's rhymes. They met in prison,
but that doesn't mean they're friends; OG kills him. For his part, CJ helps
out Big Smoke with a few small-time jobs, like busting up drug deals.
Meanwhile, Tenpenny is harrying Big Smoke for no reason in particular.
CJ is in tight now. He and Ryder got to a house on the East Beach and steal a
whole lot of guns from an ex-army suit, then from a local Nation Guard depot,
more than tripling their inventory.
OG Loc decides he's going to go hard-core gangsta rapper and get his image
out there. He decides he'll start building his reputation, and to do that he
needs to record a few songs. He's been working janitorial duty at the Burger
Shot, and he heard a van with a killer sound system come through the drive-
thru one day. Overhearing their plans for a beach party that evening, he has
CJ steal the van, then rips it all out. Next, he wants the rhyme book of
famed Los Santos rapper Madd Dogg. CJ breaks into Madd Dogg's mansion in the
hills and makes his way past the rapper's personal security squad to steal it
right out of the recording studio. CJ then takes out Madd Dogg's promotions
manager, Scipio, because he's slandering OG and cramping his style big time.
Being fired from Burger Shot for mouthing off is just the catalyst he needs.
It's finally time to get heard! OG hosts a party at his Grove Street house.
It isn't very well received, mostly because his songs are horrible. Halfway
through, a GSF homie runs in and tells them they have five minutes before
Ballas start swarming Grove Street. CJ, Sweet, Ryder, and others suit up, and
a couple more GSF boys drive ahead to block the road. They then proceed to
take down every Balla who so much as glances at Grove Street.
In the meantime, Tenpenny has come to see CJ as a potentially useful tool.
Using intimidation as a handy motivation, the first assignment he gives CJ is
to assassinate one of their problems, a Vagos ganger - no corpse, thanks. CJ
doesn't realize until after that he's trapped the guy's girl inside. He runs
in and drags out Denise Robinson. They agree to maybe go out or something,
sometime, yeah. Tenpenny alerts CJ to a meeting between the Russians and the
Ballas, which he listens in on. Next he pushes the Ballas out of Glen Park
with Sweet at his side. A Balla called Little Weasel gets dropped during that
fight. The Ballas hold a proper funeral for him, and the GSF homies jump
them, just like they had done to them at Beverly Johnson's burial. They catch
a ton of them in the same place at once, and the bloodshed is great. They
take out Kane, the Ballas leader. GSF is on the map!
Sweet has a plan to unite all the Families into one big syndicate. CJ, Sweet,
Ryder and Big Smoke hop in the van to meet the rest of the Families at the
Jefferson Motel. Somehow, though, the Los Santos Police Department has found
out about the gig, and they start to rappel from helicopters to apprehend the
GSF homies. Ryder and Big Smoke split, but CJ runs into the motel and joins
Sweet. They fight their way out and Big Smoke doubles back to pick them up.
The police give chase, but they escape after some insane driving and the
sacrifice of the car.
This failure is bad, but it's about to get much worse. Sweet plans to stick
it to the Ballas and tells a bunch of GSF homies to meet him under Mulholland
Bridge. Unfortunately, Big Smoke has sold them out. He too has become a slave
to drugs. Cesar Vialpando immediately takes it upon himself to show CJ. CJ is
alarmed as he realises Big Smoke knows about the rendezvous, and the GSF are
about to walk into a trap! He advises Cesar to take Kendl to a safe place and
races to head off Big Smoke and the Ballas. He arrives in the middle of a
heated gunfight between the GSF and the Ballas. CJ fights for so long, then
the police arrive to break it up. Tenpenny, Pulaski and Hernandez arrive,
dragging CJ out of the fray before he can be arrested. Sweet is caught and
put in prison hospital awaiting trial. Tenpenny wants CJ to do some more jobs
for them, as he needs them done. First, he has to take out a snitch who's
hiding on Mt Chiliad. He takes care of this job easily. CJ and Tenpenny are
sure to keep in touch.
One day in a bar, CJ is surprised to find a spicy, knife-wielding Mexican
woman holding it up, rather than the expected sight of Cesar knocking back a
beer. She is Catalina, and she's very dangerous. CJ goes along with her to
keep her placid. He helps her rob a gas station to start. Thwarted by
bulletproof glass, Catalina steals the gas tanker instead and pulls it up to
a truck yard. She sells it and its contents to a man named Whittaker for a
nice chunk of cash.
Tenpenny calls CJ to a motel. Here, he meets The Truth, an enigmatic
individual indeed. CJ helps him out with an aggressive problem he's having.
When CJ goes to The Truth's farm afterwards, he's still trying to sell him
drugs. CJ isn't interested at all. Cesar and Kendl are now hiding out in a
trailer park, and Cesar is convinced Big Smoke is selling drugs carted in
from San Fierro twice a week. That's supposedly how he's getting all his
money.
CJ goes to Catalina's house to apologize for his earlier misbehaviour. She
tackles him to the ground, but he sweet-talks her out of shooting him. They
set off on a merry quest to rob banks and kill random people. They proceed to
hold up a whole lot of Los Santos liquor stores and other small businesses.
Next time, they rob a real bank. But after that, Catalina is very hostile
towards CJ, apparently because he never calls. When they rob another bank,
the police show up. They steal police motorcycles and split.
Cesar calls CJ out to a farm to meet blind Triad leader Wu Zi Mu, or Woozie
as his friends call him. Even though he's blind, Woozie challenges CJ to a
car track-race (!) for pinks; CJ wins.
His next race is under less friendly circumstances. Catalina shows up with
Claude Fido in tow. She's in an almighty fury now; she takes it out on CJ's
car with a crowbar. Catalina challenges CJ to race Claude. Again, CJ wins
without much trouble, earning himself the deed to a San Fierro garage.
Catalina scoffs at his skills anyway, claiming that Claude was actually doing
two things at once while he was racing. She announces her intention to leave
Los Santos forever: She's going to Liberty City. CJ wishes her well.
Ironically, Catalina doesn't even love Claude at all, she's just taking him
for business reasons, and to get back at CJ. Subsequently, The Truth's farm
is attacked by police. They quickly torch his weed fields, then have to run.
They can't stay where they are and Los Santos is closed to CJ for now. They
flee to San Fierro, and CJ's homies (including Cesar and Kendl) set up shop
in the garage he won. He recruits two mechanics, Jethro and Dwaine, and a
technician, Zero. Kendl, the sharp businesswoman, realises that what they're
doing has potential; they could develop and sell property. CJ and Cesar set
to work fixing up the garage as she thinks about it some more.
Now that he's settled in, CJ decides to exert a little influence on the
landscape of San Fierro - a place which, by the way, he is thoroughly failing
to enjoy. He plants some drugs on a DA's car to get him off Tenpenny's back,
then takes over a construction site in retaliation for the workers thinking
Kendl is a prostitute. He also helps out Zero in his personal battles with
his nemesis, Berkley, which are really rather petty after the fact.
CJ is still trying to figure out what the deal is with the San Fierro drug
running. Cesar and Woozie both provide him with some information to that end.
The Triads have information about the T-Bonez, who may be involved. CJ
befriends and begins to work for Jizzy, gang co-leader and owner of the
Pleasure Domes Club, in order to get in close and find out if and how the T-
Bonez are involved. He's having a spat with T-Bone himself about how much
money he should be getting, but he soon sets it off to the side a little.
After getting in tight with the T-Bonez, he figures out when and where the
Ballas come to get their shipments, and decides to ambush them. Now that he
knows Jizzy is definitely involved in the Ballas' Los Santos drug operations,
he goes to the Pleasure Domes Club and pops him.
Shortly after, CJ, Cesar and the Triads set up to crash the meet. CJ hoists a
sniper rifle from the roof alongside Cesar. CJ and friends shoot all the
Ballas hanging around. Sadly, Ryder, too, has fallen by the wayside. He, T-
Bone and his sellers start showing up. Toreno flies by in a helicopter, sees
the bodies, panics, and floods the area with smoke bombs. CJ, Cesar and the
Triads work quickly to take out all the T-Bonez, T-Bone himself, and Ryder.
After that, CJ starts to work for Woozie. This is somewhat untimely, as a
brutal gang war has just erupted. A Vietnamese gang, the Da Nang Boys, is
relocating to San Fierro, and they don't like the idea that the Chinese got
there first. They wipe out the Blood Feathers, one of the Mountain Cloud's
strongest friends. (The Mountain Cloud Triad being Woozie's gang.) When CJ
visits Woozie in his Chinatown hideout again, he learns the apartment is
under Da Nang watch. CJ leads them away so that Woozie and the other Triads
inside the apartment can escape to a safer location. He also bugs a Da Nang
boat in the San Fierro harbour. In the meantime, Woozie has found out where
CJ's former friends' crack lab is. CJ promptly blows it to bits. The Triads-
Da Nang Boys war continues, but CJ leaves it alone for now. Cesar has a few
ideas for improving the business.
CJ gets an idea and goes out to the desert to make a better acquaintance of
Mike Toreno. The Truth begins working for Toreno, too. As it turns out,
Toreno actually works for a government agency. He asks CJ to commandeer a
trucker, then perform all manner of other tasks. He proves time and again
that he knows much more than he's letting on. He has some information about
Sweet's prison condition, and he assures CJ that he's also ensuring Sweet's
safety while there, since no one else can. He messes with CJ's mind. He also
makes CJ learn to fly a helicopter. Government assassinations, equipment
delivery, it's all fair.
Eventually Toreno gets clearance to take out his tails, so naturally, he has
CJ take care of that one too. Thanks to CJ's hard work, Toreno is now much
freer to go about his business, and he's working on getting Sweet out of
prison. The Truth calls CJ back to the airfield, his latest secret personal-
occult base. The Truth wants him to break into the Area 69 military research
base and retrieve the latest Black Project from inside. He then has CJ break
into a train in motion and steal a bucket of green goo. According to The
Truth, this is the ultimate knowledge of the universe. He's an interesting
guy, isn't he?
The time has come to move on from San Fierro. Woozie recently opened the Four
Dragons Casino in Las Venturas, and that's where CJ and his homies head. It's
a stressful business, though; they're Triads and Las Venturas is completely
under mafia control, not to mention Woozie's new casino is now in direct
competition with Caligula's Casino, the established mafia one. They push
Woozie, so CJ elects to pull a heist on Caligula's. He gets a bundle of
dynamite from a Las Venturas mine, and after some discussion with Woozie he
realises he needs a map of the casino layout. He breaks into the back and
photographs the blueprints. He procures a key card from Millie, the croupier.
(Rockstar finds the sickest way possible for him to accomplish this, too...)
By this point, eight people are in on the heist, up from the original two.
They're ready. CJ parachutes in and sneaks into a power generator, planting
satchel charges. When they go off, it'll cut the power to about ten square
blocks. He's almost caught, but manages to make it back to their base of
operations. They decide they're going into the casino disguised as the usual
cash escort - an armoured car and a few police motorcycles. The bikes are
easy, but for the truck they have to first steal a sky crane, then haul the
armoured car off to a secure location awaiting deployment.
Meanwhile, a fake chip is found in the casino. The Sindaccos, one of the
three primary partners in Caligula's, own a plastic factory across town. The
vengeful CJ blows it up.
Then CJ finds out The Truth took an English band into the desert to partake
in his spiritual rituals (if they can truly be called spiritual) and he lost
them, waking up back in Las Venturas with no idea how he got there. CJ goes
out to collect them and they ask to be taken back to Caligula's Casino to see
a guy they call Rosie - Ken Rosenberg. Also, one of the band guys happens to
be Kent Paul. And all of this opens up an opportunity to observe Caligula's
without arousing mafia suspicion.
It seems that although Rosie once stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Tommy
Vercetti, he's fallen on hard times. Any guesses what ruined his life? Yes,
drugs. After a stint with the Liberty City mob he wound up in Las Venturas,
running Caligula's as a neutral party - none of the three crime families
trusts the other two. The Sindaccos and the Forellis are now feuding. Rosie
is in fear for his life because there's a very good chance he'll get caught
in the crossfire. CJ, Rosie and others make a few house calls, however, and
soon all is well. Not so for Tenpenny. He realises 'the gig is almost up.' CJ
has more important things to think about.
Tenpenny calls CJ out to a remote house in the desert. He arrives accompanied
by Pulaski and Hernandez. Pulaski hits Hernandez upside the head with a spade
as Tenpenny wanders back to town for a night of fun, then orders CJ at
gunpoint to dig his own grave, to share with Hernandez. CJ tries to persuade
him to turn against Tenpenny, which would indeed be the smarter thing to do,
but before he can finish digging Hernandez wakes up and attacks Pulaski.
Pulaski shoots him and he falls into the ditch. CJ takes the opportunity to
attack Pulaski, gives chase, and kills him.
Back in Las Venturas another day, CJ comes across Madd Dogg standing on a
ledge; he's a jumper. Feeling guilty, CJ tries to coax him down. Madd Dogg
jumps anyway, but CJ is waiting with a pickup truck filled with cardboard
boxes. At the hospital, CJ offers to become his new manager - funny since he
was the guy who killed the old one. In other news, CJ, Maccer, Paul and Rosie
do a hit on the Forellis' St Marks Bistro in Liberty.
It's finally time to pull off the heist. The van pulls up to Caligula's,
Woozie and Zero inside. They're the support team; CJ joins them and gets an
earpiece. After one last check that everything's in position, CJ enters
through the staff door. Planted gas bombs knock out the two guards in the
safe room. CJ heads for the security door this time and uses Millie's swipe
card. He opens a door for use by Woozie, Suzie, Woozie's assistant, and the
owner of the apartment they used to plan the heist. Using the satchel charges
CJ planted so long ago, they cut power, then break into the safe with more
ordinary explosives. Mafia rush to the scene, but CJ holds them off. The
group hurries back to the heist van where Zero is waiting along with two
motorcycles. Two of them take the bikes, the others hop in the van and they
all drive away.
Back at the Four Dragons, Madd Dogg is back in action, and he wants to go
home. Trouble is, some pusher seized his mansion. Nonetheless, CJ decides
that everybody's going home to Los Santos. The Ballas got too strong to deal
with, but now it's time for him to push them out again. CJ and four Triads
parachute into Madd Dogg's mansion and kill everyone inside. They've
successfully repossessed it, and now they've got a place to work from.
Toreno waltzes back into the picture and needs CJ to do a few more, highly
dangerous, jobs for him. CJ has grown quite weary of this by now. When he
approaches CJ with yet another, CJ actually pulls a gun on him. He has good
news, though. Sweet is being released from prison! CJ has to go pick him up!
Aww, yeah. Sweet wants to head back to Grove Street right away to see what's
been happening in his absence (and CJ's for that matter.) When they get
there, they find it's been overrun with lowlifes and crack dealers. They run
them out and kill the pushers. Now Sweet wants to stay and fix things up. CJ
is done with the hood, for...good. He heads back to the mansion.
In a burst of insight, Madd Dogg realises who stole his rhyme book - it was
OG Loc! Actually, it was CJ, but he gave the book to OG, anyway. OG is
recording a video, so CJ proposes they crash the party. OG flees. They catch
up to him, along with his recorder, Jimmy Silverman.
CJ and Sweet pay a visit to B Dup to teach him a lesson. Big Bear turns on
him and denounces his druggie ways. He wants back into the GSF. CJ returns to
Grove Street to have a chat with Sweet. Sweet still obstinately wants to stay
in Grove Street. CJ wants to move on, but agrees he's never going to forget
where he came from. Grove 4 Life!
Back at the mansion, CJ, Sweet, Kendl, Cesar, Madd Dogg, The Truth, and
Maccer are watching a TV news report. Officers Tenpenny and Pulaski have been
charged with 'racketeering, corruption, narcotics and sexual assault.'
Ridiculously, all charges against Tenpenny are dropped due to lack of
evidence. Lack of evidence?? Come on! Los Santos is in a state of turmoil, so
Sweet, CJ and the gang take steps to make sure nobody messes with Grove
Street during the riots. Cesar plans to get the Varrios back in action. He,
CJ, and three Varrios boys get together and take Cesar's neighbourhood back
from the Vagos.
There's only one thing left to be done: Payback on Big Smoke. CJ and Sweet go
to the Crack Fortress and bust in. CJ fights and sneaks his way to the top.
CJ finds Big Smoke on the fourth floor. They talk for a time about what
happened, where did Big Smoke go astray? But Smoke tires of this after so
long and pulls a gun on CJ. A scuffle ensues but though Smoke has
substantially greater body mass, CJ overpowers him thanks to experience and
the fact that he isn't stoned. Big Smoke dies of internal injuries shortly
after.
Suddenly Tenpenny enters with a bead on CJ. He wants a nice fat bag of
Smoke's money, so CJ fills it up and carefully hands it over. Tenpenny is
about to kill CJ, but CJ tricks him and manages to jump behind cover.
Tenpenny fires madly at him but CJ is nowhere to be found. CJ gets away. They
both leave the building, separately of course, and Tenpenny commandeers a
fire engine. Just before it shoots away Sweet jumps on the back. There is a
struggle. Eventually Tenpenny manages to drive the truck off a bridge where
it lands in Grove Street. Tenpenny stumbles out then falls, dying on the
ground.
Everybody heads back to the mansion. Rosie, Madd Dogg, Maccer and Paul join
them. Madd Dogg's had a hit! It's been a long, grim road, but it seems
they've won. The rapping, the garage, the casino - the GSF controls all of
San Andreas!
Throughout its history, no one entity has been able to maintain overall
control of Liberty City for long, but this is especially true of the early to
mid-90s. In particular, there could be observed brutal competition between
the three largest mafia families in the country: The Forellis, the Sindaccos,
and the Leones. The Forellis were in charge during the 80s, but after Sonny
Forelli's death they were pushed back. Salvatore Leone has his sights set on
taking over, but we're still in the opening moves. One of his earliest plays
is to have his most loyal mafioso, Toni Cipriani, whack a made man. This
could easily bring on a huge gang war as honour among thieves makes killing a
made man anything less than blasphemy if his family authorizes it. As such,
Toni, fearing for his life and those of his fellows, immediately flees to
Vice City, where he lies low for four years, waiting for the situation to
blow over.
After a term of cautious observation, the time is finally right for Toni to
return to Liberty City. The first thing he does is catch up with Don
Salvatore. Salvatore congratulates him, then assigns him to Vincezno Chili.
Now, Toni ranked much higher than Vinzenco when he left, so he feels cheated
to be working for him now after the sacrifices he's made. He reluctantly
signs on and Vincenzo sets him up with a safehouse in Atlantic Quays.
