Vice City Stories is an excellent game, and a serious competitor for previous games of the series.

User Rating: 8.5 | Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories PSP
Rockstar Games' series Grand Theft Auto has recently made a second jump to the PSP. The system may be smaller and have a lot less power then its predecessors the Xbox and Ps2, but you can expect the same great play as you have come to love from Liberty City, Vice City, and San Andreas. In this game you are a character named Victor Vance. He is a man who joined the army so he could make some money and take care of his ill family, his brother in particular. You start out the game working for your Sergeant as he realizes you need some extra money. Almost right away you are brought into the crime filled world, as the first few missions involve you snagging and hiding drugs regretfully. Without giving too much of the story away, you are later betrayed by your fellow, and go on to be hired by many other people. The game has a new title, but takes the typical feel of this series. As you run from person to person, you will be doing various, short crime-oriented mission. Each mission rewards you with an amount of money that generally ranges from fifty dollars to eventually the thousands. The game sounds like the same old thing, but it will still keep many people interested, the small changes in the mission types, and the ever twisting story are enough to keep anybody going. The controls are not something that will stop this game from utter success. Even though the PSP does lack buttons, the game is not at all affected, probably because not many buttons were needed for the stationary consoles either. Players will immediately be able to pick up the PSP and feel at easy, with the way the control the streets of the city that this franchise has already visited. Vice city looks as great as ever. It may be the same city as before, but it is done well, and a few changes, make it not as repetitive. Everything in the city looks great too. Stores, cars streets, etc. look just like they did on the big consoles. However, again the series has problems with graphics. Characters look poorly done like in previous games, and look like very little effort has been taken when doing their skin and facial expressions. Especially during the cut scenes you will notice that what the characters say and what they are doing with there bodies and faces look very different. Another issue with graphics is the horrible frame rate. While you are running or fighting gang members the bad frame rate does not show, however while you ride you will notice the problem immediately. Every second of your driving looks like it skips a lot, and you’ll feel like Rockstar simply made a stop motion of cars driving, and that’s your driving simulation. However, you must come to realisation that this is a small sacrifice for the amazingly long game, and extremely fun gameplay. The camera is also quite bad, and often doesn’t show you what you need to see, making it a huge nuisance.

The high point of the game is its game play. It tends to keep itself un-repetitive, and once you get deeper in the game, and the purpose of the shooting becomes more apparent it will become even more fun. The missions have some variety and you will be doing different things for different reasons. Also aside from the hundreds of hours of gameplay that you get from playing the missions, there are also many side missions that occur when you make your own empire. The empire turns out to be a pain in the neck and really fun at the same time. This is because when you get a few buildings, you will start thinking strategically about which combinations of which kinds of buildings work best. The types of buildings you can build are of a wide variety ranging from prostitution to drugs smuggling. As well as upgrading and changing around your buildings you will also have to take care of them, from things like fire, and attacks from rival gangs such as Cholos and Bikers. Aswell as the city returning you will once again here some pretty funny radio. There are some pretty good songs, but some become extremely repetitive, and some down right annoying. Most players will probably enjoy listening to the radio talk, because there are some pretty fun things to hear. Aswell as the radio, the characters words have also taken a twist more towards humour and although the lines seem to be less constructive and more winging it, they are still quite entertaining.

Grand Theft Auto has returned to the PSP with Vice city stories, and it is ashame that it has no online play like the PC GTA’s do. However, it is still and amazingly good game, and loading times have been majorly decreased, and although there haven’t been many changes to help the graphics, Vice City Stories is still very exceptional, and a sure competitor for the previous games of the series. It is an excellent single player game that will keep long time fans and new comers alike, playing for so many fun hours. 8.4 out of 10.