What makes the music so great this time around is the massive selection available for you to choose from. Chances are, GTA Vice Citywill have songs that can cater to every single audience out there. It successfully touches all of the major bases by selecting the best titles available to represent their respective genres. That means that you’ll get rockin’ 80s tunes like 99 Luft Balloons and More Bounce to the Ounce and less tunes from forgettable bands like Heart and The Culture Club. Talk radio also makes a return although it’s not nearly as funny as the version hosted by Laslow last time around. There are some truly great musical selections in here and if you’re in the mid 30’s and you wish to relive your youth, you’ll no doubt be pleased by what GTA VC’s soundtrack has to offer. It would have been nice had there been an option to create a custom soundtrack out of the available songs but I’m willing to forgive this omission.
Visually the game has in a few respects, although you probably won’t notice it at first. While GTA 3 featured some pretty detailed landscapes, GTAVC completely blows it out of the water. After playing VC the environments of GTA3 just look barren and plain. You’ll see much more foliage and roadside objects, many more buildings that feature unique designs and architecture and overall, just much more detail. There are now interior areas for you to explore such as a mansion and a shopping mall. Nightfall brings the city to life, lighting up the entire city in an extravagant display of highly stylized neon lights. The main character seems to have been refined quite a bit and although he still looks a bit too lanky, he’s much more soothing for the eyes. He actually seems to have progressed quite a bit and in many ways looks like a cross between WWE Owner Vince McMahon and Shawn Stasiak. Judging by the screenshots, you might expect the game to have faced a revelation of some sorts in the graphics department, that is until you see it in action for yourself.
Due to the massive scale of the game, this game cannot visually compare to the other top tier titles. The blatant overuse of motion blur (a great way to hide dropping frame rates) makes a triumphant return and strikes nearly ever portion of the game. Problems arise during the custscenes when you realize that the models could have benefited from a few more polygons. Characters often look out of place during the numerous cutscenes; it often looks as if they’re floating across the floors as opposed to walking across them. Their arm movements and mannerisms are also pretty weak and cannot match what the other premier PS2 titles are doing. While much of the game has been improved it still looks like a game that is a year old and in this respect, the game often looks old and dated. Sure you’ll see some neat visual tricks to add a surreal feeling to the game here and there but the game just isn’t much to look at anymore. Last year’s game wasn’t a very impressive visual treat but managed to pass in the graphics department because there was just so much to display and render. There are a few neat tricks thrown in here and there such as trees that sway and water that actually splashes onto your screen, but it’s not enough to overcome the graphical deficiencies. Pop up runs rampant and seems to have grown to become an even larger problem. Roadside objects are now affected by the pop-up, sometimes a dumpster or an indestructible object will magically appear out of thin air to impede your progress. To put it frankly the graphics look old and dated and are only saved by the tremendous overuse of the industry’s best eye-tricks.
Grand Theft Auto Vice City is an excellent game but the fact of the matter is, if you hated last year’s game then this won’t do much to change your perspective on the series. Most of the same problems from last year’s game live on in this expansion pack of some sorts and while some of them have been addressed, they’re still as inept as ever. The same braindead AI that crippled GTA3 makes a return appearance and is more annoying than ever. In a level where I was to infiltrate a boss’ house, an AI teammate accompanied me in hopes of obtaining some sweet revenge. As we fought our way, strike that, as I fought our way to the boss’ room, he did the logical thing and stood in the line of fire. Of course he held a weapon in his hand the whole time but apparently he had no idea how to use it so what did he do? He got in my way, every time I tried to move to get a clear shot at the boss he would just follow me and block my path. The AI coding in last year’s game was horribly inept and it’s just as bad here as it was there. Other times you’ll be on missions where you must protect someone but they’ll inadvertently get stuck on a piece of the level and you’ll have to go back and retrieve them. The pathfinding AI is just horrible and it carries over to the enemy AI as well.
Most of the time they’ll just stand there and act as fodder for you and your heavy arsenal. Often times you’ll hear gunshots only to discover that it’s an enemy who has been firing into a wall for the past 5 minutes. Missions only become difficult when the numbers are heavily skewed towards that of the opposition, as it appears that the first rule of becoming a thug is to get a lobotomy. Take this case into point; an enemy stands guard on top of a building with a sniper rifle. A cutscene shows two of my people run along a path and get cut down by his amazing aim. What happens next? Tom and the group that he is fighting alongside safely run up to the point where the two guys were shot and I am ordered to take out the sniper. Suddenly he can’t find the trigger and I have all day to take him out with my own sniper rifle. It seems like the missions have great premises and promise but there just isn’t enough structure to them to make them operate to their full potential.
The camera still proves to be the game’s weakest aspect, it often gets caught on objects and swings around frantically for no apparent reason. Most times it feels like it’s far too close to the action and conceals what is happening in the near vicinity. Then there is the problem when you’re just trying to look and see what is going on around you, namely, you can’t. The first person look mode is still available but it’s not a viable solution to the game. Having to stand still just so that I can see who’s shooting me is ridiculous. Had Rockstar allowed the right analog stick to control the camera while you move with the left analog stick, there would be no problem. Combat also seems to be relatively unchanged and suffers from the same problems as before.
Grand Theft Auto Vice City isn’t for everyone though and if GTA3 failed to hold your interest, I recommend you stay away from this one. However, if you were one of the millions who succumbed to the addictive nature of the series then you’ll definitely want to pick this one up. While there is a lot to loathe about the game the goods far outweigh the bad. Rockstar has successfully carried the torch in this year’s iteration to deliver an amazing game that really does live up to the hype. They have refined many of the game’s aspects, delivering a title that is much more polished and pristine than we could have ever imagined. There’s enough depth here to drown a bus full of Mormons and in the end, isn’t that what we’ve always wished for? Now excuse me while I hit these hoes up for some cash.
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