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PSP | Action | Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

Boxart for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories 19 screen shots
  • GRAPHICS: 4.00
  • SOUND: 4.50
  • CONTROL: 2.50
  • FUN FACTOR 3.75
  • AVG USER SCORE 4.5
  • AVG CRITIC SCORE 4.0

Review: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

Review by DFS | 04/09/2007 | 16:02:20 PM PST

For gamers who got their start in the 8-bit Nintendo generation, Vice City drew a straight line back through their childhood.

The original Vice City for the Playstation 2 was fun for one very compelling reason: the signature Rockstar shootouts and mayhem aside, its true strength was the game's personality and colorfully cartoonish send up of '80s era pop culture.

You Can't Go Home Again
PROTIP: Fly over trouble in a chopper, but you'll have to land eventually. Spot a safe landing zone before landing.

PROTIP: Fly over trouble in a chopper, but you'll have to land eventually. Spot a safe landing zone before landing.

So it's a big shame that lot of that personality has gone missing in Vice City Stories. Maybe it was the jump to a smaller stage that did them in but the characters and dialogue don't have the same snap nor does the game exhibit the same goofy and utterly loveable 80's style. Instead, the game is gritty and dull to a fault and it doesn't have the same sense of humor that made the past titles so entertaining. What humor there is tends to be painfully blunt--the first four hours are like one long un-funny redneck joke, for example. And while the series has made shady characters likeable in the past, none of the goons in Vice City Stories have the flair of Tommy Vercetti.

The absence of a compelling story and cast of characters is especially problematic because Vice City Stories retains the same problems that plagued past titles. The auto-aim function doesn't work well, the AI isn't particularly smart, and some missions are completed more through trial and error than anything else.

Cruisin' USA
PROTIP: PCJ-900 handling can be twitchy at high speed, and doesn't take well to swapping paint. Sometimes it's wiser to jack a slower, less flashy ride with a little more muscle.

PROTIP: PCJ-900 handling can be twitchy at high speed, and doesn't take well to swapping paint. Sometimes it's wiser to jack a slower, less flashy ride with a little more muscle.

Thankfully, the famous 'go anywhere, do anything' design is still intact and a metric ton of side activities are available to occupy your time. You can even repo cars for the DEA's civil forfeiture program. Yep, you can work for the cops in a GTA game, which is a nice change of pace from all the criminal larceny. Rockstar also hasn't forgotten how to build an awesome licensed soundtrack--there are 10 different stations worth of music and chatter to pick from and it's across the board awesome. Whether you're looking for hard rock, proto-hip-hop, or godawful cheesy pop music, there's something for everyone. We were content to simply sit in our virtual cars and just cruise along the radio dial for a while.

If you want a trip back to the sun-splashed beaches of Vice City, then go ahead and give this one a try. Just be warned that, while the city itself is as pretty as ever, the people aren't quite what they used to be and it's not quite the same old place we used to know and love.

PROTIP: Two of the three eastbound bridges are blocked off at the start of the game so make sure you don't follow a dead end with a half-dozen cop cars behind you.

PROTIP: Two of the three eastbound bridges are blocked off at the start of the game so make sure you don't follow a dead end with a half-dozen cop cars behind you.


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