Grand Theft Auto Vice City is the best game of the series, period. Pretty strong words you might say but I have solid facts to back it up. Have given it a lot of thought since I recently finished GTA V again. Couldn’t help myself to think what would it be like to have Vice City with all the bells and whistles of GTA V.
I get the feel Steemit society is full of people involved with gaming. I would like to start my own game topics with this being its first entry. This is a throwback!
a Cover photo for Grand Theft Auto Vice City made by Rockstar Games
SERIES OVERVIEW
GTA franchise, made by Rockstar Games has never been afraid to push the mark of open world “do whatever you like” platforms. If you would have to explain the franchise to series to a friend it would probably involve describing you as a part of criminal world often involved in outrageous and often hilarious situations. You take control of one, recently more than one, main character and raise from the criminal undergrounds to become an influential member of dark societies. Game allows you to do very exciting missions following the story, which by the way is never boring, or explore the city for hidden missions, easter eggs or just cause mayhem.
They also haven’t been afraid of playing with time tables for different series. There was a GTA London held in 1960’s and Vice City in 1980’s. With the newer parts held in nowadays gamers seem to lately get a bit nostalgia again and urge to experience the ‘80s again.
MY ARGUMENT
At some point I was thinking what makes the games so great. A lot of it is to do with the dialogs, locations, missions and overall atmosphere. Yes, there certainly are more advanced mechanics and graphics in newer parts but i believe it is highly overrated compared to excitement of movie like experience older games sometimes got us through. Vice City has other games on the ropes when it came overall astrosphere and setup. I would like to prove my point with 4 simple arguments.
1. SOUNDTRACK
GTA series has always been great with audio track. Giving the gamers chance of different radio stations filled with fun shows, commercials and super iconic music, i I find it quite easy to say Vice City offered best overall stations. Lately games offer a bit longer tracks for station and it makes them more realistic, fine, but you find yourself constantly switching between the stations.
Vice city radio stations like Emotion 98.3, Flash FM, V-Rock, Wave 103, Fever 105 and others offered relatively short loops, about 45 min long, but absolutely filled with most iconic songs from the 1980’s. Seriously, how many times you have stopped before entering a mission to sit in the car with your favourite jam on just to hear it a bit more? It was a hit after a hit.
a Cover photo and logo for GTA Vice City's Emotion 98,2 radio
A lot of games at the time in early 2000’s were played by teenagers or guys in their 20’s. People in this age would have experienced 1980’s music when they grew up and I think it also brought back some nostalgia to them. People tend to develop their favourite music taste until they hit 26, after that they can just listen to same stuff repeatedly. I am barely over that so I can test it now. But somehow, I really do feel like music yesterday was better than today.
2. SCARFACE
GTA Vice City basically is Scarface the game. And yeah, I know there actually was a Scarface game featuring Al Pacino, but Rockstar’s GTA Vice City was a better version of it, even though officially it was never suppoused to be due to copyright problems.
Scarface was a movie about Antonio “Tony” Montana, a political refugee from Cuba, a guy who wanted his rights. We all remember famous Miami beach drug vs money exchange with the Columbians that went bad quick. The electric chainsaw and gun down on the street. This is a story of very powerful personality raising from the bottom and becoming the man in the city. Basically every single GTA game ever made. Movie illustrates how greed takes over when you. Filled with action and the iconic Miami in the 80’s movie received multiple awards.
Vice City basically took the Scarface and put it in their game. With Tommy Vercetti, the main character, being the Tony figure here, game followed some of the plot trails pretty close. Including major gun scene at the end when it all came crashing down in Tommy/Tony villas. Vice city also had a lot to do with the drugs, it had the iconic nightclub where some major missions took place.
3. LOCATION
GTA has always been good with the locations. With multiple parts, GTA 1, GTA III, GTA IV, not including game extensions, taking place in Liberty City, in reality New York and both San Andreas and GTA IV taking place in Los Santos, which is Los Angeles, game has a trend to stick to a certain city.
Vice City had a different time table, a different city. With very recognizable 1980's Miami areas still feel fresh since not a lot of games actually are not held in New York or Los Angeles. The map of Vice City was even smaller than Liberty City map from GTA III and definitely a lot smaller than Los Santos featured in San Andreas, but there is a thing. Vice City was full of memorable places you recognize and like music, it had very 80’s feel to it, especially with all the pale colours.
City of Miami instantly recognizable in GTA Vice City
Meanwhile, for example, San Andreas, even though bigger, was really empty with generic blocks everywhere for gamer to go and actually do nothing other than drive. Audience wanted size and they got it but because of technical limitations it was hard to develop a usable area so we were left with just space.
4. CHARACTERS
First two parts didn’t really have any dialogs at all apart from written subtitles main character heard while using payphones before mission started. You might not remember it because of the dialogs from other characters but GTA III Claude also didn’t have much to say, nothing, he also was a complete mute. Tommy was immediately involved in now iconic interactions between different characters. Now it feels normal as GTA gets awarded for best game dialogs, but that was a first time.
“As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster” Ray Liotta in Goodfellas.
With Ray Liotta playing Tommy Vercetti and giving him that lovable asshole feel it was instant crime match. Let’s not forget movie star cast supporting game. William Fichtner, Dennis Hopper, Burt Reynolds, Luis Guzmán, Philip Michael Thomas from Miami Vice as Lance Vance and Danny the Manchette Trejo gave a huge boost some might not even realize.
Who the hell can forget Lance Vance, probably my all time favourite game character with his all white suit and white Lamborghini Countach?
Artwork of some of the main characters of GTA Vice City
In contrast, like mentioned before, previous characters were mainly mute and not that individual and lovable. Nico’s personality had charm, but overall, I don’t think he was cool enough to be attractive. GTA V again had some memorable characters, but they all lacked that superstar boost Vice City got.
LAST THOUGHTS
Put all these thoughts together and you might start feeling the vibe I am getting whenever I think of Vice City. Sure it’s dated by today’s standards but imagine if you could have Vice City Part 2 with today’s mechanics. It would be another victory lap for Rockstar if they did just that. Knowing how much they enjoy returning to proven grounds and keep their universe connected, I have a feeling we are for sure going to hear name Vice City again, question is when.