Right so this post is another revisit of a previous one and its one of my earliest posts, which was on the video game, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Now I've recently bought a PS4 (wahayy!) and I couldn't help but purchase it to play and relive the fun of the game itself from when I first played it 14 years ago (yep its been that long!).
So how does GTA Vice City stack up now???? Let's take another look and find out.....
And yep there will be some PLOT SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
STORY
So the game is set in 1986 with the main character, Tommy Vercetti (voiced by Ray Liotta) having just been released from prison from a 15 year sentence. Tommy's mob boss, Sonny Forelli (Tom Sizemore) sends him out to Vice City, where he meets up with mob lawyer Ken Rosenberg (William Fichtner) who he does some business with. Sonny sets up some cocaine deals for Tommy to head up, but at one of the deals, there is an ambush and he loses both the money and the cocaine. Tommy after having a heated phone call with Sonny swears he will get his money back and kill whoever was responsible.
From this point through Ken, Tommy meets up with another drug dealer, Juan Garcia Cortez (Robert Davi) who helps make some enquiries as to who was behind the ambush, and he also meets with Cortez's daughter, Mercedes. Along the way Tommy also meets a British record producer, Kent Paul (Danny Dyer), a real estate dealer Avery Carrington (Burt Reynolds), and Lance Vance (Philip Michael Thomas) who was the brother of one of the men present at the drug deal who was killed, and Lance is out for revenge.
Tommy and Lance become business partners, and together they discover that the man behind the hit on the cocaine was in fact Ricardo Diaz (Luis Guzman). Lance himself goes to try and take out Diaz, but he fails, leaving Tommy with no choice but to save Lance from being killed. Once Tommy rescues Lance, the two men go to Diaz's mansion and they kill him, after which Tommy takes over Diaz's mansion. After this Tommy's business enterprises expand as he and Lance become the drug kingpins in Vice city, and buys over near bankrupt businesses such as a strip club, a car lot, a night club, a parking lot and a counterfeiting print shop and turns them into successful money spinners.
However all is soon not well, as Tommy's hotheaded nature makes him somewhat selfish as he refuses to pay tribute to Sonny, by giving any cut of his earnings to his boss, as well as disobeying his orders. Lance also becomes somewhat paranoid and exhibits signs of insecure and irrational behaviour as he feels left out by Tommy, who belittles him at times. And its not long before Sonny is forced to confront Tommy at his mansion as he sends his men to force him to give up money from his assets, which leads to the game's climactic shootout.......
THOUGHTS AND GAMEPLAY
GTA Vice City is without a doubt one of the best games of the century so far, as it takes the impressive and immersive sandbox world of GTA III and expands on it even further. In Vice City there are several tweaks in gameplay from its predecessor, and there is a larger variety of vehicles such as motorcycles, scooters, helicopters, planes and boats. Movement wise there are also improvements as now Tommy for example can crouch giving his a better vantage point in certain missions when he wants to take cover and snipe his enemies. There is also the nifty inclusion of moves such as where Tommy can leap into an open top car and drive off, which we didn't get before in GTA III. There is also a much larger variety of weapons than previously, as now Tommy has access to pistols, shotguns, sub-machine guns, sniper rifles, assault rifles, and even a chainsaw, as well as melee weapons such as swords, knives, baseball bats and even golf clubs!
Clearly the tone of Vice city borrows heavily from Miami Vice, and there are also traces of Brian De Palma's Scarface in there as well, especially one mission where Tommy chases a man down the street with a chainsaw. Not to mention Tommy's mansion is also very similar in design to Tony Montana's one in Scarface also and the ending echoes the feel of the bloody action fueled climax in the film.
The game also features different gangs as well, one of which in particular is a gang of Haitians, which caused some controversy at the time it was released as Haitian groups in Florida accussed the game of having a potentially harmful effect on immigrants. The Haitian groups also accused Rockstar of the depiction of the groups in the game as it appeared to be almost a racist depiciton, based on some of the lines of dialogue that appear in the game, which were later edited out of the game.
