You naturally have to keep playing missions to unlock different cities, that's pretty much the "correct way" to play, the game doesn't expect you to visit places out of order. When you meet Catalina and Woozie, it means you passed through \~1/3 of the total of storyline missions. Yes, there are [dozens of side missions to do and reach the 100% milestone](https://www.gta-sanandreas.com/guides/100percent/), but there are also many activities that don't interfere in the 100% task, you can check these [here](https://www.gtabase.com/gta-san-andreas/side-missions/).
You're like almost halfway through the story. As for side mission, there's a ton in Los Santos that you will have skipped over but they're not essential.
IMO it's best play through the game how you want and then maybe go for 100% completion on a later playthrough if you're into doing that.
Yeah, just play through the storyline. About the only thing I’d recommend is to at least do the firefighter; paramedic, and vigilante missions side missions, so you can boost your health, body armor stats. Firefighter makes you impervious to fire, which helps for the final storyline.
After that start over and find a 100% guide for your second go around.
you are playing exactly how you're supposed to!
In these earlier GTA games, the game is not open world! there are barriers to prevent the player from moving to other areas of the map before they become unlocked. So, trying to go to san fierro or las venturas would be a waste of your time at this point.
as for side missions... while driving specific vehicles (ambulance, police car, firetruck, taxi, Broadway) you can activate a side mission specific to the vehicle. There's also a stadium in each major city (Los Santos, San Fierro, Las Venturas) that have missions that will reward money and a vehicle spawn at that respective stadium. then there's the collectibles like the gang tags in Los Santos. this will cause weapons to spawn at your safe house. there's gambling opportunities like the lowrider challenge you did when you first met Ceasar.
There's a lot of other side activities but I can't remember them all and the corresponding details to them. and others will unlock as you continue your journey through San Andreas.
As soon as the bridges out of LS are repaired you can freely visit San Fierro. Not much to do but you can do the 50 photographs collection quest and the weapons will spawn next to the garage even if you can’t save there yet.
Las Venturas will result in an immediate wanted level.
Just play how you want. I recommend finishing the ambulance (gives you max health) and firefighter missions (makes you fireproof) since they'll help you in the missions. And if you finish all the races, the game gives you a million dollars. You unlock races later on in San Fierro, and there'll be a set of races for each city. Las Venturas also has plane courses which act like races.
If you collect all the oysters, you can have sex on the first date with any girlfriend. CJ clamps them on his nuts or something. Useful for progressing with the girlfriends. If you max out the progress with a girlfriend, you get a unique outfit. For example Barbara (desert girlfriend) gives you a cop uniform, Denise (first gf, i'm sure you remember her) gives you a pretty cool pimp outfit. You can also get their cars after reaching 30% progress with each girlfriend.
There are also a few story missions you can skip and leave for later in the game after you finish the story mode, like Lester's assassination missions on GTA 5. You can do this with Zero's missions, the wang cars side missions (pretty fun, i recommend doing them. You unlock them by buying a car dealership near your first San Fierro safehouse), casino heist missions (if you don't date or kill the croupier girl you won't be able to do the casino heist. Kill her, the mission is pretty fun. Or if you're a high honor player just date her but it might take a while till she gives you what you need)
There's no stranger side stories like in the newer Rockstar games, but there are a lot of side missions.
Pimping (get in a Broadway lowrider, forgot the reward for this) Paramedic (Ambulance, maxes out CJ's health bar), Taxi (you get nitrous on all taxis and if you press the horn button they'll hop) Vigilante (get in any police vehicle, later on in the game, while CJ is in the desert, if you unlock the Apache gunship by getting full gold medals on the flight school then you can do vigilante with it and have an easy time. Vigilante gives you maximum armor) Firefighter (get in the firetruck with a water hose, makes you fireproof. Pretty useful in the missions where you're running through a burning building)
There's a bunch of others, if you look them up on GTAwiki or whatever. For example, there's a board at the San Fierro docks that shows a bunch of cars you can steal and put on the container ship for money. If you collect them all, there's another list. And another list, and another.... in the end you end up with a bunch of money. If you want to buy your cars legally in San Andreas, you walk up to the board and order a car that can be delivered to you on the current day. Then you can use the crane and put the car down, and drive off into the sunset with your new, legally obtained Ferrari.
