Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Comments by Kristan Reed

I must say, I have not read the above yet, but I am very impressed by the length of your article.

ooooo, MATRON !

Read it now.

And it was very good. Roll on November the 8th !

A well deserved 10 in OPSM2 (well they had to make up for the fact that they made a hog's ass of the GTA3 review), practically no competition out at the moment gameplay-wise...it's a must have...!

If only to hear Fernando Martinez's radio station!

Me, I'm parading around in my hawaiian shirt all this week just to remind my boss where I'll be all next week - vacationing in Vice City.

Peej

Kristan, you are indeed a committed journalist...if I had Getaway and Vice City disks I'm not sure I'd get much work done for weeks...

Is there any 'Adam and the Ants'?

Wonder if Edge will undo their greatest ever wrong (7/10 for GTA3) with the review for this one?

Edge scoring...hmmm....

Eurogamer and Halo? Anyone?

lol, hey told you no 60hz mode didn't I - eh eh, inside info mate.. wink wink

99 Red Balloons? God, 20 years later I can still hear that song. Make it go away.

Have we any confirmation that the number of copies released this Friday will only be 200K??? If so, there are going to be alot of oldies in Farrah trousers and HT Silver Shadow trainers this Friday going home unhappy.

Gameplay.com alone have had over 5000 pre-orders.

You probably can't even get hold of Rockstar shares, let alone of copy of the game, LOL

game of the year – by a mile

Everywhere except the eurogamer awards it would seem.

So Kristian, the $1,000,000 question..

after spending time with both GTA:VC and The Getaway which is the one to get? or or they different/good enough in there own right to warrant buying both?

I really liked GTA3 but never completed it as I found it lost its magic after a while.

Get one now, and the other for christmas.

Well I pre ordered this a few weeks back so touch wood i`ll have a copy this friday, and the good news is for me is that i`m off work for a week from thursday so I`m quite looking forward to playing this....but no doubt there will be the newspapers going on about how bad this is for various things and to be honest I could`nt care less...its fun and thats what i`m looking for....

Get GTA:VC at the end of Novemeber, play it solid, finish it, return it free on the GAME policy and swap for The Getaway (if you're name is Billy Tightnuts)

if you're name is Billy Tightnuts

only on the weekend

but don't tell the misses ;-)

Everywhere except the eurogamer awards it would seem.

Where the people made the choices.

Ah Nem, but are you talking the English version or the purist Deutsch version?

"Neunundneunzig luftballons"

;-)

IIRC (and I don't know where this thought comes from) if you purchased the UK copy of 99RB you got the German version on the flip side.

This is back in the days of Vinyl kids.

So when the loading screen simulates the loading of a Commodore 64...

I think I just came.

For the majority of the scamps here at Eurogamer, this means they’ll be experiencing the 80s for pretty much the first time

I think you reallyneed to do some field research here... :-)

a case of giving the people what they want.

except for the 60hz mode, i know it doesn't make a dramatic difference but its to be said that slightly bordered slower PAL versions are inferior.

hopefully they are making a PC version, if not.. i'll just have to wait and see if i can import.

I think the £79.98 question is you simply have to have both games. You'll like different elements of both. VC has more to do, will last longer (I suspect), but The Getaway has a newness to it that is inescapable.

OPS2M also said Devil May Cry was full-speed, and that FFX would have no borders.

*definitely* no 60hz mode.

Someone please tell me there is a pc version coming out, Please!

"For the majority of the scamps here at Eurogamer, this means they’ll be experiencing the 80s for pretty much the first time"

UncleLou: "I think you really need to do some field research here... :-)"

I think he is talking about the staff! :-)

Errol: "I must say, I have not read the above yet"

These kinds of posts really are annoying... :)

st3ph3n: "Everywhere except the eurogamer awards it would seem."

Voted by the readers. Unfortunately we were bombarded with OpFlash fanboys... probably next time we will make it registered users only I think. Everyone here *knew* it wasn't the right result but we didn't want to go down the road of rigging the results!

