Grand Theft Auto (GTA): Vice City Stories for PlayStation 2

Just like Liberty City Stories, GTA Vice City Stories was also released for PSP first and then ported to PS2 and it's more like a cash-in game even though there's plenty of fun to be had with it. For those of you, who don't know what the Grand Theft Auto series are about - it's a crime game where you take the role of a street thug and able to do about anything in a big city ranging from stealing cars, getting some big guns and killing people while chased around by cops. Of course there's more you can do but these two abilities are the most notable and biggest ones.

Note that this game is not a sequel to anything just an expansion type of game set in the 80s (1984) in a fictional city based on Miami called Vice City. The city is similar to that we saw in GTA Vice City and only minor changes exist since the setting is two years prior to it's counterpart. Anyone who expects this game to be another San Andreas, then I'm sorry but you wont find what you're looking for here, although the two Vice Cities are the closest we have to San Andreas.

Features:

Unlike Liberty City Stories, we have quite a number of new and old features in here. Swimming is a notable return. A couple of new vehicles are there most notably a Biplane and a Jetski as well as a hovercraft similar to that we saw in San Andreas known as the Vortex. The combat fist fights have been expanded on as main character, Victor Vance is able to snap necks, grab people and throw them away as well as swinging his melee weapons. One big con with the melee weapons though is the fact he automatically stops when using them. A key feature is building your empire. Becomes available after you kill a gang boss and take over his businesses. In order to gain the assets, you attack the rival gang's vehicle outside the building and kill every wave of attacking gang members and buy the property once you destroy everything inside and kill all remaining gang members. You can choose to build a business based on protection racket, loan shark, prostitution, robbery, smuggling or drugs. Robbery brings in the most money and you'll get handed the money directly each day at 16:00. Instead of a cellphone we also have a pager which is used to give you your money, that's because pagers were more popular in the early 80s. You can also recruit gang members similar to San Andreas. Instead of hidden packages this time around we have to burst 99 red balloons around the city, reference to 84 hit song by Nena with the same name.

Story:

The story revolving around Victor "Vic" Vance, shows him as a army soldier at the start doing favors for superior officer, Jerry Martinez. After being betrayed he is kicked out and forced to enter the criminal scene of Vice City working for jerks and all kinds of people hard to trust. All of that to pay his sick brother's bills and helping his poor family as his mother is addicted and his brother has some obsession with drugs as when he arrives the only thing he thinks about is dealing drugs which only brings him and Vicinto trouble. That leads to a tragic accident and then Vic decides to finish it all of, by killing his rivals and leaving behind the empire he's started.

Sounds:

Gun sounds are the same as in Vice City and the vehicles also have similar engine. Voice actors from Vice City also return this time, including Gary Busey, Danny Trejo and Luis Guzman amongst others.

The soundtrack is another nice selection of 80s hits from the likes of Run DMC and many others. There is something for nearly everyone from metal to early hip hop and electro to pop to latin music to soul and a talk station too.

Other stuff:

This section is for anything else that didn't really deserve one full section dedicated to it and everything else that only reserves a sentence. Controls are something many bring up and it's way easier to play on PS2 than it is on PSP, the controls are the same as GTA III, Vice City and Liberty City Stories. You can free aim with any gun using the auto aim button plus the right thumbstick. The guns have their models changed mainly due to the setting, notable changes include the M60 from Vice City to a M249 machine gun, the PSG-1 sniper rifle is changed to a Dragunov SVD-1 and a bunch of more model changes.

The atmosphere is one of the biggest pros in Vice City Stories. The neon lights are attached to the buildings making the night have one hell of a summer feeling and the orange sky at night is so fun to stare at. The graphics in here are all pretty good in my opinion even though many people like to whine about how they are awful, yet graphics is not even that important for me, as long as it's easy on the eyes I wont care whether it's high detailed or looks truly pixelated.

Final word... this game is nothing groundbreaking and probably wont go down as THAT memorable but for me, the only game that comes close to San Andreas in any way is this one.