I don't really talk about video games since I don't think I'm knowledgeable or experienced enough on the medium, but I had to make an exception in this case because it's a work I'm very attached to. My growing up from the age of 8-18 involved revisiting Vice City numerous times. But upon replaying GTA: Vice City for the first time since I became an adult, it was a pleasant surprise at how well this game still holds up today, very polished and innovative in terms of world design, narrative and realism which makes the extensive research apparent.

Definitely one of the most culturally and historically significant video games for USA, Vice City is a brilliantly verite portrayal of 1980s Miami, the intensity of the crack epidemic, tension between the Haitians and Cubans (exaggerated and questionable but not baseless) and Mafia control.

Tommy Vercetti at the centre of all the conflict and drug trade is utilised to perfection. A very simple character journey, but a lot of complexities are imparted in him through subtle indications and mannerisms complemented with bravado by Liotta's emphatic voice acting performance. One of my favourite gaming characters, though nostalgia does play a part I'm sure.

Undoubtedly the most fun I've had with a game which cemented GTA as my favourite gaming franchise, at least concept wise. Vice City's depiction of Miami is one of the most dynamic gaming worlds ever.

Another notable aspect is the diversity of music integrated and meticulous detail put into the radio shows. Never a dull moment in it and one can spend long times just listening to different channels.

Not much coming from me, but GTA: Vice City is one of the greatest games ever made, the best GTA game, and one of the most notable and influential works in the crime genre. Revolutionary for its time.

For me this is still the best GTA game because the whole game has such a cool vibe. I struggle to find another game that manages to nail the setting as much as Vice City. It also has one of the best soundtracks in video games.

I was one of those kids that played this despite being way too young, but playing it now I'm older made me realise I never fully appreciated the story and world Rockstar created. It's been nice to finally complete this after all these years with my dad as it is one of his favourite games.

Also that RC helicopter mission wasn't that bad.

Vice City has some great characters and an amazing story, but the controls and the gameplay ruined my experience. The lack of checkpoints in the missions was pretty annoying, especially considering you lose all your weapons upon death often making it a chore to prepare for the mission again. A lot of the 'difficult' levels like to throw infinitely spawning enemies at you which becomes quite frustrating, especially since you don't respawn with your weapons.

The map of Vice City is really cool, I enjoyed exploring the map a lot and finding rampage activities as well as hidden collectables, it was also really cool when I'd stumble across a weapon I hadn't seen before randomly in the open world. Things like this certainly push exploration more than the recent titles which I love.

I felt like the story started off pretty basic; a drug deal is ambushed and Tommy, the protagonist, must make back the money that was lost. Without going into spoilers, after a few hours, the story began to take some turns and gained a lot more character which had me hooked.

It's a shame the definitive edition remaster of this game was such a disappointment because I think with refined gameplay and modern graphics this game has the potential to be a masterpiece.

Hot on the trails of my 2nd finished GTA game, Vice City ended up being the 3rd GTA game I've seen to conclusion & while I like certain ideas intorduced in VC I'm not sure I in good faith can say its that much of an improvement from GTA 3.

Main word I would use to describe VC is reinterpretation. Instead of adjusting the mechanics of GTA 3, VC seems more interested in presenting a smaller map (although brimming with way more personal flair than GTA 3) but also giving different gameplay variety on top too.

It gives mixed results. The implementation of numerous new vehicles, weapons & a crouch button are welcome additions, but there's also implementations I just wish hadn't been entertained. Most notably the property system in the endgame is not only unintuitive, but also incredibly grindy - however the worst offender is the gimmick missions.

You can tell that Rockstar was aiming towards making missions more cinematic in VC, but during my playthrough I lost count how many times mission failed because NPCs pathing messed up or they died during these "cinematic" moments/cut scenes. This is not even touching upon the flying/rc missions - which I'd say are borderline unplayable on a PC with standard controller set-up.

I do actually like this game, but it took some time to accept there wasn't really any improvements from 3 to this & rather main focus seemed to be on expanding the sandbox than refining anything. Its a game that brims with individual personality more than GTA 3, but I'm less lenient on VC's shortcomings. You can definitely see some of VC's ideas in the more modern entries & I feel that's pretty commendable.

GTA Vice City dispensa apresentações.

