NO-FI "MAGAZINE"
presents
GAMES TO PLAY BEFORE YOU'RE DEAD!


GRAND THEFT AUTO: VICE CITY Platform: Playstation 2
reviewed by Chris Beyond
Man, remember when The Donnas first started playing and put out a really good album, then another that was OK, and now they totally suck and write really bad music that is so crappy that they even get played on Mtv? Man, they sure suck now. Seriously, their songs are so bland and cheesy that if their new album had a vein to cut, sugar would spill out and ruin your CD rack. But I've gotten into some weird tangent. This is a video game review. So you've seen the advertising for this sidestory/prequel to Grand Theft Auto III all over buses, magazines, and those walls with posters stuck all over them. BUT will this game series begin to fizzle out into mediocrity much like those 4 girls known as The Donnas? Well, it would seem not because this game is four times better than GTA3 which was 3 times better than Grand Theft Auto II!


In GTA:VC, you play a tough fella named Tommy (voiced by Ray Liota) who just got out of a 15 year stint in jail and finds himself stuck in Miami after a drug deal gone bad. With the help of his lawyer, a sly partner (voiced by Miami Vice's Tubbs' Phillip Michael Thomas) and a cowboy-ish business man (voiced by Stroker Ace himself; Burt Renalds) he makes his way up the Miami gangland foodchain, eventually taking over the city and shooting the face off anyone who gets in his way. If this game were a movie, I'd probably hate it, but it's pretty fun to run around Vice City doing anything you want on a whim like beating up bystanders, sniping rollerskaters, and running over anyone who looks remotely like any member of The Donnas. What is fun about this game is that this is all stuff sane people would never do in real life (and it's not like you don't get punished for what you do in the game anyway) and the fact that you can jack any car (or motorcycle!!!) you want, pick up sleazy hookers, go to coked up dance clubs, get a table dance, and run a porn ring is too much to resist when it's in game form (and, hey, Dennis Hopper does the voice of one of the charicters in this game too!). There is no way that I convey how freeform this game is. Vice City is as big as a real city and you can walk or drive ANYWHERE! You can take part in over a hundred different mission or you can play it David 1X style and just blow up an endless amount of police officers who are all chasing you (and they'll get you eventually if you keep killing everyone). It is all up to you, but the missions are way better than the last GTA game and that one was pretty much perfect...so guess that makes this game perfect-er.


So in closing this is a great game, but it is CERTAINLY not for you 17 and below crowd...it can really warp you if you grew up in a bad family who never taught you the difference between wrong, right, and fantasy. And you know, I'm glad that a band like The Donnas that can actually play instruments are on Mtv and any "alternative" radio station owned by The Clear Channel, but I wish that they didn't have to sell their "figurative" souls to do it by making crappy pop music that the whole family can get into. They better follow their new album with something really special or I am not going to return any of their calls anymore. It's called "PUNK"! You used to do it girls. You're on TV now. Go f**k s**t up before your original fans stay at home to play Grand Theft Auto: Vice City instead of going to your shows.
Rockstar Games, 2002