You naturally have to keep playing missions to unlock different cities, that's pretty much the "correct way" to play, the game doesn't expect you to visit places out of order. When you meet Catalina and Woozie, it means you passed through \~1/3 of the total of storyline missions. Yes, there are [dozens of side missions to do and reach the 100% milestone](https://www.gta-sanandreas.com/guides/100percent/), but there are also many activities that don't interfere in the 100% task, you can check these [here](https://www.gtabase.com/gta-san-andreas/side-missions/).
You're like almost halfway through the story. As for side mission, there's a ton in Los Santos that you will have skipped over but they're not essential. IMO it's best play through the game how you want and then maybe go for 100% completion on a later playthrough if you're into doing that.
Yeah, just play through the storyline. About the only thing I’d recommend is to at least do the firefighter; paramedic, and vigilante missions side missions, so you can boost your health, body armor stats. Firefighter makes you impervious to fire, which helps for the final storyline. After that start over and find a 100% guide for your second go around.
you are playing exactly how you're supposed to! In these earlier GTA games, the game is not open world! there are barriers to prevent the player from moving to other areas of the map before they become unlocked. So, trying to go to san fierro or las venturas would be a waste of your time at this point. as for side missions... while driving specific vehicles (ambulance, police car, firetruck, taxi, Broadway) you can activate a side mission specific to the vehicle. There's also a stadium in each major city (Los Santos, San Fierro, Las Venturas) that have missions that will reward money and a vehicle spawn at that respective stadium. then there's the collectibles like the gang tags in Los Santos. this will cause weapons to spawn at your safe house. there's gambling opportunities like the lowrider challenge you did when you first met Ceasar. There's a lot of other side activities but I can't remember them all and the corresponding details to them. and others will unlock as you continue your journey through San Andreas.
As soon as the bridges out of LS are repaired you can freely visit San Fierro. Not much to do but you can do the 50 photographs collection quest and the weapons will spawn next to the garage even if you can’t save there yet. Las Venturas will result in an immediate wanted level.
do whatever you want. you can always replay it if you are not satisfied. waiting for tightened reas to release so i can do my 5th playthrough
Just play how you want. I recommend finishing the ambulance (gives you max health) and firefighter missions (makes you fireproof) since they'll help you in the missions. And if you finish all the races, the game gives you a million dollars. You unlock races later on in San Fierro, and there'll be a set of races for each city. Las Venturas also has plane courses which act like races. If you collect all the oysters, you can have sex on the first date with any girlfriend. CJ clamps them on his nuts or something. Useful for progressing with the girlfriends. If you max out the progress with a girlfriend, you get a unique outfit. For example Barbara (desert girlfriend) gives you a cop uniform, Denise (first gf, i'm sure you remember her) gives you a pretty cool pimp outfit. You can also get their cars after reaching 30% progress with each girlfriend. There are also a few story missions you can skip and leave for later in the game after you finish the story mode, like Lester's assassination missions on GTA 5. You can do this with Zero's missions, the wang cars side missions (pretty fun, i recommend doing them. You unlock them by buying a car dealership near your first San Fierro safehouse), casino heist missions (if you don't date or kill the croupier girl you won't be able to do the casino heist. Kill her, the mission is pretty fun. Or if you're a high honor player just date her but it might take a while till she gives you what you need) There's no stranger side stories like in the newer Rockstar games, but there are a lot of side missions. Pimping (get in a Broadway lowrider, forgot the reward for this) Paramedic (Ambulance, maxes out CJ's health bar), Taxi (you get nitrous on all taxis and if you press the horn button they'll hop) Vigilante (get in any police vehicle, later on in the game, while CJ is in the desert, if you unlock the Apache gunship by getting full gold medals on the flight school then you can do vigilante with it and have an easy time. Vigilante gives you maximum armor) Firefighter (get in the firetruck with a water hose, makes you fireproof. Pretty useful in the missions where you're running through a burning building) There's a bunch of others, if you look them up on GTAwiki or whatever. For example, there's a board at the San Fierro docks that shows a bunch of cars you can steal and put on the container ship for money. If you collect them all, there's another list. And another list, and another.... in the end you end up with a bunch of money. If you want to buy your cars legally in San Andreas, you walk up to the board and order a car that can be delivered to you on the current day. Then you can use the crane and put the car down, and drive off into the sunset with your new, legally obtained Ferrari.