Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

The Grand Theft Auto series returns to the platform it originated on as the latest installment, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, finally hits the PC.  Vice City has all of the deep gameplay and excellent atmosphere of its PS2 big brother, but improves upon it by featuring improved graphics and a host of great new features.  If you’re a PC gamer who hasn’t already taken a trip to Vice City, book yourself on a flight now.

In Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, you play as Tommy Vercetti, an ex-con trying to get back in the hoodlum game.  Your boss sends you down to Vice City; a Miami-style town where the prime trades are tourism and crime.  You’re in the middle of a drug deal, when suddenly everything goes awry and you are out both your drugs and the money you were to receive for them.  This doesn’t please your boss, who basically says either you get him his money or he’ll take it out of you.  In order to get him back his money, you must run odd jobs for various different people until finally you’ll be able to run the town yourself.

The missions in the game (for those who are unfamiliar with the structure of the Grand Theft Auto series) are quite varied, ranging from knocking off a loudmouthed informant or strong-arming some people on a jury to boat racing.  Vice City gives you a very wide range of vehicles to use as you see fit.  You start out being able to drive a wide range of cars and motorcycles, and later on you’ll have access to speedboats and even helicopters.  Another great thing about Vice City is just how non-linear and open ended the game is.  The main missions will keep you busy for a very long time, but just in case you get bored, the game is full of little mini-quests, like running “Vigilante” missions if you commandeer a police car or “Rampage” missions, in which you simply kill as many gang members as possible with whatever weapon you are given.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City takes place in the 1980’s, and everything in the game manages to exude this atmosphere.  The vehicles, clothes, characters, even the radio stations stick religiously to the eighties motif.  Vice City showcases eighties excess so satirically well it’s almost too real.  The game’s level of immersion is doubled by the huge city over which you have free roam.  Vice City is larger than Liberty City (from Grand Theft Auto 3) and allows you to have an unprecedented level of areas to explore.

The new control scheme works great on the PC.  The finicky auto-aim from the PS2 version has been removed, and now aiming is done manually with the mouse and an on-screen targeting reticule.  The controls are completely customizable, and you can either configure the mouse for driving or use the keyboard.  While the mouse-driving controls are a little tough to grasp, the keyboard works just fine.

The already-great graphics have been largely improved from the PS2 version, and the results are amazing.  Vice City on the PC has new and improved textures and 32-bit color support, which means that the game’s “pastel” color scheme is as full and vibrant as it could possibly be.  With support for resolutions up to 1600x1200, you can see an incredible amount of detail in the game that you never could see on the PS2, like worn-down walls on buildings, luster on cars, and even the seams on your denim blue jeans.  Plus, the draw-in distance is fantastic.  Even at the default draw-in setting (which isn’t even half of what the game is capable of) you can see the city for a long way.  For a real treat, max out the draw-in and take a helicopter for a ride over the city (it’s really breathtaking).

As if the amazing gameplay and fantastic graphics weren’t enough, the sound in Vice City is probably some of the best out there.  The game’s radio stations (each with their own unique formats, like rock, rap, or new wave) make use of more than 100 licensed tunes from the eighties.  Being a child from the era, hearing tunes like “Obsession” by Animotion or “Sister Christian” by Night Ranger almost brought a nostalgic tear to my eye.  Even if the great eighties tunes aren’t your cup of tea, you can import your favorite MP3s to the MP3 subdirectory in the Vice City folder and listen to them during your criminal shenanigans.

The voice acting is also superbly done.  The game features quite a bit of star power, with the voice talents of famous actors like Ray Liotta, Dennis Hopper, Tom Sizemore, Burt Reynolds, and Gary Busey (the list goes on and on…).

Vice City is a real treat: a game that combines excellent graphics and sound with stellar gameplay.  Some may find the violence level to be too much for the squeamish, and that’s not unfounded.  Vice City features a great deal of violence akin to the other installments in the series.  Therefore, I can’ t recommend this title for children or anyone with a real adversity to video game violence.  However, if you are okay with all of this and you haven’t already experienced Vice City on the PS2, this is the version to get. 

Gameplay: 9.5
Vice City offers up an unparalleled level of immersion for an action/adventure game.  The city itself is humungous and sprawling, and the missions are diverse and very addicting.  The new controls are great and very easy to grasp.  However, the violence level is certainly not for the squeamish.

Graphics: 9.3
The game’s environments look incredible.  The huge city has an amazing level of detail, and the vehicle models look much better than those on the PS2.  Cars will damage realistically depending on what you do to them, and they have luster and shine that simply wasn’t present in the PS2 version.  The character models look pretty good, although they still are made up of very few polygons and look a little blocky.  However, with support for 32-bit colors and resolutions up to 1600x1200, Vice City on the PC is the best-looking Grand Theft Auto game yet on any platform.   

Sound: 9.8
Vice City features some of the best sound in any game out there.  The game features over 100 licensed songs from the eighties, with tracks from artists like Judas Priest, Frankie goes Hollywood, Run DMC, Michael Jackson, and many more.  If you aren’t a big fan of eighties music (or would simply like to see some more tunes that weren’t in the game), just import your favorite MP3s to the MP3 folder, and voila, you’ve got a brand new radio station.

The voice acting is also excellent.  The game has a huge list of celebs lending their voice talents to the game, like Ray Liotta, Burt Reynolds, Dennis Hopper, and Bill Fitchner.  Hey, it’s even got Tubbs (Phillip Michael Thomas) from Miami Vice!

Difficulty: Medium

Concept: 9.5
Vice City adheres to it’s eighties theme wonderfully.  The storyline is fascinating and feels like something out of an eighties action flick, and everything from the cars to the clothing to the music adds to the excellent atmosphere and provides an amazing level of immersion.

Overall: 9.5
Vice City is one of those rare games that effortlessly combines atmosphere, engaging gameplay, and great graphics and sound to make a truly unique gaming experience.  The violence level is a little high, but those who don’t have a problem with video game violence will undoubtedly enjoy Vice City.  If you haven’t already played it on the PS2, then grab a copy of Vice City on the PC ASAP.