The madness continues, PS2 San Andreas

[hypercoder]

I took it upon myself to acquire a Seasparrow before the other two islands were open. Turns out to be suprisingly easy. I went to East Beach and turned straight north until I saw the bridge for the train tressel that goes into Las Venturas, jumped into the water and swam towards the southeast corner of the island where a Jetmax is sitting in the water.

I took off, continuing north but staying away from shore and wasn't getting the automatic 4 star wanted level. I followed the island around towards the west and eventually you are directly north of the abandoned airport. There, at the dock is a Seasparrow.

The first couple times I got into it I was immediately wanted - Police helicopters and Harrier jets on my tail. My intentions were to fly due south to Dillimore, hit the Pay 'n Spray then go play with my new toy. The plan looks great on paper! In practice it's more challenging.

After several failed attempts I got the idea to not enter the helicopter but see if I could push it out to sea and get it away from shore. Takes a little time but it works - you can push it far enough out then when you get into it you don't earn your 4 stars. Cool. Flew it back to San Andreas by staying away from land.

Shot a couple of cars, accidentally got a cop and had to work off the two stars by picking up bribes. No prob.

Got the idea about recruiting a homie and taking him for a ride. Now the homies piss me off - if you take a bunch of them on a mission to acquire new territory they might take down a rival gang member. Usually they're happy to watch you get splattered because you had the idea that they would be of some benefit for that task. What was I thinking??

They are useful as Bio-armor if you decide to take one on a Vigilante mission while using a cop bike - those pesky motorcycle cops that can shoot forward end up hitting the homie instead of you. Of course, they are lucky if they can last past Level 8, but hey - it serves a purpose.

Back to recruited gang members and helicopter rides...

Off we go, into the wild blue yonder. Me an' homie are headed downtown. I found a couple of buildings right next to each other, the only differences are one is 3 stories tall and the other about 20. I landed near the edge of the tall building and got out. So did homie - then I told him to stay put. Suprisingly, he did (try doing that when you've got 5 or six of them out in the water - they fail to listen and swim back in). I got in the helicopter and flew down to the lower building, got out then told homie to "Get your fat a$$ over here."

He did a wonderful face plant on the sidewalk.

My only regret is that I don't have a larger helicopter.