4-Jul-2003 Jamie Sefton grows a mullet and slips into a pastel shirt and chinos to cruise the crime-ridden, neon-splashed streets of Vice City. But can the PC version upstage its PS2 cousin?
Mr Mister's rock anthem Broken Wings is currently playing on an eternal loop inside my brain as I write this review. That's the effect that Rockstar's awesome 18-rated crim-sim has when you play it - total immersion in a believable city, set to a soundtrack of the best 1980s chart hits and cult classics. Put simply, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is one of the greatest videogames ever made, and now in another celebration of that decade of excess, us lucky PC gamers can play the definitive 12-inch remix version.
Vice City basically takes what was so good about last year's action blockbuster GTA III and improves it even more, doubling the size of the Liberty City playing area, introducing fantastic new vehicles that all handle differently, offering a greater variety of missions and allowing you to buy and enter property and businesses. Rockstar has truly pushed the boat out with the production values of its latest game too, with an A-list cast of Hollywood talent such as Dennis Hopper and Burt Reynolds providing voices for the well-directed cut-scenes, plus an exceptional music line-up made up of nine themed radio stations playing more than 90 tracks from artists as varied as Blondie, Luther Vandross, Anthrax and Herbie Hancock.
OK, we know some of you will have played the PlayStation 2 version (the game has sold six million copies already after all) but Rockstar North has now delivered the ultimate Vice City experience with vastly improved graphics and frame-rate, the addition of mouse-look, shorter load times and the ability to import home-made skins and MP3/WAV music files.
A Mafia Hit Set in 1986, you play through the game as Tommy Vercetti (voiced by Goodfellas star Ray Liotta), a no-good scumbag who's sent to the sun-kissed Miami-flavoured Vice City by his Mafia boss to watch over a drugs deal that unfortunately goes badly awry. Tommy decides to stay in town to recover his boss's wares, but also finds himself doing jobs for other nefarious local characters, and is soon on the way to becoming the most powerful and feared figure in Vice City.
Moving Tommy around the PC Vice City can be done in various user-definable ways, but our preferred mode was one that uses a gamepad for driving, and a mouse for when our anti-hero's on foot. Unlike the PS2 version, in which targeting using automatic lock-on and the analogue sticks was often awkward and rather clunky, mouse-look again returns to the series on PC and immediately makes it easier and more satisfying during gun battles, as you can home in on your intended targets instantly and accurately.
Much has been discussed already about Grand Theft Auto III's open-plan design that offers players the freedom to express themselves in whatever violent/funny/nasty/silly ways they want, as well as completing missions for clients - Vice City expands on that tradition with even more mad stuff to do. Carjacking - dragging innocent people out of their vehicle and stealing it - was always the backbone of the series and now in addition to the new types of cars, tanks, buses, trucks, boats and planes, budding thieves can also take control of helicopters and motorbikes.
Big Choppers Helicopters are opened up to you after completing certain missions and are a real treat, allowing you to take off from your private heli-pad on the roof of your newly-acquired mansion and enjoy spectacular views of Vice City from the air. However, it's more fun of course, to cause absolute mayhem, so we can highly recommend smashing them into random vehicles or landing them clumsily in the middle of crowded shopping centres, and watch as the fast-moving blades chop innocent shoppers into human pâté. Hilarious.
Yep, the handling of all the vehicles is superb, but special mention has to be made of the new motorbikes and scooters, which feel just perfect when you're screeching around corners and zig-zagging between other road users at frightening speed. You can cleverly move Tommy's bodyweight on any two-wheeler, so leaning back while accelerating pulls wheelies and tipping forward stands him up, plus you can also carry a weapon and shoot at people around you as well as carry passengers on the back during jobs - very cool. However, you now have to be wary of hitting anything, as you can be thrown violently off the bike and into the air, causing health damage when you and your passenger tumble along the tarmac and smack into buildings and vehicles.
Mission Incredible As with GTA III, the way you earn more cash to buy ever more exotic and lethal weaponry - and now in Vice City, businesses and property - is to complete missions for various clients. Missions are triggered by looking at your map in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen, deciding which person you wish to work for and searching them out - a shimmering pinkish glow on-screen at a location signifying a cut-scene and a commission for a job.
Missions begin with basic hoodlum stuff, such as roughing up jury members, but eventually lead onto jobs that include tricky multiple tasks such as luring policemen into a garage, stealing their clothes and infiltrating a gangland raid to set off explosives. Along the way you'll meet dodgy characters like property magnate Avery Carrington, playboy and smuggler Colonel Juan Cortez, a Scottish rock group called Love Fist and dirty movie producer Steve Scott.
Each of the missions demonstrates Vice City's great imagination and creativity when it comes to game design, meaning you really don't know what type of fun you'll be having next. Highlights include a 'Nam-style first-person helicopter raid on an enemy's house, a radio-controlled plane bombing run on some drug dealer's boats, a manic chase around a golf course on golf carts and a Hell's Angel-style motorbike race.
After completing a successful mission you're rewarded with an immensely satisfying music sting and a lump of cash to stick under your mattress. As you increase your money stack, you can eventually start buying up property in Vice City for your own crooked little empire, investing in bigger and more extravagant bachelor pads, and businesses such as the strip joint Pole Position.
