Madshrimps Forum Madness - Review: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

One and a half year ago Rockstar North released one of the
great games of 2002: "Grand Theft Auto III". A year after the release
of this very controversial game Rockstar North released the sequel: "Grand theft auto: Vice City" for the Playstation2. After another half year of waiting Rockstar finally released Vice City for the PC. This time you took a trip back in to time and it looks like your time machine got stuck in the 80's.
Ten years loaded with bad music, ugly clothes and bad taste. That’s one little detail that you’re not going to see in GTA VC. You, Tommy Vercetti,
wear one neat Hawaii-shirt and listen to great oldies in your stolen 'pimpcar'. I bet you will have a great time being stuck in 80's !

The man with the big cojones:

As in GTA III you still have connections with the local mafia. And it isn't looking good for you. Looks like the drugs deal that you made was a set up. Some colleagues of you stole your money. Of course you will get blamed for this mess.
Someone is angry at Tommy Vercetti? You don't care... You’re the toughest man in town. But your boss got connections... And guess what. He wants his money back. And you don't have it. So you got to earn some!
Of course you shall have to do a lot of missions... you can do missions for a dude at a cruise ship, a fat Cuban guy in a restaurant, and you will receive a phone
call once in a while.
The missions aren't repetitive but if you are getting bored you can do some stunts on your stolen bike or fast car. As in GTA III there is a lot of freedom.
Cruising' around in your sport car... flying with a helicopter... navigate in your speedboat... you can do what you like to do.

Vice City: The 2 islands:

The atmosphere at the 2 islands is GREAT. Totally 80's. Old cars... Neon lights at the clubs.. Palm trees... Everything is there to give you a great and unforgettable time on the island.
I really enjoyed cruising' around in my convertible with some great music and the really funny commercials and talk shows, delivered by the multiple radio stations.
In Grand Theft Auto: Vice City you can buy building, you can buy building only for one purpose: to store your car in the garage box and save your game OR you can buy for instance 'The Malibu Club' and do some missions to earn money. You can buy a boatyard, a club, a garage with some beautiful cars in the showroom, and many more..

Palmtrees, exotic cars, neonlight.. aaaah vacation, i love it!

i'm cool.. =-)

Gameplay:

The game play is very much the same as in Grand Theft Auto III. You have to play in 3rd person view, maybe not as handy as first person view, but if you've played GTA III a lot then you will be used to it!
The missions are kind of easy because everything is very clear:
When you have to carjack a specific car then there will be one gigantic pink arrow pointing at that car. When you have to be at a specific place then there will be a pink area at the place where you will have to be. And if you can't find the pink arrow/area you just have to take a look at your map.

The AI of the cops isn't that good, but it's certainly not bad. They’ll dodge behind their car doors if you start shooting and will follow you half the map if they have to.
When you have a lot of 'stars' (they indicate your wanted level) they will set up roadblocks and they will place spike strips to slow you down. The AI of your helpers sucks from time to time. They sometimes get stuck behind corners or you just drive over them because they suddenly jump in front of your car.
One disadvantage: there are a lot of bugs in the game... sometimes your bike gets stuck by lying down against a wall.
There isn't very much to say about the graphics. They are really nice. I didn't get a WOW-feeling when you play the game for the first time, but it's certainly
good enough for me.

To give you an idea of the graphics and gameplay: here's a short movie with some jumps and stunts you can do in your stolen vehicul:
The movie
Thnx too [MJ] for letting me use his homemade movie ;)

Systeemspecs:

The systemspecs aren't that high, it even runs beter then Grand Theft Auto III in my humble opinion.
Minimun System Requirements:

800 MHz Intel Pentium III or 800 MHz AMD Athlon or 1.2GHz Intel Celeron or 1.2 GHz AMD Duron processor
128 MB of RAM
8 speed CD / DVD drive
915 MB of free hard disk space
(+ 635 MB if video card does NOT support DirectX Texture Compression)
32 MB video card with DirectX 9.0 compatible drivers ("GeForce" or better)
Sound Card with DirectX 9.0 compatible drivers Keyboard & Mouse

Conclusion:

Rockstar Noth delivered an übergreat game! I'm playing it 4 weeks now.. and i wasn't bored for one second.
If you enjoyed playing GTA III then you certainly like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City!

Pro's:
- Lot's of fun!
- Great radiochannels
- Freedom
- Nice graphs

Con's:
- Buggy from time to time.

Graphics: 24/25
Gameplay: 22/25
Sound: 24/25
Fun Factor:25/25

Total of 95/100

Some random pics: