Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Rating:
Summary: Just like the PS2 version ,but with a few inhancements
Review: Just like its predecessor, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is best experienced on a PC. The addition of high-resolution graphics, improved control, and custom skins and soundtracks help make one of the best games of 2002 even better. Nobody who has even remotely followed video games needs an introduction to the GTA series. Love it or hate it, GTA 3 single-handedly put Rockstar Games on the map, and for good reason - the game is a masterpiece in every sense of the word, and its appeal transcends its violent subject matter to reveal one of the most enriching gameplay experiences ever created.
Rather than start from scratch and reinvent the series like the third installment, Vice City instead expands on the strengths that made GTA 3 such a killer app. All the violent action, antics, and activities from 3 are back in full effect, only this time; it all takes place in the seedy underworld of the 1980's. There are loads of new gameplay additions as well, such as helicopters, motorcycles, and the ability to build your own criminal syndicate as the game progresses. But you already knew that. What you want to know is how the game differs from the PS2 version. Well, it has better - MUCH better - graphics and aiming, custom soundtracks, and the ability to create skins. Other than that, there is relatively nothing changed from the PS2 source. The small glitches where you would lose health after stepping off some small ledges such as sidewalks seem to have been somewhat remedied, but there is no extra content, and that is a shame. I am not suggesting that there should be an expansion pack's worth of extra material in the game, or that it should even tie into the main story. Still, one or two extra "strings" of exclusive optional missions would have been a nice nod to those who have waited for this, the superior version of a fine, fine game. Where's the love, Rockstar? Another gripe is the continued lack of mod tools. GTA 3 proved that there is an extensive community just waiting to put real life buildings, cars, and structures into the game, and possibly recreate whole towns. To deny us this pleasure is just wrong, and I can damn sure knock the game a few points for it. Tack on a few bucks to the game for the mod tools, guys. Anything. If you're going to take the time to perfect multiplayer, by all means, do it. But please, give us the ability to mod. Despite those two major complaints, GTA Vice City is still one of, if not the best game money can buy. It feels right at home on a PC, and is worth playing all over again. Even if you have played the original, sell your PS2 copy, pick up a used PC one on Ebay or Amazon with the cash from that, and get ready to do the Lance Vance Dance all over again.

Rating:
Summary: Best PC Game Ever
Review: The first thing you need to know about this game is that you don't need a game-pad or joystick to play it. It can be mastered using a keyboard and a mouse, so if you have been putting off buying this for that reason, there is no reason to do so any longer. You must drop everything and run--RUN--to the nearest store to get it. It is by far the most enjoyable computer game ever made.

The reason it is so successful is that it is a combination of several different gaming genres: first-person shooter, racing, real-time strategy, arcade, and to a smaller degree, even role-playing. The hundreds of missions contained in it often contain elements of all five, although there are those which force you to concentrate on one. For example, in one of the "rampage" missions, you are called upon to blow up ten vessels in two minutes using a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Playing it reminded me of an arcade game I played many years ago. I believe it was called Up Periscope or something, and all by itself, it was quite fun. I put quarter after quarter in the machine. But again, in Vice City, it is only one of literally hundreds of missions contained in the game.

Like its predecessor, the game starts with an animated sequence which describes how you get to Vice City, and you then go from one person to the next to perform tasks for them. Tasks usually involve racing to blow something up, or blasting some bad guy, or stealing something, etc. Between tasks, there are plenty of other things to do. Again, like the predecessor, there are vigilante missions, taxi missions, ambulance missions, etc. But unlike the predecessor, there are variations. The vigilante missions, for example, which are as fun as anything in the game, get more complex as you go along, with added passengers, added vehicles, and more dangerous weapons. Believe me, when three machine-gun armed passengers get out of the car you've just run off the road, you'd better be prepared to blast away, and blast away quickly. They come right at you.

The graphics and sound are just wonderful; delightful to look at and to be a part of. I must confess I was a little worried. I didn't see how they could possibly improve on Liberty City in GTA3. But they did. This one is bigger and glitzier--still realistic--and there are also more buildings you can walk into. The biggest difference perhaps is that in VC you can actually buy up to fifteen buildings. This not only enables you to save your game in different parts of the city, it also allows you to make money after performing even more missions. Other improvements include the addition of motorcycles, helicopters, lots of boats, and many more cars.

Some have complained that the missions are too hard. I would disagree with this, with one exception. Yes, some require several replays before you can finally get them right, but eventually you will with enough practice and imagination. The one that I really hated though and wish was not included was the "Demolition Man" mission. In it, you are told to use a little remote-controlled helicopter to place bombs on several levels of a building across the street, and you only have a limited amount of time to do so. This was unbelievably difficult, and far more frustrating than fun. Even worse, if you just skip it, you will not be able to get to about eight missions. It would be nice if there were some option to allow one to turn off the timer or lengthen it or something, because this was really a pain. (It would also have been nice if the on-screen instructions would have let you know that you can make the helicopter go forward or backward by pressing 6 or 9 before finally discovering this online after playing the goddamned game twenty times.) Having said that, though, I will confess that I did eventually beat it. What a relief.

