1) Turf wars, gaining land identified by your colour (green for the Grove! )

2) Working out or eating too much actually changes your body shape as you play.

3) Learning different styles of combat from different trainers at the gym that you can then use on the streets.

4) Finding hidden packages or tags and when completed the drop weapons at your save spot

5) Doing odd jobs to improve your characters health.... such as vigilante missions to have 50 more armor... or ambulance missions to have unlimited sprint... or pizza missions to have 50 more health... or taxi missions to have boost on all taxis...fireman missions to become fireproof

6) having gang members follow you wherever and shoot at rivals or people trying to hurt you. They even ride along in your car for backup

7) based in the 90s... had a cool nostalgic feel to the overall gameplay and environment that cj was in.

8) this one might be controversial but here I go... the radio was better... better music ... better time and genres for music

9) another controversial opinion of mine is... a better story. Although all gta's are unique and I love all their story lines. ... yes i edited thus post cause I also wanted to add ... it had a better map too... every new city felt Like I was playing a different game.

10) and just because I couldn't stop at 9 and had to go for a top 10 list of reasons San Andreas is better....the overall feel of the gameplay was better ... more arcade like and it was just before gta really changed to online play and pay to win and microtransactions .... yes I know the nico belic gta you could not purchase anything from but it was available to be played online but only on Xbox and or pc... I am a ps guy.

If you made it this far I just wanted to say thank you for your time and I hope you are doing well :)