Vincenzo has a few jobs he needs Toni to do. He's got the best at his
disposal, after all, so he might as well use him. Toni's first task is to
motivate a Chinatown dealer who hasn't been bringing home the bacon. This
encounter yields some troubling news: The Sindaccos are moving in on
Chinatown. We can't have that! Toni methodically moves through Chinatown
icing every Sindacco dealer he can find. Next Toni reacquaints himself with
JD O'Toole, an old friend who runs a gentleman's club and is in the
mainstream of Liberty City activity. After taking care of O'Toole's Sindacco
babysitter, he becomes the Leone's streetear.
Remembering the very large debt that O'Toole owes him, Toni heads over to
collect. O'Toole needs a few things done first, so Toni helps him out. At one
point O'Toole gets quite anxious as the police prepare to storm the club,
where Salvatore is paying a special visit. Toni whisks him away and receives
an invitation to do some special jobs directly for Salvatore. O'Toole proves
his worth, tipping Toni off about a Sindacco plan to blow a Leone gambling
house sky-high. Using further information from him, Toni reciprocates by
bombing a Sindacco establishment.
Toni performs other menial tasks for Vincenzo, such as firing (at) inept
associates, and picking up a car loaded with drugs. Unfortunately, the cops
were watching the car and took off after him as soon as Toni pulled away.
Toni fully believes that Vincenzo set him up, and leaves angry. Vincenzo
surely won't stand for that. He lures Toni down to the Portland docks,
promising not to treat him like dirt anymore. When he gets there, a number of
angry men with chainsaws ambush him. Toni barely fights them off, and
Vincenzo proceeds to attack him himself. Toni kills Vincenzo, straining their
relationship even further.
Salvatore makes use of O'Toole's services, both informational and commercial.
After leaving the club one session, some Sindaccos kidnap Salvatore with the
intent of executing him, overlooking the fact that it would be easier to just
shoot him on the spot rather than driving across town. Toni gives chase and
saves Salvatore's life. He does the same thing when Salvatore goes on the
rampage in the area around O'Toole's club, killing every Sindacco he can
find. Toni covers him with sniper fire. O'Toole has done so well, Salvatore
decides to make him a made man! Or so he thinks. Salvatore is an extremely
paranoid little man. He asserts that O'Toole screwed over his old boss and
would therefore do the same to him, and has the Irishman killed.
Toni hasn't spoken to his mother in four years, it would have been too
dangerous, so he pays her a visit. Ma Cipriani sternly admonishes Toni for
never calling, comparing him to her new Sicilian boyfriend, Giovanni Casa.
Though nobody else knows it yet, the Sicilians are poised to wreak havoc on
Liberty City's hierarchy. Toni stymies this one in particular, getting some
deprecating snapshots of Casa indulging his fetishes. Ma doesn't care. She
further scolds him for being afraid of the Triads, but Toni quickly proves
himself and kills a number of them. She further complains that if Toni were a
real man, like his father, he'd win the street race happening that day. Toni
obliges her. But after Toni took those photos of Casa, he stopped paying his
protection money, so Toni puts him through his own meat grinder, selling the
product. Even after all this, Ma still isn't satisfied. She explains to Toni
that he is a worthless shell of a human being, and she's called in a hit on
him. Dozens of mafia gangsters descend on his position and Toni frantically
fights them off. He stops trying to please her after this.
Meanwhile, Toni has taken up Salvatore's offer and has been doing jobs for
him. Salvatore's having some serious difficulties in Portland. For one thing,
although he was instrumental in orchestrating (ha ha, get it?) the rash of
union strikes going on in Liberty, they're not repaying the favour. Toni pays
off union foreman Jane Hopper so that Salvatore can get 24 hour access to the
docks to offload drugs, but she isn't having any of it. He goes after her
boys instead. Most of them are persuaded, and Toni intimidates the remainder.
Now all that's left is Hopper, so Toni takes her for a little ride and she
folds like deuce/five off-suit.
Toni once met Salvatore's wife Maria in his office. She goes through his
address book and calls up Toni. She has Toni drive her around so she can
steal things from various places. Another time, he chauffeurs her to a drug
spot as she's throwing a party. She's really taken quite a liking to him and
tires very hard to get him to sleep with her. She even puts herself up as
first prize in a street race, daring Toni to attend and win it. She's
Salvatore's girl, though. She hooks up with a guy called Wayne instead, but
he beats her, so Toni kills him. The next time he stumbles upon her, she's
dying of a drug overdose. Fortunately she has just the cure, which is another
drug that balances the first one out, though it takes her quite some time to
remember where she left it. When she comes to her senses she ends the
perceived relationship.
Toni has continued working for Salvatore, and picks up a drug shipment from
cartel leader Miguel (you might think it's spank, but it almost certainly
isn't.) And then, fresh off the curve from a war with the Sindaccos, they're
right smack in the middle of another one, this time with the Diablos. They're
trying to take over Hepburn Heights. Toni fends them off, but remarks the
Diablos will eventually be successful (he's correct.) Toni also picks up a
bunch of cash from a drop at Callahan Point and delivers it to Salvatore,
much to the Triads' chagrin. Salvatore is also in trouble with the current
mayor, who's trying to take him down for all the crime in Liberty. Toni
drives Salvatore down to the docks to take care of it, but it's crawling with
police and they've got the fuzz on them like a knitted sweater. They have
only one chance - to jump the unfinished Callahan Bridge! They soar
majestically over the open water and land with a thud. Portland had been cut
off up to this point, but with the strikes toned down for the time being
Salvatore decides he should move more into Portland.
But by this point, Salvatore is fed up with the mayor. Toni ambushes him on
his run and shoots him. This effectively forces a bi-election, and Salvatore
is ready to capitalize on the opportunity. Then Salvatore drops a real
bombshell: He's making Toni! He experiences a ritual eerily similar to
O'Toole's execution, but he is indeed a made man after the experience. Toni's
really starting to get some respect in this town! He even gets a
congratulatory phone call from Ma Cipriani. He's finally won her approval.
Salvatore wastes no time. He knows exactly who he wants in office: Media and
entertainment millionaire Donald Love. First, he and Toni talk to a man who
knows about Don Franco Forelli, who had the mayor in his pocket. He did at
the behest of the Sicilians, who are trying to foster a feud between the
Liberty Families so they can take over. Apparently they've been somewhat
successful as war breaks out between the Forellis and Sindaccos, with a hit
called on Salvatore! Once again, Toni drives him out of there. Paulie
Sindacco tries to diffuse the situation but Toni run him down in a van. When
Franco Forelli starts to figure things out, Toni kills him.
Around the same time, Toni is approached my crooked LCPD cop Leon McAffrey.
He makes a proposition to Toni, offering protection from the law in exchange
for some services. He and Toni personally take down some Sindaccos. King
Courtney's Yardies are eyeing up Forelli turf, so Toni lures them into a trap
and the Yardies slaughter them. And when they have trouble keeping Newport,
Toni chases the Forellis out once more. Lastly, Toni demilitarizes a Forelli
munitions dump.
At the church, Toni meets 'Father' Ned Burner, a journalist posing as a
preacher so he can keep the stories coming. Toni covers up a doping story
that would have eclipsed Ned, and ends up stealing diamonds for him as well.
Toni also bangs up cars as they defile the holy atmosphere, and destroys a
false idol who did a radio interview instead of giving Ned a break. He feels
much better after this.
He gets a call from Donald and now they need to focus on the election. Toni
helps out Donald with some personal matters, namely a morgue party. Toni
helps him campaign as well, running against a man named O'Donovan. Toni beats
up the people covering O'Donovan's Forelli ties. It also turns out the
Forellis own a silent share in the company that manufactures the voting
machines, so Toni makes sure they're unusable. Toni also ensures that no
physical harm comes to Love on election day, which is no easy task and
involves a shotgun. Love sees he's down and has Toni rig the polls, putting
Love's name on uncounted votes. But it looks like there's some evidence
linking Love to the Leones, which Toni destroys. This effectively links Love
to Toni, and he loses the election by a landslide, along with his entire
fortune. He's out twenty million dollars. Makes Tommy Vercetti look downright
wealthy, doesn't he?
What's worse, the police have caught up to Salvatore and thrown him in
prison! Toni talks to Salvatore, posing as his lawyer in order to avoid
getting arrested. He instructs Toni to take the Hoods gang and go on rampage,
beating up every Forelli and Sindacco in town. That'll teach 'em. The Liberty
Sindaccos are pretty much dead anyway, but Toni has their leader Paulie
follow suit. But just because the Forellis and Sindaccos are now 100% out of
the picture doesn't mean that all is well. Not only have the Triads destroyed
their Chinatown monopoly and the Diablos are set to take over Hepburn
Heights, the yakuza are stockpiling weapons in Aspatria. Toni is stunned at
the sheer volume, but he takes care of it nonetheless. Despite his best
efforts, though, the yakuza will eventually control all of Torrington.
This has dealt a severe blow to local yakuza boss Kasen Kazuki. Shortly after
this little escapade, Toni receives a call from his wife, Toshiko. Toshiko
has been ignored for as long as they've been married, and is none too happy
about it. She wants to see him humiliated, defeated, and finally dead, and
she enlists Toni to that end. Although his inventory was decimated he is
picking up another order that day, which Toni scoops up first. Kazuki also
runs the biggest casino in Liberty. Toni intercepts the armoured van doing
the cash drop and burns Kazuki's money in the streets. She takes him on a
sort of date to the opera where she discusses the nature of life; this angers
Kazuki's men and they attack. Kazuki has worked out what's going on and is
gathering his men to kill Toshiko and Toni. Before he can attack, Toni meets
him in Belleville. After taking out the assembled yakuza, Toni kills Kazuki
in a duel on the rooftop. Toshiko is glad at this news, but she's lost
everything now and commits suicide.
Donald Love, meanwhile, is living pretty much in the streets. He has a plan,
though, and he needs Toni to help him. His old mentor, Avery Carrington, is
in town with some plans for some prime real estate development. Toni kills
him and hands them over to Love. Ned Burner witnesses the act and gets some
pictures of Carrington's death, but Toni quickly heads down to the church and
stops them going to press by killing Ned. With the help of Carrington and
Burner's corpses, Love throws another morgue party. Using the plans for the
Panlantic Corporation, Love is putting a deal together, but he needs some
land - he puts in an order for an 8-Ball exclusive, which Toni eventually
picks up and sets to work with. He destroys the Forellis' Fort Staunton,
opening up some space. The cartel are angry with him, though, and swarming
around his living quarters. Toni ships him out and gets him to Carrington's
private jet, which he no longer has any sue for. After some thanks and
promises, Donald leaves Liberty...for the time being.
And with that, Salvatore is released from prison. The Sicilians try to
interfere but Toni puts a stop to that. Salvatore is now royally pissed at
them, since they're responsible for every inch of his lost power. They want
peace now but Salvatore wants to ensure it's on his terms. He has a hunch
they're going after O'Donovan. They get there first, but Toni and Salvatore
chase them down and recover Liberty's beloved administrator. He now has the
mayor in his pocket and kills the treacherous Sicilian Massimo as an added
bonus. They head back to Leone HQ to celebrate. More than half their turf may
be at risk, but with the other two families gone the Leones are in some ways
even more powerful than they were to begin with. In reality, though, they are
only a shadow of their former selves, and in a few short years will
experience a violent fall from grace...
Mike and his friend Vinnie have been working for the Liberty City mafia for
years now. Since they've started, Vinnie's been trying to get them out.
Finally, after a long, long term of servitude, they've almost built up enough
brownie points to leave Liberty for good.
Before they can leave, they have to run a few more jobs for the mafia. After
that, Vinnie promises, they'll be outta there and on the road to a better
life (which, as you may know, has a lot of traffic). Mike's first job is to
take out a pusher named Frederico Fido: The mob provides him with the stuff
to sell, but he's been using more of it than he's selling, which is not a
very good profit margin at all. This service along with some valuable
information Vinnie offered up have has made the mafia only too happy to help
them out. Mike steals a Banshee from the lot in Atlantic Quays and they're
almost ready to roll. Mike's next job is to collect monthly protection money
from unwilling tenants. Vinnie and Mike will also need some fake ID's, so
Mike gets some from esteemed explosives expert and black market dealer 8-
Ball. Shortly after, Vinnie tells Mike to meet him at Calhallan Point. Mike
arrives just in time to watch his best friend die as Vinnie's car explodes.
After his recent hits, the cops are now onto Mike and think this one is his
as well. 8-Ball offers him refuge. As an old friend of Vinnie's, he promises
to try and find out who killed him in order to exact their revenge. In the
meantime, he's got some work to throw Mike. He disposes of Vinnie's body and
escorts some of 8-Ball's girls to their offices, and delivers a shipment of
raw nitro-glycerine to some of 8-Ball's clients. 8-Ball also hates a mob guy
named Scorelli. He has Mike take out his thugs and steal his favourite car.
Score one 8-Ball!
Mike returns to learn that Vinnie was involved with a barkeep named Johnnie.
He meets with him to find out what the deal is. Johnnie is another guy who
wants to find out who offed Vinnie, and while he's doing that Mike can pay
off Vinnie's massive debts to Johnnie (of the monetary variety.) His first
job is to escort his girlfriend home; her father is a big politician and he'd
rather not get caught. Unfortunately, she's quite drunk and more than a
little footloose, so the first thing she wants to do is go to another club.
This spirals into a huge romp around half of Liberty City. Mike's next task
is to collect Johnnie's shipment of fake liquor. A disco opens right across
the street, and that's not exactly the kind of people Johnnie wants hanging
around, so he gets Mike to sabotage the business with a car bomb. He also
gets Mike to steal a rocket launcher from the docks. His research, by the
way, has revealed that Vinnie's death was unrelated to the mafia. Mike also
intimidates a local senator into tabling his proposal to ban smoking in bars
and restaurants - again, this would be bad for Johnnie's business.
Johnnie would probably admit that he is himself an unscrupulous individual,
but that hardly means he'll tolerate other such people in his establishment.
Some guy beats the house using marked cards, so Johnnie sends Mike to teach
him a lesson and extort ten thousand dollars from his winnings. Mike returns
to the bar to find Johnnie dead and somebody high-tailing it out of there. He
catches up with the guy on the docks. He's King Courtney, Yardie leader, and
he claims Johnnie was already dead when he got there. Looks like Mike's going
to need a new boss. King Courtney recruits Mike as a driver in the most
important race of the season, Yardies versus yakuza. After Mike's admirable
performance in this race, Courtney gets him to test-drive a Formula One racer
that his Yardie friend intends to use in the Staunton Grand Prix. Mike
proceeds to help King Courtney deliver coffee. O_o
Courtney has a lead. He suspects Colombian Cartel leader Cisco of murdering
both Vinnie and Johnnie, and maybe some of his Yardies as well. Mike crashes
a Cartel meeting and strikes a blow to their operations, killing a handful of
Cisco's lieutenants. One of King Courtney's boys spots Cisco relaxing at a
local caf‚. Mike storms in and beats him to a pulp. Cisco did not, in fact,
kill any of King Courtney's friends or associates, but he is impressed with
Mike's brutality and rewards him by meeting him at his place. He's done with
King Courtney for now. Cisco has a few more ideas about who offed
Vinnie...the road goes ever onward.
Cisco starts out by having Mike runs a special drug-smuggling shoe for him.
One of the suppliers refuses to get to work until Cisco pays what he owes
her, so Cisco kidnaps her favourite doggie, then has Mike stuff the shoe's
secret compartment with bad, day-old organic meat, tell her it's her doggie,
and warn her she'll meet the same fate if she doesn't get to work straight
away. There would have been a million easier ways to persuade her, of course,
but no. He then has Mike blow up a facility than manufactures surveillance
equipment.
Liberty City yakuza boss Kassen Asuka currently has her niece Yuka in her
charge, and she isn't letting Cisco sell on her turf. Cisco orders Mike to
jack Yuka's limousine, pick her up from school and bring her back to Cisco's
hideout. Yuka's now an excellent blackmailing chip for Cisco, but it seems
Mike has outstayed his usefulness and he gets cut loose.
Coincidentally, he almost immediately gets a call from Asuka. She's heard a
lot about him and would be thrilled to meet him. Actually, she has some work
for him. Her niece Yuka has been tragically kidnapped! Do you suppose Mike
knows anything about this? He might. He's in deep, after all. Anyway, Asuka
wants her back, and Mike is just the guy to get her out of Cisco's clutches.
Mike agrees to it as long as Asuka helps him find Vinnie's killer. (The man's
obsessed!) Asuka promises to start working on it right away. Mike rescues
Yuka from the very men he turned her over to. She reveres him. (Mikesama!)
This success leads to Mike doing other jobs for Asuka, such as beating up a
casino owner who's been refusing to pay his protection racquet. Mike also
beats up a Vice City quarterback in town for a game against the Liberty City
team so that Asuka can profit greatly from the early betting rounds. Asuka
doesn't take rejection well and is starting to want Mike badly. Mike learns
what happens if you actually refuse Asuka, though: She tells somebody to kill
you. She wants Biff Rock's alligator shoes as a memento. When Mike gets
jumped at the studio, he kills the security guards. Biff wants the footage,
so Mike gives it to him in exchange for his alligator shoes. How sneaky.
Somebody is trying to sabotage Asuka's chain of sushi restaurants with rotten
blowfish. Mike tracks them down, steals the fishermen's delivery trucks and
brings back the evidence to charge the fishermen's union with sabotage. It
seems King Courtney is behind it all. Asuka kills the Yardies' delivery man
by feeding him in pieces to the very blowfish he would have rot in her
restaurants. The mafia want to screw with her business, too. She has some
operations going on back in Asia so she decides to kill two birds with one
stone and get some mafia 'volunteers.' Mike beats up a bunch of them, throws
them in the back of his trucks and drives them to the docks where Asuka will
have them deported to her labour camps.
And Asuka has finally got a solid lead! To get it, all he has to do is take
out one bad pimp who's been harassing Asuka's girls. Her resources are too
strained because of the yakuza-mafia turf war, but with that task completed
she divulges the location of the bomber who rigged Vinnie's car. When Mike
arrives, though, the bomber is already dead. The bomber's pager has a message
telling him to meet somebody at Wichita Gardens; he needs another bombing
like the one at Callahan Point. Mike doesn't know it yet, but the customer is
Vinnie, alive and well! Asuka informs Mike the police are after him for the
bomber's murder, so he gets out of there. He then receives a page from
someone called Xox (it's Vinnie) to meet him in Wichita Gardens. Cisco warns
him not to go - it's a trap. He summons him to his airport headquarters.
