Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Comments by Tom Bramwell

FORGET ARGOS!.

I just took a hike down to my local 'stockist'.The mups don't even have it.They won't stock it until November 15th as stated on the web site.

I did see the soundtrack for Vice City today though.
£35!... THIRTY FIVE ENGLISH POUNDS!!.Talk about cashing in.

Nothin' wrong with my eyesight muppet...!

I just thought it was a bizarre thing to say. Name ONE game which doesn't feature pixellated blurring on background scenery.

Oh and K-Chat - even funnier than Chatterbox! And twice as long!

Lazlow NEEDS his own show on Virgin FM...FACT!

And ban away if you must, I thought I was living in Britain not Iraq.

Peej

FORGET ARGOS!.
Yes it's probably best too if you want a copy of VC, however at least all the other new releases are 30 quid which ain't bad. Of course if you get a copy of VC you probably won't spend anytime on any of the cheap games you could get but it's still a bargain.

Actually contrary to my last report...it is selling out...No copies left in either HMV or Virgin here in Oxford....

And Argos have never heard of it (and game won't price match 29.99 so don't even bother asking!)

Peej

And Argos have never heard of it

lol. The cretins ...

As doogle has already said its quite clearly stated on the Argos website that VC is not available from them until after the 15th.

I can wait until Christmas.
I can wait until Christmas.
I can wait until Christmas.
I can wait until Christmas.

Honestly, this "willpower" thing is easy once you get the hang of it.

\me gets ready to go home tonight and play humble GTA III instead...

I can wait until Christmas.
I can wait until Christmas....

I sympathise Killerbee, I'm really starting to regret my decision to wait.

A whole bloody week! I'm going to try and get it over the weekend now, I can't wait a week.

A whole bloody week! I'm going to try and get it over the weekend now, I can't wait a week.

*Sigh* Youth. When you hit 35 a week flies by in a blink.

My copy didn't arrive from gameplay either. I've blacklisted them and spent the day playing Ratchet and Clank in a sulk.

Xbox sucks so badly. It needs to be put out of its misery.

*runs for cover*

I tried to buy VC from my local GAME but they sold out before 10am!!! So I popped across the road to Dixons and bought it for 39.99 with a free DVD movie of - wait for it - Grand Theft Auto. I haven't seen it yet but it's Ron Howard's directorial debut so is probably crap considering his latest offering. Still, it's free so I can't complain :-)

I picked this up at 10...home by eleven....its not almost 8 at night....talk about time flies when ya having fun....Words cant say how much i`m enjoying GTA3+...its fun on the bikes but the thing that gets me...is the music and voice acting....it just blows anything else out of the water....other softco`s should look and learn from them....everything is possible if you bother......

One thing that made it for me over GTA3 was the inclusion of chainsaws. Sheer genius. Any Doom veteran will know what I'm talking about.

Now where did I put that mask that I made from my parents faces...

edit : missed the 3 off GTA

"Xbox sucks so badly. It needs to be put out of its misery."

*Begins bombing Errol*

Tsk, nothing has happened at EG since I last logged in a few hours ago - everyone busy playing MicroMachines then, huh?

Two excellent reviews I think you should keep this style up for future big releases. Maybe even drop the scores and just leave it at a reviewers comment? Will be picking this game up on Saturday morning.

ctually, now that i think about it i never even finished gta 3 because the missions got a bit repetetive and boring

Me too. Playing GTAIII again for 10 minutes yesterday covinced me I won't get GTA:VC. For now at least.

Never understood that viewpoint of repetition in GTA3

All games are repetitive: jump, shoot, drive, kick, slot l-shape into hole, move troops around until they win or die trying, save galaxy (or locale of your choice), shoot zombie and panic about control system, cast power word kill, level up , up and away.

Know what I mean?

