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Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Review - PC

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is by far the best game in the series. Using the same engine as GTA: III, Vice City occupies a massive map, with everything you'd find in a normal city. Some areas of the city are full of traffic, others you'd barely find a car. Vice City has an Airport, a Seaport, a Golf course, and lots of sky scrapers that will make your jaw drop. Vice City has a slow intro, a bit like Mafia's intro... But once you get into the gameplay, you'll be playing it for hours thinking you've only been playing for a few minutes.

Miami in the 80's. A spin down the main strip would reveal plenty of mullets, roller-blades and indulgences. The powers that be see Vice City, Miami as an untapped source and send down one of their guys, Tommy, to carry out a drug deal and set up the family business. Naturally the deal goes pear-shaped, leaving Tommy with no money, no drugs and an angry associate. It's up to Tony to infiltrate the crime bosses and powerbrokers of Vice City and extract payback, kicking your ass style. (Special thanks to Brad Dodd for this paragraph.)

Gameplay

GTA: VC uses the same missions as GTA: III. The phone call missions and the gang missions. The first 20 or so missions are lots of fun, but then they start to get quite challenging. GTA: VC also takes on a new genre. You have to buy out all the different businesses in town. This can vary from an Ice cream shop to a Taxi company. Unlike GTA: III, Vice City requires you to buy your own houses if you want to save the game. You own a hotel room to start off with, but eventually you're going to want a house with a garage so that you can store your favourite car in it. From there you'll expand, buying all the houses and apartments in Vice City that you can get your filthy hands on.

The big thing that annoyed a lot of GTA lovers about GTA: III was that there were no motorbikes. Rest assured, GTA: VC has motorbikes, and they go just as fast as they used to! At first, you only have the "Faggio" which is a rather slow bike and would be more likely classed as a scooter. But once you get into the game, you get some beast motorbikes that get massive air. The jump system in GTA: VC is the same as GTA: III. You get extra cash for unique jumps, and you'll always get $20 - $50 for a good lengthy jump. And don't worry about learning how to pull off jumps, because controlling a person or a car could never be more user friendly on a computer, than it is in GTA: VC. Once you set up (continued next page)