Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

this game is such a treat! definitely one of the more immediately charming GTAs, it knows exactly what it is, what it's trying to do and delivers an unpretentious classic sandbox.

the world design in this is great considering the limitations at the time, the 80s aesthetic works incredibly well for the tongue in cheek satire of GTA and I think they do a really good job of capturing that same magic here. I never played GTA III (And have played pretty much every GTA after this) so i'm not 100% sure what the tone of that game was, but from my understanding it's a lot 'darker' and 'grittier' than this one, which is just an over the top mafia playground. the characters are colourful and quirky and are surprisingly fleshed out for a game this old and with this one's limitations. tommy is a really good protagonist and his never give a fuck attitude is super infectious and makes you want to play the game like a badass. my only real gripe with the writing is that there isn't an awful lot of dialogue while you're driving around or exploring the world outside of missions, which breaks the immersion somewhat. other than that, the radios (especially the DJs and the ads) are spot on as always with rockstar.

i couldn't go 30 seconds in this game without comparing something to scarface (the mansion on starfish island, the story, the campy 80s aesthetic, the number of direct references) and it works in this game's favour. it wears its influences on its shoulder and isn't afraid to dive into the world of 80s miami with its music, cars, world and just aesthetic generally.

obviously, as is the case with a lot of games of this age (but not all by any means) the gameplay and controls in Vice City are pretty archaic and have their fair amount of jank, but honestly it's quite easy to look past these minor gripes with vice city. aiming and gunplay is pretty dodgy a lot of the time with the lock on not really being easy to control and it being difficult to switch targets, but i appreciate the weapon variety and there aren't an awful number of missions where you have to shoot for long periods of time. of course the camera is pretty unruly too but i've played older games with worse cameras. the driving obviously makes up a large portion of the game and it's honestly fantastic, it feels very tight and there's a surprising amount of variation between different vehicles to keep things exciting. It feels really satisfying to find the spawn location of certain cars and abuse it too, which isn't really something i can say has happened to me in other GTAs as they usually seem pretty random. i think the mission design here is also one of my favourite parts of the game, with a wide variety of missions that utilise the full extent of Vice City and its toys, i just wish there was a bit more flying to be honest! it's honestly super impressive that rockstar were able to create so many different missions with the limited tools at their disposal. and although the mission difficulty seems a bit tough at times, it's super refreshing to not steamroll all missions on first attempt and it feel like a cakewalk (GTA V ahem).

I also really like the asset mechanic, and i'm really surprised it's not something that has seen a return in newer rockstar games. I do think the game could do a better job of telling you that you need to get specific assets to progress the story, but i think that's just a remnant of old video games to be honest. sunshine autos was a cool concept, i like that almost Pokemon style gameplay where you have to search in the right areas for cars and bring them back. what would've elevated this even further was if the assets visually upgraded as you complete missions. also the fact that you have to travel around to collect income was a tad annoying, i feel as though there could be a central location in the mansion where you can manage properties a la Yakuza 0 which would improve this system a bit. but again, for a game that came out in 2002 the mechanics are super innovative and really fun. Rockstar please bring back the asset system!

overall this was a really fun experience and there's a lot to love in Vice City, would definitely recommend to any fans of the series that haven't gone back to play the old games, just be prepared to look past a few dated systems.

Is Vice City still worth playing now? Probably not, even though I like how the missions are quick and immediate compared to later GTA's. I didn't mind the lack of in-mission checkpoints at first, but there were too many times I had to restart due to a bug or the NPC getting stuck in corners. Sometimes, it was hard to understand what I was supposed to do for some missions. I was hoping this Definitive Edition to improve the controls and fix some of the bugs, but it looks like things got even worse.

I am aware that many people are attached to this game as it was a major step forward for the series and showed the potential of open-world games, but it undeniably aged poorly. The plot is alright, but again nothing that will change your life or that I would consider worth revisiting if you have seen enough mob movies.

Long story short, this game has the worst missions in the entire GTA franchise (or really any 2000s Rockstar outing). And despite Vice City being a cool location, the map is horrible. It's small as fuck - it's a fraction of the size of GTA 3's map - and completely lacking in detail. There is nothing to discover and no areas to explore.

Which sucks because it, arguably, has the best atmosphere and soundtrack of the entire series, but nowhere to enjoy it. Unlike the other games, cruising and listening to the radio in this game will probably get boring within 5-10 minutes, unless you're a fan of driving up and down the same three streets again and again.

This game also feels outdated. I didn't get this feeling from any other GTA game, even 3. Vice City was Rockstar's foray into more ambitious gameplay, but the technology does not match what the game wants you to do. The basic controls (such as the inability to swim, climb walls or rotate your camera) felt natural in GTA 3 because the missions were so simple, and were designed to work with the game's limitations. I can only recall like two moments in that game where I felt the controls were preventing me from completing a task I'd otherwise be able to do easily. GTA 3 usually just had you going somewhere and running someone over, or driving people around, and as such the controls were never a hindrance.

