Eating - Guide for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

                                    Eating

A new feature to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' is the food mechanic, which will 
require you to keep your virtual alter ego, CJ, in good physical condition by 
tracking down some choice grub. The basics of the mechanic are simple: When CJ is 
hungry, a message will appear onscreen alerting you to his need for some chow. If 
you choose to ignore this missive, his energy level will start to decrease, and a 
host of other bad things will begin to happen. Superficially, your boy will get 
skinny and look generally emaciated, resulting in the ill-fitting of his clothes, 
which is hardly the look you want to have when trying to earn respect on the 
streets. 

As if this wasn't bad enough, you won't just look weak. Your skinny butt will be 
unable to lift boxes or punch with any kind of force, thus ensuring many a beat-down 
in hand-to-hand fights. Along the same lines, you can say goodbye to speed and 
stamina, which will affect your performance as you swim, cycle, or run through the 
game. 

To keep yourself from looking like Snoop Dogg's sickly cousin, you'll have to seek 
out places to chow down. There are a few the locales in Los Santos, the LA-inspired 
city in the state of San Andreas, where CJ will be able to get his food on. As with 
the previous GTA games, you can expect the food service establishments in San 
Andreas to mirror real-life locales--but with satirical twists. 

To wit, three of the franchise restaurants in the game are Cluckin' Bell, Well 
Stacked Pizza, and Burger Shot. Cluckin' Bell is the obligatory chicken shack that 
you'd find in most any civilized town. The Bell's menu is all about chicken, and it 
features such specialties as the Cluckin' Big Filet Burger and the Cluckin' Huge 
Double Filet. There's also a wings-pieces bucket and a "fowl wrap" burrito. Well 
Stacked Pizza is a pizzeria whose menu includes such pie variations as The Buster, 
The D-luxe, and The Double D-luxe. Finally, Burger Shot will offer delicacies such 
as the Double Barreled Burger, for those craving a regular dose of ground beef. 

The restaurants are given an extra touch of realism, and it's a touch that's no 
doubt unpleasant for some. The employee uniforms for Cluckin' Bell and Burger Shot 
are of the fantastically demoralizing variety that anyone who's worked in fast food 
knows and loathes. However, if you're on the go (as any good gangsta should be, 
since sit-down meals beg for assassination attempts) and you don't want to hit up 
one of the above establishments, you can always stop by one of the vending carts 
that you'll find peppered throughout the city. 

Now, while it's clear you want to keep CJ fed in the game, just chowing down on 
anything and everything isn't going to do you any favors either. You obviously don't 
want CJ getting freakishly skinny and weak, but, at the same time, you don't need 
his morbidly obese butt rolling down the streets either. Each of the menu items 
we've mentioned has a specific caloric value that will affect how much CJ's energy 
and fat levels will increase. Finding the right balance between the two is a must, 
because eating too much can have some unpleasant results. 

First and foremost, you will become fatter and fatter, resulting in the unpleasant 
sight of CJ bulging out of his clothes. Your tough saunter will become a waddle, and 
you won't be able to put your arms by your side. To drive the point home, you'll 
notice CJ struggling to catch his breath when standing still. If you let CJ reach 
obese proportions, expect the extra pounds to impact everything he does that 
involves physical exertion, such as lifting, climbing, swimming, cycling, running, 
and so on. You'll even find that some actions will be impossible to perform once CJ 
balloons up enough. His reaction time will be slow when fighting, and his pudgy bod 
will make a target so big your grandmamma could hit it. 

To add insult to injury, expect to see non-player-character reactions to you change 
depending on your appearance. So plan on being taunted and not having much success 
with the ladies if you're too tubby. There really is nothing worse than being 
verbally abused by bandanna-wearing gang members in your own hood. Seriously. Worse 
still, if your rotund avatar has too much to eat, he'll just throw up, which isn't 
great either, because the money you spent on food will have gone to waste, and 
you'll be unable to buy more food for a while. 

So what do you do to ensure that you'll be in tip-top shape? Eat properly, and 
wisely avoid binges. And, when in doubt, work out.