The ’80s have never been more acceptable.Ĭlick here (opens in new tab) for more excellent Official PlayStation Magazine articles. Yes, it lacks the scope of San Andreas and more imaginative missions of GTA 4, but Vice City is a total triumph of both style and substance. Arguably, it’s still the most evocative open world ever made. Whip up gaming’s most apt soundtrack (drown your lugs with some Blondie, Toto and Run DMC), add an era utterly ripe for Rockstar’s scathing satire, then mix it with a glistening, sunburnt city, and you have an F5 to conquer all comers.
And it’s Liotta’s sarky, sardonic turn that injects Vice City’s lead man with real charisma and menacing humour. The triple-A games of today may be flooded with more celebs than kicking-out time at The Viper Room, but back in 2002 hearing a respected Hollywood actor voice a character was a huge deal. Conjuring memories of Henry Hill’s pitch-perfect narration in Goodfellas, Rockstar pulled off a masterful signing when it cast Ray Liotta as Vercetti. Unlike GTA 3’s Claude, your felon here hasn’t been hit with a dose of laryngitis. Never before has a game so perfectly captured a sense of time and place with such a wry eye for detail. For every pedestrian strolling out of Electric Boulevard sporting a lurid pastel suit with the sleeves rolled up, a quick blast of Frankie Goes To Hollywood on Wave 103 is only a D-pad tap away.
Ruffling the hair of the decade it so affectionately mocks before pulling down its parachute pants, Vice City knows the era was equal parts awful and amazing. Rockstar’s eye (and, more importantly, ear) for period-defining cultural flourishes elevates its ’80s Miami-influenced open world to the status of modern masterpiece. GTA: Vice City thrives on a sense of flair unlike any other game. He can’t slow down time while shooting (hell, he can’t even move when firing), he can’t stick to cover, and he sure as sucrose can’t Google Earth himself into the sky so you can play as one of his hillbilly pals. Compare him to the cutting-edge trio of Michael, Trevor and Franklin from Rockstar North’s latest Los Santos sandbox, and the Scarface-aspiring wiseguy is outdated like the mammoths in the La Brea Tar Pits. As Hall & Oates warmly warble on Flash FM, Tommy Vercetti really is Out Of Touch.
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