In Vice City they're a complete nuisance. You are expected to do shit like chase a guy on a rooftop, blow up two vans while a horde of rioters try to pull you out and kill you, and (most infamously) fly an RC plane inside a building - and the only setback, the only thing making these missions challenging, is how clunky the gameplay/controls are.

The story is good though, and Tommy is a good protagonist, though not as iconic as the others. Ultimately it all comes together to make a forgettable game. The good doesn't outweigh the bad, and vice versa. This came out only a year after GTA 3, the smallest gap between any two GTA games. Meaning Rockstar whipped this up in less than 12 months. It plays like it.

The various landforms of Miami are interconnected with bridges that arch dramatically over the waterways, bringing about a ropey spatialisation in contrast to Grand Theft Auto III's boxed in claustrophobia. Driving around in Vice City you will never be glued to the road for too long because soon you will be flying. There's a kick to be had in noticing people go by in boats beneath you, because it reveals a cross section of the game-space where different surfaces follow different paths and call for different types of action. Vice City's horizons are all densely knotted with distraction, with other possibilities. The glistening ocean and waterways are a gelatinous mass that pulls turquoise ripples across the ocean floor more swimming pool than anything else, which all adds to the game's garish charm. In the spirit of 1980s excess everything in nature comes filtered through its artificial counterpart: every sunset and palm tree. Vice City is celebrated by fans for having every texture and action derived from an imploded database of 80s pop signifiers that's denser than dense, and happy to be that way. It also, maybe inadvertently, captures the ambiguous place of an artefact like Scarface in pop culture, in that it is presented here as both 'badass' and a work of seedy exploitation. To quote Waikay on this, however, "it is Scarface without de Palma, Pacino, and pathos". Not that the game needs to say anything Shakespearean necessarily, but beyond the reference it's just kind of empty.

And blank pastiche is the issue here. I don't see the point in distinguishing between form and content because any artist will tell you that expression is always negotiated between tools and ideas; moreso where the player/audience is involved. Focusing solely on game systems ignores the way we make sense of them sensorially in play, and likewise an account of only narrative beats and visuals precludes the way these things are actualised in-game. And so with Vice City there is a hypersaturated audiovisual style that nevertheless feels both naked and abrasive. Where every other Rockstar game has the player avatar firmly rooted to the ground beneath their feet (even to the detriment of responsiveness in later titles), Tommy's movements jerk in sharp directions and seems to flicker away just short of the game surfaces. I can understand this sense of irritation adding to its coked up atmosphere, but Tommy's twitchy body along with the game's more lightweight driving physics creates a distance between the player and texture of the world that just seems like a waste. It is always unfun to play, or, the pleasure is less in feeling your way through the game-space than in actively connecting your actions to the game's audiovisual signifiers. Sure, you get a chainsaw, but where is the weight of it? Where is the gravity of the scene it's referencing, or otherwise the pull of the machine itself? It doesn't help that the missions put more of an emphasis on combat than its predecessor but that its lock on and run system is even more scrappy. It's more stylised and grisly, but its flimsiness has it oscillate between agitation and frustration.

Again the case can be made for the amped up coke logic of its embodied play combined with the dizziness of its hollow 1980s signifiers. That's obviously enough if you buy it, but I need a sense of gravity in my ultraviolent sleaze.

all 3 of the 2000's gta games are awesome to me, its just a matter of preference at the end of the day. but maybe vice city has some special charm to it because of the setting it takes place in. the world although feeling small nowadays, is captivating and immersive with really well done atmosphere, SFX, music, and visuals. the gameplay can be brutally difficult when there are enemies with powerful weapons, often taking you out in seconds. it has challenge, but it overall feels fair if you play it safe. the missions are awesome and memorable (saving vance, guardian angel, scarface mansion, etc) its an unforgettable game. the controls are tight and it feels good to play with a great , but kind of short campaign.

8/10

Vice City is a mixed bag, I played it a few months after I beat San Andreas and I loved San Andreas. Vice City just feels like a precursor to San Andreas, but for 2002 I guess this was top of the line. The game has not aged too well, the controls are awkward, the shooting in this is frustrating and you often get destroyed in gun fights due to bad aiming and taking damage like a bitch, and of course there are some really frustrating mission where tons of enemies just keep rushing you and cops try to ram you off the road. But at the same time there are a number of memorable missions and 3 years after playing it, its been exactly 3 since I played this in January of 2015, I still can remember many of the missions and characters in this since there are just many weird and bizarre moments. The story is okay, it reminds me of Scarface a little, and the voice acting is top notch. It really does get that 80s Miami aesthetic down pretty well and has a decent soundtrack consisting of 80s New Wave and pop songs. I just can't enjoy this as much as some because 15 years later, this game just feels a bit rough and San Andreas improved so much on the formula. This is worth it for the story and side missions but the gameplay just felt like a chore to me and I just wanted to get to the next mission once I was forced into the gameplay.