Pros: Grand Comedy
Cons: Killing people with screwdrivers?
The bottom line: So, Crime Does Pay.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, sequel to one of last year’s most popular PlayStation 2 games – Grand Theft Auto 3, is based on the regular gameplay that people are familiar with, you could call it a RPG, but there is neither a sign or trace of a real plot, the Role Playing Game is more down to your own liking, rather than finding the way to the end of the game. Freedom is the key ingredient for GTA Vice City, just like the last four games (including GTA London), but whether the casual fan can withstand another battery of foolhardiness fun is left to the developers, who, after the typical critic complaints, have certainly pulled their socks up. Bringing the graphical power of PlayStation 2 to the forefront, and enhancing the old potion that has brought them up with the market-wide reputation they clearly earned through latitude rather than luck.

This style of genre, which original spawned from Driver, has both the essential feel of freedom with the always popular role-playing. You begin the game with, not a menu, not a difficulty setting, but a direct insert into the life of 1986 and based in Vice City. The name Vice City is based on the show Miami Vice. You play Tommy Vercetti, who has just been released from fifteen years in prison, and is immediately acquainted with new operations set-up by the mob – his previous employers and his family. He could have squealed on them, granting him a lesser sentence, but because he went for the full ruling he is appreciably sent for new operations in Vice City since he’s not liked in Liberty City. His first operation, which immediately occurs as he leaves the plane, is to associate himself with the cocaine circulation of Vice City and to buy out two suitcases of the stuff. The first mission starts off fairly well, until he is left no alternative than to exit an assemblage of corpses and make a run for it with his Lawyer. His boss, however, is not pleased. It is Tommi’s task to get that money back. However, in the process, the biggest guys in the city offer him more and more work; it soon becomes clear this game’s story is based on getting the lost funds back, along with the white stuff.

It is more or less the same style of the previous game; you are landed onto a fairly flat open city area, of which you can pick your own transport, by either stealing a car or walking. Of course stealing a car can get you some attention from the cops if they are in the area. Guns of the sort are available, either in the hidden places or in the cities gun surplus Ammu-Nation. Other stores are on hand; the hardware stores give you access to all sorts of ‘tools’, such as a screwdriver, hammer or machete and meat clever – and not to mention chain saw – which can be used as pretty gruesome weapons too. The differences between 3 and Vice City are slim; you now have access to more buildings, other aspects of the game that are new are things like the new water realism. The sea and small canals that route through the city allow you to travel by boat, and the water is somewhat transparent, you can usually see sea life and the occasional reef. Unlike GTA 3 the sky is not the limit, the developers have now made the game for air transport, so you can enjoy the highest altitude without the game crashing. The previous game did include a “restricted” plane that allowed some air travel but takes some time to get used to. Like before the style isn’t much different, there are new features like the RC racing cars, helicopters and planes that add some more fun points along the journey. Other than those the gameplay is much the same.

A great thing about the game is the radio; with each car and each motorbike have a radio tuner, this allows you to tune into ten radio stations which are hosted by a few of the voices who appeared on the previous game. This offers the player something fun to listen to, the shows are often funny and host loads of controversial talk shows that include nudists, egocentric moms, and some of the funniest ads ever heard. And not forgetting the music – based on the decade; artists include Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Blondie, Kim Wilde, Spandau Ballet, and Michael Jackson – amoung others.

The city is also based around the styling of the current Miami, as the developers spoke off in an Internet interview (GameSpot), which helps the nightlife of the Vice City to really come to life. The colours of the sun and water make the new city much more colourful and livelier. Another odd trait is that the city is supposedly three times larger, but is only separated into two islands. There are now several access bridges, not to mention the harbours and docks to switch islands, plus the few mini-islands that host the richest guys on the scene, but most of these features are restricted until you progress through the game. You’ll probably be first informed that there’s hurricane warning so the access bridges are closed, this later is taken away allowing access to both islands. The two main separations looks massive, the streets are very crowded and have much less straight forward routes. They have managed to make all the alleys roads and bridges mix a variety of types of road, some of the roads are long and flat, others are rough and bumpy and run through tight bends and corners. Sides of the roads are filled with typical obstacles like trash cans letter boxes and newspaper stands - plus the usual pedestrians. Traffic lights and streetlights litter the curbs, but they tend to put up a fight depending on how fast you are moving and the weight of your vehicle.

The actual vehicles have also been redesigned. There are quoted to be over a 100 different vehicles, which now include motorbikes. There are plenty of regular vehicles like cars, which vary from small sportscars, to the huge offroaders, others like vans and larger trucks add a lot of variation. The motorbikes are new to the PS2 game, and are better than expected, with only four types available, they offer different levels of handling, just like the cars. The most fun to ride is the moped, then there is the larger Harley styled bike, the motorcross bike and the racing bike. There are a new host of stunts you can do with them too, like burnouts, wheelies, stoppies, and then there are the jumps. You can now gain access to building top roofs, with the jumps crossing rivers and even streets, you can do loads with the bikes that you can’t with the cars. As for the sea transit, you can expect more variation, from the long liners, to the fishing boats, and down to the smaller motorboats and jetboats. Unfortunately there are no Jetskis and no water jumps – offered in regular play anyway - which is a shame. The air transport is less varied. You first get access to several helicopters, which can do just about anything up to a certain altitude and give you lots of speed to get around. The aircrafts are limited to just a Seaplane that can land on the water, and gain higher heights than the helicopter.