A história aqui é simples: Anos 80. Miami. Você deve muita grana pro seu patrão e fará de tudo pra pagar a dívida. Um dos seus parceiros de crime é traíra.

A Rockstar Games não poupou referências à filmes e séries, tudo é inspirado em alguma cena famosa. Uma execução excelente, misturada com uma das melhores trilhas sonoras já ouvidas em um videogame.

Mal vejo a hora de ir pra Vice City novamente em 2025.

This review is the 2nd in a multi-part series on the 3d era of Grand Theft Auto games, it follows on my review from GTA3.

This review is going to be biased, disingenuous and cowardly as I praise a game wholly on nostalgia, vibes and not much else. In my GTA3 review I held off criticising the game too hard because I felt that it was more important to get across how groundbreaking the game was for open world design but I cannot get away with that in this review. I necessarily need to talk about the shortcomings of Vice City because it cannot be as truly innovative as GTA3, instead the game builds on the same formula as the previous game but delivers a stylish, nostalgic and narrative focused experience… but the truth is, I don’t really want to. I love Vice City, it is by far my personal favourite game in the series by a mile and no criticism I can give of it can take away the big stupid grin that was plastered across my face as I flew a helicopter nose down over the blue glass waves of a Florida bay, Laura Branigan wailing through the radio.

Nostalgia is the operant word because the game isn’t shy about its retro factor. Set in 1986 and steeped in the culture of the time period, Vice City is nostalgic both literally in its presentation of a 1980s Miami drenched in Neon, New-wave music and sports cars but also narratively it’s a send up of 80s action films, actually calling it a ‘send-up’ is too generous, the game is just a blatant rip-off of Scarface but the protagonist is Italian Mafia instead of Cuban. Just about the only thing that differentiates the plot of Vice City from Scarface is that Tony Montana is forced to face the consequences of his actions and succumbs to greed and excess whereas Tommy Vercetti just… doesn’t. Vice City is not a cautionary tale about crime, it is just a glorification of criminality and a cathartic rags to riches journey with no downfall faced by the protagonist and no brakes on the exploitation of the drug trade. That said I don’t want to give the impression that the story is ‘good’ it’s very shallow, however I think its an improvement over GTA3. Claude’s journey barely has a point beyond revenge and he doesn’t really earn anything or have any desires or goals, he takes orders from random people until the game ends, the plot of Vice City gives us enough of a framework to enjoy the setting of the game, we want Tommy to succeed because we want money, guns, cars and toys just like he does, we want to be the boss.

Fresh out of a 15 year long prison sentence, Tommy Vercetti is sent to Vice City to conduct a drug deal on behalf of the Mafia, unfortunately the drug deal is an ambush and the Mafia reps and dealer are killed but Tommy and his shifty lawyer Ken Rosenberg manage to escape. Tommy now finds himself in a strange town and is tasked with tracking down the money and cocaine for his increasingly threatening Mafia boss. Unlike GTA 3 our protagonist is given a voice and personality, Tommy is voiced by Ray Liotta, giving a performance in between deadpan exasperation with the morons around him and the petulant anger of a sycophantic drug lord. Vercetti is constantly pissed and hotheaded in this game, its hard to ever feel sympathetic for him and instead he is best thought of as a vessel for the greed and violence of the player themselves. Changing to a voiced protagonist alters the feeling of the game significantly, in GTA3 Claude's muteness came across as totally psychotic and unfeeling, he was as grey and chaotic as the concrete jungle of Liberty City. Tommy however has a personality which feels like the prickly humid heat of a low sun hanging over a Florida swamp, he’s a lawful evil type of guy that uses money and organised criminal structures to gain wealth and power for himself, he doesn’t do whatever people tell him to do, instead preferring to take charge of a situation and delegate to his underlings.

Vice City thankfully continues the previous game’s mission design, the player is rewarded for creativity and the missions can be approached many different ways. One example is an early mission that gives you a chainsaw in a cutscene to assassinate a man, the cutscene even explicitly states “use this” and you’ll get unique dialogue and an additional cutscene for using this weapon to kill the target, however if you picked up a shotgun prior to the mission you can skip all of this entirely and just gun the target down. I think this is important because in my opinion Vice City and GTA 3 are the last vestige of this design, GTA as a series becomes increasingly more railroaded after this. There are lots of small examples of this design throughout the game, you can park vehicles in convenient places, find alternate routes to targets and prepare for missions beforehand and its as satisfying as ever to approach missions using your own creativity and planning.

