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

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Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Information
Reviewer: Andrew St.Denis
Developer: Rockstar Games
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Reviewed: PC
Genre: N/A
UK Release: 13th May 2003
Article Date: 27th Jul 2003
Difficulty: Easy
Retail Price:
Price Comparison:
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Score Breakdown

Experience:
Game Play:
Graphics:
Sound:
Overall Score: 95%

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Pros

Great Gameplay

Great Radio Stations

Cons

Not enough time in the day...

After much hype and waiting for the PC version to arrive... it’s here! As in the first incarnation you play the part of Tommy Vercetti, would-be mobster who’s been sent down to Vice City, Florida to carry out a little drugs deal… Only problem is the manure hits the air extraction system and not only are you left with no drugs and no money, but your own boss is after your hide too if you don’t produce one or the other soon… and there are Cubans, Haitians, Biker Gangs and the resident Drug lord trying to make sure you don’t

You are plunged into a 80’s style world, complete with radio stations to listen to (or even your own mp3’s that can be imported) right out of ‘Miami Vice’ you’ll be astounded by the graphics, and even on lower spec systems it looks good, and the draw distances aren’t bad at all, but if you’re driving around hell-for-leather with the cops after you, you’ll not be paying much attention to that… No that’s best left to when you are flying above all that in one of six Helicopters or the Aeroplane that are available at different stages throughout the game… that’s right, in Vice City, it’s not just a Cessna clone with clipped wings you get to try out, you get to fly maybe a police or news ‘copter dodging buildings and if you’ve been a naughty boy fire from the police on the ground and police helicopters, but the best one is left to later on, if you’re lucky you’ll get to play with the ‘Hunter’ (which you can see in one of the screenshots below) complete with chain-gun and rockets. So you can shoot back!!

The controls for the game are pretty much like the earlier GTA3, mouse to look and aim/fire the weapons (and what weapons!) and either the keyboard or game-pad for movement and driving the vehicles (and what vehicles!) but all of them can be user assigned, so you can set them up as you wish

Now when you start playing the game you’ll notice the major differences, for starters there are more vehicles to ride around in or on, since bikes are now included too, from the ‘Peggio’ scooter to the ‘PCJ 600’ race bike, but be careful, one wrong move and you’re off, often sustaining damage to yourself, as well as the bike. Plus you’ll notice more cars (everything from station wagons to sports cars) each with their own handling attributes and even the rain makes a difference…

The weapons available to you, from the humble fists and club type weapons to the heavy mini gun and M60 machine gun, are placed into classes, handguns, submachine guns, assault rifles, sniper rifles and heavy weapons so you’ll have to pick carefully which weapon is better in each class and there are at least a couple to choose from in each.

Now the game moves nicely, from one mission to another following a storyline, and once more you can deviate from that whenever you like, and for as long as you like doing your own thing… maybe you want to be a pizza delivery boy to earn a little extra money or a taxi driver, the choice is yours in this free flowing city and during the game, on top of the standard game-play, you can purchase businesses of your own, which give you extra missions and help earn you more cash.
One major difference you’ll notice between ‘Vice City’ and the first GTA3, is you don’t start with a garage for your vehicle, instead there are apartments/houses or the businesses which you buy, that’ll include a save point for the game and on occasions a garage or two/three/four to store your cars and bikes in

All in all this is a definite step up from an already well designed and programmed game, and must go down as one of the best games this year, if not the decade, it looks amazing and even better, plays like it looks, the non-linear gameplay works very well, and I doubt you’ll find yourself bored with the radio stations anytime soon either. There’s not much more to say other then if you don’t already have this game, buy it!!

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