The vehicles can also have visual damage inflicted, which applies to only the road going vehicles except the motorbikes. The damage doesn’t especially affect the handling, which you would expect it to, but does take out things like doors and windows for that added excitement. A new addition to the game is the ability to shoot out tires. While the actual effect is barely more than the tire dipping into the floor, and making them wobble, the handling has some big downsides. And when it happens to you on a bike, you’re basically screwed. There were originally rumours that the cars would allow you to balance on two wheels, like the James Bond films of the time, and is here in full effect. It’s somewhat difficult to achieve on large vehicles, but on some of the sportscars you can balance them for some time. It’s worth noting that any stunts you perform on the vehicles, like a long wheelie or stoppie, earn you cash that can be converted into weapons. You could try out some burnouts in the cars and do some large doughnuts.

What is most noticeable in the sequel is the sound and graphics upgrade. The developers have used their DVD streaming technique again which allows the game to run with no interfering loading times (expect for switching islands, or entering a building), it also means that the graphics can be constantly adjusted. You will notice how buildings no longer popup or are drawn in progress, the difference is clearly noticeable. Though there are times when parts pop-up at close range. They have also added the programming to make sure the resources aren’t wasted drawing things that aren’t shown (i.e. things hidden by buildings and such) to further enhance the graphics. The level of detail is not as improved as other areas, but the graphics is. The most notable is the lighting, which means that lens flare, city lights all effect the mood of the scene – they tend to reflect on the road or your clothes. The cars are also much more detailed, although the interiors aren’t any better, they have a shaper edge and the reflections look more real. Further exciting effects include a heat haze that appears when you stop on a car or bike with the exhaust shown, and your characters hair and clothes moving in the wind when on open toped vehicles or bikes/boats. They have also included the blurred effect found with GTA 3, which is optional also, it makes tail lights and anything moving which is bright blur along like on Ridge Racer Type 4.

Special effects that popup and surprise are things like the drops of water on the screen from it starts raining; you may also like to know blood may also fall on the camera too. Speaking cameras, they have rejected the Bird-eye view in favour of three distance views, a inside view, and a TV styled camera. It would have been nicer to have more camera angles to play with; I especially liked the side-of-vehicle angle that appears when you first switch to TV camera. One of the best shots is when in first person view, and you’re on a motorbike, when you look back on yourself you are given a fairing angle showing you’re character and the streaming background – cool. Another cool effect is the jetstreme that follows jetplanes in the air, and what about Palm Trees that bend in the wind – yep.

And then the Sounds, and then the Sounds! With the sound effects you can expect to hear loads of cool things; the pedestrians - now much more varied – each have all sorts of little lines, they often talk back to you while you do something. The effects that carry through the game, like the engine sounds mean that each vehicle are unique, and don’t think they sound like the other game, they sound accurate and pretty mean. The helicopter sounds are great, as is the little effects that appear now and then like the sound of screeching rubber or the occasional – or rather recurrent – impacts of vehicles, people or other things. What was more interesting was that the game was to include DTS 5.1 sound, to carry a full-blown sound interaction. This was a hot topic over at the DVDFile forum, they all said that this would reduce the graphical power by using a VPU processor, but the truth is there, you don’t get any reduction in graphics with the full sound option. There is also the Pro Logic option but you don’t want to mess with that. It adds a bigger interaction between the game and you.

Once you get used to the open and simple principle of take-what-you-want; it’s easy to play GTA Vice City. If you get caught by the cops; then you spend a night in jail, if you die; it’s a trip to the hospital at cost. The actual currency of the game gives you lots of potential. One thing to note is that as you progress, you’ll soon learn that you will have to buy in the guns and armour, without it you will not be able to get any further on. Once you get a certain way through there is a new feature that opens, one that is like the game Monopoly; you can buy property - your role in the game soon becomes a money hungry insurance broker, you are getting money from all the property on the two islands and have the ability to buy any of the properties with a arrow icon on their front. Each property you buy gives you a garage and save point, which is very handy. The way the game progresses means that more and more options and features open up, you will visit a number of places over the entire city, and meet up with all sorts of people.

There are lots more features of the game that crop up as you progress through it, such as a street race evening or your own membership to the golf greens – Leaf Links. Vice City may seem one of the nicest place that you could live, but it’s flooded with crime: you’ll see the clubs and night life – strippers can be seeked out at Pole Position, and Little Havana looks like a dump with dead cars and buses buried in the ground. Funnily enough there are no cemeteries in the city.

Conclusion

Grand Theft Auto Vice City, promised what it has provided. The story is long enough to provide around a month of play, the side missions add that extra delight, and there’s tons to do. The characters have that ‘on-the-edge’ sort of attitude, Tommi is cautiously calm, but at least he talks this time round. The graphics are nothing superb - but they do look good - especially for a game of this size. There are a few things, which could be better; such as the fact that some missions are so fun you’d fail them to play again, like the “Speed” clone mission or the RC missions. It would also be nice if there were little tasks available for you to complete; other wise the main missions provide that rather fast learning curve for an enjoyable game. The fun factor is there, so buy it if that suits you.