However despite all that, its Vice city's overwhelming variety that helps make it such a great game, and there are other areas of variety to be found in there too, such as the large amount of vehicles available in the game with over 100 different choices of vehicle, with everything from a sports car, to motorcycle, to a bus and even a golf caddy car! There is also the inclusion of buying properties and business in the game which makes for a new feature, as buying these can help make Tommy more money in the game, as he will come back and make collections from the property over time. There are also of course side missions, such as taxi fares, driving injured people to hospital in ambulances, extinguish fires using a firetruck, and delivering pizzas!
But part of the appeal of the game is the undeniable urge to go a bit bananas and there is no end to the havoc you can wreak, creating chaos on the streets, and bringing a big wanted level on yourself can always be fun (although it can be a pain in the ass too!). One of the funniest things that can happen in the game also as is when you blow up a car or something, a firetruck soon comes along and sprays its firehose, which quite often will blast Tommy right in the face if he gets in the way and sends him flying which is pertty funny! Although one of the newer features involving the police is they have the ability to lay down spikes on the road to puncture the wheels in your cars. Tommy as a character can also finally make a change of clothes as he can go into clothes stores and change outfit at certain points in the game, although in GTA San Andreas, the main character is given more choice when its comes to clothing.
VOICE ACTING PERFORMANCES (Warning may contain spoilers!!)
As for the voice acting, well the cast on display are top notch, with Ray Liotta delivering an excellent performance as the main character, Tommy Vercetti, the hot tempered mobster, who makes it big in Vice city, and ends up getting himself in hot water. Although it has to be said that Tommy isn't all that likeable as he oftens comes across as a bad tempered, arrogant asshole, so in a way its not surprising the heat he brings on himself.
Liotta has some great moments in the story and he get's some great lines as well and even has moments where Tommy mutters to himself. And one such examples is when Tommy speaks of someone who Phil (voiced by Gary Busey) knows called Hilary, who Tommy races in the mission "The Driver". And Phil tells Tommy that Hilary has "abandonment issues" and Tommy later mutters to himself "Abandonment issues? What a freak. Why can't I meet someone that's normal for a change!!". Another is when the Cuban ganglord, Umberto Robina tells Tommy he is to help out in charging against the Haitan gangs drug lab and Tommy says to himself "The last thing I needed was this. Maybe the last thing I needed was an enema, but this comes close!".
Another great line comes during the mission "Publicity Tour" when Tommy drives the Scottish rock band, Love Fist to their concert venue to protect them as they have been receiving death threats from a psycho stalker. And as the group all panic around Tommy he yells at them saying "Ok guys. Calm down, I'll handle this. Normally I wouldn't busy myself with driving around a bunch of drunken Scottish bisexuals, but in YOUR case, I'll make an exception!".
Liotta also handles the moments very well where Tommy just explodes in rage such as the scene in the mission "Bar Brawl" where Lance tells him that a bar is refusing to pay protection money. And in the scene Lance says "Relax Tommy, I'll handle it" as he sits just drinking at the bar, prompting Tommy to explode "YOU CALL THIS HANDLING IT???!!!" and he turns to two of his men and says "You two! Of your asses, let's go!".
And last of all there is the great moment in the game where Tommy (PLOT SPOILER!!!) discovers that Lance has betrayed him to his old boss, Sonny Forelli. And when Tommy finds out he looks angrily to Lance and he says to him quietly but furious "You sold us out". And as Sonny scornfully says to him "So Tommy, what was the big plan? You think I was gonna take the fake cash, save face, and walk away with my tail between my legs?!!" Tommy replies coldly "No. I just wanted to piss you off before I killed you!".
Philip Michael Thomas, who was previously a co-star in Miami Vice, is also very good as Lance Vance, of which the name itself was the cause of alot of grief for Lance as a kid as he states at one point in the game how his brothers and everyone at school used to taunt him about it.
Thomas has some good moments as well in the story that include the scene in "Supply and demand" where Tommy is sent on a mission by Diaz and he is about to take his fast boat when he sees Lance at the pier sitting in the boat. And Tommy says to him "Let me guess...you thought I could use a guardian angel?" and Lance says "I'm just saying you need to let me in there, my man. Now you can feed me all this lonely tough guy crap, but I know one day that I'm gonna save your ass and you'll probably gonna kiss me!" prompting Tommy to say "Wacko!" and Lance to laugh.
