Grand Theft Auto 3 was a revolutionary game that changed gaming forever.
With a huge open city that offered countless ways for the player to play, it really was
a revolution.
The developers then had the struggle of making a sequel to such a groundbreaking game.
How are you to follow up on that kind of success?
Well, they figured out what everyone loved about GTA3 and refined those things and added
in more opportunities to experience that freedom.
People said,” Ok, you can create an impressive open 3D world, now what can you do with it.”
And when they released Vice City, we were all impressed again.
The only aspect this game did not move the series forward in was the story.
Instead it takes us back to a time when time seemed to stop and a time that is the favorite
party theme of all college girls.
Of course I am talking about the 80s.
Rockstar took the 80s theme and rolled with it.
Everything in the game just bleeds pastels.
You play as Tommy Vercetti, a recently released mobster who is sent to Vice City.
The game feels very similar to the movie Scarface.
In this game, you gotta make the money first.
Then when you get the money, you get the power.
Then when you get the power, then you get the women.
Or you can just buy one on the corner.
But for the most part, you have to do the missions first.
While GTA3 felt more like a series of missions strung together with a loose revenge plot,
Vice City made more of an effort to tell a great story.
Each mission feels like it helps make progress towards an overall goal.
Another thing that made the story more engrossing was the fact that your character could now
speak.
Mission intros are now part of the story instead of just someone telling you what to do.
And with the great voice acting, you will actually play the missions just to see what
is going to happen next.
Also improved is the targeting system.
One of the only problems with GTA3 was the targeting.
Vice City has improves on it and makes the shooting much better.
The thing Vice City does better than many other games is bring the player in.
GTA3 gave you an open world to play around in, while Vice City gives you a unique world
that sucks you in and then you play around in it.
Just from driving an 80s muscle car down the beach while the radio is blasting Michael
Jackson and Iron Maiden.
You don’t feel like you are playing a game set in Vice City, but rather you are in Vice
City.
Another thing Rockstar did with this is understand what the gamers wanted rather than what they
wanted.
They realised that most people ignored the story in GTA3 and just wanted to run around
and cause mayhem.
So in Vice City, instead of buckling down and making you have to play story missions
like you would expect, they gave you even more distractions.
There is simply so much to do in Vice City.
You can buy properties and go their missions to have them make you money for you or you
can just run around and use the new shooting system on random pedestrians.
From participating in Demolitions Derbies, to shooting ranges, to flying helicopters.
Vice City really is a game that is yours to play however you want.
Rockstar really out did themselves.
With such a difficult task of following up on GTA3, you could have expected this to be
a disappointment.
But instead they made a game that didn’t just live up to the previous entry, they made
one that surpassed it in every way.