BETTER THAN VICE CITY STOP SLEEPING ON THIS GAME YOU COCKSUCKING WHORES. "B-but PSP it was made for PSP so lesser" YOU DENSE MOTHERFUCKER

The empire building, HOLY FUCK. Attack a site, renovate it into a crack house, repeat across the entire city, receive SO MUCH MONEY THROUGH A PAGER I LOVE PAGERS NOW YES. An incredible mix of San Andreas' explosive turf wars and Vice City's addictive property system, watching the numbers rise is satisfying as fuck I've lost hours of my life and I want to lose more. You do have to defend them a little more frequently than I'd like though, like I'm in the middle of collecting balloons I don't particularly wanna engage with my prostitution racket right now.

The story, FIRE. You play as the least charismatic, most self-contradicting ass motherfucker in writing history, and the way his mundane ass clashes with LANCE VANCE, the most extreme, intense CLOWN in the documented universe, the juxtaposition is gold, every cutscene is gold. You combine that with the classic "rags to riches" focus, fuelled through over the top 80s flamboyance and setpieces, and it's a pretty huge in scope journey with super memorable sequences. YOU DEFEND A PHIL COLLINS CONCERT FROM TERRORISTS WHILE "IN THE AIR TONIGHT" BLASTS THROUGH YOUR SHITTY PSP SPEAKERS, WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU NOT PLAYING THIS RIGHT NOW

A special FUCK you to the mission design, IT'S HARD AS SHIT I'M PISSED. DRIVE A FORKLIFT THAT ABSOLUTELY HAS NOT HAD AN MOT CHECK IN 10+ YEARS IT BARELY TURNS THROUGH THE MOST CRAMPED GARAGE THAT'S EVER BEEN INFRASTRUCTURED. OH AND IT'S ON FIRE, PICK UP AND DROP OFF ALL THE MOONSHINE ONE BY ONE VERY VERY SLOWLY BEFORE THE GARAGE EXPLOD- OOPS NOT FAST ENOUGH BOOOOM WHY DIDN'T YOU DO IT FASTER ARE YOU STUPID?

WIN A RACE ON THIS ATV... THE FIRST EVER ATV NOT DESIGNED FOR OFFROAD SURFACES LMAO ENJOY SPINNING ON YOUR SIDE CUNT

There's a mission where you film a zombie movie gunning down zombies in the mall, I liked that one. You can play golf. Every other mission has you street racing at 100mph or launching through the air on a jet ski or bombing areas with a helicopter or tank yeah nah, I'm crying most of the playthrough but I'm also having the time of my life, God bless the PSP your analogue stick is dreadful I will use it until the end of time

Much like my view on Liberty City Stories, except this game is a bit more creative with the mission variety and plot.

The writing in these spin off ‘stories’ GTA games definitely does not reach the high point of the mainline series, but I suppose that is to be expected.

I don’t think it’s a narrative that will linger long in the memory but it was fun whilst it lasted.

I probably would have had more fun if I had played it on PSP, but having never owned one - I cannot say.

Ok, I did play this one briefly, but I always thought it was just too boring.

I tried to get into this game multiple times but something about it was always just off to me. All I can remember is the beginning of the game feeling too slow and feeling like I wasn't getting anywhere.

The main character in this one is just some guy that was in the army, as opposed to all the other sociopathic lunatics from the other games. He never seemed that interesting to me, not enough to capture my attention for long enough anyway.

I'm not sure whether or not people think this one is better than Liberty City Stories, but I have heard that it does get a lot better as the game goes on. Idk, from what I played, it didn't seem like a great game, especially compared to the original Vice City, which I did play very briefly.

I'm planning on giving it another shot sometime soon, and actually playing it from start to finish, so I'll make sure to update this review once that happens.

The game is good overall and was fun, but you can feel the limitations of the PSP in the gameplay. Accordingly, some missions were unfair and without save states it would be really exhausting to have to restart them every time. The attacks on the empire buildings you conquered were annoying (I didn't realize you had to save and reload the game to make it stop) and the empire missions were unfortunately too repetitive.

Story-wise, the game is okay, the protagonist is quite likeable and most of the other characters are also okay and not annoying, but you can usually predict their development. The story itself is not particularly exciting and you can always guess what will happen next, but there was still enough variety and different locations.

Look, I'm a sucker for handheld consoles and there were many games that practically consumed my life alive. This was one of them, and I really can't count or remember how many hours a day I spent on this. The game was absolutely amazing and crazy. My only complaint is that whoever coded the businesses you build on overtaken lots deserves a special room in hell. Once you take over every lot, one of them gets attacked every other minute and the game becomes this endless loop of going from one lot to another so you can save them. You have to let go at some point and risk losing a portion of your lots so you don't get overwhelmed by attacks every second. Fuck this.

Otherwise a great game.