After six years of 3D Grand Theft Auto, the original PS2 engine is finally showing its age. Taking place two years before the series champ GTA: Vice City, Vice City stories improves on the previous PSP outing in many ways but falls short of advancing the series to another level of greatness. That’s not to say it’s not the best PSP game available but when you talk about the GTA series expectations run high.


You start your life of crime in the Military.
Veterans of the series will feel right at home for better or worse. The same exact game structure of all the GTA games stays in tact in Vice City Stories with some polish around the edges. Most everything touted as being new this time around has actually appeared before, just not in the PSP versions. Case in point is the ability to swim which is nice at times but for the most part is completely useless as there are so few areas where you can make it to shore. Nine times out of ten your lungs will collapse before you find anywhere to dry off.


Who's this familiar face?
The main character you play as in Vice City Stories is Victor Vance, a soldier turned crime lord who actually gets killed in a drug deal at the beginning of PS2 GTA: Vice City. Vic is a well presented character but unfortunately he doesn’t get developed all that well. From the first moments in VCS you’ll be running standard delivery missions that tell you little if anything about him. Then out of nowhere you’ll suddenly escalate into a full fledged drug trafficker. Pacing issues like this really affect the game’s immersion factor and detract quite a bit from the whole experience. That is until Vic’s brother shows up and mixes things up. He basically turns the whole storyline into a kind of odd buddy movie.