Gameplay wise there isn’t much to expand on, the game features small quality of life improvements over GTA3 in terms of aiming, piloting aircraft and it has a functional in-game map which was sorely needed. I think the game really could have done with introducing some different gameplay elements because it really does feel like an expansion to the previous game in terms of how it plays, there’s no significant change in the sandbox, you drive, you walk around, you shoot and you don’t really interact with the game using any language other than violence, on the one hand this is good because its just a nice little update to an already great gameplay formula with an improved map, bigger story and some tweaks but we’ll see with San Andreas that the series will soon start to make additions and changes to this recipe. The map itself is by far one of the game’s strongest elements, Vice City is very carefully and thoughtfully designed compared to the big grey box of GTA3. I never even needed to use the map extensively because the game is so good at laying out a series of connecting landmarks, you can plot a route to a part of the city just with map knowledge alone. Every part of the game has standout shops, buildings, pickups or buy-able property and it connects them with unique looking bridges and highways, if you see a Mall in this game it’s a unique design and layout and you’ll know exactly where this mall is in relation to a club, a hotel, a police station, a hardware store, the map is a series of excellently blended puzzle pieces. Vice City isn’t just a map that you can familiarise yourself with but one that comes to feel homely and second nature, quite frankly I can navigate it better than I can my real life home-town.

In addition to the improvements in landmarking there is also a greater focus on details and interiors around the world, there are more shops and buildings that you can walk into and there is greater set dressing in general, one example is that rooms and houses you own in the game get objects added to them as you progress the missions, finding all the packages makes a little trophy appear in your hotel room, completing the film set business adds film reels and frames to your mansion, all of these elements combine to make Vice City feel cohesive and so much fun to explore, not just for pickups of weapons and armour but also because you might find a cool little detail like a tiki bar or doughnut shop or a butchers window with human meat. This attention to detail is an element which GTA 3 didn’t have and I’m glad that Vice City takes time to add these small touches to the world because it adds a brush of care an attention that makes the player want to look around and find these small bits and pieces of story-telling.

One aspect I dislike is that Vice City seems to be a bit more stingy on giving the player useful weapons and pickups, in GTA3 collecting the secret packages gives you a suite of weapons at safehouses but in Vice City you get a few very powerful weapons of a single type, like rockets or a minigun which are great by themselves but you can’t use them together. You also get a chance to pickup some secret vehicles like tanks and helicopters. These are very powerful and fun rewards to mess around with but they aren’t as helpful to the missions as an assault rifle or SMG and this makes the process of picking up weapons and ammo more tedious and lengthy as you have to hit up each spawn for a weapon, in fact its so tedious that if I failed a mission I would quit the game and reload a save file just so I didn’t have to do 10 minutes worth of getting more Uzi and AR-15 ammo. On the one hand its great that you get some powerful options to play around with but I think some less situational rewards would incentivise players to restart missions more quickly, GTA 3 didn’t have this problem because it made the rewards more useful and put the powerful weapons in Phil Cassidy’s shop, interestingly in Vice City, Cassidy returns and you can unlock his shop but why bother? Unless you really like using the m60 then you get a minigun and RPG delivered to your safehouses anyway. The rewards in the game feel like the game designers wanted to give the player more options for large scale chaos but in doing so they’ve neglected some of the smaller scale, on foot, gun-fighting elements of the sandbox. Sure you can just buy the weapons but they’re expensive early game and GTA 3 solved this problem by just giving the player actually useful rewards.

