Any 4-Star daredevils out there?

[zmoonchild]

First, I want to emphasize that I never use cheats.

I play on PC, and own both v1.0 and v2.0, so the things I’ve listed here will work on both.

I am an avid player for getting 13.37% before doing the 2nd story mission ‘Big Smoke’, basically anything after the 1st mission ‘In the Beginning’.

I have done it several times.

Also, I am aware of the mission exploits that allow you to explore the game without getting a wanted level; however, I’m always looking for a tougher challenge than that.

On average, I can usually go for about 2 hours of straight playing inside of a 4-Star area without getting wasted or busted (god, I really have no life). After that, I like to get back to a Safe House to save the game, just in case the game locks up (which does happen on rare occasions), so I don’t have to start all over again.

Some of the things that I have found interesting:

1. The Chiliad Challenges are usually never more difficult than trying them with no-stars, getting to and from the challenges takes a little practice though, but it’s not that hard.

2. I have found several outdoor locations where I can stand for long periods of time and not have any police appear; sometimes they never appear where I’m located, rather on a roadway close-by, and they can’t figure out how to get to me; other times they just take longer than average to appear; therefore I don’t have to rush when I’m at those locations.

3. Most indoor locations are safe from police: Fast Food places, the larger Casinos, Driving School, etc.

However, exiting an indoor location always creates a somewhat bad situation, there will always be at least 3 to 6 cops with handguns shooting at you when you exit; just be prepared to run.

4. I want to emphasize that the Fast Food places can be opened prior to the mission ‘Big Smoke’ by initiating a date with one of the three available girlfriends: Katie, Michelle, or Barbara. The date will be disastrous, however, the fast food places will remain open after that, and will remain open even after saving the game. It is impossible to have a successful date prior to each girlfriend’s appropriate area being unlocked; strange, considering that you can still acquire them as girlfriends in the first place.

5. Collecting horseshoes that are at higher elevations requires an aircraft of some kind or another. Hydras will sometimes appear immediately after you enter one of those aircraft; they’re extremely close to the aircraft when you enter it, and usually already in the process of already firing their missiles, which can make it very difficult to go very far.

6. The Skimmer seems to not trigger the Hydras to appear as quickly; actually I’ve never seen the Hydra appear for it.

The AT-400 is same; Hydras never seem to appear for it.

7. All other collectables, Oysters, Snapshots, and ground-obtainable Horseshoes are easier to collect, with some practice of course.

8. As far as the Oysters are concerned, 39 of them can be obtained without getting any wanted levels.

9. Collecting the 3 Oysters located north of Sherman Dam presents a unique situation: Police & Media Helicopters will fly overhead toward your location, but will always come down into the water and sink; it always happens. Really funny.

10. When dealing with the Snapshots, there a several of them that can be obtained without getting a wanted level; the total count is somewhere between 8 and 12 (I don’t have an exact number yet).

These are Snapshots that can be taken from a distance, such as from a boat, or a hill overlooking San Fierro. But keep in mind that the only way to obtain a camera prior to the mission ‘Big Smoke’ is to go into San Fierro and get one, which will trigger a 4-Star wanted level.

11. I have been able to take all Snapshots by riding around on an NRG-500 or PCJ-600, and jumping off of the motorcylce and back on real quickly. All Snapshots can be taken from ground locations, even in locations where the invisible barriers are in place.

Also, motorcycles can maneuver around visible barriers and get onto the bridge, where cars can’t.

12. Pay-n-Sprays are your best friends, and it’s always nice to have Michelle as a girlfriend to give you that one extra repair shop.

13. Knowing the locations of food vendors really helps; you don’t have to stop to get food, just run through the red marker. Also vending machines work well too, you just have to be careful about standing still too long, unless they’re located in places where police take a long time to appear.

14. The Tattoo Parlors in Las Ventures and San Fierro are both open from the very beginning of the game (prior to the mission ‘Big Smoke’), whereas the Los Santos Tattoo Parlors are not.

15. Courier Asset Missions can be completed: Burger Shot in Las Ventures and Hippy Shopper in San Fierro, very tricky though, high Bike Skill is recommended.

