The first GTA game that I really, really like! The way this PS2 version of miami is presented, with its clear structures, the unique looking character models (that tries to capture the comic book look of its cover instead of reality) and the thick color palette (full of beautiful reds, blues, greens and purple) creates an virtual space that is both alluring and calming. An effect rounded up by its stellar soundtrack that is filled with bangers and perfectly complement the games “80s by Scarface and Miami Vice” vibe. But the real surprise for me was how fun the game was apart from its atmosphere. The missions here strike a good balance between challenging the player in fun ways and not creating objectives that are a pain in the ass to complete and they mostly hit that sweet spot. The inclusion of real estate is also a neat idea, even if its underdeveloped, and provides an objective for players to do something with the thousand of dollars in their pockets.

Sadly this game also presents a few problems that would pop up in other GTA games: restrictive mission structure, derivative writing resulting in satire that honestly doest deserve to be called satire (thankfully mostly relegated to ingame radio shows) and unenjoyable shooting mechanics. it honestly kinda rocks how GTA never managed to make the shooting feel good in their games and Vice City is a prime example. Despite these flaws, I had a great time with Vice City and never expected to get so swept up in its moods and colors.

Not really special but the level design is uncomplicated enough to avoid the tedium of the lesser Resident Evil games and it delivers a ok horror action experience full of goofy looking enemies, a suprinsly engaging plot, a ridicolous amount of character switches, a weird looking jill valentine, shockingly good swimming controls (good = not awful) and some of the most horny designs for the female characters in the whole series. And of course there is the raid mode. A fine time waster, even if i don’t like how much of that mode ist statbased and how they force you to choose certain characters by giving them negative stats for different weapons. Example: Jill has higher fire rate and reload time for pistols and machine guns, but has worse fire rate and reload times for shotguns and rifles. Some characters have high enough boni to make noticable difference but most of the time it more feels like you get a disadvantage instead of an advantage.