ic-games Review - Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (Playstation 2) - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

ic-games Review - Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (Playstation 2) - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii ic-games Review - Home - Review, Preview and Interview for PC, Xbox,Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (PS2)

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (Playstation 2)

Information
Reviewer: James Collins
Developer: Rockstar Leeds
Publisher: Rockstar North
Reviewed: Playstation 2
Genre: Action Adventure
UK Release: 09th Mar 2007
Article Date: 07th Mar 2007
Difficulty: Medium
Retail Price: £19.99
Price Comparison:
0

Score Breakdown

Experience:
Game Play:
Graphics:
Sound:
Overall Score: 86%

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Pros

More of the same

Wicked Radio Stations

Bargain Price

Cons

More of the same

Screenshots

3 of 8

Easily one of the PSP’s greatest, and to this date, best selling titles, Vice City Stories makes an easy transition to a console like the Playstation 2. That’s not down to the fact it’s the best title the console has to offer, but simply put, it’s another title in the hugely popular Grand Theft Auto series.

Of course that’s because GTA sells – and sell it does, big time. Actually, now we think of it, there is very little point to this review really, Rockstar know it, we know it and you probably know it as well. After all, chances are the vast majority of you have probably already pre-ordered this title and will be picking it up on release day regardless of what anyone has to say.

The gameplay has been ripped countless times before, albeit occasionally with some success, as what was seen with Saints Row and Crackdown (and yes we do know who developed Crackdown). You’ll pick up missions from contacts strewn across a map, complete missions for said contacts, create new contacts along the way and complete even more missions. All across that well loved, free-form universe. In GTA of course you steal vehicles, kill lots of people and generally cause as much trouble as the law officials will allow you to get away with.

As you would expect Vice City Stories doesn’t deviate much from the gameplay we saw with San Andreas although the RPG elements have been removed such as eating, exercising and training, although the lead character can still swim. However to complicate matters lets forget San Andreas for now as Vice City Stories is yet another prequel, set a few years before the events you no doubt witnessed in the original Vice City. In Vice City Stories you play Vic Vance, the brother of a Vice City character you may well remember, Lance Vance. The game opens with Vic joining the Army and being transported to his new military base in Vice City. The first character Vic comes across is his commanding officer and soon to be drug addicted contact, Jerry Martinez., from here things take a turn for the worse for our lead character. Jerry soon learns than Vic has only joined the Army to help his sick brother and he leans on this weak point to force Vic to perform all manner of illegal activities for cash. At this point on you’ll be picking up guns, chauffeuring prostitutes and selling drugs – in other words your in familiar GTA territory once again.

The map is huge and to help you navigate the area multiple vehicles can be stolen, brought, borrowed, or won, you name it you can probably do it. By far the easiest way to nab a vehicle is to commit Grand Theft Auto which is easily done due to the shear amount of vehicles on offer. Although the vehicle handling appears more refined than on the PSP version the control does feel a little exaggerated at times and when precision matters during missions you can find the physics letting you down.

The soundtrack? Well what can you say; this is safe GTA territory we are in now. Based around the early 80’s, the tracks could have been pulled right from a regular station, except the DJ’s are far less politically correct. On these radio stations everything goes – and go it usually does, normally to great comical effect, even the adverts get special treatment, GTA style.

There’s also a radio station to suit every one of your moods, and tastes, Emotion 98.3 plays all the latest love songs intertwined with some genuinely funny commentary. Popular tracks such as 10CC’s ‘I’m Not in Love’, The Assembly’s ‘Never, Never’, Pat Benatar’s ‘We Belong’ and Foreigners ‘I want to know what Love is’ are just a few of the tracks belting out on a regular occurrence. And of course there are plenty more excellent stations to choose from by simply hitting the a button, including a talk radio station, when you want more of that madcap humour without the music. Either way, to give the Vice City radio stations the full credit they deserve would be to play the stations in the menu, without any of the background noise, and invite in your parents or your grandparents. More than likely they’ll be convinced the stations are real even when their sensibilities are telling them otherwise.

San Andreas was credited with bringing in some big names to help out with the radio stations and this trend continues with Vice City Stories. A quick flick through the manual shows up some interesting credited names including Gary Busey (Phil Cassidy), Phil Collins (who plays himself), Timothy Spall (who plays Barry Mickelthwailte) and of course Lazlow, if anyone could forget Lazlow. The lesser known stars still do a great job in making sure that this series features some of the best voice acting heard in a computer game. No one lets the side down and each new character is a pleasure to come across no matter what there personality. As far as audio goes it really has never gotten any better than the GTA series and Vice City keeps this fine tradition going.

If you think we are concentrating on the radio stations a little too much then maybe you should take into consideration that the latest double CD’s of compilation music that seem to be released with annoying regularity would cost you around £12.99 for around 40 tracks. Delving into the manual you’ll soon learn that Vice City Stories has around 104 popular tracks with added guest commentary. Taking that into consideration alone makes the £19.99 asking price for the game seem like an absolute bargain.

There are a few little gameplay touches new to the PS2 version, for example you now have the ability to buy back your weapons after you have been busted by paying an optional large bribe. This works well with the taxi feature that drives you automatically to the start of the last failed mission. With these two features the usual hassles of failing a mission have all but been averted. That being said this is pretty much everything you have come to expect from the series just with the brand new PSP missions and storyline from the UMD version released last year.

The biggest negative you can level at GTA: Vice City Stories is that there is nothing overly new to the series – this is more of the same, however enjoyable that material might be. Of course, for these big ringing changes we are all going to have to wait for Grand Theft Auto IV. For now, and more importantly for PS2 owners, GTA: Vice City Stories might be more of what we love, but at least love is still the operative word here. And love it you should.

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