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Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is a 2002 open world action-adventure video game developed by Rockstar North (formerly DMA Design) in the United Kingdom and published by Rockstar Games. It is the second 3D game in the Grand Theft Auto video game franchise and sixth original title overall. It debuted in North America on October 29, 2002 for the PlayStation 2 and was later ported to the Xbox, and Microsoft Windows in 2003. It was made available on Steam on January 4, 2008, and on the Mac App Store on August 25, 2011. The Nintendo Gamecube version was planned, but it was never released. Vice City was preceded by Grand Theft Auto III and followed by Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
Vice City draws much of its inspiration from 1980s American culture. Set in 1986 in Vice City, a fictional city modeled after Miami, the story revolves around psychopathic Mafia hitman Tommy Vercetti, who was recently released from prison. After being involved in a drug deal gone wrong, Tommy seeks out those responsible while building a criminal empire and seizing power from other criminal organizations in the city. The game uses a tweaked version of the game engine used in Grand Theft Auto III and similarly presents a huge cityscape, fully populated with buildings, vehicles, and people. Like other games in the series, Vice City has elements from driving games and third-person shooters, and features an open world gameplay that gives the player more control over their playing experience.
Upon its release, Vice City became the best-selling video game of 2002. In July 2006, Vice City was the best-selling PlayStation 2 game of all time. Vice City also appeared on Japanese magazine Famitsu's readers' list of the favorite 100 videogames of 2006, the only fully Western title on the list. Following this success, Vice City saw releases in Europe, Australia and Japan, as well as a release for the PC. Rockstar Vienna also packaged the game with its predecessor, Grand Theft Auto III, and sold it as Grand Theft Auto: Double Pack for the Xbox. Vice City's setting is also revisited in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, which serves as a prequel to events in Vice City.
Plot
Tommy Vercetti, a member of the Liberty City mafia, has been just released from prison in 1986 after serving only 15 years for killing eleven men. Tommy's old boss, Sonny Forelli, fears that Tommy's presence in Liberty City will heighten tensions and bring unwanted attention to his organization's criminal activities. To prevent this, Sonny ostensibly promotes Tommy and sends him to Vice City under the guardianship of Mafia lawyer Ken Rosenberg to act as their buyer for a series of cocaine deals. During Tommy's deal with the Vance Crime Family at the docks, an ambush by an unknown party results in the death of Tommy's bodyguards and the cocaine dealer, Victor Vance (the main character of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories). Tommy narrowly escapes and loses both Forelli's money and the cocaine.
When Tommy informs Sonny of the ambush Sonny loses his temper and threatens Tommy with the consequences of attempting to cheat the Mafia. Tommy promises to retrieve the money and the cocaine and kill whoever was responsible for the ambush. Towards this end, Tommy meets up again with Ken Rosenberg, who leads Tommy to mid-level drug dealer Juan Garcia Cortez. Cortez expresses regret about Tommy's bad deal and promises that his own lines of inquiry are being made. Tommy also meets Cortez's daughter Mercedes, who becomes Tommy's confidante shortly thereafter.
While Tommy waits for the outcome of Cortez's investigation he meets British record producer Kent Paul, real estate mogul Avery Carrington and local free-lance criminal Lance Vance, Victor's brother and business partner who is also seeking revenge.
As time passes, Tommy befriends Cortez and begins to do regular work for him as an errand boy and hitman. On one such job, Tommy saves drug lord Ricardo Diaz's life during a deal which is ambushed by a gang of Haitians. Consequently, Diaz begins hiring Tommy for his own agenda. Tommy takes this work because it pays well, in spite of his distaste for Diaz's character.
