It worked fine in the beginning but after around 3 hours I just gave up with this game. It literally feels like I'm playing a roblox game and the world is just so dead. The NPC's don't even react to the environment and the character models gets more and more annoying the more I play. At some point the combat also gets annoying for the fact that they couldn't even make a decent corsair. Rockstar also censored the word "haitian" as it is "offensive" so whenever it comes up, the characters just go silent for no reason and just stare at each others. And these are the same people who used to give no fucks and produced Manhunt 2 as a fuck you even though the first game got banned. I am so disappointed that I wanna hide the game for the rest of my life in my steam library. Don't make my mistake and buy this game.

Progressing from Grand Theft Auto III to Vice City felt like a vibrant breath of fresh air. Stepping out of the grey, cold, dark Liberty city (New York) into the sunny neon-lit sea front of Vice City (Miami) was a massive improvement. Like my playthrough of Grand Theft Auto III Definitive Edition I aimed to complete the game without the use of cheats like I did in the past.

Much has been updated in terms of game mechanics such as the character models, car handling, weapon behaviour and storyline cutscenes. There is also the welcome addition of helicopters and motorbikes. Soaring over Vice City in a helicopter is a great way to traverse and enjoy the islands. Vice City does share some shortcomings with GTA III though, such as: easily being riddled with bullets, not being able to swim, very few markers on the map letting you know where places are and very few Ammunition shops to top up on weapons and armour.

Most of the iconic 80s music remains from the original game with some exceptions such as Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’. I absolutely loved returning to this game with these tunes in the background. Vice City felt a bit shorter than GTA III, there is a lot to do with side missions, I did as many as I could comfortably do then went for completion. I still have many games (including San Andreas) to work through so I was not going to spend too much time grinding away the side missions as I did in the past.

The storyline and cutscenes are vastly improved from the previous game thanks to the fact Tommy Vercetti (the game’s protagonist) is voiced by the late and great Ray Liotta and not a silent protagonist. Ray is also supported with a star studded cast of actors including Danny Dyer!

Had a great time revisiting Vice City, it brought back many good memories, the game just isn’t as fun without the use of cheats though.

"What is romance? What is passion? Maybe a sexy t-shirt that says 'Cunnilingus Instructor'. Maybe it is the mudflaps on your truck, with the silhouette of the naked lady. People ask me 'Is it better to be a DJ or a saviour?' I have been both, and trust me, both have their benefits. Now, we remember the great music of the 1980s. You may not believe this, but we did not have the internet then. When you found a magazine with the pictures of the naked ladies, it was heaven! The promised land! You hide it. Your mother comes into the room without knocking, and you are working yourself into a froth. This - this is the American childhood I longed to have, and it is how I have raised my sons." Fernando Martinez

Now yes the game has lost some of the music licenses (Micheal Jackson) but the game still has some of the best songs of all the GTA's. During my play through I did come across a few bugs that were not too extreme like characters running in place or bad pop ins. Playing this game hit me with a huge wave of nostalgia and since I am older I understand the jokes and games story a lot better. I def love Vice City as a location and the Scare face like story (Starting as a errand boy to becoming the King Pin).

PROS:
-Great Story & Great Characters
-Fun Activities and gameplay.
-Great Music.
-Achievements.
-Vice City.

CONS:
-Remove some of the best songs.
-Graphics do look weird at times.
-Bugs & pop ins.
-The original game was removed from the store.

Def worth playing and if this version is not for you hopefully you have the original version.

Wife’s Reaction:
“What a bunch of jabronis.”

Your Not-So-Paradise City:
Vice City is now at a decent place after these Definitive Editions dropped in a piss-poor state. The game is an improvement upon GTA3 in every way, and Vice City’s vibes with neon, palm trees, solid voice acting and soundtrack—even with iconic songs missing—elevated the game and made it memorable. But its rigid mission design tainted an otherwise good time.

