What happened? Two summers ago I was playing the amazing Grand Theft Auto III on my computer and I was absolutely addicted to it. Flash forward to the tail end of 2003 and I’m playing GTA: Vice City on the X-Box…and I absolutely want it to end. Now don’t get me wrong: GTA Vice City isn’t a horrible game, but it does have some horrible flaws. When I reviewed GTA3 back in Gaming Universe #3 I talked about how the world of GTA was very well executed, but not quite convincing (as say, Shenmue’s). Well, sadly Vice City’s world suffers from the same problem in the respect that random people and cars spawn everywhere, have laughable AI and that the environments seem almost lifeless (only a few buildings have interiors, ya’ know). The only thing I worry about in Vice City is whether or not I’m going to run over a cop on the sidewalk because he looks like everyone else in his brown outfit…other than that, if I want to run over a few hundred pedestrians for no reason, it doesn’t mean anything in the end. In fact, nothing really means that much in the end of GTA Vice City. The game world doesn’t significantly change after you blow up a mall or assassinate people all over town…people just go about their lives and you have to imagine they’re hoping they don’t become Tommy Vercetti car fodder. Another thing that bugs me about Vice City is the story…there just isn’t one. The missions seem thrown together and the plot twists can be seen miles away. The only thing saving the “story” and keeping the right mood going is the excellent voice acting by Ray Liotta and the great 80s soundtrack (I thought there were too many stupid stations though like the surprisingly unfunny talk radio and “just skip it” hispanic stations…I usually just listed to Emotion & Flash). Visually, I think the world of GTA:VIce City is very detailed looking. A lot of time and effort went into making the huge city look nice and I must say it looks beautiful at times (Although the tides must be hell with that moon so close at night :-). The problem is that I’ve seen much better looking games on the X-Box…because you can definitely tell this was a lowly PS2 title at one point (and it doesn’t look a whole lot better than the last game if you take away the reflections, weather effects and higher face polygon count).
The worst parts of GTA Vice City though are the missions, play control, and difficulty. First off, as far as the missions are concerned, they are poorly designed. If you fail a mission, you can’t just hit retry. No, you have to drive (or take a cab if possible) back to where the mission is talked about. Then you have to try the mission again. Also, if you need weapons or armor you have to get them before or while attempting the mission again. So really, you can turn a simple 2 minute mission into a 10 minute long ordeal because of the retarded way the mission play is setup. Secondly, the control is just downright horrendous. Tommy ducks for no reason while firing and won’t get up. Tommy jumps but can’t jump OVER anything. Tommy doesn’t bail out of a car when I hit the right button to make him do so. Tommy shoots the wrong people because his aim sucks. Tommy won’t steal a car even though he’s standing right next to it. Tommy, overall, pretty much sucks monkey butt. The play control, in my opinion, has went waaayyy downhill since the last GTA. Finally, the game cheats. Now I don’t mean it makes the game so tough you can’t beat it…but it does make you so angry you’ll probably consider smashing your controller to bits many times. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about: I have to save Lance and I have about two minutes to do so. I drive across town, see some baddies in the junkyard where Lance is and attempt to run ‘em down. Nope! Three cars appear out of thin air ahead and stop me dead because I end up slamming into them rather than the enemies. So, I try to turn around before I get blown up! Sorry, my car gets shot up and is on fire before I can escape. I bail out and run to find the nearest car which shouldn’t be too far away. No luck and the clock’s ticking. Finally, I find a crappy van a few blocks down the road with sh*tty handling and I head back to the junkyard (where did all those phantom cars nearby go that I could maybe steal!?!) . I manage to kill the first few bad guys but wouldn’t you know it, my car is on fire again! I bail, find another car, waste more time. Finally, I get to Lance and am looking right at him, standing inside the activation area. All of a sudden, Lance dies because hey, I was holding a weapon while in the event trigger area instead of being unarmed (apparently Tommy can’t rescue someone while holding a pistol).
Retarded! That was just one of the many stupid, cheating examples in this game. If there were only one or two incidents like this, I would have looked the other way…but DAMN! Every mission has some part that cheats, whether it be super fast cop cars (w/ perfect handling!?!), endless respawning enemies, Pay n’ Sprays that don’t work…arrgghhh! There were many times when I should have easily completed a mission but the cheating AI kept me from doing so in the smallest, dumbest ways. Enough is enough Rockstar! I loved GTA3…and the concept of Vice City was a great idea…but you guys REALLY screwed this one up!
Graphics: 7 | Sound: 9 | Play Control: 4 | Fun Factor: 6 | Final Score: 63%