But all this sounds serviceable so what elevates the game? surely you can’t just slap an 80s skin on GTA3 and call it done? well as noted before the game is heavy on nostalgia and people are likewise very nostalgic for this game. Nostalgia is a cautious kind of relationship to have with any media, it’s very annoying when people suggest that ‘games used to be better’ or ‘they don’t make em like this any more’ because it sounds like disingenuous old man pining for a by-gone era; the world didn’t get worse, rather you just didn’t have anything else to worry about as a kid when this game was your only time sink, there are so many great games out now and accessing media is so much more convenient that you just wanna slap these morons and tell them to stop feigning some generational tragedy. However I think nostalgia can be a nice escape too and Vice City nails nostalgia. I said before that MSX FM is my favourite radio station and that is still true, but oh my God, Vice City’s licenced soundtrack is completely unparalleled. Every radio station is full of absolute classics; Hall & Oates, Michael Jackson, Bryan Adams, Gary Numan, Blondie, ELO, Yes, The Human League, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Spandau Ballet, Kate Bush, REO Speedwagon, Fat Larry’s Band, The Pointer Sisters, Rick James, Teena Marie, Twisted Sister, Ozzy, Iron Maiden, Slayer, Judas Priest, Mötley Crüe, Zapp & Roger, Grandmaster Flash, Cybotron, Afrika Bambaataa, Run DMC. Just banger after banger after banger, a cavalcade of non-stop tunes so good I sometimes drive around longer than I need to just to finish bopping to the song. I think this is so important because the soundtrack isn’t just a separate element of the game like it was in GTA3 but moreso it serves as a pillar of the atmosphere. When every single element of Vice City comes together it produces some of the best and most memorable parts of the whole GTA franchise, the missions themselves are fun sure and there’s a satisfying progression as you build a criminal empire with Tommy but nothing brings a feeling of deep joy to me, like racing down Ocean Drive in a cherry red Cheetah with Tyrone Brunson’s infectiously funky bass emanating from my speakers. When Rockstar North commits to getting a cinematic atmosphere right they are just masters of their craft. GTA3 has come back into focus recently because it’s very strange looking game that intersects with the current trend of liminal spaces and obsession with old video game graphics but that's more of an incidental thing, I like the vibe of GTA3 but Vice City is a different kind of vibe, a very authored facsimile of 80s excess that works on every level to immerse the player.

So that is my assessment of Grand Theft Auto Vice City, it’s my little guilty pleasure, my nostalgic getaway from the world where I can just sink into an 80s dream for a while, I admit this isn’t going to gel with everyone. People will probably play this game without this nostalgic reverence and find a dated and frustrating game with a shallow plot, cumbersome gameplay and a decent soundtrack and leave it there, in fact I do think GTA 3 remains the most important game in the franchise. I don’t care, I can only judge a game by how much joy it brings me and nothing brings me greater Joy than the sickening crunch of an old lady’s pelvis under the wheels of a Countach, Hawaiian shirt on, singing Video Killed the Radio Star, you can’t beat 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.

The best GTA, fight me on this. Best music selection on just one station, VROCK.

Hours of time spent on this one. Also a great sandbox game to run around and cause chaos

#16 of top 50

grinding out money in the endgame is pretty obnoxious but besides that this is about as good of a sequel to GTA 3 as i could hope for, given the 9 month development time. even the oft-maligned asset missions are more entertaining than a lot of what that game had for missions. i'm not going to lie and pretend that the story of this game is much more than an excuse to do missions, but at least vice city's story is usually pretty entertaining, with characters that feel more like spoofs than gta 3's walking stereotypes. tommy isn't much of a protagonist, but giving these characters someone to bounce off at all is a huge improvement, and allows for some dialogue that is occasionally pretty funny. it feels like rockstar learned from 3's difficulty and tuned the missions to be doable in 2-3 tries this time, which is a nice change of pace. there's still some stinkers on occasion, but nothing nearly as egregious as the worst missions in 3. the radio in this game owns and could carry literally any game. every station is killer (except vrock but whatever that's a matter of personal taste). wave especially just has... almost all of the best new wave hits? like, all i'd add would be maybe some new order or devo. great stuff. i really appreciate how the default radio stations for missions are also somewhat timed to create interesting soundtracks, e.g. billie jean being hard coded to be the first track you hear upon entering vice city. it's a neat touch that definitely makes this game feel more cinematic.

Although I did mention that, in terms of games in the Grand Theft Auto series, I was the most curious about what Grand Theft Auto IV was going to be like, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was the game in the franchise that I was the most eager to try out, as watching Dunkey's video on it back in middle school and then constantly rewatching it since then made it look like an absolute blast to play. Don't get me wrong, I was definitely looking forward to playing through Grand Theft Auto III for the first time, but Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was the one from the double pack that I was actually excited about, as it looked so much more stylish and cool than its predecessor. It's hard to talk about Grand Theft Auto: Vice City without just gushing about it, because despite its flaws, this is not only leagues better than Grand Theft Auto III, but it's also the best game in the series.

