Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Review

9.6/10

This is simply the greatest video game ever created. There's still room for improvement, but so far, this is the best.

I loved GTA3 on the PC, and often while playing Vice City on the PS2, I'll find myself wishing that it, too was on the PC. I had gotten totally spoiled by 1280x1024 resolution on a 19" monitor in GTA3. ~640x480 on a 50 inch screen is comparatively fuzzy. Maybe this is the incentive I need to finally go HDTV.

Even though I'd rather be playing it on a PC, that won't happen for several months yet. So right now for GTA:VC, the PS2 is the only way to play. And play I have! I'm almost embarrassed about the number of hours I've logged playing this thing. (Probably more than my top 2 Xbox games combined.) It is the epitome of addictive. The open-ended, non-linear gameplay means that if you're having trouble with a certain mission, you don't put the game down and come back to it later, you just avoid that particular mission for a while and go do some jobs for a different scumbag boss, or play any of the myriad of side-missions like Vigilante Mode, Taxi Driver, Stunt Driving, the Rampages, or just explore for Hidden Packages, or Unique Jumps. The things to do are nearly endless. I am truly amazed at the scope of this game. The number of characters, vehicles, weapons, missions, and just the size of the city are staggering.

Is this really that much better than GTA3? Oh yes. The motorcycles are a blast to ride and are probably my favorite improvement. The airplanes and helicopters, both real ones and bomb-dropping, remote-controlled toys are super-cool. You can while away quite a bit of playing time just flying over the city and taking it all in. Indoor locations (and being able to hold them up) add an interesting variation. You also have the ability to buy property and after completing the location's required missions, have it generate more income for you. Finally something to spend your hard-earned fake money on.

I don't have DTS on my receiver to enjoy the surround sound that this game offers, but the voice acting and 80s music soundtrack are so excellent  that I have to rate the sound a "10". There's nothing wrong with the engine, weapon, and ambient sound effects in normal stereo, but I'd sure like to experience them on DTS someday.

As far as controlling the game goes, I got used to it pretty quickly, but that "spoiled by GTA3 on the PC" syndrome really kicks in when I get in a gunfight with multiple assailants or when I want to do some zooming and sniping. The mouse control on the PC is pretty much perfect. I was really used to switching between my Wingman Rumblepad while driving and my mouse/keyboard controls while on the street. I don't really know how they could improve the control much when using the PS2 controller, so I can't complain too much, but maybe the developers could take some notes on how Halo does it on the Xbox.

What about the adult-ness of the game? Well, If GTA3 was the equivalent of PG-13 movie, this one is almost rated R. I don't mean you should expect to see full frontal nudity, cartoon sex, or anything like that (though a strip club and an adult movie studio are featured), but the humor is more "adult" and some of the missions involve worse things than just driving dancing girls to the policeman's ball or picking up girlie-mags from the street. Even the radio DJs use more "blue" language, and the pedestrians and drivers you deal with curse much worse. Honestly, it's nothing you wouldn't hear in a PG-13 movie, but I personally preferred GTA3's clever, suggestive style over VC's let-it-all-hang-out "adult" language and situations. I think it takes more creativity to be funny without 4-letter words, and that it's lazy writing to just toss them in. It may be more realistic for people you're terrorizing in the streets to let the expletives fly, but I sure preferred GTA3's way of doing things in that area.