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Review : Grand Theft Auto : Vice City Stories for PSP
This week Grand Theft Auto : Vice City Stories for PSP came out so I did what every PSP owning GTA fan did and march over and hand over my fifty bucks for my copy. At $50 this is currently the most expensive PSP game on the shelf at my local game store. This game was developed by Rockstar Leeds and Rockstar North so when the flapping-gums talking-heads "think of the children" "Video games are evil pundants" start to go off on how this is a sign of the decaying American values/culture you can tell them to blame those limy British nerds and their love of "football" and lager.
This is a prequel to Grand Theft Auto : Vice City and you play Victor Vance the brother of Lance Vance. Victor gets kicked out of the Army and falls into a life of crime through dealing with various gangsters in Vice City. Lance joins him and together they take over the city. The game is set in 1984 a full two years before Vice City. Victor Vance is actually briefly in Vice City when he is killed in the drug deal gone wrong at the start of the game. This is like saying that Senator Bail Organa is in Star Wars : A New Hope since he was on Alderaan when Darth Vader blew it up with the Death Star.
The graphics engine has been seriously tweaked and optimized for the PSP since Grand Theft Auto : Liberty City Stories. There is a much better drawing distance, greatly reduced graphic popups, faster loading and it can handle more people and chaos on screen at one time. This game sports a bunch of cars, boats, motorcycles and scooters, planes, helicopters and ATV four wheelers. The targeting system has been tweaked and you will now automatically target the greatest threat to you when you press the aim button and the hand to hand fighting has been upgraded to include blocks, grabs, kicks and you can stand on top of enemies on the ground and punch or shoot them at close range. You can also bribe hospital staff or the cops after you are arrested or wasted to get your weapons back. I just always saved the game before each mission and reloaded after getting blown away in previous GTA games. Vance can swim so if you end up in the drink it is not instant death as older GTA games were. There is a good amount of facial animation and characters animations that make the story of the game a lot more cinematic. The bright and pastel color scheme of Vice City helps to transport you back into the early 80s.
The soundtrack is just as good as Vice City with lots of actual licensed music from the period. You got some Dio, Ratt, Dokken, Scorpions, Pat Benatar, Marvin Gaye and Run DMC as well as a whole plethora of 80s music. It is worth the extra ten bucks over the cost of Liberty City Stories for some real music. I showed my girlfriend Kymberly who worked in a record store in the 80's the track listing in the manual and she pointed out that it is almost like the game's designers went out of their way to pick painfully 80s music. I whole heartedly agreed. They also got the same voice actors as Vice City so this game has all the Gary Busey you could need in a PSP game.
The good news is that this is a good trip back to Vice City stories without watering down that good flavored GTA experience too much.
The bad news is that this has most of the same location and art from GTA Vice City and seems a bit like an expansion pack or port than a completely new game. This is probably the last GTA 3 era game until Grand Theft Auto IV for the Xbox 360 and PS3 comes out next October. They could very well be working on GTA : San Andreas Stories right now but no one has leaked anything.
Even if it is more of an expansion pack or port of an existing popular game Vice City Stories is hands down one of the best games on the PSP and it is exactly what Sony needs to sell PSP systems this Winter. Of the PS2 and Xbox GTA games I enjoyed Vice City over GTA San Andreas and I look forward to playing through Vice City Stories. This game rocks the Casbah and will occupy my PSP's drive for a long time to come
Jake at November 3, 2006 
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Comments
You may have just convinced me to pick this one up. Prior to this, I was simply turned off by the $50 admission price alone. I really think they should have priced it at $39.99, personally.
But I like GTA, I had fun with Liberty City Stories, and this installment really seems to "fix" a lot of the gripes I had with the previous release.
There are just too many games coming out! I am planning on picking up either Lumines II or Every Extend Extra (maybe both, which were scheduled to be released yesterday) for the PSP. Elite Beat Agents comes out next week (as does Guitar Hero II). Yoshi's Island 2 and Final Fantasy III for the DS come out the week after that. ARGH!
Posted by: Jeff at November 3, 2006 2:51 PM
I am getting Elite Beat Agents, Guitar Hero II and Gears of War next week! Woo!
Posted by: Jacob Metcalf ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.8bitjoystick.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at November 3, 2006 4:16 PM
I think the only reason I played GTA: VC was because of the sound track. I'm not a huge fan of the actual games because of how the mission structure is. Well, that and I just suck at accomplishing the missions.
Posted by: Llydis at November 3, 2006 11:26 PM