Others have complained that you should be able to save the game in the middle of a mission, but I disagree with this. Most of them are only a few minutes long. If you were allowed to stop the game every five seconds to set up everything just right, it would take the fun out of it. That should be left as it is.

But these are minor quibbles. The game is just an absolute riot. Bigger, better, faster, funnier than its predecessor, with more to do, more to look at, more characters, more radio stations, better sound, better graphics, better everything. When you turn on this game you are completely immersed in a different world, a world it's almost impossible to disengage yourself from.

Right now it's the standard. The best game out there.

(P. S. If you need help beating any of these missions, feel free to e mail me.)

Rating:
Summary: Great game, but not good to play on a bad computer!
Review: GRAND THEFT AUTO VICE CITY is one of the greatest games of all time! But don't make the mistake I did. I've already owned the game on the PS2, so I made a dumb decision by buying it on the PC, where I thought the game would have better graphics and controls. I WAS DEAD WRONG! Don't buy this game on the PC unless you have a good computer! I have a Windows XP, so I won't recommend you playing games on this computer! The graphics are even worse then in the PS2 version, and the controls are terrible. What a waste of [money]! Don't be a moron like me, and don't buy this game if you have a [bad] computer!

Rating:
Summary: A Deeply Flawed Masterpeice
Review: I have a love-hate relationship with this game - parts of it I love, parts I absolutely detest with a loathing so deep I am afraid it will turn me to the dark side. The gameplay is great and the graphics are only bounded by the specs of your machine.

The game is enormous. You could spend weeks playing this instead of going to work (or school) and still only see half of it. This leads me to my biggest complaint - no quicksaves and no saving during missions. I understand that games are only fun if you meet some resistance and overcome failures, but this game goes way beyond ridiculous. If you fail a mission (whether you die or are captured by the police), you lose all inventory items you have gathered. So before repeating the mission, you will most likely have to go find weapons again, then return to the point where the mission started (cabs are used to speed things up somewhat, but not much). Then you have to go back to the same person and get the same assignmenet again (though you can skip most of these cutscenes), then drive wherever they sent you before (usually using the exact same route), then hopefully complete the mission. NOTE TO ROCKSTAR: This sort of repition is not fun in any way, shape or form. It's annoying and almost ruins this great game. Right before I tackle a nest of angry Haitians, I should be able to F5 it (quicksave) and then go in guns blaring, having fun and learning the tricks of the mission. Instead, I am constantly afraid that I will be punished with excessively long driving times if I screw up. And many of the missions will take you a few times through. This game could have been my favorite of all time, but the save scheme is atrocious and outdated. Some developers do this to make a game seem longer, but this game is already freakin' huge. I highly recommend looking up some cheats on the internet, unless you really enjoy running errands and driving over the same routes again and again. If someone ever writes a program that allows quicksaves in this game, I will worship them as the god they truly are (or will become in writing the program).

Rockstar - why? Why must you dish out these petty, childish torments in a game (supposedly) for adults? We are big people, let us save the game when we want.

That's enough venting on that point, but I have a couple others. Why are you "Busted" because a cop pulls you out of a car? Shouldn't that be when the fight starts? But if you're out of the car a split second earlier, the police can't bust you. Only if you're dragged out of a stopped or slow-moving car can cops bust you. Huh? You end up getting busted at the most random times in ways that rarely make sense.

Finally, the game's targeting system is still awful. Either you fire randomly in front of yourself, with the camera swinging all over the place, or you hold down buttons to auto-target people or things and seem to have little to do with the gunfight other than mashing the fire button.

And then, of course, the complaint everyone has - Why can't anyone in this town swim? Are they living on a sea of battery acid? Bullet to the head = slight problem. Water deeper than three feet = instant death. Maybe I should try to find a water pistol somewhere in Vice City.

Rating:
Summary: fun game that should be much better
Review: I don't know if the point-to-point timed missions just translate poorly to the PC version of GTA VC, but I found myself repeatedly playing through not fun elements of this thing that the programmers set as bars to opening up more options in the city. (The RC helicopter mission, boring to begin with, is virtually impossible on PC.)

I enjoy a lot about this game, but the virtually exact port of the PS2 version to PC should have been tweaked a bit.

Rating:
Summary: It has a major flaw...
Review: This game could have been much better. It SHOULD have been much better. The designers clearly put a great deal of time and effort into this, trying to make it one of the best video games of all time. They very nearly succeeded.

