Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (PlayStation 2) Review
Do the Lance Vance Dance!
~by tankMage (October 2026)
Score: 90/100 (Excellent)
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was a sensation in its day. I know this because I stood in line outside of a GameStop at midnight with one of my friends and a bunch of other nerds waiting for its midnight release oh those many years ago. They even had a guy dressed up like Claude from GTA3 handing out posters. Do game companies even do that anymore?
Anyway, Vice City was an obsession of mine for about a month back in 2002 and it became the metric by which I compared every GTA game after it. That said, it feels almost sophomoric in retrospect, though it’s still an excellent game. If I had to describe the innovations it brought to the series in a word, “incremental” comes to mind. While the 3rd game brought GTA into the 3D realm and gave players a lot to explore, Vice City did not add much. Sure, there are bikes, planes, and helicopters which are all welcome improvements. They also added different skins for Tommy, more weapons, and purchasable property, but none of these things are what make Vice City so special…if anything some of these novelties are kind of half baked.
Ultimately, Vice City was a massive step forward in terms of narrative and style. Tommy Vercetti is the first of GTA’s anti-heroes to actually talk. Better yet, he was voiced by Ray Liotta who was the best man for the job. The series was also freed from the shackles of time and space that had locked previous GTA games in a pseudo-New York setting during an area that had a vague 1990s feel to it. Instead, Vice City introduced us to a fictional city in Florida during the 1980s. This alone made the fourth GTA game truly unique and pushed the boundaries of the series to new horizons.
Despite its bold narrative innovations, Vice City suffers from middle child syndrome. When compared to what came directly before and after it, this title lacks GTA3’s ambition and San Adreas’ polish. Consequently, a game that was awe inspiring in its day feels like a rough draft if you’re familiar with the rest of the series. But that doesn’t mean this game doesn’t have a lot to offer. To this day, Vice City is one of the most unique and interesting locations in the entire series. Additionally, Ray Liotta and the supporting cast knocked it out of the park with some of the best (if not serious) performances in video game history. There’s also something to be said about all of the creative enthusiasm and experimentation that went into mission design even if it didn’t always land.
Story
GTA has always delivered a unique mixture of humor and crime drama which hasn’t been replicated in the gaming world. Ok, I could be wrong, but it’s fair to say there aren’t many games like GTA. Vice City follows in the footsteps of its predecessors by weaving a tale of betrayal and blood feuds. Players are put in control of Tommy Vercetti, a member of the Liberty City mafia who did 15 years of hard time.
Tommy is sent to Florida to oversee an important deal that is intended to give the Forelli crime family a foothold in the south. Things predictably go badly when he is ambushed during the deal and loses the drugs he was supposed to acquire. Tommy’s boss blames him for the mishap, so our anti-hero finds himself stranded in Vice City with the mob breathing down his neck. Great setup right?
Over the course of the game, Tommy meets all sorts of colorful characters and rises up in the ranks of the city’s underworld. Rockstar did a much better job with character development this time around. Characters pop up from time to time as Tommy climbs the ladder and they often change (for the worse) with him.
The same irreverent and often dark humor that made GTA what it is features heavily in the story as well. Jokes are often pushed to the point of being distasteful, but that’s part of what makes this series fun. The only drawback of Vice City’s humor is that the story struggles to be serious at all. This issue is only present in a few major plot points, but it’s there. While it would have been nice if certain aspects of the story were lent more gravity, I’m not sure if I would want to change anything. The story is what it is and I enjoyed it thoroughly, warts and all.
However, it would have been nice if Rockstar tied up some of the loose ends that were left dangling at the end of the main mission line. Several major characters just kind of drop off the face of the Earth. This also happens with a lot of the lesser mission lines. Money probably wasn’t an object when it came to Vice City’s development, but I’m pretty sure Rockstar struggled to keep the game contained on a single disc and decided to cut a lot of content in an effort to do so. I get it, imagine having to swap discs while playing an open world game. No thanks.
Graphics
It’s easy to give GTA games from this era a pass when it comes to graphics because the PS2 is so old now, but it’s not unfair to say the visual aspects of Vice City are weak. Most PlayStation 2 games had characters with fully defined fingers and even some hair and clothing physics. Vice City’s people look like cheap GI Joe knock-offs with their mitten hands and stiff skins. The environments aren’t much better since they often lack detail. In fact, the only things that look really good in this game are the sky and the vehicles and even that’s arguable.
That said, the three GTA games from this era were marvels even with all their flaws. The idea of simulating entire cities with pedestrians, buildings, and vehicles in 3D was truly ambitious back in the early 2000s. Rockstar had to sacrifice little details like fingers just to get these games to run. If anything, it’s a miracle that Vice City looks as good as it does.
It’s also worth noting that this title made a lot of small graphical improvements. Some buildings have interiors with little details like posters, furniture, and lights that weren’t present in GTA3. Also, Tommy can change his clothes which is a nice bonus.