"So when the loading screen simulates the loading of a Commodore 64"
You forgot to mention that it simulates the extremely long loading times of the Commodore 64 as well. ;)

While it's nice that you can now go inside a few buildings, I've been shying away from it unless I know that I have to absolutely go inside because it does take so long to load...either that or my PS2 is going to shit and I'll have to replace the damn thing for the second time. :( Still, it's an awesome game.

edit: my shit grammar

"either that or my PS2 is going to shit and I'll have to replace the damn thing for the second time. "

ahahahah! sorry i've got to laugh at you. i've replaced my PS2 twice already and I'm always happy when I see others going through the same pain.

seems a lot of companies are putting out make-up reviews for poor GTA3 scores. Can we expect a 12 out of 10 review score for Halo here at Eurogamer?

Er, which of these poor scores do you refer to?
Though I also have the impression a lot of sites give their readers what they think they want to read in this case. But I am biased and didn't like GTAIII too much, probably GTA:VC is just a great game...

Very surprised to hear this game getting a pseudo-slagging when I doubt very much that many of the people on here have actually played it yet. Sentences in the review like "The engine is looking outdated" and "The first impressions are that the gameplay is the same" are just hilarious to read. Well DUH!!! If they'd changed too much there would've been an outcry. I would've personally been quite happy with just an add-on mission disk (in fact I'd more or less convinced myself that they were going to do that) but no, we've got a totally separate whole new game to play with, various improvements (the new threat targetting system is beaut!), seriously different to handle vehicles (the bikes really are as good as you'd expect - the scooter is a bit tough to control though) and of course let's not forget a living, breathing, free roaming environment which seriously throws a lot of nice little touches at you constantly.

Bad reviews, good reviews - it won't matter in the long run as this game will sell by the bucketload, and will probably ensure that the PS2 will lead the christmas console sales stakes. If Sony have got any marketing sense, they'll do a bundle pack like Microshaft are - and make sure this is one of the games that gets bundled...

Peej

S0NY R0CK5.

While it's nice that you can now go inside a few buildings, I've been shying away from it unless I know that I have to absolutely go inside because it does take so long to load...

So does that mean the game stops to load each time you go inside a building? Okay, there weren't many indoor environments in it, but the only loading times in GTA III were when you moved between each of the three islands. If the game stops to load whenever you want to go inside, surely that's going to spoil the experience a bit?

How long is that load time ba? I've heard reports between 'almost instantaneous' to up to 5 seconds?

You reckon its longer than that ?

What of the reports only 200,000 copies are UK bound? even pre-ordering it somewhere may result in disappointment. I want my copy safe, but can anywhere guarantee it?

I have some freinds who can guarantee it. They are planning a daring raid on GTA - VC storage warehouses.

Tell your friends I shall meet them near the watch tower at midnight. I shall wear a tin of carnation...

You know how GTAIII would sometimes not maintain the state of certain vehicles you had parked, ie. they would disappear if went a few yards away, or someone you desperately wanted to bash with the BB would be gone when you looked behind you? Or suddenly everyone is driving the same car as you ?

I hear all these problems are worse in Vice City... :(

Have you experienced this Krudster ?

gizmo - I heard exactly the OPPOSITE.

I heard that Vice has a much better 'memory' of where cars are. E.g. if you turn around or run around the corner the car you got out of will still be there when you return.

That is one compliment that Mafia should receive, it dealt with the dissapearing cars really well, I can't recall the cars becoming repetitive or my cars disappearing.

GTA3 always did a poor job of that imo, hopefully as Errol says it has improved.

I'm hopeful then. I picked it up from reading thru the critisisms of the people who had bought it in the states, on ebgames.com.

Ah, yanks, who'd trust em. ;)

I think its one of those areas that could really make it or break(ish) it.

Every game has a glitch or 2, you guys worry too much

hmmm, not sure on the car memory thing. Some of the time it seems to keep a good track of wrecked cars, other times they disappear like before. I'll pay more attention to this and let you know. All I know is riding bikes is the best fun!

I've noticed that pedestrians disappear ahead if you check behind you (R3) and face them again.

My flat is the Getaway!!

You live in a DVD sized box ?

My flat is the Getaway!!

Wha? Apartments aren't known for their speed.

'Quick everyone, the Rozzers, into the semi detached'

"You live in a DVD sized box ?"
Bleh!!! No fool, I have a flat on Marlybone road.