Quando falam por aí que GTA SA é o melhor GTA, eles não estão errados, de fato em termos técnicos ele é o melhor da geração do PS2, porém não podemos esquecer de quem engatinhou, para que ele pudesse andar, e eu tô falando de Vice City.

Vice city traz ao jogador uma cidade muito mais aberta e explorável do que a do seu antecessor, ele faz um trabalho excelente na imersão dos anos 80 com uma cidade parecidissima (quase igual) a Miami. Estilo vintage, ternos brancos e lanchas, é o que define Vice City e suas riquezas questionáveis.

Em questões de gráficos e jogabilidade, Vice Citye pode pecar e já dá pra considerar algo que envelheceu um pouco mal, porém ainda é jogável com algumas ressalvas.

1 - O jogo é extremamente punitivo nas missões e pode ser muito injusto, quando você falha uma missão você volta desde o início, e mesmo com Checkpoint dessa versão, isso ainda incomoda.

2 - O controle de carro já ficou antigo e eles deslizam facilmente, é melhor do que o do III porém ainda é chato de se acostumar, muitas vezes falha e tu vai ficar irritado com isso

3 - A mira dele é chatinha e faz você errar muitos tiros, o movimento do protagonista é um saco de se adaptar, se você não joga tanto jogos antigos com certeza vai sofrer com esse

Mas enfim, dado esses pontos, vale ressaltar que Vice City apenas envelheceu mal, mas a sua trama, personagens e características da cidade envelheceram muito bem. Seu humor segue o estilo GTA clássico que não perde a essência nunca, e depois de superar esses probleminhas você vai conseguir se divertir facilmente com esse título da Rockstar

Played on PS5
Playtime: 30 Hours
Play Status: Mastered
Completion Date: February 5th 2022
No Spoilers

Great Game, Good Remastering
While I always hear a lot of good things about Rockstar games, I always kind of fell off of those games when I play them. I don't know why but I call it the Rockstar Curse. It's only happening to me as far as I know it and I just can't finish the Rockstar games I start.

I said I don't know why this happens and while that's true, of course I have an idea. Back in the day, Rockstar's games did not have checkpoints. If you failed at a mission, you had to go and buy new weapons and you had to go all the way back to where the mission started. And then, you would start the mission at the beginning.

At the time, thanks to me being a kid as well; I was never able to finish these games. I never finished a GTA game until GTA V. So when these remastered was announced and when we heard that they are doing some improvements, I knew it was time.

I was going to end that curse, right where it started. And well, I did even more than that because I got the platinum. Anyway, very long opening segment, let's start the review.

Our story is set in the 80's. And we play as Tommy Vercetti. In the beginning of the game, he gets out of prison but of course, he is not at all interested in letting go of his criminal life. His boss Sonny calls him and sends him to Vice City to oversee a deal.

When the deal goes wrong and they get ambushed by unknown people, Sonny threatens Tommy to get his money back. While Tommy is interested in doing that, he is also curious about the unknown ambushers so he follows that thread as well.

The story might seem incredible by looking at the summary but no. First of all, this whole story takes like 4-5 hours to complete. The game does an interesting thing with it's main missions but if we just look at the time needed to complete all main missions, it's 5 hours max.

And just like all GTA stories, this 5 hour story goes to some very weird directions. Sometimes it feels like it's not connected to the main plot even. There are lots of side characters. Not connected to the main plot in any meaningful way.

So while the story premise is good, it's not well executed and especially characters, are not good. Tommy, Sonny and other important characters like Lance for example doesn't even feel like fully developed characters.

And the ending? Oh my god, terrible. Terrible! There are some twists that are executed horribly. Yeah, story and characters is not where GTA: Vice City shines.

The game shines in the gameplay department. You remember the thing I told you? The story goes to weird places that doesn't even feel connected to the main plot? Yeah well, while that does hurt the story; it helps the gameplay.