Tommy learns from Cortez that Cortez's own lieutenant, Gonzalez, was partially responsible for the ambush on Tommy's cocaine deal, and Cortez asks Tommy to kill Gonzalez as a favor. Afterwards Cortez lays suspicion for the ambush on Diaz. Tommy initially continues the status quo to prepare for his attack, but his hand is forced when Lance attempts to take revenge by himself and fails, forcing Tommy to rush across the city and rescue him. With the die cast, the two move quickly to raid Diaz's mansion and execute Diaz. With Diaz dead, and Colonel Cortez fleeing the country to escape arrest, the established drug empires in Vice City quickly crumble and Tommy and Lance personally take over, becoming Vice City's cocaine kingpins.
Tommy becomes the head of his own organization, the Vercetti crime family, and the more powerful and rich Tommy becomes, the more Lance begins to exhibit paranoid and sociopathic behaviors, to the point that he begins to abuse his own bodyguards and constantly calls Tommy in states of hysteria.
Tommy makes alliance with Umberto Robina's Cubans against Auntie Poulet's Haitians, even though he is at the same time hypnotized by Poulet's voodoo into helping the Haitians. However after Tommy and Poulet part ways Tommy and the Cubans sneak explosives into the Haitian drug factory disguised in Haitian gang cars and blow it up, effectively ending the conflict.
As his drug business expands, Tommy buys assets in nearly bankrupt companies such as a car lot, a cab depot, a strip club, a night club, a boathouse, a print shop for counterfeit money, an ice-cream company, and an adult film company, all of which he turns back into competitive businesses. He also becomes a personal bodyguard to a rock band, an honorary member of a biker gang, and pulls off a major bank heist.
Eventually the Forelli family discovers that Tommy has taken over much of the action in Vice City without sending a cut to Sonny as required. Sonny sends collectors to force money out of Tommy's assets, but Tommy disposes of them. An angered Sonny arrives in Vice City with a small army of mafiosi, intent on taking their tribute by force. When Sonny and his henchmen arrive at the Vercetti Estate, Tommy attempts to give them their tribute in counterfeit money. However, Lance, resenting Tommy's substantial share of their profits, makes a back-room deal with the Forellis to topple the Vercetti family, and informs Sonny that the tribute money is counterfeit. In the game's climax, Tommy stands alone as Lance, Sonny, and Sonny's henchmen raid Tommy's Mansion.
Tommy first chases, ridicules, and finally kills Lance then storms downstairs where he faces off with Sonny. During the gunfight, Sonny admits he is the one who set Tommy up fifteen years before, sending him to kill the eleven men who were expecting him. Tommy eventually kills Sonny in the main hall of his estate. With his enemies vanquished, Tommy establishes himself as the undisputed crime kingpin of Vice City.
Setting
The game is set in fictional Vice City, which is based on Miami, Florida. The game's look, particularly the clothing and vehicles, reflect (and sometimes parody) its 1980s setting. Many themes are borrowed from the major films Scarface, Carlito's Way and Blow, along with the hit 1980s television series Miami Vice.[citation needed] Vice City also parodies and pays tribute to much of 1980s culture in the cars, music, fashion, landmarks, and characters featured in the game.
Ricardo Diaz's opulent mansion and the climactic battle which takes place in it are very similar to their counterparts in Scarface. Another reference is the game's overall storyline, as it is highly similar to the film, as is the design of the final mission. There are also more subtle references, such as an apartment hidden within the game with blood on the bathroom walls and a chainsaw (in a nod to the film's "chainsaw torture" scene), or the pair of detectives which come chasing Vercetti in a car resembling the Ferrari Testarossa after a three-star wanted level is attained, which look like characters portrayed by Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas in Miami Vice.
