GTA: Vice City Stories review (PlayStation 2)

All right, here we go – Confessions Of A Games Journalist #1: I’ve never played a GTA game before. There, I said it. What’s that? Deranged I am, you say? A lunatic? Stupid? Hmm, possibly, but lighten up there a little, would you? Indeed, as hard as it is to believe I’ve never touched the crime-busting romp since its inception almost ten years ago, the time has finally arrived for my GTA virginity to be thoroughly plucked (not to mention, mugged/battered/stolen/shot) beneath me. It goes without saying I’m unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately?) devoid of any pre-conceptions fans may have, but, nonetheless, here I am, preparing to load up on Uzi clips and tuck my baseball bad under my coat for the first time. Go steady, now.

City Life

With Vice City Stories, you already know what you’re going to get; guns, girls, flash motors, money and everything else that’s synonymous with the GTA series up to this point. It certainly won’t challenge any pre-conceptions based on my quick revision, but in GTA’s case, this really isn’t a bad thing judging from the reputation of its predecessors. Granted, you can bet your bottom dollar that long time fans would have something about the obvious cash cow the game presents, but that’s another story.

Vice City Stories, a port of the PSP game of the same name, pits you in the role of one Victor Vance, a U.S army soldier who, after getting involved in a couple of dodgy shenanigans for his boss, gets chucked out of the base and left to fend for himself. Alas, Vance, struggling to provide for his troublesome brother, has to stop looking at things black and white in order to make ends meet, and in the process, the proverbial dividing line becomes exceedingly blurred. Of course, that’s not after battling with his conscience at first (all of five seconds, seemingly), but old Vince gets there in the end. Needless to say, you’ll meet a variety of low-lifes along the way, which makes the cast of Lock Stock seem like afternoon tea with the in-laws.

Hired Guns

Humble beginnings are probably the best way to describe the beginnings of Vice City Stories. You start off slowly, doing a few favours for a couple of mates, earning you abit of cash, and, eventually, the game opens up into the full epic crime romp you’d expect. Naturally, you can do anything you want, whenever you want. Steal cars, beat up innocent pedestrians, and blow stuff up, whatever keeps you busy. Of course, that’s only half the fun. The aim of the game has you rising through the ranks of the crime world, from a mere flunky to the owner of several corporations, governing protection rackets, loan sharks, prostitution and more.

It’s hard to extol all of VCS’s offerings easily enough to digest, but the fundamental principle of the game has you carrying out a number of tasks for various contacts. Such tasks can include transporting goods from one place to the other, killing a bunch of rival gangs, stealing a particular motor, posing as a decoy and evading the cops, to scaring a local shop keeper into paying protection money. Fortunately, these tasks are mixed and muddled up in order to keep things fresh, and there’s plenty of random gang/cop encounters to keep you busy, should be careless enough to tick them off.

Cruise Control

On the flip side, some tasks are incredible simplistic and could probably be finished in half the time it’d take you to wreck a flash motor speeding down the street at 100mph. Typically, these types consist of picking up a car and driving it back to the warehouse, or simply slaughtering some dodgy bloke because he’s peeved off your boss. But you take the bad with the good, and fortunately, there’s enough of the more, shall we day, meatier tasks to keep you occupied.

Leaving aside the “main” story hub, so to speak, you can also participate in multiple vigilante missions by stealing taxis, police cars and ambulances, which are a neat distraction if you can be bothered to belt around the city in your spare time. Speaking of the cops, the game is rather efficient on clamping down your killing sprees and reckless driving, and you’ll be nicked within seconds of committing a crime if you aren’t quick to book it pronto. There’s a hefty bill to play if you get arrested too, not to mention the costs of miraculously patching yourself up if you happen to get shot/stabbed/run over/beaten to death. Blimey, makes us folk on the NHS feel mistreated.

Easy Lover

The thing about some aspects of GTA, though, is that they’re getting conspicuously dated in places. The games combat system is probably the worst offender, which uses a rather haphazard auto-aiming feature, which apparently has trouble judging whether your weapon should be pointed at the old lady across the street or the bald thug unloading an Uzi 9mm into your abdomen. You can free-aim if you want, but only after you auto-aim (sometimes at the wrong target) and pressing the analogue stick. The controls are pretty clunky though, and not all that responsive. Fortunately there’s little to no tactical procedure necessary when dispatching your foes – simply point, shoot and hope he goes down before you.

Hand-to-hand is easily the least engaging, however, and becomes a monotonous task of trading blows until you smack your opponent to the floor. It gets the job done, but its all a little stiff, and not all that enjoyable after you batter your 100th Cholo thug. Elsewhere, as mentioned, you can build up your own crime empire, and even take part in various ‘missions’ for each organisation, though they are extremely limited. Each 15-part mission simply requires you to perform almost the same activities over and over again, whether it be beating up a rival gang or transporting a prostitute around the city, and repeating the task. At the end of the day, it’s exceedingly underwhelming and repetitive. Sure, you get a nice cash bonus for your company’s daily income, but that’s pretty much the solitary highlight to being a crime boss in the game.

In The Air Tonight

Unlike a fine wine, the game's visuals aren’t exactly getting better with age, and leave the sour taste of the early 2000s in your mouth. Blowing everything up from PSP format to PS2 size doesn’t help matters either, and needless to say blurry textures come in abundance up close. Some of the better examples include the weather effects, though, which are particularly great at sunset, not to mention the draw distance, which holds up well. Audio-wise, things are certainly a lot better. The game’s soundtrack, as expected, is chock full of 80s glory, some great, some good, and some cringe worthy, but still a wonderful nostalgic breeze.

Even Genesis singer/drummer and solo artist Phil Collins makes an appearance in more ways than one, and there’s also some great DJ chatter to lighten the mood. Fortunately, the acting isn’t bad at all, which is just as well seeing as there is dozens of cut scenes to forward the plot, while the rest of the mandatory sound effects do their job as expected. And hey, if you happen to get bored, you could always count the number of curse words divulged in the game. Mums and dads, this isn’t for kids.

Good Cop, Bad Cop

Overall, Vice City Stories, while blatantly an attempt to cash-in on the series as much as possible before the fourth instalment hits, is actually rather good fun, and delivers in the ways a GTA presumably should do. Sure, while being my first experience with the series, it certainly left a lasting impression, and didn’t disappoint. It’s expansive, fun, challenging and most of the time, plain hilarious. Yet, concurrently, it’s also in dire need of a makeover and the combat system could do with a refined dusting. Still, for what its worth, it’ll no doubt appease GTA aficionados and/or raving lunatics until the fourth game arrives.