Are you wanted by pretty much every gang in the city? Can't walk the streets without being shot at by some pesky law enforcement official? Trained assassins getting you down? If you're tired of living with the consequences of your questionable decisions, then we have the answer! Remember the Eighties? That golden era of loud suits, classic synthesised music, wacky buddy cop shows and classic arcade games… well, here at Nostalgia Trips, we're giving you the chance to relive the best years of your life! Travel back in time and step into the shoes of freshly released ex-con Tommy Vercetti and visit Vice City, a whole new playground for you to wreak havoc in and ruin your life all over again!

Out Of Touch, Back In Time

Once you've completed the mammoth task of finishing GTA III, it's time to move on - or in this case, back, as the sequel is set in a whole new city, and a whole old era. The second part of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy, Vice City perfectly captures the Eighties in every respect, from the look and feel of the many classic cars and bikes to steal, to the roller skating pedestrians, awful Hawaiian shirts and nasty suits with clashing shirts beneath them. Even the fonts for mission names are in an Eighties style, as is all the music and commercials on the many radio stations.

Tommy Vercetti has just been released from prison after doing a long stint for a Liberty City gang. They don't really want the heat of having him back in Liberty, so they send him to Vice City to run some errands until he's served his usefulness. However, a routine drug deal gets ambushed, your contacts are wiped out and you lose both the drugs and the money. Suffice to say, your Liberty boss ain't happy, and so you must head on a quest to track down the mooks that set you up, to retrieve your money and dispense some street justice.

Are You Startin' Somethin'?

The story for Vice City is an enjoyable tale and again it's packed full of memorable characters and a range of bosses and gangs to work for, be it drug running Colonel Vasquez, property developer Avery Carrington, Colombian crime lord Ricardo Diaz, the Cubans, the Haitians (complete with voodoo shenanigans!) or the Bikers. The story flows nicely, setting the scene for each mission well, while also building on what has gone before. For example, in one mission you have to steal a speedboat and in the next (for that boss) you have to use it to pick up some weapons. Events are also remembered and things escalate between gangs, with you playing rival gangs off against each other, accepting assassination missions from a payphone caller and spying on your enemies while pretending to be loyal to them.

The cut scenes are excellent throughout Vice City, each of them skilfully directed, although the graphics engine has not been improved and so things do look quite dated, as they did in GTA III, with faces and bodies looking slightly cartoon-like, rather than going for an ultra-realism style. The voice acting is superb, and a cast of Hollywood talent has been lined up for the voices, including Burt Reynolds, Lee Majors, Tom Sizemore, Gary Busey, Dennis Hopper and Ray Liotta as Tommy Vercetti. Combined with the excellent and often witty script, the story and the cut scenes never fail to entertain, making this side of things feel very much like a gangland movie.

Looking At The Perfect City

Vice City looks wonderful - it's a living, breathing city, with a huge variety of pedestrians walking (and skating) the streets, cars and bikes on the roads and different looking districts to explore, complete with every kind of shop you can think of, with some that you can enter, like the burger place, to buy food and replenish your health. There are even two arcade games in there - Pogo the Monkey and Degenetron, both of which are advertised on the radio stations (Pogo in GTA III and Degenetron here in Vice City). This kind of phenomenal attention to detail, down to the smallest touches, makes the city utterly convincing. There are shops to buy guns and melee weapons, the Pay 'N' Spray returns for losing your wanted rating when the cops are on your tail, there's a police station, fire station, junk yard, hospital, clothes shops for disguising yourself for certain missions, a golf course, a harbour - and the list just goes on and on. There's a bunch of shops you can rob too - holding them up for cash at gunpoint is easy; it's escaping the cops who're after you for armed robbery that's the tricky part!

On the streets you'll see plenty of folks in their bathing suits (shame the graphics are a little polygony!) some of them roller skating, then there are the various gang members and plenty of regular folks dressed in bad suits, leather jackets, Hawaiian shirts and so on, with a greater range of body types this time, so there are the fatties as well as buff guys and girls. Trouble breaks out periodically - I once witnessed a cop turn around unprovoked, run up to a gang, hit a member in the back and then kick his head in while he lay on the ground! Other times I've seen a driver getting out to try and help the pedestrian he hit, car accidents, muggings, and full-on gang outbreaks in areas that border two territories. There's also a day and night cycle, as well as a weather cycle, and the sunlight effects on bright, sunny days, especially at dusk and dawn, really give a summer vibe to the game, while the skies darken and lightning flashes when a storm rolls in.

