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Killing on Demand, Game-Saving Every Now and Again

As you’d expect from that description, GTA: Vice City is just as outrageous as the hype would have you believe. Rockstar North hasn’t shied away from the questionable content for the PC port, as this version of the game comes with all of the crooked-cop-killing, pedestrian-running-over goodness that first riled the moral minority last fall. This is exactly the same game as on the PS2, in fact, with just a few minor tweaks and alterations introduced for the sensibilities of PC gamers. At the same time, Rockstar has spruced things up for the new platform, adding support for resolutions up to 1600x1200, pedestrian models that give greater variety to street scenes, the ability to import player skins, and mouse support (although the save system comes over untouched, meaning no save on demand, folks, and there is still no multiplayer mode). There might not be enough here to make veterans of the PS2 version run out and buy the game all over again, but the development team has certainly put in some hard work making the game look and play better than ever on the PC.

Car go boom

I think they want me to pull over

An easy way to make $500

Then again, who says that I need an excuse to replay GTA: Vice City? This game is very, very hard to say goodbye to, even after you’ve spent hundreds of hours building a mid-’80s criminal empire, one act of savagery at a time. Even without any substantial changes or additions, this is one of the freshest, most flat-out fun releases to hit the PC this year. It takes the core concepts that made GTA III such a smash and expands them in every direction.

A Problem With Mullets

This starts with the story. Unlike the first game, GTA: Vice City is carefully plotted. You begin at the bottom of the bottom as the aforementioned Tommy Vercetti, a thug who begins life in Vice City as the fall guy in a dope deal gone bad. Opening moves involve placating your mob employers long enough to get back the stolen dope, but you soon realize that the town is there for the taking. The saga plays out something like the 1983 Brian DePalma classic Scarface crossbred with the more violent episodes of Miami Vice, and the amalgam liberally dosed with ’80s pop culture references.

Anonymous assassination for fun and profit

Your '80s pad

Sorry, officer, didn't see you there

Story is built through a range of missions that build you up as a Wang Chung-era Al Capone by doing the dirty work of bigwigs. There is no straight path from gutter to the coke baron’s mansion. While core missions have to be completed to work your way to the top, you have to complete a lot of side missions along the way. You start off tracking the stolen dope, but soon come to the attention of every shady character in town. Real estate mogul Avery Carrington employs you to blow up buildings and attack Haitian gangs. Black marketeer Colonel Cortez solicits your services in cutting up a rat with a chainsaw and swiping a tank. Heavy metal band Lovefist needs you to secure special drugs for their lead singer and take out a psycho stalker who’s apparently got a problem with mullets. Coke kingpin Ricardo Diaz uses you for hired muscle in drug meets and to wipe out rivals via helicopter gunship. And so forth. You do favors for just about everyone in town who’s ever jaywalked, providing a real sense that you’re sinking into an established underworld, not just connecting the dots to get to a boss showdown.