And last of all there is the scene near the end of the game where discover that Lance after having felt he has been sidelined by Tommy in their business, betrays Tommy to Sonny Forelli. And in the scene Tommy looks angrily at Lance and says to him "You sold us out" and Lance spits back "No I sold you out, Tommy. I sold YOU OUT!!".
Tom Sizemore is great as Sonny Forelli, Tommy's mafia boss, who is similarly hot headed and is resentful at Tommy for being cut out of his businesses as well, which leads to their fallout.
Sizemore sounds like he must be having fun with delivering Sonny's explosive dialogue and as a prime example there is one which comes later in the game when Sonny calls Tommy for the umpteenth time. And in the call Sonny says calmly at first " Obviously you are suffering from hearing problems, so I'll try again" and then he yells out loud "WHERE'S THE GODDAMN MONEY?!! WHERE'S THE GODDAMN STUFF????!!! AND WHERE'S MY CUT OF YOUR NEW ACTION???!!! You're making an idiot out of me, Tommy and I'm not laughing yet!".
William Fichtner is also excellent as Ken Rosenberg, who was basically modelled on Sean Penn's character from Carlito's Way, David Kleinfeld, as a neurotic coke addled mob lawyer who does business with Tommy off and on throughout the game.
Fichtner has some good lines of dialgoue as well and good moments that include the scene in an earlier mission "Jury Fury" where Rosenberg insists that Tommy intimidate some jury members for a court case. And Rosenberg says to Tommy "Do I look like I can intimidate a jury? I couldn't intimidate a child, and believe me, I've tried!". And as Tommy says "Help the jury change their minds, I've got it" Rosenberg insists further "No no no no no - NO! I tried that. The jury case didn't go so well, so MAKE them change their minds!".
Luis Guzman as the drug overlord, Ricardo Diaz is great as well, and he has several funny moments in the game, one of them being when he is out the front of his mansion shooting at birds with his shotgun, and another where he trashes his TV when he loses a racing bet, and he keeps calling everyone "dickheads!".
Another fun moment is when Diaz is trying to eject a video tape on his video recorder and quickly grows impatience as he jabs the buttons with no success. And Diaz yells "Plastic crap! You doing this to me? Who do you think you are, you piece of plastic SHIT?!! Aaarrgh!". And he shoots the VCR shouting "SCREW YOU!!" and he turns to Tommy and says "It eats my favorite El Burro movie, it die! What else could I do?!". And Tommy observes that "Its probably not plugged in!" and right enough we see that it wasn't even plugged in and Diaz says "Damn....no matter. I can buy a hundred more!".
There are also several supporting characters as well which provide plenty of humour and amusement, such as Kent Paul, the annoying Brit record producer, voiced by Danny Dyer.
Dyer delivers all his dialogue in his London accent and he appears to be relishing it and he get's some amusing lines too that include his first scene where Tommy turns up at a club to question Paul. And as Tommy says he is a friend of Rosenberg, Paul thinks for a second and says "Rosenberg... Rosenberg... Oh, that bonkers ambulence chaser! That guy could defend an innocent man all the way to Death Row!".
And later in the mission "Death Row" Tommy visits the club again and learns from Paul that Lance has been captured by Diaz's men after making an attempt on Diaz's life. And in the scene Paul says to Tommy "Aw right, mush? I'm gonna save your Vera mate!" (Vera is cockney for skin). And as Tommy asks what he is talking about, Paul says "You know that wanker Diaz, The Bugle Master. He's got your boy, Lance. Word is your mate tried to jump him...didn't jump high enough if you know what I mean!". And Tommy then angrily grabs Paul and shouts "Where is he?! In plain English!" and Paul tells him "Keep your barnet on! They got him across town at the Junkyard!". And Tommy throws him to the floor and storms off leaving Paul to get up and yell after him "Bloody hell! You nutter!".
Lee Majors as the gang leader of a group of bikers, Big Mitch Baker, gives a really good account of himself here too.