Yes, but when it's done well, repetition doesn't matter. But if a game is repetitive and you have a less than excitin story-line, bad graphics (not technically, but I did never like the style), bad controls, lousy AI (police always knowing where you are), having to return to mision briefing everytime you blew it, boring car physics etc., it's just no fun anymore. I can nevertheless see why many people love the game, but it just didn't work for me.

edit: to clarify this: Fighting the marines in Half-life could, literally, be called "repetetive", cause it happened several times in the game. But it always was a challenge and just plain fun because of the decent AI, great weapons etc. Fighting in GTAIII became boring quickly, cause the only challenges were the bad targeting system and camera.

Er..Hm...Bit tired...

I wish Lazlow had more airtime, he needs a talk show, not just a DJ on a station, he shouldve had VCPR which is bloody hilarious.

KCHAT is great aswell.

They should make the next GTA in Vegas ala Casino.

I get the feeling the previous two posts are made by the same person.

GAMEPLAY PREORDERS

Hi gang,

First of all I am *really* sorry some of you did not get your pre-orders for Vice on the Friday. Please let me explain, I know this doesnt make up for the disapointment but hopefully you will forgive us.

We recieve stock from Take 2 on the Tuesday and starting our massive packing job striaght away. Thanks to lots of hard work we packed all the Second Class postage orders by that evening and gave to the Post Office to deliver first thing Wednesday. We have to post Second Class on the Wed to have a chance of Posty Deliving on time you see.

Wed we, including me :-), spent the day packing the many many thousands of First Class postage orders and again gave to postie as normal.

And thats really where our control of the situation ends - we got all pre-orders done and in the post on time with no problems and have thousands of delighted customers and a handful of understandably annoyed folks.

I know of several persoanl friends that ordered on Thursday afternoon whose order we picked, packed and delivered on Friday morning. This is no consaltion to you cross folks I know, but it goes to show the randomness of the Royal Mail I am afraid.

So please again accept our apologies if your one of the few that did not get your game on Day 1 and I hope you'll give us the chance to serve you again.

'Hi Gang'

Heh

Firstly, turn off the trails, it looks 100 times better when you do. IMHO.

Secondly, the game comes across as GTA on speed, which is a great thing.

I look forward to loosing the rest of my weekend to it.

Firstly, turn off the trails, it looks 100 times better when you do. IMHO.
Whereas I think it looks better with them on, I think this is a very personal thing! :-)

I think I like the game, I didn't go to bed before 5:00AM this morning! Eeek!

This game is eating into way too much of my free time...and am I bothered ....not f`king way :)

*Sigh* Youth. When you hit 35 a week flies by in a blink.

It's all well and good being a patronising prick, but it's far worse when you're a misinformed patronising prick. Your idea of youth is anyone under 35?

Changed my mind about trails, it does look better without them, with it on you don't really notice just how well improved the graphics are.

Yes, come to the darkside, enjoy the trails being off.

Also, 10 second stoppie (or endo if you're from my neck of the woods, or nose manual if you're into your BMXing) on a scooter, and 10 second wheelie on a scooter also, but that was some kind of fluke being on the beach and going over a fortunate bump.

Git! The best motorcycle thing I've done is a measly short wheelie which I ended up cancelling with a reload as the next one I did ended up throwing me into the sea...

I bought a condo on the second island as it was a good saving location (it was pricey at $14000) but it saves trekking around, saw a roof access doorway and went up... Oooh a helipad and someone's left a chopper on it! Best 14 grand spent EVER!! :-)

liked the radio controlled buggies on vice beach...that and the radio controlled planes at the top of the mall car park....

Can't describe in words how good it is. Got it yesterday, traded in two games (VF4 and DOA3) and got VC for 20€. As I might be facing an extended sickleave...I won't be bored atleast.

So far the funniest bits have been involving bikes....driving a car until ya find a bike rider, knock them off the bike....then get out of the car and drive the bike...and the jumps now with bikes are just so...so good...and the music is just the icing on the cake ....

It's Wildstyle baby. Funky.

GTA Vice City certainly seems to be a quality piece of software but I've just realised something rather disturbing.