As it turns out, the bomber was one of Cisco's men. Mike guardedly goes to
Wichita Gardens. Two thugs are waiting to jump him. Mike takes them out, then
rejoins Cisco at the airport. Cisco wants to kill the assassin who killed the
bomber who (supposedly) killed Vinnie. Unfortunately, Mike's really no closer
to resolution.
All at once, Liberty City is declared a bubonic plague-infested area. Who
knew? Cisco needs to attend the meeting discussing this turn of events, but
if he steps outside he'll get killed, so he needs Mike to be his decoy
driver. As he hits the main drag, the Yardies start to chase after Cisco -
that is, Mike. The hoods and mafia come after him as well, but Mike's slick
driving skills keep him out of danger. Meanwhile, Cisco coasts on over to the
conference. Cisco finds out at that moment the assassin of the bomber is
hiding out in Pike Creek. Mike goes to check things out, but the assassin is
now after Cisco!
Mike arrives too late to save Cisco's worthless life. A car is speeding away
from Cisco's airport. Mike tails it, stopping it dead. Inside is - Vinnie!
All this time, Vinnie's been hiding in the shadows, pulling strings from the
background. Vinnie betrayed him. Vinnie now sics his boys on Mike, but Mike
takes care of them and attacks Vinnie. Everything bad that's happened to Mike
has been Vinnie's fault. He kills him.
He has Vinnie's money now, too. He gets a page from 8-Ball calling him back
to Pike Creek. 8-Ball's been hiding out for some time. Vinnie sent some guys
to take him out but he's fine now. 8-Ball warns Mike that the entire town
wants Mike's head because they think he has Vinnie's money - this is true,
but Vinnie wasted almost all of it, and all Mike got off him was $1000.
Cisco's men interrupt their conversation, thinking Mike killed him. He
decimates almost the cartel. The cops show up and arrest 8-Ball. Mike roughs
up Paul, the cartel's second-in-command and therefore new leader, for
information. The Yardies, Paul says, were holding back because they didn't
want to have to compete for Mike's money with the cartel, but now they'll be
after Mike in force. Mike kills Paul, and now it's time to face King
Courtney.
Mike parades through town killing every Yardie in sight. The police notice
and try to apprehend him. Just then, Asuka pages him again and asks him to
meet her in Wichita Gardens. She's not too keen on King Courtney either; he's
trying to push into her turf. She knows Courtney's situation, where he's
hiding, who's with him, etc. He's holed up in a veritable fortress but there
may be another way in. Asuka lends him a few men but she doesn't love him
anymore. How sad. To make matters worse, the mafia attack just as she leaves.
Looks like she knew about it and didn't say anything. She's an enemy now. At
the fortress, the men she sent turn and run just as he begins his assault!
Still, Mike breaks in and lays a bead on King Courtney. Yardie thugs attack
but Mike takes on all comers, then beats Courtney to a pulp. The Yardie
leader concedes defeat. There's that taken care of.
It's time to go. There's no chance of getting out of the city by car; the
police want him too, and they've set up roadblocks among other things. His
only shot is to head to the Shoreside airport and take Cisco's private plane.
He blows outta there and there's nothing anybody can do to stop him. As he
leaves Liberty City in the sunset, Mike reflects on the people he's met, and
expresses regret for not being able to save Cisco's life or do something more
for 8-Ball. Perhaps, he muses, he could settle down in Cisco's beloved
Colombia. In any event, he's free from the filth and corruption of his former
life forever.
Feeling rejected, Catalina leaves Carl Johnson and takes Claude Fido as her
new lover. The happy couple leaves San Andreas behind to start out in Liberty
City. We catch up to them now, nine years later.
Catalina, as I've explained, actually sees Claude as just a tool. She's
secretly become involved in the Colombian Cartel since her arrival in
Liberty. When Mike went on rampage, she and Claude decided to lie low, then
take advantage of the chaos to pull a bank heist. Traitorous witch! She
shoots Claude and leaves him for dead, then takes off. Claude is loaded into
a police-escorted prison van along with 8-Ball and someone else. The cartel
halt the convoy as it's going across Callahan bridge and throw open the
doors. They're looking for the other guy, but Claude and 8-Ball take the
chance and make a run for it.
They spy a nearby car. 8-Ball can't drive because of his hands, so Claude
does, but he does know where they can take cover. He directs the mute Claude
to Portland's Red Light District, where he has an acquaintance in Luigi
Goterelli. The bomb the cartel used to assault the police convoy took out
Callahan Bridge, so for the time being they're stuck there too. Luigi always
needs a good driver, so he hires Claude to take his girls from place to
place. There's also a new drug on the street called spank; Luigi asks Claude
to kill the pusher, steal his car and get it re-sprayed.
Incidentally, Claude ends up getting to meet Joey Leone, the son of Don
Salvatore, the man who currently has most of Liberty in his grip. Claude also
ensures that Luigi's business isn't threatened by competition. When the
annual policeman's ball rolls around, Claude makes sure Luigi's hos get there
for a handy profit. Meeting Joey Leone later proves to be a stroke of luck
for Claude, as it turns out Leone Jr has some work for him too. He gives
Claude a car, 8-Ball installs a car bomb, and Claude parks it in front of
Lips Forelli at St Marco's Bistro - always pay up when you owe a Leone. Joey
isn't any more pleased with the advent of spank than Luigi, and Claude ends
up killing another pusher, this one in Chinatown. He follows up by stealing
the Chinatown payroll van and handing it over to Joey, who filches it for
every penny in it.
The next time Claude sees Joey, he's with Salvatore Leone's capo, Toni
Cipriani. Cipriani has him on chauffeur service, first to Chinatown to
collect some protection money, then to St Marks. Joey has him on a few more
driving missions, to dispose of a corpse at a junkyard crusher, as the driver
in a bank heist, that sort of thing. This gets the attention of El Burro,
leader of the Diablos gang. The Diablos love racing, and Claude proves his
worth in a street race near Callahan Bridge. El Burro is impressed. Claude
performs yet another car bombing; he's becoming quite proficient at them by
now. When some Triads wreck his car, Claude teaches them a lesson. When a van
filled with Diablo-made pornography is stolen, Claude jacks it and directs it
to its intended destination.
Claude finds himself under the employ of Marty Chonks, owner of the Bitch'n
Dog Food Factory in Chinatown. His crooked bank manager has been scalping
him, so Claude escorts him to Marty's hood so he can execute him. He does the
same thing to some thieves who want a cut of his house insurance scam (though
this is really only fair since he hired them for it.) It just gets colder
from here. It seems he's got some serious money issues. He cashes in on his
wife's life insurance as well. The man she's having an affair with doesn't
look on that too kindly, and kills Chonks. Claude is short one boss. He turns
to Toni Cipriani.
The Triads have really been bugging Toni lately, so the first thing Claude
needs to do is wreak some Chinatown havoc to show them who's boss. Next thing
you know, Don Salvatore's called a meeting. The Triads have become a real
problem. Claude drives Joey Leone, Luigi Goterelli and Toni Cipriani to the
meeting. Halfway through the Triads chase after them with their fish vans,
but Claude evades them. The four enter Salvatore's conference room to discuss
the issue. In the meantime, Salvatore has Claude drive his girl Maria around
town. She has him drive her to her drug-dealing friend Chico, who tells her
about a party that night in Atlantic Quays that she decides to check out. The
police show up and they jet out of there. Before she retires for the night,
she thanks him for the first genuinely fun evening she's had in a long time.
The meeting doesn't go so well. There's only one solution, and that's all-out
war between Leones and Triads. Toni has a few ideas for Claude to take on,
and they all involve killing Triads. Claude uses another Triad fish van for a
car bomb, but this time he lets it off next to the gas canisters in the Triad
fish factory. BOOM! Up it goes! And that's a good temporary fix for the Triad
problem.
With that out of the way, Salvatore turns his attention towards the spank-
selling Colombian cartel. All his efforts to uncover the cartel schemes have
been thwarted. There's a rat someplace! Salvatore suspects a guy named Curly
Bob, so Claude tails him. The don's instincts were right. Curly Bob meets
with Catalina and cartel co-leader assistant Miguel at the docks next to a
big boat. He's a rat, all right. Claude kills him.
Salvatore realises the cartel must be using the boat as their spank factory,
and he wants Claude to blow it sky-high. He gets 8-Ball to handle the 'boom'
department. It's a pricey venture, but worth it. Claude and 8-Ball drive over
to the docks; 8-Ball sets the bomb while Claude provides covering fire with a
rifle. Salvatore is most pleased.
Despite his promise that Claude would be a made man, though, he sets Claude
up. He says all he wants Claude to do is take an incriminating vehicle to the
trash compactor, but Maria phones for Claude to meet her at Callahan Point
instead. The job's a trap; Salvatore thinks Claude and Maria are going behind
his back. He offered up Claude to the cartel. Maria isn't about to let that
happen. She's with Kasen Asuka, fresh off a curve from trying to double-cross
Mike. They take a boat to Staunton Island. It looks like Claude will be
staying there for a while. Asuka leaves with the invitation to set up in her
Belleville warehouse and visit her at her condo once he has. A short time
after, a news report tells of Callahan Bridge's repair.
Asuka is willing to let Claude work for the yakuza, but she wants to make
sure she has Claude's unswerving loyalty; after all, the mafia and the yakuza
are in the middle of a very bloody gang war. Claude duly takes out Salvatore
Leone and returns to Asuka's condo. Her brother Kenji is there waiting with
her and Maria. He now owns the casino and he'll have some work for Claude
later on. For now, Asuka tasks Claude with taking out all the meddlesome
mafia spying on her assets. That's the final push. The mafia are done. Claude
goes to the condo again, but it seems a reporter has been hiding out in the
bay and spying on Asuka and Maria. Claude takes care of him. He also delivers
a man named Ray his paycheque from Asuka. She's his man inside the LCPD. He's
having some troubles right now, which Claude agrees to help him with later,
but he does provide useful information: For example, one of Asuka's drivers
is an undercover cop whom Claude needs to fire.
Other Staunton residents are starting to become aware of Claude, and his
services are in high demand. Without Mike to drive for him anymore, King
Courtney needs a new skilled driver. He invites Claude to a competition among
Yardies and other hopefuls from the outside. The winner becomes Courtney's
new official driver. Claude wins, if you can believe it. Courtney tests
Claude's ability by challenging him to drive up to Hepburn Heights and kill a
bunch of Diablos. Claude passes. (Turning his back on his old boss, El
Burro...harsh stuff.) His first big mission is to steal some cars for a few
of King Courtney's hits - specifically, a mafia Sentinel, a yakuza Stinger
and a Diablo Stallion.
Courtney needs a stash from a car he has at Bedford Point. When Claude
searches the car, he finds a note from Catalina. She knows he's been up to no
good. Also, she's sent a small army of suicide bombers to take him out.
Everybody's a critic. Claude barely manages to escape with his life. That's
the last of Claude's dealings with King Courtney, then, isn't it. He takes up
Kenji on his offer.
Claude soon returns to Bedford Point, but this time he's with a kanbu Kenji's
had him bust out of jail. Kenji also has a debt to repay; a man once did him
a favour and he's only now found out how to reciprocate. The man loves
motorcars, so Kenji makes a long list of hot wheels to offer him as a gift.
Claude jacks one model of each and drives them to a garage in Newport. Even
though the yakuza's mafia troubles are effectively over, they're still facing
war from the cartel, and the Colombians are negotiating an alliance with the
Yardies. Claude breaks up the meeting as well as its attendees. Apparently,
he doesn't do so well. Yardie spank-dealers are everywhere! Kenji gives
Claude one chance to redeem himself. Claude accepts, killing every Yardie
dealer on the streets of Liberty! Kenji still isn't very happy, though, so
Claude leaves well enough alone. Where to now?
Ray has some work for him, so it'd be a pity to pass it up. Ray wants him to
protect his friend Phil Cassidy from the cartel, whom he's maddened. In
return, from that point on Phil gives him great rates on any hardware he buys
from him. Claude also collects some embarrassing evidence against Donald
Love, stopping it from becoming public knowledge. When Ray suspects his
partner is a rat, he hires Claude to take him out. Unfortunately he does it
all wrong. The guy survives! Claude ambushes his van between Carson General
Hospital and the courthouse. Whew! Crisis averted.
Mr Donald Love, grateful for Claude's previous service, has some further uses
for him. Love's first task for Claude is to rescue one of his contacts from
some South Americans - the same guy the cartel were looking for when they
jumped the convoy on Callahan Bridge and unwittingly set Claude and 8-Ball
loose. Love then wants him to turn his back on Kenji. In order to buy more
real estate, he wants a gang war. The yakuza and cartel are already mad at
each other anyway, so Claude steals a cartel car, hops out and fires a rocket
launcher at a window. Kenji and everyone else inside dies instantly. It's on.
Love has an interesting way to transport goods from outside the country to
Liberty: A private plane does a flyby and drops them into the water. He asks
Claude to retrieve them. As it turns out, though, they were actually just
decoys. Now it's time to retrieve the real merchandise. Claude finally finds
its location after traipsing around all of Shoreside. While there, he happens
to spot Catalina, Miguel and Asuka having a little chat. Catalina has it.
Asuka was effectively fooled by Claude's using a Colombian car: She thinks
Miguel killed Kenji. Miguel denies it but Asuka isn't buying. Catalina takes
off, but not before Asuka requests her services at a later date. She proceeds
to torture Miguel.
Claude next acts as escort for Love's friend. Love delivers the package to
his friend, but others want it. SWAT teams surround him. Claude has to see
him safely through the situation. The next time he goes to see Love, though,
he's gone. What? Oh well. Ray needs to get out of town, fast. Claude drives
him to Francis International Airport. Now there's a nice, easy way to make
some cash. D-Ice, leader of the Red Jacks, has some more interesting stuff
for him to do.
Recently a new gang has surfaced, the Purple Nines. D-Ice sees himself as
oldschool gangster, while the Nines are worthless young punks. It's bad for
his rep to have them marching around, so Claude roars around D-Ice's turf
blowing them away. They respond by getting armoured vehicles, but it requires
a great deal of armour to withstand an explosion. Then D-Ice takes a break to
deal with some other issues, namely the rigging of his car and a whole bunch
of platinum suddenly up for grabs at the airstrip (a Federal Reserve flight
crashed.) Okay, back to the Nines. One street brawl pushes them out of the
picture - for the time being. Asuka needs Claude again.
Actually, to start with she does him a nice service. Catalina has three
squads roaming Liberty whose sole purpose is to hunt down Claude. Claude
lures the squads to Pike Creek where some of Asuka's men are waiting to cut
them down. Catalina also has plans for making spank way big. She's using The
Kappa Coffeehouse as a front for selling it. Sell drugs on Asuka's turf? I
don't think so. Claude blows it away. Asuka continues to press Miguel for
information. She's able to warn Claude of a spank shipment coming in by
plane; Claude goes out on the water and shoots it down as it's coming in.
Claude returns to the condo.
Asuka is dead. Maria has been kidnapped. Catalina has left a ransom note in
the amount of $500,000. Claude gets the money and shows up; he's got no other
choice. He hands it over, but Catalina isn't about to just let him walk away.
She orders her Colombian lackeys to kill him, then takes off in a helicopter.
Claude wrestles his way free and chases after her by car. Catalina thought
she was safe, but when she spies Claude she immediately tries to get airborne
again. Claude rescues Maria and shoots down the helicopter using a rocket
launcher.
The two escape and prepare to lie low for a while. Maria admits that she
loves him. Her incessant chatter seems to irritate him somewhat, however. A
shot is heard.
So now you know the entire GTA story, back-to-front. (That is, assuming
you're reading this guide in the order it is presented.) If you did in fact
read the entire thing - I'll be impressed if you are, it's a wall of text
more than seventeen pages long - you'll have been intrigued by the many and
varied characters who inhabit the Grand Theft Auto universe. Unfortunately,
we were blazing through the story so we didn't have time to look at each and
every one in-depth. But wait! This section is filled with general
information, scant biographies and interesting thoughts as they occur to me.
Enjoy it; this one was a lot of typing.
Full name: Unknown
Nicknames: 8-Ball
Affiliation: Free agent
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Black
Family: None
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Bald
Eye colour: Brown
8-Ball is Liberty City's local explosives expert and black marketer. He's not
so much a gangster as he is a shopkeeper; if you need a bomb, you go to him
and buy one, and he doesn't discriminate as long as you have the cash. He's
also willing to actually set a bomb if you need him to, or even to rig a car
bomb.
Toni obtains his services on behalf of Donald Love, 'clearing' some land so
that Love can work his deal with Panlantic Corporation.
8-Ball befriends Mike early in the game (both figuratively and literally) and
offers to help him find Vinnie's killer. He also throws him some work now
that he's got nobody to lean on. Soon, however, Vinnie catches on and sends
some punks to ruin his day. 8-Ball has to go into hiding and disappears
without a trace. By the time he and Mike meet again, they've both got it all
figured out. The Colombians attack as they're talking, however, and 8-Ball is
injured too badly to run. Mike gets out of there but 8-Ball is arrested. Mike
escapes Liberty City shortly after but can't help feeling he could have done
more to help 8-Ball.
As the police are escorting him across Callahan Bridge, the Colombians
inadvertently bust both he and Claude Fido loose. They take refuge in the
employ of Luigi Goterelli. 8-Ball soon returns to his fine establishment and
eventually runs a few missions alongside Claude. He disappears near the end
of the game, and nobody knows where he went.
RANDOM FACTS
8-Ball references the damage to his hands several times during GTAIII. This
is because a policeman accidentally dropped a pot of boiling fat over his
hands during his arrest. Ouch. No wonder he can't drive.
But if that's true, how come if you raise a weapon at him in GTAIII, he pulls
out a shotgun and blows you away? Apparently he has enough dexterity in his
hands to fire a shotgun but not a pistol yet he can still manufacture
volatile explosives. Isn't that backwards?
Full name: Mitch Baker
Nicknames: Big Mitch
Affiliation: Bikers
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: None
Base: Vice City
Hair colour: Bald
Eye colour: Brown
Big Mitch led Vice City's biker gang in the 80s. Kent Paul is interested in
procuring his services as security for a gig he has planned, so Tommy
Vercetti politely requests them. Baker tests Tommy's worth by seeing how well
he rides a motorbike, as that is the measure of a man to him. Baker's
lieutenants were impressed, so Tommy is then charged with delivering Vice
City a sharp kick in the slats while riding a bike. That'll show America. His
final rite of initiation is to steal back Baker's personal bike. After this,
Big Mitch is only too happy to lend Paul his services.