16. Several aircraft are available from the very beginning of the game and are fully functional, I recommend getting your Pilot’s License early on to get easier access to some of them:

Fixed-Wing aircraft:

Dodo

Shamal

AT-400

Skimmer

Rotary-Wing aircraft:

Maverick

Seasparrow

CargoBob

Leviathan

And, very important, you can fly a Seasparrow back to the Mulholland Safe House and store it on top of the garage, and it will stay there even though it disappears when the garage door is closed. That’s not a typo, I said on top of the garage. You can store any vehicle up there provided that you can get it up there, a Packer works well for those situations, cars drive up the ramp very easily.

Here's a video demonstration of how it works:

Storing a SeaSparrow on top of the Mulholland garage

Here's a saved-game that was saved at the Mulholland Safe house, all you have to do is walk outside and open the garage to see what I'm talking about:

GTA Save-N-Play

It's v1.0

Also, you can store a Maverick in the Santa Maria Beach garage, but it sometimes gets stuck in there, and the only way to remove it is to blow it up. Tow Trucks work very well in pushing and pulling Mavericks in to or out of the garage (unless they get stuck), they hook up to them without any problem.

Edited December 4, 2007 by zmoonchild

[hypercoder]

Dude, you're one sick puppy... I like you more already!

I've beat the game 4 times now so always looking for new ways to cause trouble or take advantage of any glitches (PS2, no mods and never use cheats).

Found multiple places where the cops just go stupid and can't find you or get to you - typically someplace of slightly higher elevation like the tunnel entrance next to Wang Motors in Dougherty or on top of Michelles garage (unless you stand at the top of the stairs - then they will come get you). Does help at times if your health and armor are low to hang out in a Pay n Spray (without actually using it) until the cops wander off so you can dash out and build either or both back up before the swarm returns.

Theres a weapon skill glitch that lets you shoot the wheel of a car and raise your skill level quickly - works great for the AK-47 but not so well for the shotgun, however, you can shoot about 10 or 11 vehicles until they explode and the shotgun skills will max out.

Lately I've taken up getting 4-star Wanted then doing a mission while the cops are running interference...

Once I get the initial 'forced' mission out of the way I go straight Pilot and Cycle skills, two of my favorite toys and the motorcycles (NRG500 in 2nd floor parking structure down by East Beach out runs about anything) are great for slipping through blockades in the road. It's possible to jump off the bike at high speeds and launch it into a crowd and not get wanted for doing so...

Found if you jump out of a helicopter at max altitude over water you don't get hurt on impact - great way to bail if you don't have a parachute.

On the PS2 the car hauler is largely useless, but, if you have a car on the lower level then drop the ramp it damages the car and sets the whole thing up like a time bomb - gives you time to get away before both of the vehicles go off. Works great in a crowded area, especially if you use it to block a freeway and the waiting cars go up in a chain reaction.

Fire trucks and busses make great barricade breakers and they launch slow vehicles right out of the way if you hit them squarely.

Later in the game when you've got the 'Hunter', it's great for doing Vigiante missions. Level 140 pays $1 million, level 200 pays $2 million. You end up with more money than you could ever waste. After a while you get so used to the game timing you can be flying, turn around blind, shoot the cop chopper down and go back to what you were doing without a pause. Took out 80 police Mavericks during one extended Vigilante run (yeah about 5 hours game time, you thought you had no life...). The excess time builds up so high that it wraps around - get more than 60 minutes and it looks like you've only got 3 or 4 but let them run out and you still have that hour to complete the mission from earlier; was up to 2 and a half hours at one point - spend a lot of time letting the police ground vehicles 'chase' me and leading them into water. Apparently cops can't swim LOL.

Put Carl in front of a motorcycle and press the triangle button (enter vehicle), he does a flying kick to knock the rider off and ends up seated and ready to roll. Cracks me up everytime I do it to a cop.

[hypercoder]

I like the concept here so I've got CJ in 'training'.

I have not done the first mission at all (Big Smoke?) which means I can't get into my own house...

