How do you follow up the rather significant amount of success you got with the release of Grand Theft Auto III? Where would you even start? Do you refine what you did so that it plays better? Do you introduce new characters? Do you bring in an even more recognisable voice cast to bring them all to life? Do you transplant the game back in time to the 1980s, where everything was a neon-bright, cocaine-fueled party to the sounds of hundreds of licensed, recognisable songs?
Trick question. You're Rockstar, and you're crazy enough to do it all, and more, to make Grand Theft Auto: Vice City so much better than the great game that allowed it to exist at all.
But, uhh... I've got a slight problem. You see, I took these screenshots a while ago. Years ago, in fact, and I can't quite remember why I saved some of them.
Oh, ok. Cool. Let's just see where we end up.
Fun Times
Our first mission was a success, so that was good. I don't know what it was, but I suspect it was nice and straightforward so that we can ease ourselves into this pastiche of Miami in the 1980s with no trouble at all.
We are Tommy Vercetti, a criminal who... crimes... for someone. You know, the detail isn't essential. What matters is that Vice City caught my attention for tens and tens and tens of hours back in the day, for a whole multitude of reasons.
This one image sums it up. It'll have to because I don't know what it represents otherwise. This stretch of road is the coast road outside of your first save point, a hotel overlooking the beach. Palm trees line the sidewalk, and sleek, angular not-Lamborghini's purr their way through the gears as the greens and pinks of the neon lights give everything an otherworldly glow. Even your HUD screams style, with pastel pinks outlining your map and weapon, and it gives away what you're likely to be doing as the game goes on - raking in millions of dollars, and outrunning a lot of cops.
Find a talented photographer, and Vice City is a place you could get lost in. This is the PC version, which I was playing for the first time, and while it needed a bit of tweaking for controlling it more like the PlayStation 2 version, it was a welcome switch from what I was familiar with. Going from a standard definition TV to an ultrawide display will do that, I guess, and that's before I even think about going down the route of modding anything visually, but that's getting off-topic.
Like the previous GTA, Vice City gives you an open world to tackle missions largely in the order you want, provided you've progressed through the story to open them up. They'll have you do all sorts of things for all kinds of people, each absurd and over the top in their own way.
Some missions are clearly inspired by the world of cinema, with references to the likes of Scarface cropping up several times. If you spot them, great. If not, they all seem to fit with this wacky, exaggerated world, making it the most colourful of entries into the series.
The controls have been tinkered with, and the inclusion of lock-on targetting makes your life so much easier if the situation arises and the weapon allows it. But running and gunning and driving into things aren't the only mechanics that Vice City hangs its missions from, oh no.
Enter flight.
Frustrations
There are infamous missions in many games. Notorious difficulty spikes and the like. 'Demolition Man' is one of them. Tommy is tasked with blowing up a construction site and, for reasons known only to the developers of Vice City, you do that with a remote-controlled helicopter.
Imagine, for a moment, that the year is 2002, and you're giddy with excitement at playing this game (even if you're not old enough to have bought it yourself...), and you've driven around the map a little, and you've battered some people with hammers, and you've learned how to fire and gun, and then this pops up:
Now, I don't remember how I fared as a teenager doing this, but I do remember finishing Vice City, so I know I got through this mission. Somewhere inside are the skills to fly a tiny dynamite-carrying helicopter through a building site, but those skills sure are rusty...
Is this where my trip back in time to the good old days of GTA end?
Further Fun Times
No, I did it first time. I don't know what the fuss is about.
I loved my time back in Vice City. I don't know when I last played it, but memories were coming in all the time. Often it was because of turning down a road and suddenly remembering where it leads and all the shenanigans I'd get up to on it. Other times it was the radio blaring out tunes that I only know from having played Vice City. The soundtrack is excellent, as GTA soundtracks would often be.
I can't remember a whole lot of the plot, though, characters included. These screenshots don't really help in jogging my memory of it, either. I mean, what iz zis?
This, though. This is sunset in Vice City. Does that bring feel-good vibes or what? All I have to do is look at an image like that, and all the fun I had playing Vice City floods back into my mind.
It's not without fault. There will be missions you need to do again and again before succeeding or things you just don't like to do, but there's so much going on that you just get stuck in and get on with it. The mission structure is still mostly dependent on the mechanics available, but the missions in GTA games are starting to tell more of a story than tasking you with ticking off a checklist within a time limit.
There's a balance of getting it right that could be argued has gone in the wrong direction for a while now, so maybe Vice City is slap bang in the middle of the era where GTA was really something special - untouchable, almost.
Oh, this is the last screenshot. I guess I was giving chase and the only vehicle available was a pathetic little Faggio. Yeah. That'd be a reason to quit for the day. Especially if the back wheel got shot out... Oh, God, no. Let's not remember the times where that's happened. Focus on the good, focus on the great...
There are bikes now!
Final Word
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is quite possibly my favourite GTA game. It took a winning formula, made it better, made it far more vibrant, filled it with life, and the series started going downhill from there. Yeah, I think it's my favourite.
Joking aside - because San Andreas would like to have a word, and I'll have to address the question of favourites again soon enough - Vice City is a standout title in the history of the series, if not for its technical achievements or story lifted from the history of cinema, then for the fact that its colour palette literally stands out against the greys and browns of every other GTA title.
Vice City is an escape. It's what you play when you want the classic carnage of Grand Theft Auto, but don't want it to look miserable. I wouldn't have spent all those hours playing it if it wasn't.
Does it take practice to get used to the controls? Yes. Will it frustrate you along the way? Yes. Was it better back in the day and is showing its age now? Yes? Probably? I mean, sure, the controls are old, and the animations are a bit goofy, but we can mod stuff now, right? We can make Vice City look even better.
Can't we? Should we? Shall I... hmm...
Fun Facts
Ideas for a GTA III expansion pack, containing new weapons, vehicles and missions, soon grew in size to warrant a standalone game: Vice City - actual city and all - was created in just 9 months from those ideas.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, developed by Rockstar North, first released in 2002.
Version played: PlayStation 2, 2002, via teenage memories.
PC, 2003.