RANDOM FACTS
Baker is a Vietnam War veteran.
Baker and Kent Paul are not exactly friends (which is why Paul sent Tommy
instead of just going himself.
Full name: Mark Wayne
Nicknames: B Dup
Affiliation: None; formerly Grove Street Families
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Black
Family: None
Base: Los Santos
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
B Dup was once a proud member of the Grove Street Families. Unfortunately, he
soon fell victim to crack. He even helped the Ballas with their shipments.
Big Bear became his slave just for a few sniffs of it once in a while. CJ,
Sweet and Big Smoke approached him to try and get him back into the fold, but
he refused. They visit him again after they return to Los Santos. Big Bear
wants back in, but B Dup still obstinately stays out of it. His loss.
RANDOM
B Dup sounds kind of like Beat Up. Mark Wayne sounds kind of like Mark Twain.
Full name: Barry Thorne
Nicknames: Big Bear
Affiliation: Grove Street Families
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Black
Family: None
Base: Los Santos
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Like B Dup, Big Bear was originally a proud member of the Grove Street
Families. Unfortunately, he found crack and became B Dup's slave for just a
few sniffs of it once in a while. CJ, Sweet and Big Smoke approached him to
try and get him back into the fold, but he refused. They visit again after
they return to Los Santos. B Dup still wants nothing to do with them, but Big
Bear is tired of it all by now; he turns on B Dup and rejoins his old homies.
Full name: Melvin Harris
Nicknames: Big Smoke
Affiliation: Rollin' Heights Ballas
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Black
Family: None
Base: Los Santos
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Big Smoke was once a true-blue Grove Street Families homie, but the Ballas
introduced him to crack and that was it. He sold out the GSF to the Ballas
and led them to a near-slaughter, but CJ and the police showed up before it
turned into a GSF bloodbath. He continued to work for the Ballas and helped
them with their shipments. Big Smoke actually did a lot to help the community
- donating to children's hospitals and orphanages, opening new recreation
centres, and other forms of charity work. Of course, he did it with the money
and status he gained by destroying the hood and selling out his closest
friends, so there's two sides to every coin. CJ infiltrates the Ballas crack
fortress and makes his way to the top floor where Big Smoke is. He's a wreck.
They scuffle and CJ is forced to kill him.
RANDOM FACTS
I was surprised to learn that Big Smoke was a turncoat. He seemed like such a
nice guy!
Full name: Ned Burner
Nicknames: Father Ned
Affiliation: Civilian
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: Unknown
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Ned Burner was a newspaper reporter who posed as a preacher in St Mark's
church. From this position he was able to manipulate a number of people,
including Toni Cipriani, whom he had do some work for him. Ned is willing to
do anything for a good story to further his career, even if it means he has
to create one himself. Toni causes all manner of havoc that Ned is able to
write about. He eventually photographs Toni and Donald Love killing Avery
Carrington, but Toni kills Ned before they can go to press. Ned later attends
Love's morgue party.
Full name: Michelle Cannes
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Civilian
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: Unknown
Base: San Fierro
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
A San Fierro mechanic, one of CJ's lovers. She prefers men with high fat and
high sex appeal. On dates, she prefers bars, nightclubs and dangerously fast
driving.
Full name: Avery Carrington
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Civilian
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: Unknown
Base: Vice City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Carrington is a big-time Vice City real estate developer. He gets Tommy to
help him out on quite a few jobs and helps the Vercettis acquire quite a few
properties of their own, including Vercetti Estates, where Tommy sets up his
gang's right and proper base of operations. He also introduces him to his
prot‚g‚, Donald Love, and he soon becomes Tommy's financial advisor.
Eventually he begins plans for the Panlantic Corporation in Liberty City, but
Love needs the money and has Toni Cipriani kill Carrington so Love can broker
the deal instead. Carrington later attends Love's morgue party.
RANDOM FACTS
Avery Carrington is responsible for one of the most famous quotes in GTA
history: 'Donald, you just shut up and listen, and you might learn something.
Now, nothing brings down real estate prices quicker than a good old-fashioned
gang war, except maybe a disaster, like a biblical plague or something, but
that may be going too far in this case. You getting this down, you four-eyed
prick?' He is. In GTAIII, Donald says, 'Nothing drives down real estate
prices like a good old-fashioned gang war, except maybe an outbreak of
plague...but that may be going too far in this case.'
Full name: Catalina, surname unknown
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Colombian Cartel
Nationality: Mexican
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Family: Cousin - Cesar Vialpando
Base: Originally Los Santos and San Fierro, later Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Catalina is traitorous and quite insane. CJ first met Catalina as she was
robbing a store in Los Santos. Somewhat in fear for his life, CJ went along
with her and helped her commit all manner of crimes. The two pursued a
romantic relationship, but fell out. Catalina took a new lover, Claude Fido,
even though she was just exploiting him. Claude challenged CJ to a car race,
but CJ won handily. Catalina left in anger for Liberty City.
After a bank heist in the chaos that was late-2000 Liberty City, Catalina
turned on Claude and shot him. How long she had been involved with the
Colombian cartel before this time is unknown, but from that point she openly
declared herself as its leader. Her spank-selling operations drove the masses
wild. To take her revenge on Claude, at the end of the game she kidnaps his
new flame Maria, killing Kasen Asuka in the process (heartless--!). Claude
hunts her down and kills her, rescuing Maria.
RANDOM FACTS
I have a metaphor for you to ponder. 'Catalina is a pet viper.' As your
friend, she's docile and loyal. But at any moment she could turn and sink her
fangs into your neck. Okay, so it's a pretty lame metaphor.
Full name: Vincenzo Chili
Nicknames: Lucky
Affiliation: Mafia
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity: White
Family: Unknown
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Vincenzo was a lower-ranking mobster than Toni when he left, but he's risen
above him during his absence. During those four years, Vincenzo worked very
hard to get in good with Salvatore. When Toni returned, Vincenzo set him up
and gave him work to do. Toni saw this reversal as a betrayal and their
relationship was less than cordial. Vincenzo eventually set up Toni, but Toni
turned the tables and killed Vincenzo instead.
Full name: Marty Chonks
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Civilian
Nationality: Chinese
Ethnicity: Asian
Family: Wife - name unknown
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Marty has some serious financial problems. He hires Claude to take care of a
few of them. He's as low a lowlife as it gets, even killing his own wife to
cash in on her insurance policy. Unfortunately, his wife was having an
affair, and the guy she was seeing gets mad and kills Marty. Well, he had it
coming, didn't he?
Full name: Cipriani, first name unknown
Nicknames: Ma Cipriani
Affiliation: Mafia
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity: White
Family: Husband - name unknown, deceased
Son - Toni
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Grey
Eye colour: Brown
Mother of Toni Cipriani. Her husband was in the mafia, too. She sees her
husband as the ideal human being and tries to hold up Toni to that standard,
and as such he's constantly disappointing her - not that she isn't proud of
him. She passes off her constant admonishments as encouragement, even the hit
she calls on him (and later ends once he gets made.) She may be old, but she
still packs a wallop.
Full name: Antonio Cipriani
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Mafia
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity: White
Family: Father - name unknown, deceased
Mother - Ma Cipriani
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Toni followed in the footsteps of his father, who was once a big-time mafia
player in Liberty City. He joined his father's crime family, the Leones, one
of the three Liberty Families. He was eventually tasked with whacking a made
man. After this he was forced to skip town and wait for the whole thing to
blow over. He returned once it did, but things back home were less than
peaceful.
This begins Liberty City Stories. Read its section for more information.
Here's the abbreviated version: Toni starts working for the mob again,
getting tighter and tighter with Don Salvatore Leone until essentially
becoming his right-hand gangster, as he performs many invaluable services for
him. He reacquaints himself with old friends and makes new ones, such as JD
O'Toole, his mom, and Maria. He runs jobs for big names like Love and Kasen,
among others. Salvatore sets in motion a plan to remove the other two
families, Forellis and Sindaccos, from Liberty, permanently, and gain total
control of the city. Toni helps him and they half-succeed, but at terrible
costs. Victory is fleeting.
Toni became Salvatore's capo and maintained some measure of influence. He had
some jobs for Claude to do after Catalina betrayed him, but ironically it was
Claude who ended up killing his boss.
RANDOM FACTS
With Don Salvatore out of the picture, what's left of the Leone crime family
would need a new head. It's kind of hard to say whether Toni or Joey
succeeded Salvatore. The laws of inheritance make Joey the natural choice,
but because he's young and immature, Toni might have stepped up to the plate
instead. We will see.
Toni Cipriani is the first character to be a non-player character BEFORE he
was a playable one. That's a pretty benign distinction, though.
It's implied that Toni has anger issues.
He also has some really great tidbits of dialogue, a few of which made me
laugh out loud. Plus his missions are the wittiest of any GTA game - The
Portland Chainsaw Masquerade, Don in 60 Seconds, The Guns of Leone, The
Trouble with Triads, Love on the Rocks, The Whole 9 Yardies, Passion of the
Heist...to name a few! That stuff is gold.
There are repeated references in LCS to Toni being too thin. In III, he's a
big huge fat guy.
Full name: Unknown
Nicknames: Cisco
Affiliation: Colombian Cartel
Nationality: Colombian
Ethnicity: South American
Family: None
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Cisco was the Colombian cartel leader in GTAA. He had an extremely prissy,
uptight, high-falootin' nature and style of living. He greatly prized his
home country, high fashion and the virtues of illegal importation. He took
Mike under his wing and treated him like a son. Cisco was eventually forced
to hide out at the Shoreside airport, but Vinnie found him out anyway and
sent some men to kill him. Mike was blamed for the murder, one more problem
for him in a city full of them.
Full name: General Juan Garcia Cortez
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Former military
Nationality: Cuban
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Family: Daughter - Mercedes
Base: Vice City
Hair colour: White
Eye colour: Brown
Cortez served with Ricardo Diaz in at least one war. They're old friends;
Cortez doesn't yet know that Diaz is evil. The game begins with Cortez
holding a yacht party, which is referred to several times throughout the game
because all the Vice City playas are in attendance. Cortez is keeping his
military ties strong and abuses them to gain restricted weapons and a great
deal of influence. He also steals some of his weapons from France. He gives
Tommy a great deal of work when he's first starting out, partly because when
the thugs ran off with Sonny Forelli's money Cortez got burned to; he was the
one who set up the exchange. Halfway through the game he gets spooked and
must hastily return to his home country. Presumably he comes back a year or
two later, he said he would.
Full name: Caramia Mercedes Cortez
Nicknames: Mercedes
Affiliation: Civilian
Nationality: American; second-generation Cuban
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Family: Father - Juan
Base: Vice City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Daughter of one of the most influential men in Vice City. General Cortez is
quite protective of her but she's quite capable. After Cortez leaves he asks
Tommy Vercetti to keep an eye out for her while he's away. Inviting her into
the mob was probably not what he had in mind. Mercedes assists Tommy in
acquiring several high-value real estate packages, such as The Malibu club.
She also 'acts' in one or two of Steve Scott's 'films.'
Full name: Colonel Ricardo Diaz
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Former military
Nationality: Cuban
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Family: Unknown
Base: Vice City
Hair colour: White
Eye colour: Brown
Served with General Cortez in at least one war. An old friend of Cortez's,
who doesn't yet know he's evil. In reality, Diaz killed Lance Vance's
brother. Lance has been plotting his revenge ever since. Diaz was also
responsible for Tommy's chunk of cash going missing. Tommy gets in tight with
Diaz to pump him for information, then they kill him after so long. Good
riddance.
Full name: Unknown
Nicknames: D-Ice
Affiliation: Red Jacks
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Black
Family: Brother - name unknown
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Ice, ice, baby... D-Ice leads the Red Jacks. He's also one of Claude's
bosses. All of his missions revolve around getting spank off his streets. The
cartel are dealing it so he wants them gone. More to the point, a new gang
called the Purple Nines is pushing into his turf, and every day they stay
there the Red Jacks look weak. Claude effectively wipes out the Purple Nines.
D-Ice's brother is only seen during one mission, 'Rumble,' in which he and
Claude beat the living tar out of a bunch of Purple Nines in a street brawl.
Full name: Unknown
Nicknames: Dwaine
Affiliation: Grove Street Families
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Black
Family: Unknown
Base: San Fierro
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Hew and Jethro used to work at the Vice City seaport until Tommy bought the
business and shipped them out, so to speak. Dwaine is one of three guys who
becomes a mechanic at CJ's San Fierro garage. He continues working there the
entire game. Dwaine is a close friend of The Truth's, and is wise to all his
inside info on the government and snake-headed aliens.
Full name: Unknown
Nicknames: El Burro
Affiliation: Diablos
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Family: None
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Brown
Eye colour: Brown
The Diablos leader loves fast cars and he loves racing them. This puts him in
stiff competition with King Courtney and his Yardies, who also love street
racing. It doesn't help that they just plain dislike each other. Claude
becomes his driver for a while, but later kills a bunch of Diablos to prove
his guts and his new loyalty for King Courtney. It's a harsh world.
RANDOM FACTS
He has a Spanish motif. Diablo means devil. El means the. I'm told Burro
means donkey.
Full name: Unknown
Nicknames: Emmet
Affiliation: Grove Street Families
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Black
Family: None
Base: Los Santos
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Before CJ left Los Santos, the turf wars between GSF and Ballas weren't quite
so fierce. Emmet sold them their firearms, but they were all pretty lame and
outdated. By the time San Andreas starts, they need much more powerful
weaponry. They only visit Emmet to tide them over until they can find a
better arms dealer (it's kind of like building a better mousetrap.)
Full name: Claude Fido
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Various
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: None
Base: Originally San Fierro, later Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Claude Fido started out in San Fierro, where he owned a garage. It was from
here that he learned his madd driving skillz. In 1992 he met Catalina who
took him as her new lover. He challenged the guy she was mad at, Carl
Johnson, to a race. CJ won. Claude lost the garage but it didn't matter
because he was leaving San Fierro anyway: He and Catalina were off to start a
new life together in Liberty City.
Catalina only chose to love him for revenge and business matters, however.
After the chaos Mike caused in late 2000 she and Claude pulled a bank heist,
where she then shot him. He was being escorted in a police convoy when the
cartel blew his prison van open, inadvertently freeing both he and 8-Ball. 8-
Ball suggested they go to Luigi Goterelli for cover, and here begins GTAIII.
Read its section if you want to know more.
Summarized version: Claude begins to work for Luigi Goterelli and eventually
works his way up in the mafia, running jobs for the likes of Toni Cipriani
and Salvatore Leone. He befriends Maria and they become a de facto item.
Around the time Callahan Bridge is repaired, Claude starts to work for yakuza
leader and Maria's friend Kasen Asuka as well as her brother Kenji, among
others. Eventually he kills Kenji to start a cartel-yakuza gang war, and it
all snowballs from here. He has several confrontations with Catalina as she
tries to off him once and for all. He returns to Asuka's condo one day to
find her dead and Maria gone. He pursues Catalina, kills her and rescues
Maria. In short, he gets a lot more accomplished in Liberty City than he ever
did in San Fierro. It would have still been better for him to stay, though.
Curse you, Cat.
RANDOM FACTS
Remember, he doesn't officially have a name. Claude Fido is the name I gave
him. You can read my rationale in the Introduction.
The fact that Claude never speaks is sort of an interesting issue. Well, back
in 2001, main characters in video games didn't necessarily have to speak
because the supporting characters could supposedly hold the show all by
themselves, and giving him a voice would expend development resources that
could be put to other things. In other words, his dialogue was assumed.
Players noticed his abnormal silence; he didn't so much as grunt in pain when
shot. Rockstar finally put this point to rest in San Andreas: He's mute.
Full name: Frederico Fido
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Mafia
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: None
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Frederico is a pusher who's using more of his merchandise than he's selling,
so the mafia have Mike make an example out of him.
RANDOM FACTS
Frederico's presence totally violates my code of inclusion because he only
appears in one mission. But I want to make sure my theory on Claude Fido's
name remains solid, so here he is. Voila.
Actually, if you're wondering Mike can't say his name. 'Here I come
Federa...Fido...ahh...Freddy, to take you down.' You heard the man, he called
him Fido. Okay, so it's weak, shoot me.
Full name: Sonny Forelli
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Forellis
Nationality: American; ethnic Italian
Ethnicity: White
Family: None
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Sonny Forelli was leader of the Forelli crime family in the 80s and held
Liberty City in his iron grip. When Tommy Vercetti was released him down
Sonny decided to ship him down to Vice City in order to keep him out of the
way. Tommy promptly lost $3 million of Sonny's and he continued to harass him
throughout the game. Tommy eventually renounced the Forellis as his bosses.
When Sonny personally came down to collect his money, Tommy killed him.
Somehow the Forelli family continued anyway, but without Sonny it lost much
of its influence in Liberty City.
Full name: Luigi Goterelli
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Leones
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity: White
Family: None
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Mafia man who has an establishment in Portland's Red Light District. An old
friend of 8-Ball's, he offers refuge to he and Claude at the beginning of
GTAIII. His boys start trying to kill Claude after he takes out Salvatore
Leone.
Full name: Unknown
Nicknames: Guppy
Affiliation: Mountain Cloud Triads
Nationality: Chinese
Ethnicity: Asian
Family: None
Base: San Fierro
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Woozie's left-hand man. He does some important jobs for Woozie, particularly
in fighting the Da Nang Boys, and delivers CJ some of his assignments. Guppy
leads the final assault on the container ship. He, CJ and some Triads
approach in a helicopter, but it gets shot down. CJ is the only survivor.
Poor Guppy.
RANDOM FACTS
A guppy is a small fish, but it probably doesn't mean anything - although the
Triads in Liberty City are fishmongers.
Full name: Officer Jimmy Hernandez
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Los Santos Police Department
Nationality: Mexican
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Family: None
Base: Los Santos
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
One of crooked cop Frank Tenpenny's two partners. He joined their cell
shortly before San Andreas begins. Tenpenny trusts him less than he does
Pulaski. He is actually a good kid at heart like Tenpenny probably was at
some point. Tenpenny and Pulaski were forced to accept him, and they
attempted to initiate him by making him handle all the dirty work. While
Tenpenny was responsible for Pendelbury's death, it was Hernandez who
actually pulled the trigger. Late in the game Tenpenny gets scared that
Hernandez is going to turn on him, so he tries to kill both Hernandez and CJ.
Pulaski knocks out Hernandez with a shovel then makes CJ dig their grave. In
the meantime Hernandez wakes up and gets the jump on Pulaski, but Pulaski
shoots him and he falls into the grave. CJ escapes.
Full name: Unknown
Nicknames: Jethro
Affiliation: Grove Street Families
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: None
Base: San Fierro
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
He and Dwaine used to work in the Vice City seaport until Tommy bought the
business and shipped them out, so to speak. Jethro is one of three guys who
becomes a mechanic at CJ's San Fierro garage. He continues working there the
entire game. Jethro is a friend of The Truth's, and is wise to all his inside
info on the government and snake-headed aliens.
Full name: Unknown
Nicknames: Jizzy B
Affiliation: T-Bonez
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Black
Family: None
Base: San Fierro
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Owns the Pleasure Domes Club in San Fierro, co-leader of the T-Bonez. The T-
Bonez are providing the Los Santos Ballas their crack. CJ infiltrates the
gang to learn more on a tip from Woozie. CJ befriends him and runs a few jobs
for him. Eventually he learns beyond doubt that Jizzy is involved with the
crack that's been ruining his home, goes to the club and pops him.
Full name: John, surname unknown
Nicknames: Jonnie
Affiliation: Nobody
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: None
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Owns a bar in the Red Light District, former partner of Vinnie. Mike
confronts him about Vinnie's death and starts to work for him. Eventually
Vinnie gets wise and kills him.
Full name: Beverly Johnson
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Grove Street Families
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Black
Family: Son - Sean
Son - Carl
Son - Brian (deceased)
Daughter - Kendl
Base: Los Santos
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Beverly was always loyal to Grove Street. She raised her children well,
taught them values and to never forget where they came from. Her murder is
what compels CJ to return to Los Santos. Evidently, she was murdered by the
Ballas driving a Green Sabre shortly before the game begins.
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
\/ \/
| Brian Johnson [CHAR032] |
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
\/ \/
Full name: Brian Johnson
Nicknames: None (BJ maybe?)
Affiliation: Grove Street Families
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Black
Family: Mother - Beverly (deceased)
Brother - Sean
Brother - Carl
Sister - Kendl
Base: Los Santos
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
A GSF homie all the way, Brian was apparently an upstanding citizen in that
regard. He died five years before San Andreas begins because CJ screwed up.
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
\/ \/
| Carl 'CJ' Johnson [CHAR033] |
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
\/ \/
Full name: Carl Johnson
Nicknames: CJ
Affiliation: Grove Street Families
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Black
Family: Mother - Beverly (deceased)
Brother - Sean
Brother - Brian (deceased)
Sister - Kendl
Base: San Andreas state
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
CJ was once a true-blue GSF homie but he tired of the lifestyle after a
while. He snapped when a mistake he made allowed his brother Brian to die. He
left in 1987 for Liberty City. His mother's murder prompted him to return to
Los Santos. It's an interesting parallel, isn't it? One death in the family
compels him to leave, and a second one compels him to return.
Anyway, this begins San Andreas. Read its section for more information.
Here's the abbreviated version: CJ goes around trying to make things right in
his hometown, but they're just too messed up to fix. The GSF's turf war with
the Ballas doesn't make it any easier, and thanks to Big Smoke's treachery
there's almost a GSF wipe-out by the Ballas. CJ flees to the desert just
outside Los Santos, where he meets Woozie. After winning a garage from Claude
Fido, he reunites with Woozie in San Fierro and takes the whole team (Kendl,
Cesar, etc - not Sweet, he's in jail) with him. Things aren't much better
there than they were in Los Santos. Eventually Woozie builds his resources
and opens a Triad casino in Las Venturas called the Four Dragons. He and CJ
spend much time trying to end the competition from Caligula's, the mafia-
owned casino. Eventually he sees fit to return to Los Santos where he stays
in the pad of Madd Dogg, a new friend, and eventually reclaims Grove Street
from the Families and Cesar's neighbourhood from the Vagos. All is well. CJ
still on top!
Full name: Kendl Johnson
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Grove Street Families
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Black
Family: Mother - Beverly (deceased)
Brother - Sean
Brother - Brian (deceased)
Brother - Carl
Base: San Andreas state
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
CJ's sister. Neither CJ nor Sweet approves of her boyfriend Cesar Vialpando
initially, but as time goes on they become good friends. Kendl isn't too keen
on her brothers' GSF activities at first, but she loosens up eventually. She
joins CJ at his new San Fierro garage and elects to handle the business end
of it. She follows him to Las Venturas, too, and eventually all the way back
to Grove Street before returning to the garage.
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
\/ \/
| Sean 'Sweet' Johnson [CHAR035] |
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
\/ \/
Full name: Sean Johnson
Nicknames: Sweet
Affiliation: All the Families
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Black
Family: Mother - Beverly (deceased)
Brother - Brian (deceased)
Brother - Carl
Sister - Kendl
Base: Los Santos
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Sweet looks down on CJ for running away when the going got too tough and
hardly welcomes his return when Beverly dies. Even by the end of the game he
hasn't softened any. Sweet completely believes that nothing, nothing, is more
important than the hood. Big Smoke therefore failed to persuade him to sell
out where he had succeeded with almost everybody else. Sweet disapproved of
the crazy idea but never expected Smoke to actually follow throw. When Smoke
lures the GSF into a Ballas trap, Sweet is apprehended halfway through the
fight. Actually, Sweet spends the overwhelming majority of the game in
prison. His release inspires CJ and his crew to return to Los Santos, where
they kick the Ballas and the Vagos out of their neighbourhoods. CJ has other
things to work on - the garage in San Fierro and the casino in Las Venturas,
just to name two - but all Sweet wants to do is stay in Grove Street. Grove 4
life, man.
Full name: Cam Jones
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Vercettis
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: Unknown
Base: Vice City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Cam Jones was in jail when Tommy first came to town, but he busted him out
and recruited him for a heist at The Malibu. Cam is a renowned safecracker;
Rosenberg recommended him.
RANDOM FACTS
Cam sometimes ends up getting killed in the final bank heist mission, but you
can still pass if he does. Hilary always dies. Phil Cassidy can die too, but
he needs to survive for you to pass the mission because he appears in III.
Full name: Kasen Asuka
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Yakuza
Nationality: Japanese
Ethnicity: Asian
Family: Brother - Kazuki
Brother - Kenji
Niece - Yuka
Sister-in-law - Toshiko
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Overall leader of the Liberty City yakuza during GTA III. Because she's the
overall leader rather than her brother, she's probably older. Mike kidnapped
her niece Yuka so that Cisco, his then-current boss, could use her for
blackmail against Asuka, but ironically, Asuka, not knowing it was Mike who
did the original kidnapping, immediately hired him to retrieve her. She
proceeds to contract his services for a number of jobs. Most of them could
probably be done cheaper by her own men, but she is quite attracted to Mike.
This only lasts so long, however; late in the game she apparently doesn't
love him anymore, as she was aware of the mafia closing in on him at Wichita
Gardens but didn't tip him off - even though the yakuza and the mafia were
right in the middle of an extremely taxing and bloody turf war at the time.
She continues to work, but until the Staunton Island portion of GTAIII nobody
knows quite what she does. Maria is an old friend of hers, and she and Claude
seek asylum with her. She has Claude run all manner of missions for her
organization and has lots of fun hanging out with Maria. At Donald Love's
instruction, Claude manages to start another huge gang war, this time between
yakuza and the Colombian cartel. Nobody is really winning. One day when
Claude returns to her Staunton condo after a mission, he finds Maria gone,
her ransom note on a table, and Asuka dead.
RANDOM FACTS
Asuka is my favourite character in all of GTA. o^0^o
The game renders her pretty ugly, but she's actually gorgeous. For that
matter, though, her art isn't particularly flattering either.
I list all of the Kasentachi by surname first, because this is how nihonjin
actually write their names.
Rockstar apparently wants Asuka's sexual promiscuity to be very clear. There
are a bunch of references to sex toys in her various hideouts. Moreover, over
the course of two games she sleeps with four confirmed people: Biff Rock,
Mike, Maria, and Miguel. Okay, so she can't hold a candle to CJ for sheer
volume.
The first mission Asuka assigns Claude is the assassination of Don Salvatore
Leone. If she had told one of her men to do it or even if she'd done it
herself, this would be against her yakuza code of ethics: Yakuza have a
strict policy dictating no covert activities. Relegating such tasks to
individuals outside the gang is always fair game, however.
Kazuki was the waka-gashira of Liberty City. Since Asuka took over from him,
that probably means her rank is waka-gashira as well.
Asuka was probably responsible for the takeover of Torrington, since Kazuki
dies before he can act on his intentions to take over Liberty. She also has a
warehouse in Belleville, and Kazuki was amassing his munitions in Belleville.
Coincidence? Absolutely not.
Full name: Kasen Kazuki
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Yakuza
Nationality: Japanese
Ethnicity: Asian
Family: Wife - Toshiko
Sister - Asuka
Brother - Kenji
Daughter - Yuka
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Kazuki was the overall leader of the Liberty City yakuza during the LCS era.
He amassed a huge supply of weapons and could well have taken over the entire
city had Toni not destroyed most of his supply. When his wife started to
humiliate and destroy him, Kazuki figured it out and was about to kill both
her and Toni, but Toni took it to him instead. He eventually had a samurai's
duel with Toni on his Belleville rooftop, in which he was killed.
Full name: Kasen Kenji
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Yakuza
Nationality: Japanese
Ethnicity: Asian
Family: Brother - Kazuki
Sister - Asuka
Niece - Yuka
Sister-in-law - Toshiko
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Bald
Eye colour: Brown
Asuka's little brother and co-leader of the Liberty City yakuza. He owns a
casino on Staunton Island which is where most of his income comes from, since
he's a bit of a wimp and doesn't mix things up too much. Many yakuza see
themselves as culturally descended from the ancient samurai, but Kenji takes
the idea to a whole new level. Like any good samurai, he is obsessed with
honour, always remembering his debts, fighting fair, and being dismayed when
others do not do the same. He tried to pass on a little of this to Claude
when he had him run some missions, but ironically Claude was the guy who
turned around and stabbed him in the back. For personal gain Donald Love
desired a turf war between yakuza and cartel, so Claude disguised himself as
a cartel and fired a rocket launcher at the boardroom Kenji was in. Kenji and
everyone else inside died instantly.
RANDOM FACTS
As a semi-fluent Japanese speaker, I am sometimes perplexed by the Kasens'
Japanese. Example: Kenji refers to Claude as a 'gaijin.' But usually gaijin
doesn't mean non-Japanese, it just means foreigner. So he's calling Claude a
foreigner in his own country. (Though it has been suggested to me that this
may not be entirely incorrect...but it was just the only example I had off
the top of my head.)
Yuka's presence raised some questions about her origins. Since Asuka is
definitely her aunt, I assumed she was Kenji's daughter by whatever means.
But with LCS comes Kazuki and Toshiko, so I assume she's theirs since they're
married. I rather liked my Kenji idea, though.
Kenji doesn't appear at all in GTAA, so either he was out of town at the
time, not yet in town, or was even smaller-time then than he was in GTAIII.
Kazuki ran the casino in addition to being waka-gashira. After his death, the
brother and sister split responsibilities: Asuka took control of the
organization as a whole while Kenji administrated the casino. It's not
exactly a 50/50 relationship.
Full name: Kasen Toshiko
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Yakuza
Nationality: Japanese
Ethnicity: Asian
Family: Husband - Kazuki
Sister-in-law - Asuka
Brother-in-law - Kenji
Daughter - Yuka
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Kazuki only married Toshiko so that he could become waka-gashira of Liberty
City. He never truly loved her and never spent time with her, so Toshiko
spent many years in pain and loneliness. When Toni destroys Kazuki's huge
munitions supply, he deals him a severe blow and Toshiko sees in him an
opportunity to keep the ball rolling. After intercepting a weapons run,
burning his cash in the streets, and cheating on him with Toni, she's utterly
humiliated and destroyed him. He mobilizes to kill her and Toni, but Toni
takes the fight to him and kills Kazuki. Toshiko, finally happy, bids Toni
goodbye and crashes out of her high apartment window to plummet to the
concrete, killing herself.
Full name: Kasen Yuka
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Yakuza
Nationality: Japanese
Ethnicity: Asian
Family: Father - Kazuki
Mother - Toshiko
Aunt - Asuka
Uncle - Kenji
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Asuka's niece. Very cute, innocent and na‹ve little schoolgirl. After her
father gets killed and her mother commits suicide, she is left in Asuka's
care. Mike kidnaps her for Cisco then kidnaps her back for Asuka, earning a
tidy sum in the process. At least he was concerned for her safety when he
handed her over to the cartel.
Full name: Earnest Kelly
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Vercettis
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: None
Base: Vice City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Helps Tommy print some counterfeit money when he buys The Print Works.
Becomes more involved in the gang later on. Sonny Forelli and his friends
beat him up when they came to collect at the end of Vice City, but he seems
to have survived that encounter.
Full name: Hilary King
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Vercettis
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: None
Base: Vice City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Professional racecar driver whom Tommy recruited for his heist at The Malibu.
He operated as the necessary getaway driver. Ken recommended him from past
experience. In the final bank heist mission, Hilary leaps out of the car to
cover the rest of the crew with his MP5. While vulnerable he is shot and
killed by police fire. There's no way to save him.
RANDOM FACTS
Hilary is, in fact, a man. I thought I'd put that in because I've only ever
heard it used as a woman's name elsewhere, so please pardon my cultural
insensitivity.
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
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| King Courtney [CHAR044] |
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
\/ \/
Full name: Unknown
Nicknames: King Courtney
Affiliation: Yardies
Nationality: Jamaican English
Ethnicity: Black
Family: None
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
King Courtney falls perfectly in step with the stereotype of the laid-back,
ambivalent Jamaican guy. There's no question that he has weight to throw
around, but he takes it easy and rarely gets stressed out. He's still a cold-
blooded killer, though. King Courtney approaches the hero early in both
Advance and III, and both times he needs a driver. Various driving missions
soon escalate into Mike and Claude, respectively, becoming his favourite
driver. Eventually he turns on Mike, however, and even tries to kill him and
steal Vinnie's money nearing the end of Advance - Mike retaliates and stops
just short of killing King Courtney. Claude, on the other hand, just kind of
wanders off when more interesting opportunities rear their heads.
Full name: Joey Leone
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Leones
Nationality: American, second-generation Italian
Ethnicity: White
Family: Father - Salvatore
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Don Salvatore's son, Joey spends much of his time goofing off and not
contributing much to the gang. Actually, much of his work is highly
detrimental to the gang; there is stiff competition between the Leones and
the opposing Forelli family, but they're hardly enemies. Joey's dealings with
and later assassinations of the Forelli brothers stir up bad relations the
Leones hardly need. He owns a garage in Portland, and he lends its services
to Claude, who also takes on some assignments for him. He's connected quite
well thanks to his father, which made him pretty reckless, but he also
vouches for Claude, who needs as many friends as he can get in this town. He
was also friends with Carl Johnson when he was in Liberty City.
Full name: Salvatore Leone
Nicknames: Don Salvatore (does this count?)
Affiliation: Leones
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity: White
Family: Son - Joey
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Leone family patriarch and formerly all-powerful ruler of Portland. (In the
early 90s he owned a third-share in Las Venturas' Caligula's Casino.) Toni
Cipriani helped him take out the other two Liberty Families, but they didn't
quite clinch total control of Liberty. Later on, Luigi Goterelli introduced
him to Claude, who'd proven himself reliable with several driving and
drugging missions. You can always use a good driver, so Salvatore snatched
him up and gave him a few missions. He is very well known and carries much
influence while it lasts, but his constituents in Chinatown are somewhat
defiant. He has a girlfriend, Maria, but their relationship is far from
stable; she soon latches onto Claude. It doesn't help that Claude
assassinates Salvatore on behalf of the yakuza, immediately after the
Callahan Bridge is repaired.
RANDOM FACTS
His name is a reference to The Godfather's Vito Corleone. Vito is sometimes
called Don Corleone. Leone is sometimes called Don Salvatore. Get it?
I might as well put this here. Caligula was an ancient emperor of Rome, that
is, modern-day Italy. The mob is Italian and so is the casino. Ha ha!
Full name: Jeffrey Cross
Nicknames: OG Loc
Affiliation: Grove Street Families
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Black
Family: None
Base: Los Santos
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
A rapper from the hood, his rhymes are not very good. Mostly with CJ's
assistance, he holds all kinds of parties and other events to display his
portfolio, but they all bust because his rapping is so ugly to listen to. CJ
even steals awesome rapper Madd Dogg's rhyme book, but it doesn't help; it's
like trying to read without understanding how the letters fit together. OG
Loc never even had a chance at fame, and so much the better. On the plus
side, as far as I can remember he's one of the few homies who didn't sell out
the GSF. Then again, he didn't exactly oppose Big Smoke's takeover because it
helped him further his career; in fact, they get real tight as the game
progresses. Big Smoke becomes his front man, introducing him and telling
people he can kill them and whatnot. So in that sense he's still an enemy of
the GSF, I suppose.
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
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| Donald Love [CHAR048] |
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
\/ \/
Full name: Donald Love
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Civilian
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: Unknown
Base: Originally Vice City, later Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Donald Love is a big-time realtor and real estate developer, owner of Love
Media. Owing to that, he is extremely rich; so much so, in fact, that he has
more than enough money to throw around with abandon, put some away for a
retirement house in the Bahamas and still indulge himself. He enjoys getting
mixed up in gang affairs even though there's no real reason for him to do so.
Originally he was Avery Carrington's disciple in Vice City, but he soon moved
on to much bigger things in Liberty. He was a successful businessman for some
time but losing the election to O'Donovan put him out $20 million. After
killing Carrington and taking over his plans for the Panlantic Corporation,
he starts to build his fortune and becomes a media and entertainment mogul.
He makes a nice fat wad of cash plus nest-egg during his time in Liberty, and
assigns Claude a few missions. He's primarily concerned with a package whose
contents are never revealed and his friend, 'an Oriental gentleman,' who's
involved with it. He also spends much of his time beating back the cartel,
even inciting a yakuza-cartel gang war to distract them. He disappears near
the end of the game. Nobody knows where either he or 8-Ball went. I guess
we'll have to wait for PS3 GTA to find out.
