____________________________ _________ __ ____/__ __ \__ |__ | / /__ __ \ _ / __ __ /_/ /_ /| |_ |/ /__ / / / / /_/ / _ _, _/_ ___ | /| / _ /_/ / \____/ /_/ |_| /_/ |_/_/ |_/ /_____/ _____________ ___________________________ ___ __/__ / / /__ ____/__ ____/__ __/ __ / __ /_/ /__ __/ __ /_ __ / _ / _ __ / _ /___ _ __/ _ / /_/ /_/ /_/ /_____/ /_/ /_/ ____________ _______________ ___ |_ / / /__ __/_ __ \ __ /| | / / /__ / _ / / / _ ___ / /_/ / _ / / /_/ / /_/ |_\____/ /_/ \____/ Series Plot Guide by Adam Marx TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction [INT] Version History [VER] 1971 [VICPRO] 1986 [VICMAI] 1987 [SANPRO] 1992 [SANMAI] 1994 [LIBPRO] 1998 [LIBMAI] 2000 [ADVMAI] 2001 [IIIMAI] 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) PRO = prologue MAI = main /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | INTRODUCTION [INT] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | 1971 [VICPRO] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | 1986 [VICMAI] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | 1987 [SANPRO] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | 1992 [SANMAI] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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! /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | 1994 [LIBPRO] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | 1998 [LIBMAI] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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... /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | 2000 [ADVMAI] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | 2001 [IIIMAI] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | | | DRAMATIS PERSONAE [CHAR] | | | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | 8-Ball [CHAR001] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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? Oh yeah, he also had a shop in Vice City. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | 'Big' Mitch Baker [CHAR002] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | B Dup [CHAR003] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Big Bear [CHAR004] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Big Smoke [CHAR005] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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! /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Ned Burner [CHAR006] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Michelle Cannes [CHAR007] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. RANDOM FACTS Her first car was a Perennial. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Avery Carrington [CHAR008] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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.' /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Catalina [CHAR009] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Vincenzo 'Lucky' Chili [CHAR010] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Marty Chonks [CHAR011] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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? /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Ma Cipriani [CHAR012] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Toni Cipriani [CHAR013] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Cisco [CHAR014] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Juan Garcia Cortez [CHAR015] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Mercedes Cortez [CHAR016] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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.' /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Ricardo Diaz [CHAR017] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | D-Ice [CHAR018] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Dwaine [CHAR019] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | El Burro [CHAR020] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Emmet [CHAR021] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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.) /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Claude Fido [CHAR022] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Frederico Fido [CHAR023] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Sonny Forelli [CHAR024] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Luigi Goterelli [CHAR025] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Guppy [CHAR026] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Officer Jimmy Hernandez [CHAR027] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Jethro [CHAR028] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Jizzy B [CHAR029] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Jonnie [CHAR030] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Beverly Johnson [CHAR031] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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! /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Kendl Johnson [CHAR034] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Cam Jones [CHAR036] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Kasen Asuka [CHAR037] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Kasen Kazuki [CHAR038] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Kasen Kenji [CHAR039] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Kasen Toshiko [CHAR040] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Kasen Yuka [CHAR041] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Earnest Kelly [CHAR042] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Hilary King [CHAR043] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Joey Leone [CHAR045] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Salvatore Leone [CHAR046] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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! /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Jeffrey 'OG Loc' [CHAR047] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Love Fist [CHAR049] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Ran Fa Li [CHAR050] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Maccer [CHAR051] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Ray Machowski [CHAR052] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Madd Dogg [CHAR053] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Leon McAffrey [CHAR055] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Miguel [CHAR056] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Misty [CHAR058] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Wu Zi Mu [CHAR059] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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.' Does that mean Suzie and Guppy are Dai Lo? /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | JD O'Toole [CHAR060] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Officer Ralph Pendelbury [CHAR062] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Millie Perkins [CHAR063] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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?!' /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Auntie Poulet [CHAR04] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Officer Eddie Pulaski [CHAR065] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Umberto Robina [CHAR066] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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.) /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Denise Robinson [CHAR067] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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). /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Ken Rosenberg [CHAR068] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Ryder [CHAR069] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Barbara Schternvart [CHAR070] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Alex Shrub [CHAR072] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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.) /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Johnny Sindacco [CHAR073] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | The Snakehead [CHAR074] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Candy Suxx [CHAR075] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Suzie [CHAR076] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | T-Bone [CHAR077] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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.' /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Officer Frank Tenpenny [CHAR078] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Mike Toreno [CHAR079] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Massimo Torini [CHAR080] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Lance Vance [CHAR082] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Tommy Vercetti [CHAR083] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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! /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Cesar Vialpando [CHAR084] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Vinnie [CHAR085] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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? /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Helena Wankstein [CHAR086] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Katie Zhan [CHAR088] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | | | HIVES OF CORRUPTION [HOC] | | | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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 [HOCVIC] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ Real-world counterpart: Miami 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? /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Los Santos [HOCLOS] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ Real-world counterpart: Los Angeles 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? /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | San Fierro [HOCSAN] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ Real-world counterparts: San Diego, San Francisco 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 [HOCLAS] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ Real-world counterpart: Las Vegas 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | | | GANGS [GAN] | | | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Bikers [GANBIK] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Blood Feather Triads [GANBFT] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Diablos [GANDIA] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Forellis [GANFOR] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Golfers [GANGOL] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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? /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Handlers [GANHAN] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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 /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Leones [GANLEO] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Liberty Cartel [GANLCC] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Liberty Triads [GANLCT] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Los Santos Vagos [GANLSV] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Mountain Cloud Triads [GANMCT] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Orange Grove Families [GANOGF] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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 /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Port Authorities [GANPOR] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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 /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Purple Nines [GANNIN] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Red Jacks [GANJAC] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Rollin' Heights Ballas [GANBAL] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | San Fierro Rifa [GANSFR] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Seville Boulevard Families [GANSBF] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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 /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Sharks [GANSHA] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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 /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Sindaccos [GANSIN] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Street Wannabes [GANSTR] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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 Kinda like the Orphans from The Warriors. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Temple Drive Families [GANTDF] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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 /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Varrios Los Aztecas [GANVLA] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Vercettis [GANVER] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Vice Colombians [GANVCO] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ Leader: Ricardo Diaz Idea: Ricardo Diaz's gang Vehicles of Preference: None Weapons of Preference: Pistol, Uzi Clothes: Casual Base: Vice City Turf: Diaz's Mansion Allies: Cortez (for a while) Threat Index: Med-Hi Influence: Med-Hi /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Vice Cubans [GANVCU] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ Leader: Umberto Robina Idea: Cuban smugglers Vehicles of Preference: Cuban Hermes Weapons of Preference: Pistol Clothes: Casual Base: Vice City Turf: Little Havana Allies: None Threat Index: Med-Lo Influence: Med-Lo Enemies of the Haitians. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Vice Haitians [GANVCH] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ Leader: Auntie Poulet Idea: Haitian smugglers Vehicles of Preference: Voodoo Weapons of Preference: Pistol Clothes: Casual Base: Vice City Turf: Little Haiti Allies: None Threat Index: Med-Lo Influence: Med-Lo Enemies of the Cubans. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Yakuza [GANYAK] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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? /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Yardies [GANYAR] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Legal Garbage [LEG] | /\_________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. /\__________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | Thanks [THA] | /\__________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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 /\__________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ | In Closing [CLO] | /\__________________________________________________________________________/\ \/ \/ 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. ~Adam EOF