Here In My Car, I Don't Feel Safe At All

When it comes to vehicles, there are well over thirty types to drive, everything from station wagons to Lamborghini style sports cars, convertibles, vans, trucks, emergency services vehicles, even a S.W.A.T. truck, security van and tank are in there, plus a number of boats too. Oddities like the golf cart are introduced, and I'll never forget chasing around a guy I had to kill on the golf course, both of us driving carts, with two guards chasing me in their carts, listening to Video Killed The Radio Star! Priceless! And there are now motorbikes, from little dirt bikes and scooters to full on sports bikes and Harleys, each handling differently but all able to skid around corners and put on a real burst of speed as you weave in and out of traffic.

Indeed, the bikes are a fantastic new addition and riding them at speed with style is as satisfying as it is to knock a rider flying when you're in a car. Be careful when on a bike though, as a collision will result in you catching some air instead! Other vehicles, like the remote control aircraft (I'll come to them later!) and boats are a little tricky to control - the handling is deliberately unwieldy, and while it is a realistically implemented system, it does feel like a bit of a fight against the forces of gravity sometimes. Every vehicle handles differently, to the point that you can really feel it - some cars turn sharper, accelerate faster and skid better than others, some have very bouncy suspension and roll quite easily at speed, while the bigger vehicles can smash into traffic without taking much damage or being knocked off course. The road is also significantly slicker when wet and the handling is noticeably affected by this - another lovely touch.

Owner Of A Loaded Gun

Although there's minimal danger involved whether you're walking the streets or speeding around, it doesn't hurt to keep some weapons with you - melee weapons include golf clubs, baseball bats, hammers and even a chainsaw, which you use to go on a killing spree on an early mission, and this is fantastic fun, as the blood spurts everywhere! I can sense Jack Thompson's outrage from here! For guns, you can carry one of each type - pistol, shotgun, SMG, assault rifle and sniper, which is extremely handy, plus the welcome return of grenades, with Molotov cocktails and tear gas thrown in for good measure. On the heavy weapons front you've got the flamethrower, rocket launcher, minigun or M60 to choose from, although you can only carry one of them at a time. So, there's more than enough in the game to cause some serious carnage!

I Just Died On The Street Tonight (It Must Have Been Something You Shot Me With)

And carnage you will cause! The range of missions is even more varied than it was in GTA III, with so many different things that there's simply too much to list. Racing across the city against time, or being chased, or chasing down someone and ramming their vehicle until it explodes, picking up items while defending yourself from attack, all-out slaughters, sneaky sniping missions to kill from a distance, speedboat chases, manning the mounted gun of a helicopter, taking on an army convoy to steal their tank (!), motorbike chases, starting a riot, destruction of property, stealing a vehicle… there are even novelty missions where you gain control of remote control aircraft, such as using a mini-helicopter to plant bombs in a building, and using a remote control plane to drop bombs on Cubans and their speedboats!

The best part about this is that you can take whatever approach you like to a mission - you can purchase or search out a sniper rifle and kill from a distance, or get some body armour and go in guns blazing, or even drive over half your enemies if they're on ground level. On one mission where I had to collect drugs packages, with the cops giving me an increasingly tough time, I drove up to the roof of a building on a motorbike, so I was ready to speed off the moment they arrived. On the mission where I had to steal the tank, I drove my flaming car at the first truck, which exploded and killed all the soldiers, then picked a few more off from a distance with my assault rifle, then shot the other truck until it blew up, and finally got hold of that tank. On the mission where I had to protect Ricardo Diaz from an attack, at the end a guy on a dirt bike steals a wad of cash and you're supposed to grab another bike and chase him, then gun him down (you can use your SMG while on a bike, which is very nifty!) Instead, I just grabbed a car, slipped through the back streets and rammed the cretin flying, then backed over him to finish him off!