Majors has a really good scene in the game during the mission "Messing with the man" where Mitch gets angry with Tommy's impatience in getting him to agree to do the security for the Love Fist gig. And in the scene Mitch says to Tommy "Yeah, right, but this family takes care of its own. We don't ask a man to do the dirty work and then let him do fifteen years hard time. Yeah, that's right. I've done my homework. This here's the biggest family of misfits, outcasts and badasses. Hell, some of us has even been betrayed by our own country! Which is why I'm gonna ask you to go mess with the man. This whole damn country needs a kick in the ass, and we're the ones to deliver it. So get out there, grab a bike and show this city how pissed you are!".
Gary Busey is very funny as the half crazed former Vietnam vet, Phil Cassidy. Interestingly enough Phil Cassidy appears in GTA III, which was set later on in 2001 (the year of its release) where we see that Phil only has one arm, and he claims he lost in Nicaragua. But in Vice city we see that Phil actually lost the arm in an accident when he makes an unstable explosive cocktail called Boomshine, which explodes and takes off his arm with it!
And after the mission where Tommy saves Phil by taking him to hospital, Tommy get's a call from Phil who says to him "Tommy, its Phil. I want to thank you for helping me back there, son. Damn Charlie. He'll always ambush you one way or the other. Anyway, the wound is healing well, and it no longer means I'll be defrauding the government on my disability check!".
And the last few I will mention are Dennis Hooper also makes an amusing cameo as a porn director, Steve Scott, who in the game directs the character, Candy Suxx, voiced by the real-life former porn starlet, Jenna Jamieson.
Hopper has some fun lines too that include one where Scott on set says to one of the female actresses that they have a live anaconda they intend to use in the film "Honey, could you please keep the anaconda in the shot? He costs more an hour than you do!".
Danny Trejo is also pretty good as the Cuban gang leader, Umberto Robina and he has some fun moments such as in the mission cut scene for "Trojan Voodoo" where Robina crudely tries to hit a couple of women in his cafe and one of them throws coffee in his face. And as they walk out Robina yells at them " Hey, baby, I wouldn't touch you with a ten foot pole! Umberto Robina, he likes the ladies! Not some goat in a skirt!".
GRAPHICS AND SOUNDTRACK
Moving onto the game's graphics well for their time they are terrific and on the most recent PS4 remaster they look better than ever. The game's environments are rich and detailed for their time and they are also quite varied given the size of the game its much more expansive than GTA III was. The character models are also surprisingly very good too and even though they are far from realistic and from what you can get today they still look impressive for their time. And the graphics are way better than the follow up in GTA San Andreas where the character models look terrible in comparison as they appeared to skimp on the graphics in favour of expanding the size of the game itself.
Another prominent feature in Vice City and also one of its strengths is its varied soundtrack, as there a vast variety of music tracks and what must about a dozen radio stations, featuring different styles of music such as rock, pop, rap, latin, jazz, and electro.
Some of the tracks featured include rock/metal from Megadeth, Iron Maiden, David Lee Roth, Ozzy Osbourne, Twisted Sister, Judas Priest and even Slayer. Some pop tracks of the time include artists such as Blondie, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Michael Jackson, The Buggles, INXS, Talk Talk, Go West, A Flock of Seagulls, Kool and the Gang, Kate Bush, Spandau Ballet, and this game also introduced me to one of my favourite bands, The Fixx, who remain virtually unheard of in the UK but still enjoy success in America where they tour regularly. The game also features a fictional rock band called Love Fist, who are a group of drunken Scottish bisexuals, who are fronted by the singer, Jezz Torrent (great name!) who is voice acted by Kevin McKidd (who is best known as Tommy from Trainspotting and his role in the action horror film, Dog Soldiers).
And just like in GTAIII there are a couple of chat radio stations, both of which are really funny and feature some pretty eccentric interviews. The first station is K-chat, which its host is a real air-headed lass called Amy Sheckenhausen, who either gushes or talks over her interviewees. One of Amy's interviews is a piss take of the late Steve Urwin, as she interviews an over enthusiastic animal lover, Mr Zoo, who is soon revealed to have been involved in a court case, as he got a bit too friendly with a dolphin.
