But once you get past this first race the online word opens up mission by mission. After completing the tutorial you can finally free roam Los Santos and Blaine County at your will.
You will also notice that shopping tray icons will now show up on your map. These are stores that you can rob.
To succesfully rob a store you have to pay attention to a the following things:
- To get your money you have to go into a store and point your weapon at the store clerk. Intimidate him enough and he will give you all the cash from the register in a handy little bag. But you could also…
- Just get in a store and attack the clerk. Afterwards you can run up to the cash register. Press to the right on your D-Pad to open the register and grab the money for yourself. While you do have to use lethal force you can also get the money slightly faster. This could make your getaway a little bit easier because…
- As soon as you pull a gun on a store clerk you will have a Wanted level. There is just no way around it. You can get lucky and rob a store that also has an ATM inside. This allows you to put your money immediately on your bank account and you won’t lose nearly as much cash when you are getting caught or even shot by the police. If you find the time to do so you can also store your money by using your phone. But if you succesfully evade the police after a robbery you will get a pretty nice experience points boost so it’s worth doing your best to get out of there alive.
- There is a chance that the clerk will grab his own shotgun. If he does you just have to get rid of him. There is also no other way around this. On the other hand there is a chance that a NPC thug will bust into your own robbery. You’ll also have to get rid of him before he takes you out.
To get the Stick Up Kid achievement / trophy you need hold up all 20 stores on the map. This won’t be as bad when you follow the guidelines presented above. It’s also easier to do this when you choose to play solo without any other players in your lobby. Otherwise they might bust in on you and take the money before you have a chance. So be aware of that!
You can easily check your progress if you look at your map. Every store you already succesfully hold up will have a green check mark next to the shopping basket icon on the map. This makes it very easy to identify which store you’ve already looted
The shops also count for the achievement / trophy as soon as you take your money. Even if you get shot or caught it won’t matter for the achievement / trophy progress!