Whenever people mention this game, they always bring up just how strong its atmosphere is, and I'd honestly say that this is the game's greatest strength. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is a sunshine-soaked time capsule of the 1980s in all its coked-up, hedonistic glory, and despite the dated (although charmingly janky) graphics, the pastel color palette and neon-drenched streets made this game an absolute joy to look at. Not only is it fun to wreak havoc and mess around in this sandbox, but simply driving around in a sports car and listening to the game's incredible soundtrack while taking the vistas in is fun in its own right, and the less restrictive design of the open world here made me want to explore every nook and cranny much more than Grand Theft Auto III did, which also applies to the returning minigames and collectibles. Speaking of which, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City has one of the best soundtracks in any video game, as they managed to get tons of emblematic 80s songs into one great package. On top of being an immensely atmospheric experience, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is also a lot of fun to play, as it fixed a lot of its predecessor's shortcomings while also building on top of what it did well. While the targeting system still isn't the best, it's still much better than the horrendous aiming from Grand Theft Auto III, and the wider selection of weapons also makes up for that. Not only are the cars in this game actually durable, but there's also a much higher presence of sports cars here than in any other game in the franchise, which fits the setting perfectly while also making getting from point A to point B less of a hassle.

Among other things, the writing here is also much better than in Grand Theft Auto III, as it not only features an immensely entertaining and likable protagonist in the form of the short-tempered Tommy Vercetti played by the late, great Ray Liotta, but the characters that he interacts with throughout the Scarface-inspired plot are much more memorable. Unlike the last game, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City also gives you an actual reason to spend your money, as Tommy Vercetti has to buy several assets and businesses to build his criminal empire. Like the last game, the missions in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City are much less restrictive in their design, but the inclusion of vehicles like helicopters and seaplanes opened up tons of possibilities in terms of approaching objectives, and that led to a lot of eureka moments during my playthrough that made me feel like a genius whenever they went well. Despite how awesome of a game this was for me, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City isn't perfect, as it features a handful of missions that are unnecessarily frustrating. This especially applies to the game's final mission, because while it only took me about an hour to actually beat it, the tedium of having to repeat everything over and over again made the whole process feel way longer. Even with this in mind, I'm able to look past all of that and appreciate just how incredible of an experience Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was for me and how fun it was to play, and not only is it my favorite Grand Theft Auto game, but it's also one of the best games that Rockstar has ever made.

You can trash GTA III with a lot of reason from many sides, but it was a game that committed to its still fresh open world, focusing the missions on playing with how that place worked and keeping the exploitation of clunkier or derivative systems for the later half when the ideas that the game managed well ran out. Vice City takes where III left off, that is, the few first missions that seize the now less lively open world feel already exhausted and it takes a much shorter time to add gimmick missions or to focus on shootings and other barely working devices.

The “new thing” is obviously the setting that, aesthetically, is not bad at all, being more a game set in the 80s with actual references from the 80s than the retroactive monsters of nostalgia seen through the past decade. At the same time, probably because references were mostly about pop media, the life from III is not here. Gangs taking different parts of the town, citizens and vehicles changing depending on the zone, even how some of the NPCs (the aggressive ones) responded to your presence depending on your actions within the story, everything is barely there if not totally gone at all. Yes, GTA III was a game about (childish) walking stereotypes as NPCs, but at the same time NPCs that were rooted in some, very twisted, reality. Here everything is a distorted view of some gangster movies that fail to inhabit a proper place. Which could be fine if, again, it didn’t constantly lead to the worst action scenes imaginable.

At least you have some better tunes on the radio to have a drive around.

Before GTA V, I would have wholeheartedly indulged myself in gleeful contrarianism and said this was the worst of the series. Its relationship with its aesthetic is the most shallow of the classic trilogy. Neon, drugs, Miami, Scarface - its 80s pizzazz operates as nothing but cool sheen, and lacks the haze of GTA III's nihilistic narrative and the vigor of GTA SA's expansive world. And is this game cool and fun? That's the kicker. Particularly after GTA San Andreas, it becomes eminently clearer by the year that this game only had a year's worth of development. Contemporary reviews celebrated its motorcycles, rickety, awkward wheelers that could careen you off the edge and into a body of water you could not swim in. Its graphics have never done it favors, particularly in so many brightly lit locations now that make you miss the softening effects of GTA III's shadows. Its story is once again stuck between its III and SA. An amoral rise to power that feels too much bloat from III's treatment of gangster sociopathy and nowhere near as expansive as San Andreas's elements of customization and development that still remains unmatched in the series. What's left is at best a massive substantive expansion pack that changes the mood and injects some color: the Ballad of Gay Tommy. At worst, it is Scarface without de Palma, Pacino, and pathos.

