Review:
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories
Genre: Shooter
Publisher: Rockstar
Players: 2-8
Online Play: Yes (Wi-Fi)
Firmware: 2.80
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories is a sequel to Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories. Set in 1984, players take on the role of Vic Vance, an army soldier who loves his country, family, and himself. One bad decision turns his world up side down and he is kicked onto the streets of a tough city. He has to build an empire to survive, or be left to die. Together with his brother Lance, a drug addict, the siblings try to take over Vice City.
Just like other GTA titles, the game play consists of third person shooting and driving sequences in an open environment. You will meet new enemies and gangs, and old foes. Most of the missions require you to kill with a selection of weapons, theft of vehicles such as a car, a boat, or a plane, or rob to make it big. Most of the time, you'll be finding yourself roaming the huge city. New features for the portable version include swimming, and side missions such as Air Rescue, Vigilante, Firefighter, and Paramedic.
The game itself is constructed very well, but like all games, there are a few cons. If you're gearing up for a long VCS session, don't forget to bring some Aspirin with you; this will be the first game to really cramp up your hands. There are absolutely terrible on-foot controls, almost makes running around Vice City not worth the trouble. The loading is very swift but you will notice many slow-downs during game play while the PSP is loading data from the UMD.
This title has an Empire mode similar to the one in San Andreas. To make money, you have to take over businesses from other gangs. By attacking and damaging rival businesses, it will be put up for sale, for you to take over. With a new building constructed, you can then choose an activity such as prostitution, drugs, protection racket, smuggling, robbery, or work as a loan shark. These activities earn money and the location in the city influences the revenue.
Multiplayer is available over Wi-Fi with ten different game modes, either focusing on fighting (Vice City Survivor), businesses (Empire Takedown), racing (Street Rage), stealing/selling (Grand Theft Auto), capture the flag game types, or games centered around a single vehicle such as a tank.
Although Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories has many noticeable shortcomings, the pros definitely outweigh the cons. The super-impressive graphics for such a small system was a huge undertaking for Rockstar, and it pays off in the end. You'll have so much fun during your stay in this iteration of GTA and you'll find yourself ignoring everything that went wrong with it. This is a must buy if you own a PSP, no questions asked.
The verdict:
Uppers:
- Big open environment
- Huge lifespan
- Dazzling graphics
- Good amount of vehicles
- A number of missions (including side missions)
Downers:
- In-game slow downs
- Awful On-Foot controls/No D-pad support
- Hand cramps
Overall score: 95%
Evolve
03/03/2007