In the mean time I've gotten him up to 'Hitman' on 9mm, Tec9, Sawn-off shotgun and M4 weapons, got about 300 Molotovs - they work so well for taking out multiple targets and being fireproof makes it a more reasonable weapon to employ. Health at 150 haven't done Vigilante yet - but it's due soon. BMX and 8 Track are complete... largely doing all the 1st island stuff before hitting the other islands. Muscle is up to 'Buff'. Stamina and Lung capacity need to come up yet, but I plan on developing those when I get the 'safe' oysters.

Taxi missions are done and can be a real benefit when it comes to impromptu exit strategies (nitro!), helps that they are relatively plentiful in the vehicle population.

Got enough respect to recruit a gang member - I like doing Vigilante on a cop bike to I put my recruit on the back and use him like armor for about the first 8 levels.

Like you already know - this is going to take some time. I was really pressing it and hadn't even saved the game up to 7.45% completion, but the game hung for a second and I figured in case it locked up I didn't want to lose everything.

Got busted once - one of those lame a$$ events like when the other drivers go crazy and run you over then the cop runs up on you BUSTED! Crap - was trying to run as clean as possible for the first island at least.

We'll see how it goes when I move off the first island.

[hunter88888]

First, I want to emphasize that I never use cheats.

I play on PC, and own both v1.0 and v2.0, so the things I've listed here will work on both.

I am an avid player for getting 13.37% before doing the 2nd story mission 'Big Smoke', basically anything after the 1st mission 'In the Beginning'.

I have done it several times.

Also, I am aware of the mission exploits that allow you to explore the game without getting a wanted level; however, I'm always looking for a tougher challenge than that.

On average, I can usually go for about 2 hours of straight playing inside of a 4-Star area without getting wasted or busted (god, I really have no life). After that, I like to get back to a Safe House to save the game, just in case the game locks up (which does happen on rare occasions), so I don't have to start all over again.

Some of the things that I have found interesting:

1. The Chiliad Challenges are usually never more difficult than trying them with no-stars, getting to and from the challenges takes a little practice though, but it's not that hard.

2. I have found several outdoor locations where I can stand for long periods of time and not have any police appear; sometimes they never appear where I'm located, rather on a roadway close-by, and they can't figure out how to get to me; other times they just take longer than average to appear; therefore I don't have to rush when I'm at those locations.

3. Most indoor locations are safe from police: Fast Food places, the larger Casinos, Driving School, etc.

However, exiting an indoor location always creates a somewhat bad situation, there will always be at least 3 to 6 cops with handguns shooting at you when you exit; just be prepared to run.

4. I want to emphasize that the Fast Food places can be opened prior to the mission 'Big Smoke' by initiating a date with one of the three available girlfriends: Katie, Michelle, or Barbara. The date will be disastrous, however, the fast food places will remain open after that, and will remain open even after saving the game. It is impossible to have a successful date prior to each girlfriend's appropriate area being unlocked; strange, considering that you can still acquire them as girlfriends in the first place.

5. Collecting horseshoes that are at higher elevations requires an aircraft of some kind or another. Hydras will sometimes appear immediately after you enter one of those aircraft; they're extremely close to the aircraft when you enter it, and usually already in the process of already firing their missiles, which can make it very difficult to go very far.

6. The Skimmer seems to not trigger the Hydras to appear as quickly; actually I've never seen the Hydra appear for it.

The AT-400 is same; Hydras never seem to appear for it.

7. All other collectables, Oysters, Snapshots, and ground-obtainable Horseshoes are easier to collect, with some practice of course.

8. As far as the Oysters are concerned, 39 of them can be obtained without getting any wanted levels.

9. Collecting the 3 Oysters located north of Sherman Dam presents a unique situation: Police & Media Helicopters will fly overhead toward your location, but will always come down into the water and sink; it always happens. Really funny.

10. When dealing with the Snapshots, there a several of them that can be obtained without getting a wanted level; the total count is somewhere between 8 and 12 (I don't have an exact number yet).

These are Snapshots that can be taken from a distance, such as from a boat, or a hill overlooking San Fierro. But keep in mind that the only way to obtain a camera prior to the mission 'Big Smoke' is to go into San Fierro and get one, which will trigger a 4-Star wanted level.