RANDOM FACTS
It's hinted at in GTA III that he is a cannibal, necropheliac and morgue
party patron. But in LCS he actually demonstrates himself to be a cannibal,
necropheliac and morgue party patron.
Members: Vice City - Kent Paul, Jezz Torrent, Percy, Dick, Willy
Affiliation: Civilian
Nationality: Australian and American
Ethnicity: White
Family: Unknown
Base: Originally Vice City, later San Andreas
Hair colour: Varying
Eye colour: Varying
Originally an 80s band who lived in Vice City. They were somewhat well known,
but hardly on the best-sellers list. Tommy got involved with them through
Kent Paul, who had him do a few services for them, including obtaining Big
Mitch Baker's security services for a gig. Eventually some of the members
dropped out, and by the 90s they really had to work to even stay in the
picture. Somebody on the radio (I forget who) even says, 'Hey, whatever
happened to Love Fist?'
RANDOM FACTS
Jezz Torrent's name is a reference to the Internet download client
BitTorrent.
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
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| Ran Fa Li [CHAR050] |
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
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Full name: Ran Fa Li
Nicknames: Farlie
Affiliation: Mountain Cloud Triads
Nationality: Chinese
Ethnicity: Asian
Family: None
Base: San Fierro, Las Venturas
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
His rank is unclear, but Woozie treats him as an honoured guest. We're not
quite sure why he's even in the picture. The most likely explanation seems to
be that Woozie is that he's reviewing Woozie's effectiveness as a Dai Dai Lo.
Perhaps Woozie's up for promotion? Farlie seems to prefer grunting to any
widely accepted form of human communication. He accompanies CJ on a couple of
missions and helps out with Woozie's Four Dragons casino as well as the
Caligula's Casino heist.
RANDOM FACTS
Ran Fa Li is a representative at the Tang meetings. It seems the Tang is the
overall Triad organization of San Andreas, or at least Las Venturas.
Full name: Unknown
Nicknames: Maccer
Affiliation: Guerney Chimps, Grove Street Families
Nationality: English
Ethnicity: White
Family: None
Base: San Fierro, Los Santos
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
A Mancunian friend of The Truth's and Kent Paul's, CJ rescues him from the
desert when they were drunk. He seems to have a penchant for doing nothing,
but he becomes one of CJ's loyal assistants. CJ helps the Love Fist band
rejuvenate. He was part of the English band Guerney Chimps. That's a monkey
reference. GTA talks about a monkey-related video game and monkey-related
movie, too. Somebody at Rockstar is obsessed. The band has dwindled to him
and Kent Paul, because the rest of them all died on The Truth's peyote
safari.
Full name: Ray Machowski
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Yakuza, Liberty City Police Department
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: None
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Ray learned the ropes from Leon McAffrey, another cop who didn't exactly toe
the line. At the time, Ray was unwilling to deal with the devil or abuse his
authority, but he eventually changed his tune. As a crooked cop in Asuka's
employ, Ray worked from inside the Liberty City Police Department and fed the
yakuza useful information. He proved himself trustworthy to the yakuza, never
once providing them with intentionally false information (as far as we know)
or getting scared and running to the chief. He does fly off when his true
affiliation is about to be discovered, however. Before that, he has Claude do
some work for him because it's just easier that way.
Full name: Unknown
Nicknames: Madd Dogg
Affiliation: Grove Street Families
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Black
Family: None
Base: Los Santos
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Madd Dogg was a big-time Los Santos rapper until CJ stole his rhyme book on
behalf of OG Loc. Even though he sucked, OG still got much bigger than Madd
Dogg, who, in his humiliation, took up drinking and crack. He gave up his
mansion to Big Poppa, a local crack lord, because he couldn't actually afford
what he was buying. Madd Dogg retreated to Las Venturas. CJ came face-to-face
with him and saved him from suicide, then returned to Los Santos along with
an entourage of Woozie's Triads and a few GSF. The strike team quickly
reclaimed the mansion and CJ's homies took it as their new Los Santos base.
Madd Dogg got back in the game and soon people forgot all about OG Loc.
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
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| Maria [CHAR054] |
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
\/ \/
Full name: Maria, surname unknown
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Asuka's friend
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: None
Base: Originally Las Venturas, later Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Maria originally worked in Las Venturas' Caligula's Casino, where she became
Don Salvatore's girlfriend - Salvatore owned a third-share in the casino at
the time, sharing with the Forellis and Sindaccos. When he relocated to
Liberty City, she went with him. She first meets Toni in Salvatore's office,
and calls on him to drive her around town for shopping, drug running and the
like. She tries to fall into bed with him but Toni doesn't reciprocate her
feelings, which she eventually abandons. She first met Claude when he was
paid to ferry her all around Liberty City for the night. They had further
encounters and developed a quasi-romantic relationship, in part due to
Maria's frustration with Salvatore's jealousy. She's a good friend (and more)
of Asuka's. When she has to flee his wrath, she hooks up with Asuka again and
takes shelter in her condo. Catalina eventually finds Maria and kidnaps her
(killing Asuka in the process!), leaving Claude a ransom note for $500,000.
Claude rescues her, but...
RANDOM FACTS
GTAIII's ending is a little ambiguous. You hear a shot fired but don't see
what happens, so either Claude killed Maria for no good reason, or somebody
attacked them, or he fired to make her shut up...another reason to anticipate
the PS3 game, I guess.
Maria's affections for Claude are paralleled in those for Toni. A little
Easter egg for vets, I guess. Asuka's relationship with Mike is similar to
these two.
Full name: Leon McAffrey
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Mafia, Liberty City Police Department
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: Unknown
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Leon was a crooked cop in the Liberty City Police Department. He supplied
information and protection from the law for the mafia, especially the Leones,
in exchange for cash and services. He has Toni do some of his dirty work for
him, including paying off some debts. He has an apprentice in Ray Machowski.
He leaves town shortly after.
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
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| Miguel [CHAR056] |
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
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Full name: Miguel, surname unknown
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Colombian Cartel
Nationality: Colombian
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Family: None
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Co-leader of the Colombian cartel with Catalina. During the LCS era, he was
the sole leader, as Catalina did not become openly cartel until after
betraying Claude. Toni Cipriani had a few dealings with Miguel at this time,
mostly with drugs. Miguel was part of Catalina's conspiracy to double-cross
Claude, peddle spank and eventually take over Liberty City. He's a bit of a
wimp and quails under Catalina's intimidating presence. Asuka eventually
captures him and tortures him for information. She's quite good at it (years
of experience, I'll bet) and manages to squeeze quite a bit out of him.
Catalina kills Miguel when she storms Asuka's condo at the end of GTAIII.
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
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| Mike [CHAR057] |
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
\/ \/
Full name: Mike, surname unknown
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Various (Colombian cartel in a way)
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: None
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Mike used to be a street punk, peddling violence for drug money. Then he met
Vinnie, who 'got him off the street and back on his feet.' (Man, this game
has the cheesiest dialogue ever.) They work for a long time to accumulate
enough money to get out of Liberty City. But one job leads to another, and it
all snowballs...
This begins GTAA. Read its section for more information. Here's the
abbreviated version: Mike runs a few missions for the mafia, then witnesses
Vinnie's death by car bomb. 8-Ball helps him stay alive and Mike begins his
quest for vengeance. He works for a number of different bosses, including
barkeep Johnnie and Kasen Asuka, as well as cartel leader Cisco. He sort of
becomes Cisco's disciple. Mike gets closer and closer to Vinnie's killer,
until he finally learns the truth: Vinnie faked his death to screw over Mike.
Mike kills Vinnie and takes his money, which is almost nothing, but not very
many people know that; the whole city wants it and Mike is in big trouble.
Cisco is dead, so he's got no help there either. He settles old feuds until
finally he has enough leverage to get away. He heads for Cisco's airfield and
flies off in a private plane to his mentor's homeland which he loved so much,
Colombia.
RANDOM FACTS
GTA is hardly supposed to be realistic. I can therefore cut Rockstar slack on
a lot of things. But failing to give a playable character a last name is
simply inexcusable. It's taking every ounce of self-restraint I have to keep
from SHOUTING right now.
Full name: Unknown
Nicknames: Misty
Affiliation: Leones
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: None
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
One of Luigi Goterelli's girls, she's a top moneymaker for him. She's also
Joey Leone's main girl.
RANDOM FACTS
Misty is probably not her real name, hence the first two lines of text.
Misty's packing heat. Heh heh.
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
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| Wu Zi Mu [CHAR059] |
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
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Full name: Wu Zi Mu
Nicknames: Woozie
Affiliation: Mountain Cloud Triads
Nationality: Chinese
Ethnicity: Asian
Family: None
Base: San Fierro, Las Venturas
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Leader of the Mountain Cloud Triads, Woozie is blind. His disability (his
curse as the Triads call it) doesn't stop him from enjoying his favourite
activities, however, such as golf and car racing. CJ first met him during a
race, in fact. When he moved to San Fierro Woozie approached him again, this
time with information on the Ballas' drug-running San Fierro sources. CJ and
Woozie become fast friends, and CJ works for the Triads for a bit. Woozie
commands incredible respect from his men.
Woozie eventually opens the Four Dragons casino in Las Venturas, and the crew
relocates. Woozie faces some stiff and unwelcoming competition from the
existing casino, Caligula's. CJ helps weaken them until Four Dragons is where
it's at. Woozie participates in the casino heist, as well. Additionally,
Woozie sends some Triads to help reclaim Madd Dogg's mansion.
RANDOM FACTS
I'm pretty sure his name is Romanised wrong. I'm thinking it should be Wu Xi
Mu, if not Wuxi Mu. Phillip Hum has this kind of complicated explanation:
'In Chinese, there is sometimes, English letters underneath word to help the
reader pronounce it, and is called "pinyin." In Pinyin, Woozie's name would
be Wu Xi Mu, and it would be awkward for English readers to pronounce the
"Xi" so it is changed to "Zi." Although the X in pinyin, sounds exactly the
same as S in both English and pinyin, S in pinyin is usually used with an H
after it, so its X in pinyin, so they changed it to Z. (At least that's what
I think.)'
Oh, and Wu is his surname.
His rank is Dai Dai Lo. Phillip Hum tells me it means Big Brother in
Cantonese, and for practical purposes makes him a respected and powerful
Triad. This rank makes him a representative at the Tang meetings. It seems
the Tang is the overall Triad organization of San Andreas, or at least Las
Venturas. Phillip Hum also has this to say:
'There is no need to repeat the Dai twice (which means big), but I think they
want it to mean BIG respected triad. Which makes him a leader, the Dai Dai
Lo, the only rank higher than Dai Lo.'
Full name: O'Toole, first name unknown
Nicknames: JD
Affiliation: Mafia
Nationality: American-Irish
Ethnicity: White
Family: Unknown
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
JD O'Toole worked for the Sindaccos for many years, but was never rewarded
for his tireless services. When Salvatore moved to kick out the Sindaccos and
Forellis, JD signed on as an informant of sorts. Toni Cipriani ran a few jobs
for him as well. Eventually Salvatore, being very paranoid, became suspicious
of O'Toole's motives and pretended to make him, but in reality had him
whacked.
RANDOM FACTS
After O'Toole kicked it, the Leones appropriated his gentleman's club. It has
an 'under new management' sign on it for the rest of the game, but by the
time GTA III rolls around, it's become Luigi Goterelli's Sex Club 7.
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
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| Kent Paul [CHAR061] |
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
\/ \/
Full name: Kent Paul
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Love Fist, Guerney Chimps, Grove Street Families
Nationality: English
Ethnicity: White
Family: None
Base: Originally Vice City, later San Fierro
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Kent Paul was part of the 80s band Love Fist, when it was still the 80s that
is. He lived in Vice City and had a modicum of influence, a little of which
he used to help out Tommy Vercetti in his quest to reclaim his money. In
return, Tommy helps him keep the band afloat, even persuading Big Mitch Baker
to lend his security services. Paul assists in The Malibu heist.
Love Fist eventually loses some members and relocates to San Andreas, where
they meet The Truth and commune with the lizard king. They pass out one night
in the desert so CJ has to go pick them up, then give them a ride into town
so they can hook up with Ken Rosenberg again. This gives CJ an opportunity to
study Caligula's Casino from the inside. Paul and Maccer become CJ's two main
guys when he's running a mission, and assist in the casino heist. They follow
him back to Los Santos when the time is right and continue to help him out
there. The band has dwindled, because the rest all died on the safari.
Full name: Officer Ralph Pendelbury
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Los Santos Police Department
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: None
Base: Los Santos
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Pendelbury was a well-respected officer of the law. He's dead before San
Andreas even begins, though. Pendelbury starts looking into crooked cop Frank
Tenpenny's activities and threatens to turn him in to the chief if he doesn't
knock it off. Tenpenny gets a little worried and, just to be safe, forces
Hernandez to kill him as a little initiation ritual. He blames it on CJ, of
course.
Full name: Camilla Perkins
Nicknames: Millie
Affiliation: Civilian; Caligula's Casino employee
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: None
Base: Las Venturas
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
A Las Venturas Caligula's Casino employee, one of CJ's lovers. On dates, she
prefers restaurants, the Camel's Toe dance club and calm driving. CJ
disguises himself as her boyfriend in order to get her casino keycard.
Madwoman.
RANDOM FACTS
Millie enjoys kinky sex. One of CJ's random quotes after a Gimp Suit date is
'How can you enjoy this?!'
Full name: Unknown
Nicknames: Auntie Poulet
Affiliation: Vice Haitians
Nationality: Haitian
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Family: None
Base: Vice City
Hair colour: Grey
Eye colour: Brown
A madwoman who hates Cubans and has a serious speech impediment, Auntie
Poulet leads the Vice City Haitians. By drugging him extensively, she gets
Tommy to help her out in her quest for dominance, probably because she saw
the work he did for the Cubans and wants him on her side. He collects some
drugs for her (at her insistence that the drugs are not drugs) and bombs the
Cuban drug-running boats. This starts a full-scale turf war between the two
in Little Haiti. Tommy started it, so he finishes it, too, killing a large
number of Cubans with a Poulet-provided assault rifle.
RANDOM FACTS
As though Rockstar doesn't have enough controversy to bask in, many American
Cubans were understandably upset with Auntie Poulet's missions.
Full name: Officer Eddie Pulaski
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Los Santos Police Department
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: None
Base: Los Santos
Hair colour: Grey
Eye colour: Brown
One of crooked cop Frank Tenpenny's two partners. Tenpenny trusts him more
than he does Hernandez, but still has his suspicions. He went along with
everything Tenpenny did, taking a cut of the action for himself. Late in the
game Tenpenny gets scared that Hernandez is going to turn on him, so he tries
to kill both Hernandez and CJ. Pulaski knocks out Hernandez with a shovel
then makes CJ dig their grave. In the meantime Hernandez wakes up and gets
the jump on Pulaski, but Pulaski shoots him and he falls into the grave. CJ
escapes and Pulaski pursues. CJ kills him in the ensuing chase.
Full name: Umberto Robina
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Vice Cubans
Nationality: Cuban
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Family: Father - Alberto
Base: Vice City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Hates Haitians. He goes to great lengths to kill as many of them as possible,
but his father just kind of hangs around and pretends he's tough while
accomplishing not much of anything, which is why he doesn't get his own
profile even though he has multiple appearances. Tommy proves his worth in
stunt boat racing challenge, then becomes Umberto's driver in his bid to
cause carnage in the streets. He proceeds to bust the Haitian drug shipping
operations then deals the final blow by blowing up their processing plant.
RANDOM FACTS
The GTA playable characters are all pretty turncoat by nature, but you have
to draw the line somewhere. Not only does Tommy help a Cuban kill Haitians,
he helps a Haitian kill Cubans. Of course, he was being heavily drugged at
the time (See Auntie Poulet's profile.)
Full name: Denise Robinson
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Grove Street Families
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: Unknown
Base: Los Santos
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
A Los Santos resident, one of CJ's lovers. She was originally going out with
a Vagos ganger, but Tenpenny had CJ kill him; CJ but torched his house and he
left no corpse, as per his instructions, but he quickly realised Denise was
trapped inside. They started going out after he saved her life, since she
didn't realise he was the one who almost killed her, too. On dates, she
prefers restaurants, dancing clubs and doing drive-bys (how romantic).
Full name: Kenneth Rosenberg
Nicknames: Rosie
Affiliation: Forellis, then Vercettis; later Grove Street Families
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: Unknown
Base: Originally Vice City, later Las Venturas
Hair colour: Brown
Eye colour: Brown
Ken Rosenberg was a Vice City lawyer in the 80s. According to him, he had it
all. The Forelli crime family, based in Liberty City, made him their man in
Vice. He had a serious cocaine addiction throughout his time here and was
eventually forced into rehab after getting disbarred. The Forellis eventually
bought a third-share in Caligula's Casino in Las Venturas. None of the three
families was willing to hand over control to any of the others, so Rosenberg
was put forth as a neutral party when he got out. He had tried to contact
Tommy, but he had either cut ties with Ken or hired a really bitchy
secretary. He moved to Las Venturas to run the casino, but his problems were
hardly over; his cut was unfairly tiny, and he was right in the middle of an
extremely volatile situation. The three families were feuding, and Rosenberg
was caught in the middle. He stayed inside his room as much as possible with
his parrot Tony for company. CJ eventually showed up along with Rosie's old
acquaintance, Kent Paul, and after some time helped him back on his feet
(tearing down Caligula's in the process.) Rosie followed CJ back to Los
Santos and did his small part in helping the GSF reclaim its deserved turf.
RANDOM FACTS
The Introduction, a disc that preludes the action of San Andreas, is a little
ambiguous about whether or not Tommy still remembered all the little people
after his rise to power. When Rosenberg tries to call him, his secretary
turns him away. So either he ordered her to block Rosenberg, or she's really
mean.
Full name: Lance William
Nicknames: Ryder
Affiliation: Rollin' Heights Ballas
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Black
Family: Unknown
Base: Los Santos
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
One of CJ's old homies. Ryder was Sweet's de facto second-in-command,
ordering a handful of missions for CJ and others while rallying posses
(usually including himself, CJ and Big Smoke). He isn't really a bad person,
just weak. He tried to teach CJ to return to his GSF roots, which is ironic
because he soon sold them out to the Ballas. Can you guess why? Yes, crack.
Full name: Barbara Schternvart
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Las Venturas Police Department
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Black
Family: Two children - names unknown
Ex-husband - name unknown
Base: El Quebrados (Las Venturas)
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
A Las Venturas crooked cop, one of CJ's lovers. She uses her position to get
CJ out of some tough legal scrapes. She prefers men with high fat and high
sex appeal. On dates, she prefers diners, dance clubs and slow, romantic
drives.
