Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (2006)

*Played the PS2 version through PCSX2.

This is probably the hardest GTA game I've played. It has some of the most memorable, and at the same time, frustrating missions in the series. Enemy drive-bys were the most annoying, it felt like they were shooting a minigun. Also the traffic speed is so slow, barely faster than my sprint.

The rest of the stuff is pretty great though: memorable characters, decent story, superb soundtrack (although it doesn't quite have the magic of VC) + a wealth of side content and vehicles which makes this game a step up from his "cousin", Liberty City Stories.

Still, you're probably wondering why I'm rating this a 5/5. 2 words: Phil Collins. He's in the effing game, and I'm not talking about the radio. You meet him in a few missions and you can even see him perform "In The Air Tonight" in a concert.

That being said, I'm glad I'm finally done with the 3D era games. Still have to 100% GTA 4 and 5 before I'll be able to return to bask in the sun of present day Vice City.

The last (and only) GTAs I played were 4 and 5 a long time ago so I don't remember if I had any difficulty with the missions, but man VCS can be HARD sometimes. I've read someone say it's the Dark Souls of GTAs and I couldn't agree more.

And the horrible controls don't help at all - camera's all over the place and aiming's shit (killed so many innocent people because of it).

I had the impression that basically everybody drives like a damn maniac in this game, I've never seen such crazy AI. Cars zig-zagging through traffic almost all the time, hitting me out nowhere, running over random people on sidewalks... It's BIZARRE.

Also we get way too many gang attacks on our empire, I got really annoyed by the frequency of it. And even after conquering all gang properties I still got shot at out of the blue. It made driving around the city less fun than it could be.

Despite all of that I had a great time playing VCS, I really missed the absurdity of the plot and dialogue of GTA games. And as someone who never owned a PSP and didn't get the games for GBA/DS, I just found playing it on the go the most awesome thing ever.

It's been way too long since I laughed this hard playing a game, it was a hell of an experience even with all its flaws.

Can't forget about the soundtrack, I felt like just driving around the city with the radio on because the songs were great (gang attacks aside). Even though I listened to lots of tracks more than one time I never got tired of it.

Just glad I still have Liberty City Stories and Chinatown Wars to scratch my GTA itch before GTA VI comes out!

The game is good overall and was fun, but you can feel the limitations of the PSP in the gameplay. Accordingly, some missions were unfair and without save states it would be really exhausting to have to restart them every time. The attacks on the empire buildings you conquered were annoying (I didn't realize you had to save and reload the game to make it stop) and the empire missions were unfortunately too repetitive.

Story-wise, the game is okay, the protagonist is quite likeable and most of the other characters are also okay and not annoying, but you can usually predict their development. The story itself is not particularly exciting and you can always guess what will happen next, but there was still enough variety and different locations.

Well, I'm finally throwing in the towel on this one. It's been a fun ride, but there are a few things that have just grated on me for far too long.

For one, the attacks on my businesses are near-constant, and I am rushing around the map all the time. Then when I'm not defending my businesses, I'm getting murder-assaulted constantly by rival gangs despite the fact that I've taken over most of the entire map. Not sure what's going on there or if the game is just bugging out.

The second, is that I have hit a wall with the quests. I had a ton of trouble with Jive Drive, so much so that I went and made an entire blog post about how ridiculous (yet still fun!) it was. But now I'm at this insane mission that has me shoot up guests at a pool party, murder no less than three dozen bikini-clad AK-47-wielding women at a hotel, all to get blown up on an ATV on the beach in a split second. Then I have to respawn, ride the taxi back, go find some god forsaken body armor again, only to have it drained completely by the bikini girls at the pool.

It's totally unbalanced and I actually decided after about 10 attempts that I was just going to cheat through it. However, upon looking up cheat codes I was bummed to discover there is no invincibility code, only one that gives you full armor or health. The problem is that it gets drained in a split second, either at the pool with the infinite-spawning bikini women or the asshole on the beach riding the ATV.

It no longer was enjoyable, but infuriating, so I'm done. It was a lot of fun and I made it through ~85% of the game, and I'd rather remember it fondly! It was a great revisit of one of my favorite games (GTA3) from my teenaged years, and it still blows my mind I was able to revisit on a little portable gizmo like the PSP.

I've been playing this game on PSP and I forgot just how over the top ridiculous the PS2-era GTA games were. The radio stations crack me up - I can spend hours just driving around, stealing cars and motorcycles and playing the Taxi minigame.

I'll also say that WOW I have not played a GTA game since the original GTA3 on PS2, and having this portably feels absolutely insane. I've got a flight Wednesday morning that's going to "fly" by HAHAHAHA get it cause it's a pun one love and I'm out