Characters
Main article: List of characters in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Vice City features dozens of characters, many appearing only in the cut scenes which describe each mission. The voice-talent includes Ray Liotta as protagonist Tommy Vercetti, Tom Sizemore as Sonny Forelli, Robert Davi as Colonel Juan García Cortez, William Fichtner as Ken Rosenberg, Danny Dyer as Kent Paul, Dennis Hopper as pornography Director Steve Scott, Burt Reynolds as Avery Carrington, Luis Guzmán as Ricardo Diaz, Miami Vice star Philip Michael Thomas as Lance Vance, Danny Trejo as Umberto Robina, Gary Busey as Phil Cassidy, Lee Majors as "Big" Mitch Baker, Fairuza Balk as Mercedes Cortez, and porn actress Jenna Jameson as Candy Suxxx. The voice of the taxi dispatcher is provided by Blondie singer Debbie Harry.
Although the main character is not the same as the one in Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City contains a few characters from GTA III at an earlier point in their lives. Donald Love, a business tycoon in GTA III, makes an appearance as an apprentice to real estate mogul Avery Carrington. The one-armed Phil Cassidy from GTA III appears in Vice City as well, with both arms intact, and one mission actually explains when and how he lost his arm.
Several of GTA III's radio hosts can also be heard in Vice City: Lazlow, who was the host of Chatterbox, the talk radio station in GTA III, is the DJ for the hard-rock station, V-Rock, in Vice City (he mentioned in passing in GTA III that he used to be a DJ on a rock station). Toni, the burned-out, female disc jockey of Flashback 95.6, the 1980s music radio station in GTA III, also appears as a young, club-hopping DJ in Vice City's pop music station, Flash FM. Finally, Fernando, a self-glorifying procurer of women ("not a pimp... a savior," he claims) who appeared on Lazlow's show in GTA III, runs Emotion 98.3. Also naturist Barry Stark, a caller for Chatterbox in GTA III, appears as a guest on VCPR in Vice City.
Gameplay
Because Vice City was built upon Grand Theft Auto III, the game follows a largely similar gameplay design and interface with GTA III with several tweaks and improvements over its predecessor. The gameplay is very open-ended, a characteristic of the Grand Theft Auto franchise; although missions must be completed to complete the storyline and unlock new areas of the city, the player is able to drive around and visit different parts of the city at his/her leisure and otherwise, do whatever they wish if not currently in the middle of a mission. Various items such as hidden weapons and packages are also scattered throughout the landscape, as it has been with previous GTA titles.
Players can steal vehicles, (cars, boats, motorcycles, and even helicopters) partake in drive-by shootings, robberies, and generally create chaos. However, doing so tends to generate unwanted and potentially fatal attention from the police (or, in extreme cases, the FBI and even the National Guard). Police behavior is mostly similar to Grand Theft Auto III, although police units will now wield night sticks, deploy spike strips to puncture the tires of the player's car, as well as SWAT teams from flying police helicopters and the aforementioned undercover police units, à la-Miami Vice. Police attention can be neutralized in a variety of ways.
A new addition in the game is the ability of the player to purchase a number of properties distributed across the city. Some of these are additional hideouts (essentially locations where weapons can be collected and the game saved). There are also a variety of businesses called "assets" which the player can buy. These include a film studio, a dance club, a strip club, a taxi company, an "ice-cream delivery business" (acting as a front company), a boatyard, a printing works, and a car showroom. Each commercial property has a number of missions attached to it, such as eliminating the competition or stealing equipment. Once all the missions for a given property are complete, the property will begin to generate an ongoing income, which the increasingly prosperous Vercetti may periodically collect.
Various gangs make frequent appearances in the game, some of whom are integral to story events. These gangs typically have a positive or negative opinion of the player and act accordingly by following the player or shooting at him. Shootouts between members of rival gangs can occur spontaneously and several missions involve organized fights between opposing gangs.
Optional side-missions are once again included, giving the player the opportunity to make pizza deliveries, drive injured people to a hospital with an ambulance, extinguish fires with a fire truck, deliver passengers in a taxi, be a vigilante, using a police vehicle to kill criminals, and the ability to drive a bus, transporting fare-paying passengers. Monetary rewards and occasional gameplay advantages (e.g. increased health and armor capacity and infinite sprinting) are awarded for completing different difficulty levels of these activities. Different sums of money are awarded for landing trick jumps in motorcycles or fast cars depending on the number of flips and height achieved.