RANDOM FACTS
Her ex-husband thought she was a control freak. She hasn't stopped yet,
either, since she tends to boss CJ around on dates.
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
\/ \/
| Steve Scott [CHAR071] |
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
\/ \/
Full name: Steve Scott
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Civilian
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: None
Base: Vice City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Adult film director whose business Tommy buys out. Tommy helps turn his
business up so many notches it makes his head spin, collaborating with him on
his latest work of art. When Alex Shrub tries to put the smackdown on Scott's
industry, Tommy blackmails him into submission (with the help of Candy
Suxxx.) They hold a gala event for the film's premiere, with searchlights and
limousines and everything.
Full name: Alex Shrub
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: United States Congress
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: Unknown
Base: Vice City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Congressman Shrub wants to ban the adult film industry or at least put a
clamp on it. This is self-destructive behaviour, as he actually thinks quite
highly of the profession.
RANDOM FACTS
The Liberty Tree newspaper talks about a prosecutor called Phillip Hedges.
Shrub, Hedges, get it? Silly.
Actually, it gets even better. Alex Shrub may be a parody of US president
George W Bush (probably junior.)
Full name: Johnny Sindacco
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Sindaccos
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity: White
Family: Unknown
Base: Las Venturas
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Like the other mafia in Las Venturas, Johnny is most displeased with Woozie
opening the Four Dragons casino in a city he considers to be his turf. He
makes several attempts to sabotage the casino. CJ ended up putting him in the
hospital after trying to find out who he worked for. The Forellis ambushed
his ambulance en route but CJ stopped their attempts at murder and
successfully delivered him to Sindacco headquarters. When CJ accompanies Ken
to Sindacco headquarters he tries not to let Johnny see him because he knows
his face. Johnny does catch a glimpse of him, shouts in terror, suffers
cardiac arrest and dies.
Full name: Unknown
Nicknames: The Snakehead
Affiliation: Da Nang Boys
Nationality: Vietnamese
Ethnicity: Asian
Family: None
Base: San Fierro
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Leader of the Da Nang Boys in San Fierro. CJ killed him in a sword duel on
board his personal drug freighter.
Full name: Unknown
Nicknames: Candy Suxx
Affiliation: Civilian; adult film industry
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Family: None
Base: Vice City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
A Vice City porn star whom Tommy hires for Steve Scott's film. She wouldn't
seem like a VC playa, but she is. She has a no-boundaries policy in her
interpersonal encounters.
RANDOM FACTS
Candy Suxx is almost certainly not her real name, hence the first two lines
of text.
In fact, her name is actually a pun. It's a combination of 'sucks' and 'XXX,'
if you hadn't noticed already.
Full name: Su Zi, surname unknown
Nicknames: Suzie
Affiliation: Mountain Cloud Triads
Nationality: Chinese
Ethnicity: Asian
Family: None
Base: San Fierro, Las Venturas
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Woozie's right-hand man. He performs many important specific tasks for Woozie
in addition to his services in the day-to-day operation of the gang. He
assists in fighting the Da Nang Boys, and delivers CJ some of his
assignments, participating in one or two of them. He later works right
alongside CJ. He helps out with the Four Dragons casino when it opens and
participates in the Caligula's Casino heist as well. When CJ retakes Madd
Dogg's mansion, Suzie commands the Triads. Sadly, he gets his head blown off
immediately after they parachute down.
Full name: Mendez, given name unknown
Nicknames: T-Bone
Affiliation: San Fierro Rifa
Nationality: Mexican
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Family: None
Base: San Fierro
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Leader of the San Fierro Rifa, who are apparently providing the Los Santos
Ballas their crack. He and Jizzy B are old friends. CJ infiltrates the gang
to learn more on a tip from Woozie. CJ befriends him and runs a few jobs for
him. Eventually he learns beyond doubt that T-Bone is involved with the crack
that's been ruining his home, sets him up, and wipes out most of the gang at
the docks. Cesar and CJ shoot T-Bone in tandem and he falls off the pier and
dies.
RANDOM FACTS
I previously had him listed as the leader of the T-Bonez, a subsidiary of the
Rifa. But as it turns out, the T-Bonez existed only in my mind. So where the
hell did I come up with that?? I was positive Kendl said it. Can somebody
help me out with this? Also, there are still places I missed, so when you're
reading other parts of the guide replace every instance of the word 'T-Bonez'
with 'San Fierro Rifa.'
Full name: Sergeant Frank Tenpenny
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Los Santos Police Department
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Black
Family: None
Base: Los Santos
Hair colour: Brown
Eye colour: Brown
Tenpenny was a crooked cop who operated out of Los Santos for a long time
before he was found out. Tenpenny abused his position and was a john and
narcotics user. He also beat up anyone who annoyed him. His two lackeys,
Hernandez and Pulaski, went along with anything he said and took advantage of
his brutality to their own advantage. He harassed CJ in his youth and
continued to do so when he came back to Los Santos to bury Beverly Johnson.
He then blackmailed him into getting his hands dirt on a whole bunch of jobs
he'd rather not have to do himself.
His moments of pleasure lasted only so long. Shortly before the game begins,
Ralph Pendelbury threatens to turn him in; Tenpenny kills him just to be on
the safe side. He pins it on CJ, who isn't apprehended on account of there
being no evidence whatsoever to suggest he committed such a crime. Late in
the game Hernandez gets spooked and goes to the higher-ups at the LSPD.
Tenpenny kills him in retaliation. Pulaski tries to bury Hernandez and kill
CJ while he's at it, but ends up dead himself.
Tenpenny was responsible for many of the bad things that happened in Los
Santos and Grove Street in particular; he was a known pusher and may even
have had dealings with the Ballas. His last act of tracks-covering is to
attempt to kill CJ, but he manages to escape. Tenpenny flees in a fire engine
but CJ and Sweet are hot on his tail. A chase ensues. Tenpenny eventually
crashes the truck (flying a long distance and landing in Grove Street by
complete coincidence - puh-leeze) and dies of internal injuries.
RANDOM FACTS
Tenpenny is a key player in a programme called CRASH, which was instated in
Los Santos to deal with the rampant gang crime. Pulaski and Hernandez,
therefore, were also a part of it. Tenpenny kind of went against it by being
in league with gangs and all, but he justifies it by explaining that you have
to pick your battles - let the small-time boys go so you have a better shot
at the big fish.
Full name: Mike Toreno
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: A government agency (would not reveal which)
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: None
Base: San Andreas desert
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
At first, Toreno seems like just another pusher, but after busting up Jizzy
and T-Bone's crack syndicate he reveals that he is actually a government
agent. We never find out very much about his past, operations, or superiors,
but he often employs CJ, who grows increasingly weary of Toreno's baiting. He
even teaches CJ how to fly and gets him a pilot's license so he can do aerial
missions as well. Toreno's assignments don't target just criminals, either;
CJ is often asked to assault the operations of other government agency's that
Toreno's is supposedly at odds with. He tends to disappear suddenly only to
reappear at a later date. He eventually follows through on his promise to
bail Sweet out of prison as a token of his appreciation for CJ's assistance,
shortly before disappearing once and for all.
(This bio written by Lancet Jades, edited by me.)
RANDOM FACTS
The van that The Truth insists CJ follow while picking up Duane, Jethro and
Zero apparently belongs to Toreno. This points to their past dealings with
one another.
Full name: Massimo Torini
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Sicilians
Nationality: Sicilian
Ethnicity: White
Family: Unknown
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Torini is responsible for the entire mess that was Liberty City Stories. The
man from the old company conspired to pit the three Liberty Families against
one another, hopefully wiping each other out. With the three most powerful
gangs gone, the Sicilians would be able to move in and take over. Toni
Cipriani put an end to Torini's efforts, ultimately killing him.
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
\/ \/
| The Truth [CHAR081] |
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
\/ \/
Full name: Unknown
Nicknames: The Truth
Affiliation: Grove Street Families
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: None
Base: San Andreas state
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
It's difficult for me to say whether The Truth has a mental illness, a drug
addiction, or simply an inexplicable weirdness. Regardless, his oddity makes
him one of the most memorable characters in the entire GTA franchise.
Tenpenny introduces him to CJ one time and they soon become good friends
(I've said that quite a few times by now - CJ is one personable guy.) He's
also an acquaintance of Kent Paul and Maccer. The Truth mostly sits around
and says cryptic things that have no real meaning if you think about them
long enough. Before that, he had a massive field of weed at a farm outside
Los Santos, but he and CJ had to burn it when the feds found him.
Despite the fact that the vast majority of the things he says are
questionable, he seems to have a very intimate knowledge of government
projects and initiatives. He doesn't let CJ in on everything, though, for his
own protection.
RANDOM FACTS
What's so weird about The Truth? Well, some of his lines are pretty
interesting. 'I took some fellow travellers deep into the desert on a peyote
safari the other night. We faced the inner light and communed with the lizard
king.' '[Putting oneself first] is the surest path to hell, man. Well - that
or microdots and an ounce of mescaline.' Other things complete the package. I
mean, he calls his car the Mothership. Now that's just something else, no?
By the way, here are some of the specific conspiracies he cites:
-JFK is alive and well, living in Janis Joplin, Scotland
-The reason we've been in a Cold War for the last 40 years is that snake-
headed aliens control the world's oil.
Full name: Lance Vance
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Himself; Vercettis
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Black
Family: None
Base: Vice City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Ricardo Diaz killed his brother and he's out for revenge. Lance meets Tommy
at The Malibu and the two become fast friends. Lance endeavours to help Tommy
find his money. Tommy works very hard to get in a good position to take out
Diaz, but Lance gets impatient, jumps the gun and tries to finish it himself.
Tommy has to haul him out of the fire and now they've got to work fast to
kill him. Lance joins Tommy at the new Vercetti Estates, but after a time he
double-crosses him and hands him over the Forellis. Tommy kills him in a
brawl. So much for that.
RANDOM FACTS
His name really is Lance Vance, hence the first two lines of text.
Full name: Tommy Vercetti
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Vercettis
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: None
Base: Vice City
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Tommy was put in jail for fifteen years. When he finally got out, the locals
were restless; the Forellis, whom he worked for at that point, sent him to
Vice City where he'd be out of the way. Unfortunately, he got burned the very
first deal he made and lost three million dollars. He strives to reclaim it,
him and the rest of Vice City.
This begins Vice City. Read its section for more information. Here's the
abbreviated version: Ken Rosenberg, the Forellis' man in Vice City, uses
Tommy as an expendable asset to try and fix the situation. Tommy makes
several shiny new friends in Vice, including Lance Vance, Colonel Cortez, and
his daughter Mercedes. He works for all the big Vice City players, sometimes
for two or more sides in a single conflict. He also acquires real estate,
eventually opening Vercetti Estates, denouncing the Forellis. Lance Vance
betrays Tommy and the Forellis come down from Liberty to collect their
missing money. Tommy kills both Sonny Forelli and Lance, and with nothing to
stand in his way, the Vercettis own all of Vice City. Tommy is king!
Full name: Cesar Vialpando
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Varrios Los Aztecas
Nationality: Mexican
Ethnicity: Latino
Family: Cousin - Catalina (surname unknown)
Base: San Andreas state
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Kendl Johnson's new boyfriend at the beginning of San Andreas and Aztecas
gang leader. Lives in El Corona. Owns a racetrack. Sweet heartily disapproves
of him. He makes CJ follow him and Kendl on their date, after which they
decide not to dislike each other. In fact, they soon become good friends.
They eventually run some jobs for one another, helping each other out and
fighting alongside one another. It is Cesar who shows CJ the Green Sabre
whose owners killed his moms in a drive-by, along with Ryder, Big Smoke and
some Ballas. Cesar follows CJ to San Fierro where his past experience comes
in handy. He accompanies the crew to Las Venturas and finally back to Los
Santos as well. In his absence, the Aztecas' old rivals, the Vagos, have
seized Cesar's old turf, but he quickly rectifies the situation.
Full name: Vinnie, surname unknown
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Himself
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: None
Base: Liberty City
Hair colour: Blonde
Eye colour: Brown
Vinnie worked for the Liberty City mafia and used Mike as a puppet before
faking his own death in order to steal Mike's share of the money they had
made in order to escape Liberty and start a new life. This way, he got twice
the money! He continued to work from behind the scenes after this, all the
while completely squandering his nestegg. He eventually lured Mike into a
trap, but Mike turned the tables on Vinnie and killed him.
RANDOM FACTS
Boy, Vinnie sure is good at faking his death. He not only increases the
illusion of being a corpse by starting to rot, he allows himself to be
crushed in a trash compactor! Now that's a level of ninjutsu the rest of us
can only dream of.
Vinnie's handle is Xox. What kind of idiot handle is that?
Full name: Helena Wankstein
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Civilian
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: None
Base: Red County
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
A divorce lawyer and firearms expert, one of CJ's lovers. She prefers men
with low muscle, low fat and high sex appeal. On dates, she prefers
restaurants, dance clubs and countryside drives.
RANDOM FACTS
Stein is a surname suffix commonly associated with German etymology. Wank is
slang for a word I'll get in trouble for saying. Real mature, Rockstar.
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
\/ \/
| Zero [CHAR087] |
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
\/ \/
Full name: Unknown
Nicknames: Zero
Affiliation: Grove Street Families
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: None
Base: San Fierro
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
Zero is one of three guys who becomes a mechanic at CJ's San Fierro garage.
He continues working there the entire game. Zero is a super-nerd who has all
kinds of weird gadgets. His main rival is another nerd called Berkley. They
end up having a full-scale turf war, nerd style. CJ helps Zero prevail. He is
completely inept with women; he says on the radio that he doesn't know ANY
women. At all.
Full name: Katie Zhan
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Civilian
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: White
Family: None
Base: San Fierro
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: Brown
A San Fierro nurse, one of CJ's lovers. She uses her position (ha ha) to get
CJ free medical care. She prefers men with high muscle and high sex appeal.
On dates, she prefers diners, clubs and drives across the Gant Bridge.
And it takes place where? The Grand Theft Auto universe is currently
comprised of five distinct cities, each based on one found in real-world USA.
All of the cities chosen, by the way, are either very large, famous, known
for high crime rates, or a combination of these. Unfortunately, while much of
this is exact, there is still some annoying geographic ambiguity.
For example, is San Fierro supposed to be San Diego or San Francisco?
Apparently, both, which breaks the mould by combining cities. But Los
Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco are all in California, so San Andreas
state must be based on California, right? Except Las Vegas is in Nevada.
It's also said Vice City is in Florida. Now this is admittedly one single
mention, but it's obviously a real state, whereas San Andreas is not. Never
mind that San Andreas is too small to be a state and is certainly not a
county because it contains counties itself. This next one's just a guess, but
if we're using parodies of entire states now as well, does that mean that New
York, New York manifests itself in the GTA universe as Liberty City, Liberty?
If we ARE using fake states, though, does that not mean that we're dealing
with a real country filled with fictional states? The mind boggles...
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
\/ \/
| Liberty City [HOCLIB] |
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
\/ \/
Real-world counterpart: New York
Composed of Portland, Staunton Island and Shoreside Vale, Liberty is easily
the most-featured city in GTA. Think about it. Of five games, three - III,
Advance, and Liberty City Stories - take place in Liberty for the duration of
the whole game. Tommy Vercetti worked there before he was arrested and was
presumably detained in Liberty City penitentiary. Furthermore, the opening
cutscene starts in Liberty, and Tommy gets numerous calls from Liberty
residents wondering where their money is. San Andreas even features an entire
mission that takes place in Liberty, and with some tricky manoeuvring you can
even explore (sort of like III's Ghost Town, in a way...)! And let us not
forget CJ spent five years there before going back to Los Santos.
Liberty City is also the most chaotic. No one gang can gain control of it for
very long. Indeed, just holding onto one's longstanding turf is a challenge!
The only people who controlled very much of it for any proper length of time
were the Forellis and the Leones, and even that only lasted a couple of
years. Mike caused a whole bunch of carnage when he went on rampage, and
shortly after Claude didn't exactly help the situation.
In-game literature frequently calls it 'the worst place in America.' It has
an estimated population of four million. Motorcycles ownership and operation
was banned in 2001 due to public outcries and the support of the Maibatsu
corporation. Home to the Liberty City Cocks American football team.
Vice City is a pretty laid-back and relaxed town, although it does pay to
pack heat and have friends in high places. It's also prime grounds for real
estate development and the entertainment industry. Some business is present
as well. Vice was the fastest-growing city in America in the 80s (and maybe
after that; it's hardly mentioned in any other games) due to its close
proximity to the Caribbean. Home to the Vice City Mambas American football
team. The Vercettis completely took over in 1986, but who knows how long it
stayed that way?
The capital city of San Andreas state. In all of America, Los Santos has the
highest concentration of gangs and gang violence. Most of these are gangs who
cluster around their chosen 'neighbourhood,' like how the Grove Street
Families' neighbourhood is Grove Street. Los Santos is also famed for its
narcotics abuse and high crime rates. It is somewhat ironic, then, that it is
nicknamed the City of Saints.
(Get it? Los Angeles, City of Angels, Los Santos, City of Saints.)
It's much more affluent on the west side, but still torn apart by gang
warfare.
I don't know about you, but Los Santos doesn't feel at all like Los Angeles
to me. Did I miss something?
Home to the Triads, the San Fierro Rifa and the Da Nang Boys. Known for its
automobiles. Located in the west of San Andreas, just north of Mt Chiliad.
There's a beautiful bay to the north. It is still recovering from the
earthquake that wracked it in 1989. Home to the San Fierro 69ers American
football team.
Las Venturas' raison detre is gambling. It's home to all manner of casinos,
including Caligula's, The Mirage, Pirates in Men's Pants and Woozie's Four
Dragons. Its name means The Lucks.
The GTA universe is one great big broiling turf war, as I hope you'll have
realised by now. The various gangs who seek crime monopolies have completely
different origins, methods and intentions, but they all have one thing in
common: They're covered in this section.
A word before we begin, though. You might think Threat Index and Influence is
the same thing. They are not. Threat Index is how dangerous they are on the
streets; how likely they are to begin a gang war and how much violence they
might cause once they have. Alternately, how much you would have to worry if
you were their enemy and you saw one walking down the street one day.
Influence, meanwhile, gauges their ability to exert control on their
respective city as a whole and alter it to their advantage.
