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REVIEWS OF GTA VICE CITY Vice City is a huge urban sprawl ranging from the beach to the swamps and the glitz to the ghetto, and is the most varied and complete digital city ever created. Take control of a variety of vehicles including high-performance cars and motorbikes, powerboats, golf buggies and helicopters. Browse through the radio stations, with styles ranging from rock to electro to find a sultry melody or pumping beat to suit your mood. No matter what type of man you are, Vice City is always full of surprises. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories takes place in Vice City two years before GTA: Vice City. Rockstar Games has always been good at providing gamers loyal to the franchise with enough references and inside jokes to provide continuity between games while having stories that stand on their own. The story in Vice City Stories isn’t quite as gripping as previous games—and certainly can’t compare to the Scarface inspired Vice City—but you’ll find a number of interesting characters with plenty of humor that make the cutscenes worth watching. At least in relation to the rest of the game. After a stop to pick up some stashed weapons, Tommy and I steal a racing bike. Just around the corner is the first victim, working atop on a billboard. He gets his skull ventilated with the sniper rifle. A couple of blocks away is target number two, working as a driver for a security company. We sidle up to where he’s parked and open up with a submachine gun. When he tries to drive away, we shoot up the armored car and kill the driver as he flees on foot. Rockstar North has widened the vehicle gap, enabling players to drive cars, but also motorcycles, more boats than before, and now helicopters and airplanes -- as a regular part of the game. And yes, you can take new weapons, such as a chainsaw and lay them into anyone, or for that matter you can grab machetes, samurai swords, screwdrivers or hammers. The impressive details stretch on like the greatest roll of unending newspaper that ever was. The next two sitting ducks are in front of an apartment building. We dump the bike and steal a car, then floor it into the duo, killing one man on foot. His friend takes off in a truck, but we follow, ramming the vehicle until it explodes. Next up is a trip to the oceanside, where we shoulder the sniper rifle again and clip a gang member on a boat. We swipe another car and chase down the last objective, employing our driveby shooting skills to blast him off his motorcycle. Mission accomplished. Thanks a lot for the four grand, Mr. Anonymous Telephone Guy.
Although
Rockstar
North has
solved a
handful of
problems
and
minimized
others
from last
year's
game,
Grand
Theft
Auto: Vice
City
plays a
whole lot
like
GTA3,
with a
giant bag
of goodies
thrown in.
It's
painted
with
broader
strokes
and an
absurdist's
look at
the 1980s.
A cursory
overview
of the
game
reveals
several
highlights:
The
missions
are more
substantial,
woven more
delicately
into the
storyline,
and they
get hard,
real hard.
Branching
out from a
nearly
100%
car-based
game, |
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