I've spent more time trying to unlock easter eggs on my Attack of the Clones DVD than I have playing Vice City.

I am impressed with the music on the game though. Squashing pedestrians with 2 live Crew on the radio hahaha! superb!

Great game, except I get the impression it should have been released on either the cube or xbox.
Ps2 hardware just can't handle it imo. I get buildings/lights poping up ahead of me too close for my taste, and frame rate slowdowns are too frequent.
I'm not even gonna vent on low texture counts and rather blocky surroundings.
Graphically, while one of the best looking games on ps2, it simply can't compare to what the other two systems are capable of doing in visual departmet.
Yeah yeah, gfx isn't everything, but just imagining playing vice city with cube/xbox hardware makes me weep.

Oh well, back trying to earn the cash for that strip club.

I'd like to see GTA4 move over to the Xbox, I get the feeling that Rockstar had to do a lot of trade-offs to make a city as large as Vice City i.e. low ped and car counts.

I know this isn't towing my usual line but I do feel that Rockstar are pushing the PS2 to the limits with this incarnation.

Just imagine GTA with GT3-like graphics (thinking of the Seattle level), Max Payne controls and Half-Life AI. Guess we'll have to wait for the PS3, Xbox2 whatever...

With net link-up so you can play with friends as a gang, or against each other as loners. With downloadable missions keeping the game fresh.

With not only one, but several cities, villages, and highways to connect them, with a countryside where you can buy hideouts.

Perhaps Sony should get Rockstar to do a GTA that makes use of the hard drive and has downloadable features through the network adapter, that would be one way of getting people to buy them. It would be a very appropriate "killer app"! :-)

cool bug - knock someone off a bike then as they try to get on it again you get on it, sometimes they end up on it with you.

Who knows...with the softco`s that microsoft are buying up...if they bought rockstar maybe ya would see gta4 on the xbox...stranger things have happened .....

Well it would be rather cool if Ms would buy square, rockstar and whoever coded Gran Tourismo.
They sure have the $ for it, and they would practically own the console market, maybe if they have something left they could buy nintendo too.
Then, all they would have to do is build a death star, and turn everyone over to the the dark side.

Sony makes Gran Turismo... :)

Let's hope it comes out on the PC which is really
the only viable platform from what you chaps are saying.

If it does,I just hope they don't use that poxy renderware to port the game over like they did on GTA3.I know PC game buyers are in the minority compared to console owners but there was no excuse for turning out a shoddy conversion like that.The frame rates were shocking on my machine that can normally run this kind of stuff for fun.It was an insult as far as I was concerned.

No arguments - turn the trails off otherwise you are going to have a blinding migraine all weekend.

Just played this solidly for most of the weekend. It is good, no it's better than good it's everything I hoped it would be. Stuff your frame rates up your ass, stuff your cross-platform arguments up there too. This game, and GTA 3 are what the PS2 was made for. Stuff arguments about the hardware limitations, show me one other game on any other platform that has the same living breathing free-roaming cities that the GTA 3d series have...show me one other game that has at least 80 music tracks let alone two massive chat radio stations for a soundtrack. Show me one other game that has the ability to make you smile constantly at the little subtle references throughout it, or the huge glaring ones for that matter.

X Box owners are jealous, cube owners are distraught...PC owners are gnawing their mousepads in half in anticipation of it being released on their chosen platform...but anyone with a PS2 is probably laughing their bollocks off at the lot of ya.

Believe the hype...it really is as good as it seems and any piffling arguments you might have heard to the contrary are either sour grapes or put about by people who really shouldn't be playing computer games in the first place.

Peej

I really do feel sorry for anyone who thought "Mmm I'll save myself a fiver and order this from Gameplay" - was a fiver really worth having to wait another week to recieve your game!?

Peej

Just imagine GTA with GT3-like graphics (thinking of the Seattle level), Max Payne controls and Half-Life AI. Guess we'll have to wait for the PS3, Xbox2 whatever...

I can do without the scripted sequences that made the HL AI.