Very interesting for a 2002 game but Vice City has a crazy mission variety. As always you start with shorter, easier missions that doesn't involve any combat. Slowly but surely, the game introduces you to combat.

And you soon find yourself in big, action packed missions where you infiltrate a base or something. You feel like you evolved. You are more capable now. You also use a variety of vehicles during the missions and those missions are great as well.

Variety and the feeling of progress are the two key factors in this game's success. If you noticed, I did not say main missions. Because these two factors are present in the whole game.

Side missions are also varied. We have some crazy vehicle sub-missions like ambulance missions or pizza boy missions. You have to get patients and deliver them to hospital in the ambulance missions. And you really do have to deliver pizza in pizza boy missions.

We have some racing missions. Street races, off road races and even some helicopter races. Helicopter ones are more like time trials.

We have an arena that has 3 unique vehicle events, we have vehicle import missions, we have rampages who are basically combat challenges. We have stunt jumps, hidden package collectibles and some assasination contracts.

On top of all of these, we also have side missions with narratives. You can help the different gangs in the Vice City by doing their missions. They are exactly like main missions. Cutscenes and all that. But they are fully optional.

Vice City might be a PS2 game but as you can see, it's full of content. But so, ok. Here is the interesting thing. The content delivery of the game is not good. What do I mean?

I don't know how many main missions there are in the game but I know this. The game mostly stays focused on the main missions until the last 2 main missions. Just before the last 2 main missions, the game fully opens up.

And it introduces the assets mechanic. In order to access some of those side quests I mentioned like street races or some of the narrative focused side missions; you need to go and buy some businesses.

And those 2 final main missions does not unlock unless you get a specific amount of those businesses. Unfortunately though, the game never explains this. I am sure some people at the time totally missed those last 2 missions.

This is also not good for the pacing. After focusing on the main missions in your early hours, you are expected to go out into the world and buy all these places and do missions for them. Some of their missions are also not explained well.

A guide is basically required at this point which is not good. We talked about the variety, we talked about the pacing but interestingly, we didn't talk about the core mechanics. So let's do that now.

Of course the most important core mechanic is combat. And it's, fine. It's of course bad compared to the games of today but the combat didn't felt unplayable. And the driving is good.

Before going into the technical details, the checkpoint system. There is no checkpoint system. But, there is a replay mission menu if you fail one and it directly starts the mission again with all of your weapons. Only problem is the fact that it starts from the beginning.

Even if you were at the last encounter. But Vice City's missions aren't that complex or long so I understand why they did it.

Ok, technical stuff. The graphics. I have to say, I really really like the new style. Yes it's cartoonish. But I like it. The horrendous rain effects have been updated and it looks like it should have been.

There are some bugs. But nothing game breaking. I maybe had a crash once. The game offers 2 graphical settings on the PS5. I played the Fidelity mode which offers 4K 30 FPS. This mode doesn't work that great.

I am not an expert but there are problems with frame pacing I believe. Don't quote me on that. It is 30 but it feels janky. I heard Performance was solid 50-60 FPS though. You might want to look at that.

And speaking of PS5, Dualsense anyone? Nothing. No haptic feedback, no adaptive triggers. No 3D Audio either. Speaking of audio, music is incredible in this game. If Vice City does one thing great, it's the atmosphere. You really feel like you are living in Vice City.

Finally, a little Platinum guide for my fellow trophy hunters. There are 4 missables I think. Definitely look at those. Other than that, you are looking for a 100% completion. It took me 30 Hours and aside from some collectibles, I had a great time. I recommend getting the plat!

I talked about a lot of bad things about this game. Story is not good, characters are not good, pacing feels off. But as you can see from my score, I think Vice City is a great game. Gameplay is rock solid thanks to the mission variety. Atmosphere is incredible thanks to art direction and music. It's definitely a timeless classic and you should definitely play it.

Remastered or the original depends on your preference but I have to say, at this point; this remaster isn't that bad.

