Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
November 14, 2002
It is with great honor and withered, stubby thumbs that I bring you the CV review of the game GRAND THEFT AUTO: VICE CITY for the outstanding PS2. I’ll just set some ground statements first; when you are holding this title in your hands, and feel the awesome power emanate from it, you are holding the best title for Playstation 2 in world history. When I say that, Tommy Vercetti (your charcter, which is voiced by the great gomba voice of Ray Liotta) is not holding a Colt to my head and forcing me to. I’m sure that all of you have played the outstanding rockstar “sequel� GTA3, all except Ramblar, the Albanian goat herder, so you already have a great idea about how the graphics and the liberty/vice city worlds are. Instead of the other fifty billion reviews out there that say “Its great! Its praying material! Its out new leader!� I’ll just give you some of the new features and let you make your own judgments. Here are some suggested phrases after you read my list: “That is the grandest thing I have ever seen�, “Honey, you need to support the family; I’m trying to get the hunter!� and the infamous “I need to stockpile some pants, because I continuously soil my old ones�.
NEW FEATURES: First of all, lets get some of the “bad� aspects out in the open and toss out some old rumors. First, you can fly an Apache and use a minigun properly, but you still can’t swim three feet. You are still like a rock when it comes to water, so be a land lover at all costs. Secondly, boats are still the “Scotty-beam-me-up� disappearing act and can land you in the water very fast…not good. Lets see…the motorcycles are fun, but they can turn you into hamburger very fast, which is always frustrating. Now, lets get onto the things that will make you want to hug your playstation 2: a heavy assortment of 40 weapons, 9 of which you can carry. From the lowly bat comes a machete, meat cleaver, chainsaw and sword, of which you run with while holding down O will make you so some dastardly moves, such as decapitation. The aiming system is improved, which is something we all thought would happen, but it still is a tad hard to focus in on the person you want to kill; sometimes the action makes it look like a burred crowd instead of two people, but hey; this is not as tactical as Counterstrike. To save of space and time for you to run out and get this game, I will list the root cause of all this happiness instead of listing the thousands of little cool things; Rockstar made you out to be a crime boss instead of a no-name monkey boy. You want that business “Kaufman cabs� (a great little tributes to Andy Kaufman, the lovable mechanic on TAXI), buy it! You don’t like that clerk in the jewelry store? Stick him up and shoot him! Want to own your own sleazy strip join with “fringe benefits�? Then go out and buy it, you big putz!
Rejoice that there are more cars in this game than on the 405 in rush hour. From sport cars. firebirds, helicopters, boats, ice cream trucks and scooter with mean choppers, with more responsive control than GTA3, it just goes to show you that its named “Grand Theft Auto� for a reason. Also, what makes this game leap from #3 is that it not a kill fest, and not just a seemingly thin story to kill people. You have to dress in a certain costume, use certain weapons, and plan an escape route. It also seems more like a gold old fashioned Goodfellas movie, in which your target is in their car, you walk up casually and shot out the tires, and to intimate them you whack off the car door with a machete. When they run for their lives, you target them down with your sawed off. Now that is a lot better then just chasing a car until they reach some place. In addition to that, prepare for some sweet sounds; In addition to Rap Liotta, the most awesome, badest, meanest muchacho whom I would amply name “Mr. Tijuana� is Danny Trejo, or Umberto Robina, the Cuban warlord. If this name does not ring a bell, then you have not experience “Desperado�, which he played the Mexican knife thrower. Want more? Ok…how about Judas Priest and Ozzy on the radio! And lets not forget our good friend Lazlow is back, and he finally got away fro in insanity of Liberty city, and jumped out of the frying pan into the fire by Djing 80’s rock. Poor, poor Lazlow.
The story is something that I don’t want to divulge much of; if I say too much you already know what will happen but only in my rendition, and you play it to find out that I spoiled it. To stop a flow of angry E-mails, I’ll just give you the basics. Old Tommy was in a prison in Liberty, but seeing as he was more hunted than the Easter rabbit there, he moved to sunny Miami…err…Vice city. There, you get in trouble with the Cubans, bikers, the usual stuff, and you must become the lord of the city to get some respect. I imagine that walking into a good amount of buildings (you still can’t walk into ANY old building as you please, but darn close to it), buying your own property and earning perks such as free garages and paint and spray, not to mention buying your hideouts, of which a lovely drug mansion with a sniper rifle on the roof (some you cane even store 6 cars) will distract you from the fact that this game does not press the PS2 engine as far as it can, graphics wise. The cut scenes are a bit better and less blocky, but the people don’t seem to be the same cloned person anymore. Still, if you played GTA3, just expect sharper and clearer images.
Again, we take that spin in the world of crime which is oozing of cash that serves a purpose (of which is in smaller amounts now), is chock full of swears and some boobs at the strip club and reeks of the joy of flying an apache helicopter and blowing up cars on the ground. I now say go out and buy this game! Run through the traffic, elbow that geek in the face who has their hands on their copy and lock yourself in the den, because this game is another life, to put it clearly. Rockstar games will look back, stroking their long and white beards and find that this is a step forward into creating the virtual world. Now if you excuse me, I must mow down golfers with my mini-cart and rob the mall with my SPAS shogun. Oh, the horror, the horror!
PS: The awesome Lord of CV-Games, Kaleb Rutherford, seems to be psychic…a scarily accurate prediction was given to me that even before I wrote this review, I would give it a perfect score! Way to go, boss!
CVG Report CardGrand Theft Auto: Vice City
Rating: A+
Platform: PlayStation 2
E-Mail This Article 
Print This Article