11. I have been able to take all Snapshots by riding around on an NRG-500 or PCJ-600, and jumping off of the motorcylce and back on real quickly. All Snapshots can be taken from ground locations, even in locations where the invisible barriers are in place.

Also, motorcycles can maneuver around visible barriers and get onto the bridge, where cars can't.

12. Pay-n-Sprays are your best friends, and it's always nice to have Michelle as a girlfriend to give you that one extra repair shop.

13. Knowing the locations of food vendors really helps; you don't have to stop to get food, just run through the red marker. Also vending machines work well too, you just have to be careful about standing still too long, unless they're located in places where police take a long time to appear.

14. The Tattoo Parlors in Las Ventures and San Fierro are both open from the very beginning of the game (prior to the mission 'Big Smoke'), whereas the Los Santos Tattoo Parlors are not.

15. Courier Asset Missions can be completed: Burger Shot in Las Ventures and Hippy Shopper in San Fierro, very tricky though, high Bike Skill is recommended.

16. Several aircraft are available from the very beginning of the game and are fully functional, I recommend getting your Pilot's License early on to get easier access to some of them:

Fixed-Wing aircraft:

Dodo

Shamal

AT-400

Skimmer

Rotary-Wing aircraft:

Maverick

Seasparrow

CargoBob

Leviathan

And, very important, you can fly a Seasparrow back to the Mulholland Safe House and store it on top of the garage, and it will stay there even though it disappears when the garage door is closed. That's not a typo, I said on top of the garage. You can store any vehicle up there provided that you can get it up there, a Packer works well for those situations, cars drive up the ramp very easily.

Here's a video demonstration of how it works:

Storing a SeaSparrow on top of the Mulholland garage

Here's a saved-game that was saved at the Mulholland Safe house, all you have to do is walk outside and open the garage to see what I'm talking about:

GTA Save-N-Play

It's v1.0

Also, you can store a Maverick in the Santa Maria Beach garage, but it sometimes gets stuck in there, and the only way to remove it is to blow it up. Tow Trucks work very well in pushing and pulling Mavericks in to or out of the garage (unless they get stuck), they hook up to them without any problem.

1. Shit san, that Mullholand garage thing's crazy/awesome.

2. Knew most things, maybe I read too many of your posts.

3. Y'all should try 6-stars, 7 hours, on foot, car, bike, motorcycle, slow plane, and heli. And you thought you had no lives.

P.S. Hyper, why would you waste your time doing vigilante when you could get money with the offside-track betting/reloading trick?

(now don't shun me, I'm not THAT good at flying the hunter, F15's my preference, in "Vertical Bird", I can take down the enemy aircrafts without firing a single missile/dropping a bomb).

[hypercoder]

P.S. Hyper, why would you waste your time doing vigilante when you could get money with the offside-track betting/reloading trick?

(now don't shun me, I'm not THAT good at flying the hunter, F15's my preference, in "Vertical Bird", I can take down the enemy aircrafts without firing a single missile/dropping a bomb).

Cash I got, I'm doing Vigilante for the armor boost to 150...

In the hood I like using the cop bike because you can fire forward and some of those cars have the fuel door under the license plate. But I prefer Hunter when I want to kill a couple of hours and a few hundred criminals. Took it up to where it paid $1 million (level 140) for the payoff, then decided to find out where it payed $2 million - turns out you only had to go to level 200.

[RanxeroX]

Cash I got, I'm doing Vigilante for the armor boost to 150...

In the hood I like using the cop bike because you can fire forward and some of those cars have the fuel door under the license plate. But I prefer Hunter when I want to kill a couple of hours and a few hundred criminals. Took it up to where it paid $1 million (level 140) for the payoff, then decided to find out where it payed $2 million - turns out you only had to go to level 200.

I used to love doing Vigilante in Vice City with the Hunter where you could go on as long as you wanted without fear... My personal best there was level 500 - made enough cash to put me to the $1 billion -1 mark. However, when I tried it once in SA, as soon as I hit level-4 wanted I had Hydras all over me! Even shot a few down! So what's the trick for keeping them away? I wouldn't mind knowing so I could have another go at it.