Some properties - such as the Cherry Popper Ice Cream Company - end up being a front for a drugs business, where you can earn dosh by selling your special 99s to the public or by dropping by and collecting profits from the premises every few days. Other businesses, such as InterGlobal Films, unlock new missions and ways to increase your grip on the town - and include people such as "movie actress" Candy Suxxx, played in the game by real-life porn lady Jenna Jameson.
Tommy's Guns And that's not all. Tommy can also enjoy the myriad of other side-missions and objectives in Vice City, including pizza delivery boy, taxi driver, ambulance driver, fireman and vigilante. To help achieve all these objectives, Vice City is packing more heat than ever, with a host of weaponry organised into categories, so you can only carry one of each type in your total cache of nine.
New weapons include the horrible chainsaw that rips through people splashing the screen with blood, and a samurai sword that can lop heads off with one sharp swish. You can again fire certain guns from vehicles (including bikes) for drive-by shootings, but in addition you can also now tactically hit targets through car windows and blast tyres sending vehicles careering out of control - a technique that's used in the game by police with "stingers".
The GTA police force certainly hasn't mellowed since the last game - in fact, you have to be more vigilant of your "Wanted" rating, signified again by six stars in the top-right of the screen. As you commit crimes, the more stars you light up, the more aggressive the law enforcement officers will become. Get to three stars and they send the police helicopter after you - six stars, and the army will pay a visit in a tank. As in GTA III, if you get busted, you're taken to the nearest police station and have all your weapons confiscated, before your dodgy lawyer has time to spring you from jail.
Naughty but Vice Avoiding the authorities is almost a mini-game in itself. If you are frustrated and can't complete a mission, why not go on a good old-fashioned killing spree around the city for fun? Steal a motorbike, drive it into a crowd of people and smash it up. Buy an Uzi and start indiscriminately spraying the neighbourhoods with bullets, before stealing an ambulance when it arrives and squishing as many innocent roller-skaters as you can.
Vice City is literally bursting with laugh-out-loud surprises and genuine great gaming moments. You can search out the many areas for spectacular vehicle jumps again, as in the last GTA, complete with slo-mo camera angles and Insane Stunt Bonuses, plus there are 100 hidden packages to discover and psychopathic Rampage missions. Then there's the dirt bike tracks, the different clothing for Tommy, the lap dances where you can watch girls jiggle about while your money goes down, as well as the old trick of picking up the naughty ladies of the night and heading to a secluded spot for a bit of the other. There's just so much stuff in there - you'll be playing Vice City for months as it has at least 50-60 hours of standard gameplay.
The AI of NPCs and other vehicles is sometimes a little suspect, with cops suddenly stopping looking for you and pedestrians jumping into the path of your vehicle in an apparent suicide attempt. However, it's good enough to create a feeling of being in a large city and there are more random events now, so cars will beep at you, people can shout abuse or ask questions, gangland shootouts will suddenly break out and traffic accidents occur.
Picture Postcard Rockstar has really polished the graphics in the PC version of Vice City, and although you'll need a hefty machine for the best results, we had a 1280x960 setting (double the resolution of the PlayStation 2 version) with 50-60fps that looked stunning, with sunlight reflected realistically off cars, and a beautiful neon glow lit up buildings at night. There was some pop-up (cars appearing out of nowhere etc), and character animation is a little creaky, but this is being very picky - it's akin to criticising The Beatles' White Album for having a bit of a plain cover.
Vice City provides a rich environment where you can indulge every dark fantasy you've ever had, as well as enjoying some of the best level design and genius mission ideas ever featured in a game. Rockstar obviously knows its pop culture - there are many references to other films and TV shows, especially Miami Vice and the classic 1980s movie Scarface (the Giorgio Moroder soundtrack of which has already been raided for GTA III, trivia fans).
As we've experienced two GTA games in two years, you can actually forget how daring the whole franchise is: bad language, police murders, prostitution, illegal narcotics, porno movies, bloody chainsaw killings, scathing social criticism, political corruption, the sanctioned destruction of innocent people's property and possessions, and an amoral playable character. But after all that, Rockstar's latest is just damn good fun and a must-buy even if you have GTA III. Vice City is a title that has defined a generation - a videogame that's hugely entertaining and cool as f**k.
Jamie Sefton
// Overview
Verdict
Phenomenal. One of the best PC games ever
Uppers
Enormous fun to play Superb variety of missions and vehicles Hilariously violent Magnificent 1980s soundtrack and voice-acting
We don't often mention the intro sequence of games, but Vice City has a great homage to the golden era of home computing. As Video Killed The Radio Star by The Buggles plays in the background you see an instantly recognisable Commodore 64 screen with someone tapping LOAD "VICE CITY" and pressing play on a tape. You then see a great pixelated Rockstar North logo and a bleepy theme tune as the border flashes in colour to indicate loading. It's a brilliant moment, but also apt - Vice City is a game made by and for the grown-up generation of 1980s computer kids.
// Missed Opportunity
The PC version of Vice City is the ultimate edition, with better controls, graphics and additional features, such as being able to import your own music and skins. However, the basic game is still the same as it was on the PlayStation 2 six months ago. Rockstar was probably prevented from doing so by its exclusive deal with Sony, but any extra missions/vehicles/weapons for the PC version would have been a fantastic bonus.
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Enormous fun to play
