Face melting nostalgia. The best way to play one of the greats.

User Rating: 9 | Grand Theft Auto: Vice City - The Definitive Edition PC

Pros:

  • Graphics
    • Lighting
    • Reflections
    • Protagonist model
    • Vehicle models
    • Foliage
  • Driving
  • Action
  • Immersive world
  • A variety of fun world activities
  • Diverse missions
  • Level design
  • Tommy Vercetti
  • Definitive Edition gameplay improvements:
    • Updated controls
    • Free aim gunplay
    • Autosave and checkpoint at beginning of missions

Cons:

  • Checkpoints mid-mission would have been really nice
  • Story would have really benefited from just a little more exposition
  • Launch Issues (more of a problem with how Rockstar handled it than with the game itself)
    • It really sucked to not play on day one
    • Rockstar support communication was lousy. I’ll cut them some slack because I’m sure they were working round the clock to get things fixed, but time estimates and updates go a long way for PR.

Nitpickey:

  • Gunplay was improved, but could’ve been better
    • Wish the target reticle was just a dot, not a giant ass circle with a dot in the middle.
    • No strafing with most of the guns
    • No 3rd person with heavy weapons
  • Definitely quite a few bugs. Don’t know how many existed in the original and how many were introduced. To me it wasn’t that big of a deal though.

Rating:

  • Story ******* 7/10
  • Gameplay ********** 10/10
  • Atmosphere ********* 9/10
  • Overall ********* 9/10

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  • Story (characters, narrative, depth, pace, role playing)
  • Gameplay (mechanics, fun factor, level design)
  • Atmosphere (graphics, environment, mood)