GTA: Vice City, remember the city of vice

GTA

According to recent rumors, the first 3D episodes of Grand Theft Auto are returning in an updated version, and it's no surprise that many are eager to return to the cities of Liberty City, Vice City and Los Santos. GTA III, GTA Vice City and GTA San Andreas have represented for many an important stage in their experience with video games, redefining the language of an entire genre.

One of the most iconic clubs of GTA Vice City Net of contribution that these three games have given to the industry, it is the experiences experienced by the players in their open world that make them so "magical", and judging by the online comments in this period, it seems that for many of the fans the most iconic and beloved of these settings both Vice City. Tommy Vercetti's adventure in that imaginary Miami has remained so impressed in the fans that even today if you ask any of those places, the tracks of radio Espantoso will resonate in his head. But what is it about GTA Vice City that is so beautiful and special? Why has he remained so ingrained in everyone's hearts and minds?

Welcome to Vice City

GTA Vice City, who wants a lap dance? Developed by Rockstar North, Vice City had a whole series of elements on its side that, put together, managed not only to repeat the incredible success of GTA III but also surpassed it by marking a new notch on the history of the evolution of open world. Tommy Vercetti, the protagonist, had style to spare and unlike Claude he is well written, studied and structured to be a character to be attached to: first of all he is not dumb like his counterpart in Liberty City and secondly his criminal rise in the city is the daughter of a story of intrigues and twists not bad to the point of making her narrative arc literally unforgettable.

The characters that buzz around him are written and represented with the same verve and passion, from the charming femme fatale Mercedes to the pompous and crazy Ricardo Diaz. Nothing would seem out of place and even the secondary characters manage to contribute to the realism of the representation of this very special Miami. And it is precisely the city so rich and so alive that it entered the collective imagination with unprecedented power and strength. We all fell in love with Vice City, its places, its colors and its music.

The first rescue in Vice City is never forgotten Then as today the 80s represented that extremely "stylish" historical period, the years in which everyone, no one knows why, wanted to live: here is what the streets of Little Haiti and the beaches of Washington Beach immediately entered our hearts. We could breathe the 80s in everything, from the lights to the colors, from the style of cars and citizens to the soundtrack. Ah, the Vice City soundtrack. How wonderful: a selection of tracks so spot on that there was no better radio station than another. Like the music, the "talks" also seemed authentic, helping to give that verisimilitude to Tommy's story and his rise to power.

A lively and lively city, that's what we liked so much about the title: leaving the Ocean View Hotel and finding ourselves catapulted into a metropolis that immediately welcomes us with its unexpected fullness. There are swimmers who are preparing to take a ride on the beach, the police grappling with crime right on the corner, and a small bar down the street where we can see dozens of people having a drink on the view of one of the streets most symbolic of the series. The Hotel, our first free zone in which to save the game, is also explorable, revealing the typical glitz of Tommy's criminal past and once again emphasizing the care for Vice City settings.

A lively and believable open world

GTA Vice City: Ocean beach gentlemen But it is only by getting on board the Oceanic, one of the first cars we find parked on the street, that the real "magic" takes place: the city is opens in all its glory revealing places and characters characterized all too well to simply remain in the background. The inhabitants of Vice City, albeit to a limited extent, interact with the game world and react to our passage by speaking to us; they do it with scripted and repetitive phrases, of course, but that was enough to maintain the illusion of a reactive and dynamic setting. | all those crime series that we loved so much (love?) to watch on TV. Going to Starfish Island and watching the villas of the rich people of Vice City made us dream and hope that one day we too could live in a house too big to know where the heck we have left the car keys, as well as a fleeting glance at the Golf Club just outside Little Haiti was enough to give us that minute of relaxation necessary between a robbery and another.

Demoltion Man was probably the most frustrating mission of GTA Vice City In short, Vice City and all its small neighborhoods with their details and their inhabitants manages to establish itself as the main protagonist of the Rockstar production even more than Tommy, who is not alt ro that another actor among many. But despite everything, what we remember with so much affection represents only a part, the beautiful one, of the experience lived at the time.

Replaying GTA Vice City today, twenty years later, reminds us of how many imperfections it had, and how many times we turned a blind eye to its rhythm problems and gaps, simply because they were too bewitched by the lights of the city . There is a moment when, all of a sudden, the main missions "disappear" and you find yourself completely disoriented, forced into a feast of secondary activities that leads to the final phase of the game.

These side activities consist of a series of missions that you have to play in order to purchase certain activities and facilities, and range from the most boring "delivery N ice cream" to the most frustrating seaplane ride to advertise our next porn movie. All to earn enough to buy the next location and access subsequent missions, repeating and reiterating in a vicious circle of hours and hours of ... nothing.

GTA Vice City: the game is the city

An illustration in the typical style of the series That in the last hours of the game is probably the greatest wrong that GTA Vice City could do to the player, forcing him to go through and experience that cursed city that until a moment before was exploring and loving without any constraint. So delivering pizza or improvising as a taxi driver is no longer a fun pastime, but becomes the focus of the title. In total indifference and silence, GTA Vice City decides that the duration of Tommy's adventure must necessarily be extended through the ugliest and meanest gimmick ever: forcing the gameplay.

At that time it was not a problem, we came home from school and it was not important what you had to do or not do in the video game: the important thing was to turn it on, type some code and turn off the brain for some now blasting random things. Who really cared about Tommy Vercetti and his adventure? Who cared about having to wait ten minutes on the clock in front of a lap dance to be able to buy a nightclub?

GTA Vice City: do we believe in a remastered? In the mission The Dodo of the Dildo, we turned a blind eye to the bad controls of the seaplane, because in the meantime we laughed at the name and at how stupid it was to whiz through those skies by dropping the flyers of a porn movie. Ditto for Demolition Man, a frustrating mission poorly thought out and worst accomplished, in which you drive a radio-controlled helicopter into a building under construction to place explosive charges. What mattered at the time was just living Vice City and ... that's exactly what matters and what we want today. If we get excited about a possible remaster of GTA Vice City it is not because of the idea of ​​replaying those missions or reliving that story, but because we may soon be racing back to Vice Point. Underneath what we are nostalgic for is not the game, but the music, colors, characters and emotions that Vice City has given us.

Have you noticed any errors?