Although some missions are limited by their nature, the majority of the missions allow you real freedom of choice in devising cunning methods of completing them - which is fortunate, because you will fail a lot, either from running out of time, getting busted or being wasted (resulting in the loss of all weapons and a cash payment for police bribery or doctor's fees). Some of the missions can be very frustrating, and what's worse is that if you fail, you have to drive back to the start point to restart. It's also very annoying that you have to drive all the way to the hotel to save the game - this can take several minutes if you're the far side of the city, and once you've got a great stash of weapons, you'll be inclined to save after every mission to save from gathering or purchasing them again if you lose them through injury or arrest. You do get given save points, and also gain save points as you buy various properties and start to get your claws into the city, but even so the saving can be a real chore. Still, you can at least wreak havoc on members of the public as you go, all the while listening to Vice City's fantastic radio stations.

Vice City Saves The Radio Star

One thing that GTA is famous for (yes, we already know it's famous for wanton violence and destruction, thank you anyway JT!) is the host of spoof radio stations, which are absolutely authentic - they are like real radio stations in every respect, with jingles, DJs, advertisements and even chat shows, as well as plenty of classic tunes. While GTA III featured a great selection, this is your big chance to relive a range of Eighties classics, from artists such as Twisted Sister, Iron Maiden, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Blondie, Tears For Fears, Michael Jackson, Spandau Ballet, Bryan Adams and many, many, many more, with songs such as Cars, Kids In America, Gold, Died In Your Arms, Broken Wings, Billie Jean, Call Me, Run To You, Pale Shelter, Video Killed The Radio Star and Life's What You Make It.

There's even something there for the younger generation (by that I mean 18-21 year olds, of course!), who will recognise the themes that have been used in cover versions in the charts over the last couple of years, including Waiting For A Girl Like You, Owner Of A Lonely Heart, Out Of Touch and Get Down Saturday Night (samples of which are used in both Make Luv and The Weekend). Suffice to say, older gamers like myself will revel in this nostalgic music, and on many occasions I drove around the city listening to the end of a song before activating the next mission.

Each station has its own DJ and some of the best characters from GTA III have been brought back for Vice City. Talk show host Lazlow is in charge of the VRock station, crazy pimp Fernando Martinez is the voice of Emotion FM, for the slow songs, while Toni from Flashback FM is host to Flash FM - playing the same kind of songs as before, but now they're recent releases - I guess she never really moved on since the Eighties! A whole new set of commercials, many of them themed to topical things of the time, are here, including Norse god Thor's self help program (done Tony Robbins style!), a couple of retirement homes, something called Giggle Cream, a vicious chemical germ killer (for washing the kids with), some spoof movie adverts, a hilarious advert for a sitcom send up, dodgy condo dealing at Shady Acres, Degenetron arcade machine for the home and plenty more. These commercials will have you laughing out loud, as will the extensive script for the two radio talk show stations, which are packed with satirical stereotypes and razor sharp dialogue. Other stations include Wildfire for rap, Wave for latest hits and synthesiser numbers, and Fever for Seventies dance classics, plus Esperanto, with elevator music style tunes with varied Latino influences.

And The Game Goes On

Vice City is huge - not just the city, but the game itself. To 100% complete the game, you'll not only need to finish the main story missions, but you'll also have to complete every extra mission and odd job, go on every available rampage (where you must kill or destroy a certain number of people or things within a time limit, using only a certain weapon), find 100 hidden packages, complete every unique jump in the game (driving up a ramp at a fast enough speed), purchase every property (as you build your empire and slowly become the crime boss of Vice City) and rob every store!

Even just playing through the main missions will take you at least twenty hours, but to complete all of the above, well - with the usage of a walkthrough I'd say you'd still be doing well to complete it all in under a hundred hours, and without one, try two or three hundred - that's well over a week's worth of hours! This game really is the completist's dream (or nightmare, depending on how much time you've got!) and as achievements go, there aren't many bigger ones than having the wits, skill and persistence to 100% Vice City - I doubt it's something I'll ever find the time to do!

I've Been Waiting, For A Game Like This

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is a fantastic follow up to GTA III for all the right reasons. It doesn't revolutionise the series, but setting it in the Eighties was a stroke of pure genius and makes everything feel totally fresh. With a whole new city to explore and even more imaginative missions and extras packed in, Vice City succeeds in being a triumphant gaming experience that is arguably unsurpassed - or was, until the next in the series was released. So, when you've decided that your trip down memory lane is complete and the nostalgia begins to wear thin, it's time to get bang up to date and move into a truly revolutionary and open-ended experience that goes by the name of San Andreas…

Reviewed by Geoff Holland for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).