So Now I Kinda Like Vice City

I feel old.

I am playing through GTA: Vice City due to a PSN sale these past few days, and I have feelings of nostalgia which strikes me as ridiculous because I remember - quite clearly - when this game came out. I had already begun driving lessons! That was thirteen damn years ago now and it weirds me out.

It's funny, though. Not having played V yet, I truly think GTA was at it's best on the PS2. The games hit the right balance of story and action, but didn't bog you down with too much realism or whatever that IV suffered from. Vice City's problem, though, which got WAY worse in IV, is that you have a cellphone, and people call you and talk to you pointlessly, when they should just tell you whatever they were calling you about when you go start a mission. Though I suppose not being pestered to go play fucking pool with your fucking cousin all the damn time is way worse.

Anyway, I am having fun playing Vice City, which is new because I kind of strongly disliked it when it came out. For whatever reason, I was very anti-80s at the time, and the game is positively dripping with 80s flavor. I've since come around on most of the music of the era, so now I quite like the soundtrack. The splashes of pink and pastel 80s colors don't bother me as much, especially since most action games nowadays or just greys and browns for the most part (hello GTA frickin IV, for example).

The story is kind of goofy, because Vice City really feels like I am playing a video game. What I mean by this is rather than a seamless progression of a narrative like we would later get in San Andreas, you get a bunch of disjointed missions given to you by just random people who don't seem to have much bearing on the overall story besides "is a crime-y type of person." The characters leap to conclusions between missions that don't make much sense. For example, when I found out the guy who owns the giant mansion that I was doing missions for organized the bum drug deal at the beginning of the game, I didn't really have any clue as to why it was him. Like Tommy Vercetti, the player character, was told this guy did it, with not really any proof, and so he bought it, killed the guy, took his house, and has now begun taking over Vice City. The only way I can reconcile this is if I skipped a mission somewhere that gives you a bit of background as to what is going on. Basically, I don't like the story of Vice City much at all - 3 didn't make a ton of sense either but at least it felt logical working for one guy and then the next. San Andreas, which has its problems (that game has TOO many missions, a lot of which are completely out of character for CJ, for example), presents its central narrative a lot better (IMO, the best of any GTA game, sans V, which again I haven't played yet). San Andreas also has the best gameplay, but that's a different post.

You can see Vice City as a successful improvement on the gameplay of 3, though. They added motorcycles and boats and helicopters, all of which are pretty fun to drive around and the helicopters, specifically, make getting around the world very fun. There's nothing like landing the helicopter in the middle of a busy intersection, doing whatever you came to do, then hopping in and flying off.

The helicopter really shows how small Vice City is, though. Like it feels tiny. Even driving from one end of the game map to the other doesn't take very long. I can't remember if it's any bigger than the city in 3, but it doesn't feel like it. I need to revisit San Andreas again soon because that game felt absolutely enormous despite having so much empty space out in the countryside. Vice City, by comparison, is made up of two pretty small islands and some water (25% of which is taken up by the airport, believe it or not. The place is HUGE!).

Not having played the Saints Row series, either, I have to say I think GTA3, Vice City, and San Andreas hit the style of GTA game I want just right. From what I've heard of Saints Row, they take the goofy, jokey stuff too far and has a completely ridiculous story instead of just a kind of ridiculous story. Then you have GTAIV which tried to be a fucking New York in 2006 simulator with its cell phones and "realistic" gray ass graphics and weather and awful car controls and all the fun sucked right out of it. I know I'm too hard on IV but I just cannot get into the thing. It feels like a giant chore as soon as I start playing it, which the PS2 trilogy never felt like.

I'm not sure if it's possible to be a GTA snob, but I'm pretty sure I am one.