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Goodfellas and Bad Language

The graphics are just good enough to pull off the illusion of a real city, although they are at least a year behind the current PC state-of-the-art. At least the visuals are improved over the washed-out look of the PS2 version of the game. Adding support for higher resolutions helps a lot, and the power of contemporary video cards adds a richness to color that the PS2 can’t come close to emulating. Otherwise, the graphics are identical—perhaps with the exception of a few added pedestrian models that I don’t recall seeing in the PS2 game.

Leaf Links drive-by

Fore!

This never gets old

Last but not least, GTA: Vice City represents something of a landmark achievement when it comes to the use of audio in a game. All of the major characters are voiced by Hollywood talent. Goodfellas’ star Ray Liotta does Tommy Vercetti, Philip Michael Thomas practically reprises his Miami Vice sidekick role as Lance, Burt Reynolds portrays Avery Carrington, Lee Majors voices biker Mitch Baker, Dennis Hopper steps in as porn director Steve Scott, and porn star Jenna Jameson plays porn star Candy Suxx. You’ll recognize everybody, either by name or by voice. All do great work with the material, especially Liotta, who really gets into his role when he cusses out the cops chasing Vercetti. Needless to say, a lot of foul language is used.

Vercetti Killed the Radio Star

Rockstar has taken pains to develop the 1986 setting through the use of seven radio stations that play everything from New Wave to heavy metal. The playlists are so extensive that it’s easy to forget that this is just a game and that it’s 2003. You’ll hear the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star,” Squeeze’s “Tempted,” Toto’s “Africa,” Night Ranger’s “Sister Christian,” and even, incredibly, Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.” There is such a wide range of music here that anyone who grew up during the 1980s can’t help but lapse into nostalgia at the most inopportune moments. I was fleeing from at least six police cruisers and a helicopter when Kim Wilde’s “Kids in America” suddenly came on the radio and transported me back to a 1985 high-school dance. On the brighter side of things, I was also introduced to some good music that I’d never heard before. Like Kool and the Gang’s “Summer Madness” instrumental, which demonstrated that these guys were pretty solid ’70s (the song was released in 1974, so it doesn’t really belong in the game, but I’m not complaining—besides, its synth sound fits in with all the ’80s tracks) funksters before “Celebration” blackened their souls.

Welcome to the Vice Point Mall

Bye-bye bikers

Head shot squirts

Deejays and commercials hit on everything that’s worth making fun of from those long-ago days when Moammar Qaddafi was America’s least favorite Arab. So you get promos for a Rambo takeoff called Exploder, ads for videogame systems that feature red blips firing red blips at red blips, comments about compact discs as cutting-edge technology, and even plugs for a sitcom called Just the Five of Us, centered around a “kid” who’s actually a 40-year-old investment banker with a rare disease. Anyone else humming the theme song for Diff’rent Strokes?