Leader: Big Mitch Baker
Idea: American biker gang
Vehicles of Preference: Motorcycle (I assume a Hog)
Weapons of Preference: Colt .45
Clothes: Leather jackets and jeans
Base: Vice City
Turf: The area around the Greasy Chopper
Allies: Vercettis
Threat Index: Med-Hi
Influence: Med
Big Mitch and his band are known for being dumb muscles. All they really care
about is their bikes, which they are incredibly passionate about. It tears
them up inside to see a good bike go to waste. See, bikers are really great
big softies at heart.
Leader: Unknown
Idea: Chinese criminal organization
Vehicles of Preference: Various
Weapons of Preference: Various
Clothes: Traditional and modern Chinese dress
Base: San Fierro
Turf: Chinatown
Allies: Mountain Cloud Boys
Threat Index: Lo
Influence: Lo
The Da Nang Boys wiped them out when they first started making waves in San
Fierro.
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
\/ \/
| Da Nang Boys [GANDNB] |
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
\/ \/
Leader: Current - unknown
Former - The Snakehead
Idea: Vietnamese
Vehicles of Preference: Unknown
Weapons of Preference: Pistol, Micro-SMG
Clothes:
Base: San Fierro
Turf: Easter Basin
Allies: None
Threat Index: Med-Lo
Influence: Lo
Vietnamese gang and mortal enemies of the San Fierro Triad. They wiped out
the Blood Feathers. Woozie, the rest of the Mountain Cloud Boys, and CJ went
to great lengths to take them down, eventually succeeding in large part. CJ
dealt the final blow by killing gang leader The Snakehead and torching the Da
Nang Boys tanker after having freed the illegal immigrants it stowed. At
first I thought 'Da' was a corruption of 'the,' but while looking for
Malaysia on a globe I discovered Da Nang is a city in Vietnam.
Leader: El Burro
Idea: Hispanic car-racers
Vehicles of Preference: Diablo Stallion
Weapons of Preference: Baseball bat, handgun
Clothes: Ratty gangsta chique
Base: Liberty City
Turf: Hepburn Heights
Allies: None
Threat Index: Lo
Influence: Lo
Claude worked for them for a while but stopped after a time and worked for
the Yardies instead. The Diablos despise the Yardies, who would despise them
too if not for their worthlessness: The Diablos have tiny territory and are
poorly supplied. They do have awesome cars, however.
Leader: Current - unknown
Former - Franco Forelli, Sonny Forelli
Idea: Italian mafia
Vehicles of Preference: Mafia Sentinel
Weapons of Preference: Handgun, shotgun
Clothes: Business suits
Base: Liberty City, Vice City, Las Venturas
Turf: Fluctuates
Allies: Leones, Sindaccos
Threat Index: Med
Influence: Med
The Forellis were very powerful during the 80s but have drastically declined
since then. They actually owned all of Liberty City and were working on Vice
City, but the street gangs reclaimed Liberty and the Vercettis appropriated
Vice. All that was left for them was Caligula's casino, and even that hold
was tenuous. They still try to make an impact but no one really cares about
them anymore.
Leader: Unknown
Idea: Middle-aged men who do nothing but play golf all day
Vehicles of Preference: Golf cart
Weapons of Preference: Golf club
Clothes: Laid-back style
Base: Vice City
Turf: Leaf Links golf course
Allies: None
Threat Index: Very Low
Influence: Very Low
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
\/ \/
| Grove Street Families [GANGSF] |
/\_________________________________________________________________________/\
\/ \/
Leader: Carl 'CJ' Johnson
Idea: CJ's gang, boys from the hood
Vehicles of Preference: Various
Weapons of Preference: Various
Clothes: Hood style
Base: San Andreas
Turf: San Andreas
Allies: Mountain Cloud Triads, Varrios Los Aztecas, the other Families
Threat Index: Hi
Influence: Hi
CJ's gang, completely took over San Andrea state. Wait, doesn't that qualify
them as a provincial threat?
Leader: Unknown
Idea: Mexican airport baggage handlers
Vehicles of Preference: Baggage transport
Weapons of Preference: Colt .45
Clothes: Airport security uniform
Base: Vice City
Turf: Escobar International Airport, North Point Mall
Allies: None
Threat Index: Very Low
Influence: Very Low
Leader: Current - either Joey Leone or Toni Cipriani
Former - Salvatore Leone
Idea: Italian mafia
Vehicles of Preference: Mafia Sentinel
Weapons of Preference: Handgun, shotgun
Clothes: Business suit
Base: Liberty City, Las Venturas
Turf: Saint Mark's
Allies: Forellis, Sindaccos
Threat Index: Med-Hi
Influence: Med-Hi
The Leones own a third-share in Caligula's casino in Las Venturas, which
provides a tidy income. The Leones had a huge turf war with the yakuza in
Advance and this rivalry carried over to III. Claude killed Don Salvatore.
The Leones are still a force to be reckoned with, but they have lost much of
their previous power.
Leader: Current - leaderless
Former - Catalina, Miguel, Cisco
Idea: Colombian cartel
Vehicles of Preference: Cartel Cruiser
Weapons of Preference: Uzi, AK-47
Clothes: Hawaiian shirts, jeans
Base: Liberty City
Turf: Fort Staunton, Cedar Grove
Allies: None
Threat Index: Hi
Influence: Hi
Mike worked for them before Cisco got killed. They attacked him and he was
forced to decimate their numbers. Catalina and Miguel took over but Asuka
captured Miguel in due course, leaving Catalina to her own devices. Catalina
planned to use the cartel as a vehicle to take over all of Liberty. Her plans
were cut short when Claude killed her. The cartel were probably in a state of
monstrous disarray after all this.
Leader: Unknown
Idea: Chinese criminal organization
Vehicles of Preference: Triad Fish Van
Weapons of Preference: Baseball bat, handgun
Clothes: Casual suits
Base: Liberty City
Turf: Chinatown
Allies: None
Threat Index: Lo
Influence: Lo
Chinatown residents were under the Leone protection racquet for a while but
eventually turned on them. A few Leones went to Chinatown on them to show
them who's boss. They ended up crippling the Liberty Triads, effectively
ousting them. The Triads of Liberty City also have a stupid yet amusing
vehicle.
Leader: Unknown
Idea: Hispanic troublemakers
Vehicles of Preference: Various
Weapons of Preference: Pistol, Tec-9
Clothes: Casual
Base: Los Santos
Turf: Las Colinas, East Beach
Allies: None
Threat Index: Med
Influence: Med
Mortal enemies of the Varrios Los Aztecas. They struggled for quite some time
until Cesar fled with CJ. The Vagos took over all Cesar's territory in his
absence, but he effectively wiped them out when he returned.
Leader: Wu Zi Mu
Idea: Chinese criminal organization
Vehicles of Preference: Various
Weapons of Preference: AK-47
Clothes: Traditional and modern Chinese dress
Base: San Fierro, Las Venturas
Turf: Chinatown, Four Dragons casino
Allies: Grove Street Families, Blood Feather Triads
Threat Index: Hi
Influence: Hi
CJ befriends Woozie and runs a number of jobs for the Mountain Cloud Boys.
When the Da Nang Boys moved on San Fierro, they went to great lengths to make
sure they never gained a foothold. Woozie built the Four Dragons casino in
Las Venturas which was not well received by the owners of current big casino,
Caligula's Palace. They pulled a heist on Caligula's to weaken it and
eventually became the dominant Las Venturas casino. By the end of San
Andreas, the Mountain Clouds and the GSF had practically become as one,
making them extremely powerful.
Leader: Sean 'Sweet' Johnson
Idea: Part of the Families series
Vehicles of Preference: Various
Weapons of Preference: Pistol, SMG
Clothes: Hood-style
Base: Los Santos
Turf: Ganton, Playa del Seville, Orange Grove
Allies: The other Families
Threat Index: Med-Lo
Influence: Med-Lo
Leader: Unknown
Idea: Security at Vice City Port
Vehicles of Preference: Mule
Weapons of Preference: Unarmed (I guess they're rent-a-cops)
Clothes: Jumpsuits
Base: Vice City
Turf: Vice City Port
Allies: None
Threat Index: Very Low
Influence: Very Low
Leader: Unknown
Idea: Boys from the Liberty hood
Vehicles of Preference: Hoods Rumpo XL
Weapons of Preference: Handgun, Uzi
Clothes: Hood-style; shirts have purple insignia
Base: Liberty City
Turf: Wichita Gardens
Allies: None
Threat Index: Lo
Influence: Lo
They saw themselves as an up-and-coming gang but they never did very much but
peddle spank from the sidewalks. The Red Jacks wiped them out with a little
help from Claude.
Leader: D-Ice
Idea: Boys from the Liberty hood
Vehicles of Preference: Hoods Rumpo XL
Weapons of Preference: Handgun, Uzi
Clothes: Hood-style; shirts have red insignia
Base: Liberty City
Turf: Wichita Gardens
Allies: None
Threat Index: Med-Lo
Influence: Med-Lo
The Red Jacks reigned supreme in Wichita Gardens until the Purple Nines
started horning in. This resulted in a huge turf war between the two gangs.
With a little help from Claude, D-Ice managed to eradicate the Purple Nines.
Leader: Unknown
Idea: Boys from the hood
Vehicles of Preference: Various
Weapons of Preference: Pistol, Micro-SMG
Clothes: Hood-style
Base: Los Santos
Turf: Idlewood, Jefferson, Glen Park
Allies: None
Threat Index: Hi
Influence: Hi
The Ballas are responsible for all the bad things that happened in Los
Santos, including the crack and a fair share of the gang violence. They were
the mortal enemies of the Grove Street Families until they were wiped off the
map. Many GSF homies sold them out to the Ballas before they did, however.
The LSPD response to the Ballas threat was disgustingly inadequate. They may
be allies of the Vagos, but I'm not sure. There are also Front Street Ballas
and a couple more, but they're unimportant.
Leader: Unknown
Idea: Boys from the hood
Vehicles of Preference: Various
Weapons of Preference: Pistol
Clothes: Hood-style
Base: San Fierro
Turf: Garcia, Doherty
Allies: Rollin' Heights Ballas
Threat Index: Lo
Influence: Lo
Not very dangerous at all, but may have been involved in the Ballas drug
operations.
Leader: Sean 'Sweet' Johnson
Idea: Part of the Families series
Vehicles of Preference: Various
Weapons of Preference: Pistol, SMG
Clothes: Hood-style
Base: Los Santos
Turf: Garcia, Playa del Seville
Allies: The other Families
Threat Index: Med-Lo
Influence: Med-Lo
Leader: Unknown
Idea: Gangsta wannabes
Vehicles of Preference: Gang Burrito
Weapons of Preference: Pistol
Clothes: Hood-style; jackets have a picture of a shark on the back
Base: Vice City
Turf: North Point Mall, Prawn Island
Allies: None
Threat Index: Lo
Influence: Lo
Leader: Johnny Sindacco
Idea: Italian mafia
Vehicles of Preference: Various
Weapons of Preference: Various
Clothes: Business suits
Base: Las Venturas, Liberty City
Turf: Caligula's casino
Allies: Leones, Forellis
Threat Index: Med-Hi
Influence: Med-Hi
Own a third-share in Caligula's. Actually, they really don't accomplish very
much considering. They also held a big part of Liberty City before the Leones
wiped them out.
Leader: Unknown
Idea: Gangsta wannabes
Vehicles of Preference: None
Weapons of Preference: Pistol
Clothes: Hood-style
Base: Vice City
Turf: North Point Mall
Allies: None
Threat Index: Lo
Influence: Lo
Leader: Sean 'Sweet' Johnson
Idea: Part of the Families series
Vehicles of Preference: Various
Weapons of Preference: Pistol, SMG
Clothes: Hood-style
Base: Los Santos
Turf: Ganton, Playa del Seville
Allies: The other Families
Threat Index: Med-Lo
Influence: Med-Lo
Leader: Cesar Vialpando
Idea: Hispanic boys from the hood
Vehicles of Preference: Various
Weapons of Preference: Pistol, Tec-9
Clothes: Hood-style
Base: Los Santos
Turf: El Corona
Allies: Grove Street Families
Threat Index: Hi
Influence: Hi
They had a long struggle against the Vagos. When Cesar left the Vagos claimed
the Aztecas territory, but Cesar got it back upon his return and destroyed
the Vagos. With the Vagos out of the way and the GSF on their side, the
Aztecas are now very powerful.
Leader: Tommy Vercetti
Idea: Tommy Vercetti's gang
Vehicles of Preference: Various
Weapons of Preference: Uzi
Clothes: Casual
Base: Vice City
Turf: Vice City
Allies: None
Threat Index: Hi
Influence: Hi
They took over Vice City in 1986 and reigned supreme, but who knows for how
long?
Three gangs had a stake in Caligula's Casino. The Forellis and Sindaccos are
named. The only other big mafia family we know of is the Vercettis, so it may
have been them. This would of course point to their influence having
stretched over more than a few years. But if not the Vercettis, well then
who? Most probably the Leones, but hey.
Leader: Current - leaderless
Former - Kasen Asuka, Kasen Kenji, Kasen Kazuki
Idea: Japanese criminal organization
Vehicles of Preference: Yakuza Stinger
Weapons of Preference: 9mm pistol, handgun, Uzi
Clothes: Black suits including ankle-length coats
Base: Liberty City
Turf: Torrington (ostensibly Japantown as well)
Allies: None
Threat Index: Hi
Influence: Hi
Coolest gang ever. They also get in the most turf wars - a ton of fighting
goes on with the mafia and the cartel. Plus, they've got Asuka, and also,
they're Japanese. What more do you want?
Leader: King Courtney
Idea: Jamaican English dudes
Vehicles of Preference: Yardie Lobo
Weapons of Preference: Baseball bat, handgun
Clothes: Hood-style
Base: Liberty City
Turf: Newport
Allies: None
Threat Index: Hi
Influence: Hi
Mortal enemies of the Diablos until Claude killed them all, the Yardies love
nothing better than a good street race. Getting in fights is a respectable
second.
I'll get the important stuff out of the way first. Grand Theft Auto, all
associated games and all affiliated characters, places, et cetera are copyright
Rockstar Games. They belong to it and are its exclusive intellectual property.
This document is not a challenge to that right, merely the expression of a fan.
During the course of writing this guide, I used a number of guides already on
GameFAQs for reference purposes. Most of them were small confirmations, so
there are too many to mention each one, but the most important were several
very well done Game Scripts:
GTA III - whitedragon
GTA: VC - eL dude
GTAA - Fasta Killa
GTA: SA - Omah
GTA: LCS - Maggotkill
The guide probably wouldn't have been possible without that, and I applaud
their work.
That said, all original content is mine - copyright Adam Marx. It may not be
reproduced or distributed by any mode, except for personal, private use. Except
for brief quotes, I will not tolerate the plagiarism of this guide. Said quotes
will only be tolerated if they are relatively unmodified ('...' and '[ ]' for
clarification is fine) and full credit is given to me.
Currently, only GameFAQs has the right to display this guide in any medium. No
other publication, online, printed, or in any other form, may display it. If
you see it on any other website, please contact me (see below.)
If you are found to be in violation of the above regarding GameFAQs'
exclusivity or plagiarism of my work, you will be asked at minimum to remove my
guide from your publication, and may be required to pay some sum of money,
including any royalties earned, among other things.
While I'm at it, the lame ASCII art - the headers for each section - are
copyright (c) Adam Marx. You may not use them for your guide, though why you
would want to I have no idea. I'll also take this opportunity to let you know
that the corners of the headers were supposed to look like Quidditch Cards, but
I kind of mangled them. I'm new at this.
The cool ASCII art at the very top of the guide, however, is not mine. I got it
from an ASCII Art Generator but I forget which one. It uses the 'Speed' font.
Anybody know where I got it from? I'd like to give credit.
I'll wrap up with the Contact Information. Questions, comments, praise,
criticisms, suggestions, and especially corrections and more are all welcomed.
If I get a lot of questions, perhaps I'll even start an FAQs section. Actually,
anything having to do with this guide or GTA in general is fun to get.
There are a couple of ways to contact me. E-mail is probably going to be the
fastest. Here's my address:
Roth/enb (a/t) oc/is (d/ot) ne/t
This, too, has been disfigured beyond recognition. This is simply to stop spam
programs from latching onto my address and sending me even more schmut than I
get already. When you type in the e-mail, ignore the slashes and of course make
it all lower-case. Furthermore, (at) and (dot) are just for show. Type @ where
it says (at) and . where it says (dot). This is just another method of crowd
control, sorry.
Make sure you be very clear in your subject or you'll be blocked. I need 'Grand
Theft Auto Plot Guide' or something similar to ensure I even open it, and even
then it might still get deleted. Sorry, but I share an e-mail account with
people who are very very worried about viruses, it's not my fault.
Finally, I do pop into the various Grand Theft Auto boards from time to time,
but I rarely find any topics of much interest to me so it's usually not worthy
checking. It might be worth a try, though.
I was amazed by how much e-mail I received offering this guide praise and
corrections. It's only fair to name the people who make this guide so much
better than I could have without input, so they are credited in this section.
Scott Blackwell - more on Claude's first name
Lancet Jades (Johnny H) - an epic amount of contributions and corrections
Ron - assorted stuff
Ryforce - assorted stuff, El Burro
Kim Biebeaut - assorted stuff
Phillip Hum - Chinese naming conventions
Patrick Thomson - assorted stuff
Jonas Cope - prompted me to reexamine my assertion about Kenji's use of the
word gaijin, the connection between OG Loc and Big Smoke
I've spent a long, long time writing this guide. It took me nine days of
near-solid writing to get where I am now. I shouldn't have to tell you that
you really need to be enjoying what you're doing to devote that kind of
effort to a project.
I certainly enjoyed writing this guide. This is only the second FAQs I've
ever written and the first one was really more of a warm-up, so I'm quite
proud of myself to have done something on such a huge scale.
Hopefully I managed to educate you on the great plot of the GTA series in
this guide. If you enjoyed it, or even if you hated it, or if you think the
way I portray the story is totally bogus, or if you have anything whatsoever
to say about it, feel free to drop me a line. I'd love to hear from you. I'm
especially concerned with corrections. I did everything I could to make this
FAQs as accurate as possible, but when you've got a 200kb monster going copy-
editing becomes a tad harder. If enough people ask me questions, I may start
an actual Frequently Asked Questions section. We will see.
As we move into new territory with the GTA franchise, rest assured that I
will continue to act as chronicler. There's always another story to be told.
