Title GTA: Vice City Stories Date 03.13.2007 Genre Action Platform PlayStation 2 Developer Rockstar Games Publisher Take- 2 Interactive

All right, I will be the first to admit that I am unabashedly a GTA fanboy. I play the hell out of all of them. Getting this PS2 port was a no-brainer.  But was it worth it?  Hell yeah, for $15. Would I have paid more for it? No, probably not. It's not great, but it is fun. Flawed fun, though.

PLOT/STORY (Or as I like to call it, "Tommy! They killed my brother!")
Yeah, this is a weak part. The game is set one year before GTA:VC. You play as Vic Vance, late brother to Lance Vance from the original GTA:VC. I don't know about you, but I hated Lance. He annoyed me from the moment he showed up. But I was willing to give Vic a chance. Unfortunately, from that line in the original, I'm pretty sure we know how this game is going to end. In the meantime, Vic is trying to earn money for his sick brother (not Lance, another brother) and his medical bills, since their mother is a junkie who shoots up most of the money he sends them. He tries to do the honest thing and join the Army, but ends up getting set up by a sleazeball SO, and gets kicked out. From there, Vic has to work his way through the seedy underbelly of Vice City, earning money for his poor sick brother.

I like Vic. He's a decent character, and he's working for a decent goal. I get that. Unfortunately, every other character in this game is so horribly despicable. They're not even likeably bad, like the characters in other GTAs. They are just exaggerated lowlifes, and just from the kind of character they establish him as, I find it hard to believe that Vic would ever associate with them. A lot of cameos show up from the original Vice City, most prominently being Phil Cassidy. Man, you thought he was a loser in VC...he's apparently done a lot of cleaning up and growing up since VCS.

GRAPHICS
Okay people can complain all they want about mitten hands or whatever, but I look at GTA's graphics as a style more than anything. And to have a city that huge (or cities, as in San Andreas), fully realized, I personally think the GTA series have absolutely amazing graphics. I usually give them a 9 or 10. Unfortunately, VCS was made for a slightly less powerful system originally, so there ARE a couple of weak spots. For one, the color palette is a lot messier than the original. Where VC was always bright and the sun was shining, and the neon lights lit up the night, VCS has a muddy, dark look. It reminds me of Los Santos, without the glaring orange "smog filter". A few other minor things here and there, like the palm trees having a weird blue glow, or the weather effects not being up to par with the originals did catch my eye, but to be perfectly honest, they're minor complaints. This game has decently captured the look and feel of Vice City.

Personally I love the fact that it's the same exact map as the original. I love Vice City, and literally spent hundreds of hours around it. I know the original Vice City like the back of my hand (better, actually, because I don't really study the back of my hand). There are a few new things, a few buildings that aren't there (because this is a year ago, and they haven't been built yet), a few stores that are different, but for the most part, this is the exact Vice City you remember from the original.

SOUND
This is tough to judge. On one hand, the radio stations are awesome, on par with all of the other GTA games. A few more obscure songs, but also a lot of songs that you might have felt they forgot in the original game.

Unfortunately there's a lot that bogs down the score. For one, the voice acting is HORRIBLE. Rather than the star-studded casts the original games are known for, this has a lot of no-names who pretty much read the script and collect a paycheck. Hell, even the returning stars like Gary Busey and Danny Trejo seem to just phone in their performance. Though I don't know...maybe it's not the actors' fault. The script in the game is pretty bad.

Another problem I had was the humor in the game… or lack thereof.  I have always loved the humor in the GTA games, because it's so ridiculously offensive, but manages to do it very subtly. There are jokes that you don't get right away because they're so well-written. In VCS, they apparently decided that subtlety is highly overrated, and made everything just blatantly offensive. I think that takes away from the humor. They also took a cue from San Andreas, dropping the "F-bomb" at every possible turn. In San Andreas, it worked in the characters' dialogue. In VCS, it seems forced, like they were trying to see how many times they could say it. I was really disappointed with that in this game.

CONTROL
A mixed bag, again. The controls are very similar to every other GTA game you've ever played, but a bit slippery to my tastes. Vehicles handle fairly well unless you're braking or making high-speed turns. At that point, it's like the streets are covered with random patches of black ice.

Combat is stepped up from previous games, adding new moves and a whole new melee combat system. Unfortunately, using guns is where you find yourself in trouble. Targeting is atrocious, resulting in you targeting the wrong person, usually getting you killed. There is supposed to be a "Free Aim" mode for higher powered weapons, but it's horribly implemented, and you can ONLY use it when you have targets to shoot.

However, I do love the use of a free rotating camera, a la San Andreas. That made me very happy. Also borrowed from SA is the ability to swim. Unfortunately, your swimming is more akin to The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker, in that you have a small gauge telling you how much longer you can swim. Gauge goes empty, you drown. That annoys me. Also, I would have really appreciated if, since they brought swimming over, they had also brought over the ability to grab onto and climb over fences, or vault over small walls. I really hate when a 2-foot tall wall blocks me from a goal, and it's JUST high enough that I can't jump over it. It's very frustrating.

OVERALL
Honestly, as much as I point out its faults, I really do recommend this game. I mean if nothing else, it's only $15-20, depending on where you go. It's really not a bad game at all; it's just got a handful of flaws. I try to look at it as just an expansion pack to the original Vice City game. Same city, new missions, new vehicles, new music. It's definitely not powerful enough to be a new Grand Theft Auto title, but it's a fun waste of time, and a fairly lengthy game that will keep you busy. I'm glad I bought it. Just keep in mind that this is a port from the PSP, and wasn't designed to be a PS2 game. It's a little weak, but it's a fresh return to a great game, and it's a fun, cheap way to tide you over until Grand Theft Auto IV comes out this October.

Game Score

B-

Reviewed By: Contributed