ENG: Similar in the playable aspect to GTA 3 due to the fact that it was originally going to be an expansion. Where it really changes is obviously in the setting and story. Where GTA 3 was dark and rainy, Vice City is light and sunny. Where in GTA 3 Claude Speed was a crestfallen and mute hitman, Tommy Vercetti demands and acts on his own.

ESP: Similar en el aspecto jugable a GTA 3 debido a que en un comienzo iba a ser un expansión. En donde realmente cambia es en, obviamente, la ambientación e historia. Donde GTA 3 era oscuro y lluvioso, Vice City es claro y soleado. Donde en GTA 3 Claude Speed era un asesino a sueldo cabizbajo y mudo, Tommy Vercetti exige y actúa por cuenta propia.

Yeah, It's a classic gta, important and amazing game for its time, but It has aged like milk...

2023 and It was the first time I ever tried it

+ Best licensed soundtrack ever

Mambo, 80's pop songs, classic rock and roll tracks and so much more... Driving through Miami and listening to billie jean? D A M N B O I

+ Hilarious Radio Shows

Sometimes I was kinda bored with the old layout missions with a kinda shallow story, I started paying attention to the radio and damn, the dialogs were incredible.

+ Game Humour

YOU GOT BIG COJONES, AMIGOOOOO!!! I had fun watching some cutscenes, they were silly and fun, I liked it.

- Controls

This bothered me SO MUCH. Mainly because of the RC missions, Dodos, boats, etc. You can't move the camera while driving, It's static! They're out dated AF

- Missions can be buggy, temperamental and repetitive

The era of the games where missions were "go there, kill this guy, return with the suitcase", then "go to the hotel, chase the pizza guy, kill him, return to the safehouse".

- City is small

- The second part of the game is a childish roblox tycoon

Yes. They obligate you to find at least 7 properties UNMARKED on the map, buy them, do their boring, stressful and buggy missions, so then you can unlock the 2 last missions of the game, just so the story that rockstar made out would make sense...

Conclusion: guys, the year was 2002, a gta released for ps2, most of the people who bought it weren't interested in the story or making perfect runs. I read a lot of reviews saying "I remember creating chaos with my cousins on a sleepover". So, it was a fun game to just mess around, not doing like most of us and trying to beat it. But yeah, decent.

Really good Grand Theft Auto game. It improves on some things from 3, while giving it a very stylish vibe to the city.

It's basically more GTA with a Scarface coat of paint. But no, it doesn't want to be serious or have any deep messages about life or anything unlike the movie. It goes in a straight line and ends there.

It's the perfect Grand Theft Auto game just because of that. Even if the gameplay hasn't aged the best. Is about progression, explore the city and taking over it. Has a lot of charm too, it doesn't take it too seriously. A fun time for sure.

But the gameplay and missions haven't aged the best. Specially on PS2. On PC there are plenty of mods to enjoy and modernize this game, see if you opinion changes.

Not my favorite after giving it a second try, but this game is such a mood I can't but drive around the city with Emotion 98.3 or Wave 103 on the radio.

I really loved Vice City, the game was fun as hell and super memorable. My biggest complaints are mostly two things.

The first thing is that the game has a lot of very aged mechanics that become a pain in the ass to deal with beyond the bad combat. One example is how you lose all your guns when you die and then you have to restart the entire mission. At that point you’re better off just loading a previous save.

On top of that, I didn’t mind the idea of having to go to certain areas of the game to save, but it just becomes pretty monotonous later on in the game, alongside having to constantly rebuy armor.

The second thing is that around the final quarter or so of the game and some missions even before that, the missions get really stupid and gimmicky where you have to do a bunch of stupid shit and it's amusing at first but eventually it gets very tiring and annoying. I love almost everything else about this game besides that though.

This games atmosphere and vibes are incredible, I love the characters, writing and goofyness of the game, the radio is fucking amazing and in general I love how arcadey and flashy this game is compared to later GTA games, its very refreshing and a ton of fun.