Is Vice City still worth playing now? Probably not, even though I like how the missions are quick and immediate compared to later GTA's. I didn't mind the lack of in-mission checkpoints at first, but there were too many times I had to restart due to a bug or the NPC getting stuck in corners. Sometimes, it was hard to understand what I was supposed to do for some missions. I was hoping this Definitive Edition to improve the controls and fix some of the bugs, but it looks like things got even worse.

I am aware that many people are attached to this game as it was a major step forward for the series and showed the potential of open-world games, but it undeniably aged poorly. The plot is alright, but again nothing that will change your life or that I would consider worth revisiting if you have seen enough mob movies.

This is one of the greatest games of all times and everyones debate is: Vice City or San Andreas? For me I favour San Andreas but Vice City is on that level for a reason. I think the debate came down to one this: The environment. I preferred the SA atmosphere but the vibrant colourful coat of neon all around the city is so beautiful.The story in itself is amazing, the voice acting is legendary (R.I.P Ray), the side stuff ranged from mediocre to amazing and the Miami feel to the game gives you something different. Legendary game among a trilogy that ranks as the best trilogy of all time. Btw I don't care that's it's the definitive edition it's still the same in my book.

Played from – to: (2021-11-19 – 2021-11-24) - Beaten on PC via keyboard.
‣ 6/10 – The shirts look like tablecloth.
‣ Game Audio / Soundtrack - 7/10
‣ Graphics – 7/10
‣ Atmosphere – 8/10
‣ Main Story / Characters – 6/10
‣ Side Activities / Exploration – 8/10
‣ AI – 3/10
‣ Ragdolls / Physics – 4/10
‣ Movement – 3/10
‣ Voice acting – 10/10
‣ Combat –4/10
‣ Final notes: Somehow this game feels better, but I am pretty sure it is not because of the phenomenal work done to modernize it, but simply because it was newer and less broken than GTA III. A big help is the setting for the game. Vice City feels and looks more alive and vibrant. The added talking protagonist is also a big help in storytelling. Here the graphical overhaul looks decent, but I still dislike how glossy and doll like majority of the new character models look. Somehow their faces have less emotion and detail which again is impressive to accomplish. For me GTA: Vice City is definitely better than 3, but fundamentally this game is as equally bad in its gameplay design as III was. Missions usually have timers or unfair rules that can quickly end your progress if you mess up. The whole design of missions is bland and needed a rework not just a slight modernization and a new coat of paint. Again this Definitive edition is nowhere near what a definitive edition of a legendary game should be. It’s laughable that Rockstar gave the port to a fucking C tier company that makes mobile game ports, because this remaster feels like an upscaled mobile version of the game. Combat is enhanced. Sure, the game is modernized enough to be playable in this modern age, but the combat is still pathetic and awkward, boring, generic. If they put more effort into making this game modernized, they would have given you a more refined combat, maybe just copy assets from GTA V, at least then it will function properly, because what we have here is the ability to aim where you point your mouse. AMAZING. Again, it is very sad that half of the legendary songs are now missing, but thankfully there are still some bangers left. Lastly, I will just mention that half of the vehicles you use control like wet noodles on ice. Did that make sense? I don’t care half of the missions are ruined, because you have time pressure, and the vehicles control horribly.

This game runs rings around GTA III in pretty much every aspect. The story is better, especially having the protagonist being able to speak (the late, great Ray Liotta no less), the city itself feels more alive than Liberty did, the music is fantastic and there's a much better selection of vehicles. They handle way better too.

The only problem here is that it doesn't perform great. The Definitive Collection as a whole left a lot of people disappointed. GTA III was able to hide a lot of the flaws behind it's murky, dank presentation. But Vice City is much more bright and vibrant so you can see the tape holding it all together.

It's still a fun experience if you can get past that. The controls are clunky and outdated but that doesn't get in the way of the fun too much.