Vehicles
In total, there are about 114 types of vehicles in the game (including non-maneuverable vehicles and remote-controlled vehicles), compared to the approximate 85 in GTA III. Taxicabs, automobiles and boats return from the game (along with many others), while new additions include helicopters and motorcycles (a citywide ban in 2001 in GTA III prohibited their use in Liberty City). The car physics and features are relatively similar to that of GTA III, and some cars were added to the game, including a sportier variant of a luxury car, while some vehicles from that game were highly modified.
The Skimmer plane is the only flyable fixed wing aircraft in Vice City, and because it features pontoons and is normally found in water, it is a floatplane, a type of seaplane. It can land almost anywhere, in contrast to the jets in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. It has been noted that the Skimmer's design is almost exactly like the Dodo airplane in GTA III. Vehicle performance varies with location, some vehicles performing better off-road or on the street, while others perform better in the air or on land.
Soundtrack
Main articles: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City soundtrack and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Official Soundtrack Box Set
Vice City includes a large collection of licensed music from 1986 and before. It can be listened to by means of various in-car radio stations. Each station covers a particular music genre, such as rap music (Wildstyle), rock (V-Rock) and (most predominantly) pop music (Wave 103, Flash FM). The tracks are for the most part works from various real-life artists, such as Megadeth, Electric Light Orchestra, Judas Priest, Quiet Riot, Toto, Blondie, Iron Maiden, Ozzy Osbourne, David Lee Roth, INXS, Michael Jackson, Teena Marie, Rick James, Kate Bush, Bryan Adams, Go West, Luther Vandross, Kool & the Gang, A Flock of Seagulls, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Spandau Ballet, Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, Hashim, Corey Hart, Laura Branigan, REO Speedwagon, and Eumir Deodato. Additionally, a talk station (K-Chat) and a public radio debate show Pressing Issues (VCPR) are included. The radio stations and the game's storyline also feature a fictional heavy metal band called Love Fist. The multi-CD soundtrack to the game was an instant best-seller.
In addition to music and interviews, the stations also include satirical commercials, such as the Degenatron, a fictional video game console ("Save the green dots with your fantastic flying red square!"), likely a parody of the Atari 2600. The commercials and the game setting are consistent: Degenatron advertisements appear on billboards, and ads air for stores in which the player can actually shop, such as Ammu-Nation. Months before the release of Vice City, Rockstar Games created a Degenatron "fansite", which allowed users to actually play the "emulated" games. There is also a commercial for the "popular" weapons store Ammu-Nation ("We even have the rocket launcher that was used when we whipped Australia's Ass"), a deodorant named "Pitbomb", which is a parody of Right Guard, and a car called the Maibatsu Thunder, a parody of the Mitsubishi Starion, which was a favored import sports car of the day.
The Windows and Mac versions of the game allow users to import MP3 songs, allowing them to hear their own music through vehicle radio when tuning to an extra radio station called "MP3". To be able to do this, the user must copy their MP3 files to a specific folder installed by the game.
Reception and sales
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was released to critical acclaim from critics and fans alike. The game received ratings of 9.7/10 from IGN, 9.6/10 from GameSpot, 5/5 from GamePro, and 10/10 from Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine. The game has a score of 95 out of 100 on the review compiling website Metacritic making Vice City the sixth highest rated PlayStation 2 game on the site. It was also generally praised for its open-ended action and entertaining re-creation of 1980s culture.
The readers of Official UK PlayStation Magazine voted it the 4th greatest PlayStation title ever released.
As of September 26, 2007, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City has sold 15 million units according to Take-Two Interactive. As of March 26, 2008, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City has sold 17.5 million units according to Take-Two Interactive, making it the fourth highest selling video game for the PlayStation 2.
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