So what's the problem? Why can't this reviewer give it 5 stars? Because there are far too many "checkpoint" missions. If you've played any previous version of GTA, you know what these are: you're not picking anybody up, you're not driving anybody anywhere, you're not blowing anything up, you're not assassinating anyone...the only point of the mission is to drive a car, boat, or plane (usually the latter two) through a certain number of "checkpoints" within a given amount of time. These missions tend to be extremely difficult, because if you make the slightest mistake you won't have enough time to finish.

But the problem isn't that the missions are too hard. There are plenty of other missions in the game that are a lot harder. The problem is that THEY SIMPLY AREN'T FUN. What were the designers thinking? What made them believe that forcing gamers to try and steer an unweildy boat around Vice City through dozens of "checkpoints" - and making most of us try it multiple times before passing it - would be fun? AND THERE ARE SO MANY OF THESE MISSIONS!!! There must be at least twice as many as they had in GTA III.

I don't mind attempting a mission 5 or 6 times in order to get it right, as long as the mission is fun (as in: blowing things up or trying to outrun the cops when I've got a level 5 warrant). I hate doing it even twice if the mission isn't fun. At times, the game designers simply lost sight of what video games are for: they're supposed to be an entertaining diversion, not tedious and annoying.

Rating:
Summary: gta
Review: this game is very good . but i dont agree with the age limt i mean i no people who are 10 years of age. And play this game i think they should bring the age limt down and trust us a little .

Rating:
Summary: A great way to vent
Review: Vice City is a big barrel of fun. The game play is semi-nonlinear, meaning you dont have to really follow the scripted storyline and get this and that done, but you do have to complete missions (in no particular order albeit) to unlock new parts of the city as well as get into higher levels (denoted as stars of wanted level) of trouble.

One thing I hated was the Remote Control Helicopter mission, you get like 10 seconds to complete a near impossible task with a toy helicopter. What it has to do with carjacking and criminal misdeeds is beyond me anyhow. So I gave up on that one. Then I discovered the vigalante missions along with the tank. Talk about fun, I sat for a good 2 hours rolling around town blowing up FBI, Police cars and criminals. Also discovering if you turn the tank turret backwards and shoot while moving, you'll eventually accellerate faster than any vehicle i've seen in the game. Ended up jumping the thing on the beach 400+ feet for an insane stunt bonus. You can also use the turret to shoot right or left to help in turning tighter or shoot forward to slow down much faster than the brakes would ever work. Plus the cannon also blows things up, what could possibly be bad about that.

My point is, I often found myself distracted by the game with my own sort of side agenda of destroying this or that and being amused by little things like trying to get cars to blow up with as many people in the blast radius as possible. If you play games to complete them, you'll have a great time without a doubt. If you're the type of person like me that loves to go off on a tangent and just mess around, blowing things up and wreaking havoc, then you'll have a new appreciation for gaming.

Rating:
Summary: Sequal to the best 3D Mafia game.
Review: This game was one of the few sequal that was really good. Some other games' sequals usually turn out to be crappy, but this one was amazing. You can do just about anything. In GTA3, you can only drive few transportations. In Vice City, you can drive motorcycles, cars, tanks, boats, and even helicopter if you own a mansion. You can also do more missions after you complete the game by driving a taxi, police car, tanks just to name a few. You can try to find secret packages or do stunts to earn more money. The best part, you can just go around killing anyone or drive around running away from cars. Also, if you are being chased, I think tank and heli are most helpful. You can also find police stars to stop the pursue. If you take pills, you become stronger and it becomes like matrix. As you can see, there are endless things to do. Now, I'm going to talk about the requirments. I ran this game on my Pentium 3 933, 512mb ram, ATI RADEON 8500. It worked fine. I could have used my dad's computer, which is great, but I ran it on my brother's pc which was ok to run this game. Everything was on high settings and it nver really slowed down. This shows that with a little less than medium quality pc, you can enjoy this game. I'm pretty sure that you are going to have fun playing this game, but if you don't, try playing Simpsons Hit and Run. It's not as good as GTA VC but it's the best Simpsons mafia game so far. Other than that, just get Vice City AND Liberty City.

Rating:
Summary: Great Interactive Game
Review: This is a great interactive game. Almost everything can be hit and destroyed. The best part from the other GTA games is the motorcycles. They are so life like that it feels like real life. The motorbikes actualy work well on dirt unlike some games and the cars are cool to. THis game may seem inapropiate for some people but i didnt think it is. I agree they could have taken the sexual stuff out of it and more kids would get it. There is a lot of blood. I hate people who say it is video games that make kids get violent but it is their choices not their video games. Other than the sexuality (Which isnt that bad) I love this game!