Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas/Missions/End Of The Line

End Of The Line

I think the best weapons for this mission are the Chainsaw, AK47 and SMG. Note that it would also be a good idea to have completed all the Firefighter missions beforehand, to be fireproof.

Pick up Sweet who has information about Smoke's location. Drive to the marker and watch the cutscene. Grab the BMX and bunny hop behind the SWAT line and get close to the SWAT tank. Jump in and reverse quickly to the bottom of the street and back up to Smoke's hideout. Run over the guards outside, then smash through the wall and run over the guards until you get to the yellow marker.

From this point in you are basically in a series of shooty levels where you have to shoot all opposition you encounter. This will probably be pretty easy by this stage in the game as you will have done it several times before such as the St. Marks Bistro level.

At the start of each level you will probably encounter a booth with a heart or a flak jacket. These pickups usually occur just before a large room full of enemies that have to be cleared. The smart thing to do is clear the room first and then head back to pick up the heart or flak jacket.

Security level

Systematically work through the level killing anything. After you enter the main room a SWAT tank crashes through the left wall and some black-ops swat members will join the fray. They don't seem to be any more difficult to kill than the gang members, though. You need to trigger the SWAT team arrive before you can progress, use the crates as you enter for cover. You may shoot the doors before entering to open them, this will give you a chance to kill enemies who are close to you behind the door.

Note that if an enemy is using a pillar as cover you can shoot and kill them but they cannot actually die until they finish their "hiding" animation and step from behind the pillar. If a enemy has a black triangle don't keep blazing at them, they will die in their own sweet time.

DRUG LAB

Systematically destroy everyone. Use the boxes and pillars in the main room as cover and take out the shooters on the gallery before heading to the back of the room and up onto the gallery. As you move along the gallery some more gang members will spawn below you and through the double doors at the end of the gallery. Use explosive barrels here to save effort and bullets if you can.

BALLAS LOUNGE

A methodical shooting workout. Just go room to room. There is plenty of cover, including furniture you can crouch behind. Most of the enemies cannot hit anything that is not next to them. If you keep your distance you probably will not even need the body armour and health pickup in the stripper rooms towards the end of the level.

Confrontation with Smoke

This is stupidly easy if you have the Chainsaw but it's not even that bad with other weapons.

If you have the Chainsaw wait for the cutscene to finish and then rush over to Smoke and Chainsaw his two bodyguards. This will give Smoke the chance to say some dialogue that needs to be said before you can kill him. Then rush up the stairs towards him and hit him with the chainsaw. When you knock him down move the chainsaw so it is still hitting him and he will run out of health in a second or two.

If you don't have the chainsaw Smoke will essentially run around the room in clockwise circles. Body armour is in one of the alcoves, a few health pickups in the other. Gang members will constantly spawn but as long as you keep your distance it shouldn't be hard to shoot them before they do any damage to you. Probably the best place to target Smoke is from the balcony as he is visible from there most of the time without seemingly being able to hit you back with any accuracy. When the lights go out use the night vision googles and keep shooting.

FIRE ESCAPE

Cue a cutscene with Tenpenny and the beginning of the most difficult section of this mission. It is timed and therefore demands more or less perfect execution. You should be able to get your armour and health back to maximum with pickups before making the trip back down through the building.

The Ballas Lounge is identical but in reverse and requires quick but careful traversal.

The Drug Lab is where things get tricky. You need to pick up the fire extinguisher and shoot all the gang members on the lab floor through the grill. There does not seem to be any point in shooting gang members that are using fire extinguishers. Once you've cleared out the shooters remove the night goggles and use the fire extinguisher to move through the burning door and burning sections on the gallery. You do not need to use the fire extinguisher on the final fire on the gallery you should be able to duck around the left and get by without problems. Make your way through the drug lab floor and switch back to night googles to work through the Security levels.

The burning drug lab section is where the 'fireproof' skill comes in handy. If you have completed all of the firetruck missions, you can just ignore the fires and clean out the shooters on the floor of the lab from the balcony before you proceed. The fire does slow the frame rate down, which makes aiming a bit squirelly. Once this is accomplished, proceed around the catwalk and exit the lab.

Don't make a big deal about the large room on this level and try to do it on the run. After the large room there is one more fire to tackle (which will again require the removal of the goggles). You should then get to the yellow marker, here use a crouch roll to take out the three guards at the corner. Remove the goggles and run like mad for the exit. When you are close enough you should trigger the successful cutscene (CJ diving from the building).

CHASE TENPENNY

You can relax a bit now, the hardest part is over but you will have to repeat it again if the next section is fluffed. Essentially you just have to follow the fire truck at a discrete distance: don't go mad and get too close, don't go to fast and spin or crash the car, don't let the truck get so far away that you lose them. By now this is probably going to be child's play.

When the truck gets to the beach front the next section will begin.

SAVE SWEET

As the chase gets to a section on the coast highway on the west side of San Andreas, one of cops will climb out and start stomping on Sweet's hands. There is a grip bar but essentially this section is timed. If you have been following the fire truck at a reasonable distance you should be able to just slam on the accelerator and get the hood of the car near the back of the fire truck. The game seems pretty lenient about where you can be to save Sweet. Probably the worst mistake is to go too fast and overshoot the back of the fire truck. If in doubt try and ram the back of the truck. Once Sweet is on the hood of the car he takes over the driving.

BLAST TENPENNY

This section is "gunning on rails" and essentially exactly like the Jefferson Motel mission you had in the original Los Santos missions.

Initially you need to shoot the cop who was stomping on Sweet and a second who gets out of the cab. You can then take out a few of the truck's tires before Sweet tells you it cannot be destroyed. At this point you just need to shoot as much as possible. Targets will include cop cars, Los Vagos bikers and Hermes cars, and rioters with molotovs.

Sweet will always warn you at the start of each wave and you simply need to shoot the threats as quickly as you can. For cars you should try to shoot the passenger (who will normally be shooting) followed by the engine. It can be fun to shoot the tires but seems to have not effect on the vehicle handling. For bikes shooting passenger followed by driver seems to be more effective although there may not be much individual damage modelling going on for these.

Rioters are slightly trickier as they are smaller targets. Just do your best and stay calm as the car seems to be fire-proof and therefore the rioters will only do a small bit of damage to the vehicle. The only rioters that should be dealt with ahead of time are those that appear when you come down under the overpass by the stadium.

As long as the car is reasonably intact the fire truck will get to Grove Street and Tenpenny will crash triggering the final cutscene.

Congratulations on completing the final mission!