| Game Reviews From a Parental Perspective! | |
|
|
|
| Home | Forums | Review Archive | Columns | Feature Articles |
|
Home >
Review Archive >
Video Games
> Results: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Scroll down for our Kid Factor. 
The best game your kids shouldn't play...
Love the 80's? Vice City takes us back to the excess and glories of a mid-80's Miami: Cheap sports coats (sleeves rolled up), thin ties, no socks, pastel colors, pink neon, and cocaine... all embraced by a time in music that felt, earnestly felt, that the drum machine was king. It's equal parts Miami Vice and Scarface, and casts the player as Tommy Vercetti (voiced by Ray Liotta from Goodfellas), a bad guy thug sent up the river on drug charges. He didn't squeal while in prison but the big city mobsters want him out of the picture for a while, so they set him up in Vice City. A steamy seaside burg rife with hookers, clubbers, Cubans, and gangsters. A drug deal there goes wrong and he gets embroiled with rival drug barons, including one named Diaz (Luis Guzman) who takes out his frustrations on everything around him. Vercetti needs to make some extra cash, find out who soured his drug deal, win favor with his old cronies and the local gangs, and paint the town red... with a chainsaw if necessary. The action is similar to last year's Grand Theft Auto 3. You've got a city, and different factions you can play off against each other. The game is mission-based, but you get to choose what missions you do and many of them are unrelated to the main plot. The city is fully realized, rife with side streets, alleys, pedestrians, and locations. The missions unfold like a television serial and each mission bears it's own title card and ending musical riff. In "Waste the Wife" you're charged with killing a cheating spouse, in another you must convince a jury not to testify (by killing them), you've got to help a rock band score some drugs, and chase down the dealer when he runs off without delivering (then pick up a hooker for their entertainment); another has you killing a snitch and making an example of him by using a chainsaw (shades of Scarface), assassinating a target at a golf course (using a five-iron or a golf cart ﾖ Vice City's golf resorts come with metal detectors), and, in one spectacular mission, steal a tank from an army convoy coming through town. The main story thread, one almost worthy of Scorcese, sees Vercetti set himself up as the boss of the entire town by using murder, mayhem, and daredevil driving as his calling cards. Despite the shocking content, the storylines weave together gracefully and are filled with 1980's in-jokes and surprise twists and turns as allies become enemies and the next innovative mission unfolds. The mechanics of the game are straightforward and similar to GTA3. You can enter vehicles, rudely yanking out the driver in the process, and then speed off it their ride. You're free to mow down pedestrians, shoot people, and engage in fierce firefights with the police. The game doesn't encourage this kind of behavior. The police can be a real nuisance during a mission. In fact, the game actively discourages rampage behavior mainly by making it, eventually, suicidal. The police come in greater numbers, eventually bringing along SWAT, FBI, and the Army. Step too far out of line and police cars, helicopters, and eventually a tank or two will harass you. It's a fun mini-game, going nuts like that, but people who dwell on it are missing the brilliance of the main game and complex narrative and are inconvenienced by losing money and all their weapons if they're killed or captured. The sheer amount of professionalism and stylistic touches Rockstar has added are staggering. These include the ability to shoot out tires, better car handling, motorcycles, the ability to buy buildings with your cash, and a surprising cast of voice actors. Ray Liotta, Burt Reynolds, Dennis Hopper, Lee Majors, Gary Busey, Luis Guzman, Philip Michael Thomas (Yeah Tubbs from Miami Vice), and Jenna Jameson (the Porn Star, playing Porn Star Candy Suxx, which must have been a real stretch) and many more all add a degree of, for lack of a better term, class, that is unmistakable. Then there are the nine radio stations that feature disparate classics like "I Just Died in Your Arms", "I Ran", and "Everybody Have Fun Tonight (Everybody Wang Chung Tonight)!" Other stations include Talk Radio, Latin Beats, and much more, and the writing is sharp, clever, and genuinely funny. Commercial parodies and there are even a few potent stabs at the type of anti-violence crusaders most aghast at a game like this. Also Lazlo from the last game reappears, this time as a much younger and hipper DJ. Some might quibble that Vice City doesn't do enough to improve upon Grand Theft Auto 3. They're wrong. Most of the improvements are subtle but reach deep into the code. Adding motorcycles, shooting out tires, giving you a better edge to escape the police, and adding such a refined storyline are all important additions that move the gameplay forward. Every aspect of Vice City is polished, professional, and a testament to terrific game design. Kid Factor Don't buy this game for your kids. I repeat. Don't buy this game for your kids! It's as simple as that. The GTA games may be good, they may be among the best games available in terms of quality, but the violence, the sociopathic content, the fact that in this game you can portray a psycho, means it's probably way over the heads and maturity levels of a child. Vice City is the Taxi Driver, Scarface, and Goodfellas of the game industry and teens just aren't mature enough to appreciate what's great about the game (the production values, the writing, the satire) and are too immature to put the vile freedoms (to carjack, kill, or go on city-wide rampages of mass murder) the game offers into the right perspective. It won't turn your kid into a psycho killer, but there's no way for a child far under the age of 18 to put it into proper perspective. Ages: 17 ESRB: M-Mature (for every reason possible) Producer: Take Two Developer: Rockstar North Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Browse Amazon.com's selection of "Grand Theft Auto" themed games Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City |
Read the GamerDad 2007 Holiday Guide!
|
Please Note: GamerDad is not intended to be read by anyone under 18. We stay clean, but be warned! Content Management System developed by Redbird Solutions. |