[hypercoder]

I used to love doing Vigilante in Vice City with the Hunter where you could go on as long as you wanted without fear... My personal best there was level 500 - made enough cash to put me to the $1 billion -1 mark. However, when I tried it once in SA, as soon as I hit level-4 wanted I had Hydras all over me! Even shot a few down! So what's the trick for keeping them away? I wouldn't mind knowing so I could have another go at it.

It's not past me to drop down and grab one of the open bribes to keep the wanted level down if my targets in the area of one. You can also avoid risk of higher wanted levels by using the machine gun instead of the rockets. Big explosions tend to piss the cops off Levels go up quicker if you take out the cop choppers - typically they're trying to manouver for position or trying to keep up, I haven't found them to be much more trouble than ingnorable; unless it's that one jerk that's always trying to land on your rotor and take you out - he's gotta go...

[hunter88888]

@RanxeroX:like hyper said, don't shoot down choppers unless you need to, use machine guns as much as possible, collect bribes and if you got a lot of time and too many stars just land near a Pay N Spray, steal a car, Spray away and get back in the hunter.

[hypercoder]

6. The Skimmer seems to not trigger the Hydras to appear as quickly; actually I’ve never seen the Hydra appear for it.

The AT-400 is same; Hydras never seem to appear for it.

I've been able to fly a helicopter all over the place with minimal trouble from the Harriers by keeping low or in canyons - natural or man-made (because of the buildings)... and any time I get the chance I lead the ground vehicles over cliffs or into bodies of water. I can see them flying around me but they don't often shoot, I've had a couple crash into the terrain or buildings because of their flight patterns and my position.

Using the Molotovs is going well - I can take out a swarm of cops with one toss and there's no damaging concussion like there is with grenades. Challenging getting weapons though when I still don't have access to the Johnson house, that would have made life easy, but hey, the idea is to make it tough right?

BTW: Doing the NRG-500 Challenge was hilarious with S.W.A.T. trucks running around inside the dry dock with me

[hunter88888]

@hyper: Download a weapons map, and collect all the tags/snapshots/horseshoes. That should help you get weapons.

[zmoonchild]

BTW: Doing the NRG-500 Challenge was hilarious with S.W.A.T. trucks running around inside the dry dock with me

I agree, it presents a whole new challenge.

[hypercoder]

@hyper: Download a weapons map, and collect all the tags/snapshots/horseshoes. That should help you get weapons.

I kind of took advantage of the fact (that I couldn't get into the Johnson house) by building it into my strategy - at first I did weapon sweeps on the BMX to build up the bicycle skill, once that was maxed I went to motorcycles - same concept, and when that was maxed I went to using cars to build the driving skills I had started by doing all the R3 missions I could.

On helicopters and fighter planes:

Cop choppers will let you get nose to nose with them while you're in a Seasparrow - makes taking them out real easy, just get the hell out of Dodge before they blow up in your face. If you're on the ground, I've taken out 5 or 6 of them using the sawn off shotgun.

You can evade heat seeking missles by holding the square button (drop engine rpm/altitude button) when the missle is coming in on you but be warned that if you are over water they will go under and do a U turn and come back for you. Try to avoid landing on the water because it kills the engine and it makes you a sitting duck before you can take off again.

Zoom: Thanks for the helicopter on the garage tip! And for the restaurant trick... I've got Barbara as a girlfriend, just need to take her out sometime.

Don't know if anyone else has tried this - but it works:

You can store/save vehicles in the Doherty garage before you own it.

[hypercoder]

Trying different things to see what I can get away with... found I could fly from Mulholland to the Boat School without getting 'wanted'.

Also, shot down several of the fighter planes now by using the Seasparrow, here's one of them:

Take note though... the moment that plane goes down - there's a missle coming right at you from a second plane.

[RanxeroX]

It's not past me to drop down and grab one of the open bribes to keep the wanted level down if my targets in the area of one. You can also avoid risk of higher wanted levels by using the machine gun instead of the rockets. Big explosions tend to piss the cops off Levels go up quicker if you take out the cop choppers - typically they're trying to manouver for position or trying to keep up, I haven't found them to be much more trouble than ingnorable; unless it's that one jerk that's always trying to land on your rotor and take you out - he's gotta go...

Well, see there's my problem... I was used to using rockets in PS2 Vice City cuz it made for quick kills of groups. I'll try it with guns mainly and see what happens. Thanks for that tip! And yes, I know about using bribes when possible. You won't get very far without those!

[hunter88888]

You can store/save vehicles in the Doherty garage before you own it.

Ummm yea well known fact...

You can blow up the rustler at the airport and push it there and then use it (once revived courtesy of the garage) to shoot down a hydra (and then push it to the Doherty garage, revive it and fly off with it or just leave it there) although its probably easier to use a Sea Sparrow...

[hypercoder]

You can store/save vehicles in the Doherty garage before you own it.

Ummm yea well known fact...

Oops - just saw the newsletter that says every single person that plays the game automatically knows that and I just realized it's on the splash screen when the game is loading.

You can blow up the rustler at the airport and push it there and then use it (once revived courtesy of the garage) to shoot down a hydra (and then push it to the Doherty garage, revive it and fly off with it or just leave it there) although its probably easier to use a Sea Sparrow...

Wow, you did all that prior to the first mission? Here I've only beaten the game 5 times now and I can still be impressed.

[hypercoder]

Obviously there are multiple approaches to the other islands, one of them being by boat. What I found is if you're in a boat and the cop boats are blasting away at you - just press the triangle button (exit vehicle) but stay in the boat. The cop boats will go stupid - not the guy standing on the bow firing at you but the drivers of the boats will power down. Shooting the guys on the bows of the boats is easy... Take off again and the cop boats re-activate, exit vehicle again and they go stupid. By doing this you can get them right next to you and jack their boats (whick is a typically faster boat anyhow unless you've got a Jetmax). If you're inthe water they respond to you being there, but stand in a boat and they just drift around.

If you have a 'Tropic'. Get up into the cabin but don't drive the boat - you can swing the camera view around and see below the water by looking through the windows (makes it look like the water is gone). This window trick works on several vehicles in several places. The Seasparrow windows do the same thing, but normally you have to be in the water angling to look through the open door. Helps with looking for oysters. Had a cop car in front of me while standing in the LV Pay n Spray and I could see through the wall by the road, looking through the windsheild.

Also found numerous incidents of cop vehicles (and foot patrol) going stupid because I was driving backwards with a reverse camera view.

[hypercoder]

Courier missions

Like Zoom mentioned - you want high cycle skills here, but your worst enemies are not the police vehicles or SWAT wagons - it's the cops on foot patrol... get temporarily stuck in a corner and they will run up and bitch slap you off your wheels. Welcome to the land of failed missions... dammit. If you're approaching a corona and you see a cop on foot - run him over.

The 4 wheel vehicles are fairly predictable - they like getting in front of you and braking to stop your forward motion. Easy enough to deal with - when they're next to you, slam on the brakes - they'll do the same thing with a swerve and you can navigate around them.

Sometimes you don't want to drive fast - because you'll lose the vehicle tailing you and new ones will spawn in front of you, this can be a real pain if you're approaching your target corona for the package delivery. Quite often the cops will stay in their cars if you haven't gotten off your vehicle - so they'll sit there as well, gives you a few secs to manuver or evade.

Road blocks - you can have up to 8 to 12 SWAT guys waiting for you at a road block, automatic weapons and enough combined skill to make your mission miserable. If they are near your target corona - do a 180º and go back about a block or so then return - the SWAT trucks will still be there but the guys with the guns will be gone. If the trucks are gone there may still be a couple of SWAT guys walking around - but not often shooting, run them over, do your thing and split.

The hard part about these mission (for me at least, on my PS2) is getting credit for the delivery - toss your package and there can be a 5 or 6 second (real time) lag before it's shows delivery complete. Sometimes you have to pick the package up again and retry tossing it. I've had some that simply would not take the package and I ran out of time...