Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories review

Rockstar has enjoyed a mass of publicity recently. Normally we can expect it for a liberally linguistic, smartly sarcastic, endlessly engrossing and superbly sadistic game such as any one of the Grand Theft Auto series, but recently Bully has been taking the limelight (for very little reason it seems). How then has Vice City Stories, the latest in the GTA franchise slipped so effortlessly under the radar of any of our wonderful anti-games protestors to be released only for the PSP (expect a PS2 version to follow eventually) into our eager hands? Perhaps we are used to it by now.

Reinvented in 3D by GTA3, the first outing on the PlayStation 2, the Grand Theft Auto series has gone from strength to strength, providing a stunningly replete gaming experience from start to finish. Starting out with a massive amount of actual game to play through, the ‘semi-sequel’ Vice City came out a couple of years later providing a new city to roam around, a flurry of new gameplay enhancements and even more game to sink your teeth into (not to mention my favourite soundtrack of the series). San Andreas came to knock our socks off, giving you three cities, surrounded by a state of seemless, no-loading mammoth wizardry. Where could it go from there? I’m afraid we’ll have to wait for GTA4 on the next generation of consoles before we find out.

A side-mission

We heard about the PSP game, and just from the title our suspicion peaked. Entitled ‘Liberty City Stories’, we wondered whether ‘Vice City Stories’ or even ‘San Andreas Stories’ might follow (incidentally, if you’re still wondering about both of them, you’ve missed the point of the review). Liberty City stories was a very impressive demonstration of an incredibly detailed and immersive game being extended to a portable format, and while it was a great game in itself, it didn’t bring the series forward more than the novelty of it being on PSP.

For those new to the series (both of you), Grand Theft Auto gives you a free roaming mission based running, shooting, fighting, driving approach around an entire city, where your protagonist much get to the top of their game by committing acts of variable nefarity (great word -Ed.), trying to avoid being hunted by the police, gangs, the mafia or whoever might get in your way. After you have taken a breath from that little description, it might please you to know that it feels very natural to control, while retaining the depth you might expect from such a forerunner of its genre.

If it ain’t broke

The moving, shooting, driving and aiming controls haven’t been changed from the last outing of the franchise, but some might say that isn’t necessarily a great thing. Driving couldn’t feel better, but as with all of the GTA games, the aiming seems to be a little haphazard. To lock-on to a target you must hit the left shoulder button, and while you can alternate between targets, in the middle of a fire fight it pays just to shoot anything you are targeting, and keep changing targets until they’re all dead. Hardly the most fun way of playing, but at least it gets the job done.

The game is broken into separate missions, which are all preceded by their own fantastically created cinematic to develop the story and tell you whom you’re dealing with. Aside from the story missions, all of the side missions such as races, vehicle collection sprees and ‘Empire’ missions add to the magnitude of the game. The aforementioned Empire missions basically take a mixture of the GTA:VC purchasing system (whereby you could optionally buy properties and after a few missions, you would unlock their money making capabilities, earning you a few bucks every so often) and the GTA:SA gang territory system (allowing you to take over enemy zones through violence; the more you own, the more you earn). Fortunately, rather than having to collect all the cash, it is deposited straight into your funds. On the other side however, the ease of which money seems to be gained really removes a lot of the desire to earn more money, since it doesn’t take long before you have a lot of funds in your account.

Familiar faces

In Vice City Stories, you take the role of Vic Vance, the brother of Lance Vance (whom you may remember from the original Vice City), and while Vic is a new character, a host of other characters make a re-appearance to help and hinder you, much to my delight. Story wise, it is as strong as any in the series, starting you out in the Army, taking small no-risk missions from your commanding officer to earn a little extra cash, until it all spirals out of control and your attempt to earn an honest living is cut short. While the mission objectives sound original, many will recognise the familiar style of all of them from previous incarnations of the genre. At the moment, it seems that we have peaked out on what can be expected with the classic collect/deliver X or protect/kill Y missions, with small tweaks to keep things interesting.

Those up on the layout of Vice City will remember that the Army base is on the left-most side of the playing area, thereby starting you on the opposite side of the map to the original Vice City; a wise move in my eyes, since I often questioned why you had access to all of the fast cars to begin with in the previous visit to the city. The city itself is loosely based on Miami, with lush visuals permeating the locales. Rockstar have certainly cut no graphical corners for the PSP as the sunset glares into your face on one of the lush beaches dotted with palm trees and bikini babes. (I need a holiday).

Phil Collins?

The voice cast performs its raw, humorous and racy dialogue to a stunning Hollywood standard, unsurprising considering the great cast. While few names may spring out, undoubtedly a quick look on the IMDB should alleviate any doubts (surprisingly including Timothy Spall and Phil Collins). Phil provides a song for the 104 song soundtrack, and much to the GTA standard, the music choice is exceptional. 8 music stations for you to enjoy is split between the rock standards of ‘Holy Diver’ (go on, we know you want to sing along), Foreigner's emotive ‘I Want To Know What Love Is’, New Wave hits such as ‘Relax’ by Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Blondie’s ‘Heart Of Glass’ finally rounding down to fresh hits like Run DMC’s ‘It’s Like That’.

While trying to restrain myself from just listing more and more great songs on the soundtrack, I should mention that even through the PSP’s speaker, the audio sounds good, but over earphones it peaks in audio excellence, from the speech to the revving of vehicular engines. The music streams from the UMD well, but unfortunately when driving at speed, it is not uncommon for the streaming visuals to pop up and give an occasional pause of the radio. While very understandable considering the technical limitations, it mars an otherwise perfectly immersive game experience.

So I should buy it then?

I have seen multiple bits of marketing that simply state that it is ‘the’ game to own for the PSP, and worth buying one just to play the game. In a sense, despite its flaws, I can agree that it is a must-own piece of software. If you like GTA games, you’ll have no choice but to enjoy it, but it seems apparent to me now that the Grand Theft Auto series is getting a little tired around the edges from giving little revolutionary changes to the fundamental way the game is played, and the range of missions available. (I really hate race missions).

Vice City Stories is an amazing game, and one I would wholeheartedly recommend, (a lot of work has gone into it, despite the fact that the city has undergone few changes from the original) but I hope that for the upcoming (if you can wait a year) GTA IV we see enough of a change to refresh the genre and franchise, because the games are great, but starting to seem quite samey. Like I said at the start of the review, perhaps we are used to it by now.

Not to say that I wouldn’t rush out and buy San Andreas Stories if they somehow fit that onto a UMD.