And the second is VCPR, Vice City Public Radio, which features a very funny debate show voiced by its fictional presenter, Maurice Chavez, who was once a failed entertainer (he used to be a clown and also tried to make his way into movies unsuccessfully). Some of Maurice's funniest debates, include a naked man who get's a bit too comfortable on the show, and an annoying promotional speaker, who Maurice eventually ends up hitting in the face with a paperweight. Maurice also has two supervisors who continually put him down on air (probably when he's not listening) and one of them even calls him at one point "a useless talentless asshole!". The game is also notable for its amusing ads, some of which are very satirical and are worth a listen, as you will get a laugh out of them.
FLAWS
As for Vice City's flaws......well yeah OK there are still some.
And to start off I would say one of the snags about GTA Vice City is that due to the somewhat unsophisticated nature of the graphics by today's standards it makes the game feel very cartoony and not very realistic. And an example of this would be the silly big spinning icons you get for extra health, with the big heart sign, or a spinning icon of a gun, and if you run over the icon you automatically get the upgrade, whether it be more heatlh or ammo. Its a far cry from the more realistic options you get in todays games where you have the option to bandage yourself up or take painkillers. However in a way its not such a bad thing as its cartoon-esque feeling helps make the game more fun and far less gritty than future GTA games such as GTA IV would be in comparison.
Another thing that bugs me about Vice City is when Tommy falls into the water, he instantly drowns, which I think is a bit unrealistic. This was the same in GTAIII, I mean surely didn't these guys learn how to swim????! And even if they couldn't swim they certainly wouldn't drown instantaneously like they do here! Obviously this was a bone of contention with fans as by the time we got to GTA San Andreas, they finally resolved this issue by giving the main character, CJ, the ability to swim in the ocean, and not only just merely swim, but swim like a champion swimmer at a hundred miles an hour!
The game also lacks checkpoints in the missions and you will often find yourself having to restart the more frustrating missions (and there are plenty of them I can tell you!) time and time again without having a checkpoint to go back to and instead you need to go back to beginning! This was of course something they would remedy in the later GTA games and to a lesser extent they resolved this in San Andreas but it would take GTA IV before mission checkpoints would come into the series and here the lack of them makes for a frustrating time.
I would also say there are some missions that feel just like filler that have no real place in there such as the Haitian missions where Tommy meets Auntie Poulet, the Haitians leader who hypnotises Tommy into doing her dirty to fight the Cubans. And as Tommy has no memory of carrying out these missions and later on goes on to help the Cubans take down the Haitains drug plant it just seems totally redundant what he had done for Auntie Poulet and they might as well not have had him done it at all!
I also felt that they spent alot of time in leaving Lance out of the game after the "Cop Land" mission ( a nice nod to Sylvester Stallone film, which also co-starred Ray Liotta!) to just let Tommy build his emprie without him. Perhaps this reinforces Lance's jealousy and feelings of being sidelined by Tommy but he is still one of the primary characters in the game and he just appears to be taken out of the game for quite a long spell and its not really until near the end he comes back into it!
And lastly I think the aiming system in the game is a bit of a pain in the ass at times too, especially the way Tommy can only crouch in a stationary position and fire his gun, he can't move and fire in a crouched position like CJ does in San Andreas. The crosshair rifle view is also a bit infuriating when Tommy uses the rifles particularly when playing it on the PS4 as using the controller makes it difficult to aim accurately when shooting enemies and I found myself having to reload missions quite a bit in trying to get use to using the crosshair system. Thankfully in later games they would again resolve this and in San Andreas they improved the aiming system, but here it remains pretty flawed.
So that's it for the flaws....
SUM UP
So in summing up, Grand Theft Auto Vice City is still a terrific game 14 years on from when it was first released and it has in that time been released on various platforms such as Android and IOS phones (but I don't recommend playing it on them!). It has plenty of missions (including frustrating ones that will have you nearly tear your hair out!) provides plenty of laughs, and there is a tremendous amount of variety in its missions, tasks, side missions, as well as the sheer scale of the game, not to mention it has a terrific voice cast, and an excellent soundtrack.
And if you haven't played the game in quite a while its well worth revisiting particularly if you have a PS2, 3 or 4!
So that's it for now and I will be back most likely in March with another review.
Till then its bye for now!