Finally, Vice City is the most unique looking game in the series thanks to its tropical setting and 1980s style. The hyper colorful UI, icons that look like they belong in a candy shop, and blazing sunsets left a lasting impression on me. What’s more impressive is that this was all done in 2002 before 80s nostalgia was really a thing.
To sum it up, Vice City may not be the most beautiful PlayStation 2, but it’s one of the most technically impressive. Even today there’s something magical about the 1980s fantasy Florida that Rockstar introduced to players all those years ago.
Gameplay
Vice City offers a gameplay experience that is very similar to that of GTA3. Tommy engages in various illegal and nefarious activities like car theft (who would have guessed) , drug trafficking, murder, and armed robbery to name just a few. Rockstar added a lot of extras like helicopters, motorcycles, buyable properties, stores you can hold up, and a slew of new weapons. All of these things come together to make this game feel more fleshed out than its predecessor.
Unfortunately, I didn’t like the missions as much as I enjoyed those in GTA3. Don’t get me wrong, some of the missions are very good, but the game feels a bit too easy. They also added a lot of timed missions. While I don’t necessarily have a problem with timers, I got the impression that they were sometimes added as a lazy way to make the game more difficult/longer by forcing the player to rely on memorization to get past certain hurdles.
To be fair, there were a few missions that I found reasonably challenging and dramatic. I don’t want to spoil anything, so I’ll just say that most of the good missions were movie style shootouts and a few car chases. These missions carry Vice City and help it leave a lasting impression. There are also fewer of the missions with convoluted and unclear objectives which plagued the third GTA game.
While many of the new features help this game along, some of them have undesirable aspects. This is particularly true of buying properties. Later on in the game Tommy is required to buy certain properties and complete missions for them in order to progress. The idea seems nice on paper, but it’s a time waster in practice. The player has no way of knowing which properties are required for progress and has to look them up or just buy them all to find out. Consequently, you can burn through your cash reserves very quickly if you buy the wrong properties and get nowhere in terms of progress.
Money is also more scarce in this game, so it’s harder to stock up on weapons and the like if you get Busted or Wasted. Combined with the need to buy property, the money system makes this game kind of grindy which is not the best look for an action title. I did a lot of Taxi missions to unlock a power up and had almost all the bonus weapons from hidden packages which left me with a lot of extra cash, but still had to go around cash to buy properties. Not sure why they thought the asset system was a good idea.
Vice City is also a lot smaller than many of the other GTA locations. Honestly, this was a wise choice on Rockstar’s part because the maps on some of these games feel very empty. It also seemed to have helped with performance by cutting down on pop-in lag and loading.
I know I’ve been very critical of the gameplay, so I have to stress that the issues I’ve pointed out are minor. Vice City has far fewer annoying bullshit missions than GTA3 and its world feels more interesting to explore. It’s just that it has the rather unenviable role of being the followup to a ground breaking title. Hmmm… guess that’s why so many sequels get a bad rep come to think of it.
User Interface
GTA draws a lot of heat for its UI, which is admittedly rough. That said, I’ve played GTA3, Vice City, and Liberty City Stories over the past year and have grown accustomed to the controls. They aren’t great or even good, but they are learnable and there isn’t anything about them that’s truly heinous. I will say that the added crouch feature was more of a hindrance than a help. Pressing L3 makes Tommy crouch when not in a vehicle, which may seem nice until you push the stick too hard by accident while running away and get shot up as a consequence.
Aside from that, the controls are fairly cohesive. It takes a little practice to get used to combat and driving as I said. Flying a helicopter also takes practice. But you will feel like a pro once you’ve mastered fighting and driving.
Music and Sound
Rockstar cheated with the soundtrack. Most games need a musician to create music for them, but Vice City was able to pick from a slew of awesome 80s hits. There’s something for everyone from rock to early rap to Latin music. Almost all of the songs are great too. In fact, I couldn’t get enough of the sound track and found myself listening to 80s music when not playing the game. If I have a complaint, it’s that they didn’t think to add a portable radio or something so players could listen to it while not in a vehicle.
The voice acting is superb with Ray Liotta delivering lines with his signature street smart zest. It’s easy to forget about the supporting cast, which is a shame seeing as how they did an excellent job. Overall, Vice City may have some of the best voice acting in gaming history.
The sound effects are also top tier. Engine samples used for cars are so good that you can practically feel the gears shifting while driving. The ambient effects are also great if not a bit generic. I will say I’ve never been impressed by the samples used for gunfire in GTA games, but this series is supposed to emulate movies so I guess they’re fine.
Final Thoughts
Ok I’ve been really critical of Vice City so it’s probably going to seem silly when I say this game is great and absolutely worth playing. It may not be as moody and innovative as GTA3 nor does it have all the bells and whistles of San Andreas, but it’s a great game nonetheless. As I said at the start of this review, Vice City has the best atmosphere of any game in the series. It also introduces a lot of new ideas that were fleshed out later on.
GTA fans should play this one if they haven’t already. It’s also not a bad introduction to the series for newbies.
Thank you for checking out my Grand Theft: Auto Vice City review!
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