Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories Critic Reviews

Not only is this the greatest game on PSP, it also leaves a large percentage of the PS2 back catalogue looking ordinary. But it right now.

Better than "Liberty City Stories" in every single way, Vice City Stories is an astonishing achievement and one of the best games of the year on any system.

Then along comes Vice City Stories, a game that exceeds all our expectations.

Vice City Stories won’t make you a believer in the franchise if you didn’t understand why people play Grand Theft Auto so avidly. However, for the millions of us that do, having a new story and an excuse to spend more time in Vice City is more than enough.

If "Liberty City Stories" was the reason you <I>should</I> buy a PSP, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories is the reason you <I>need</I> a PSP.

While Vice City Stories is just as important a chapter in the GTA saga as any, it's another re-tread of the ageing GTA3 game engine. The missions feel familiar and so do the driving and the save system - they're all remnants of a six-year-old game, after all. Upstart "Scarface" feels fresher...But this is top-drawer entertainment.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories doesn’t attempt to reinvent the formula, but it does offer you a fantastic action/adventure game full of memorable characters, fun missions and great music.

Vice City Stories is topped off with killer ad-hoc multiplayer for up to six people, which lets you tear it up on foot or in cars, helicopters and boats across 10 different modes. While these matches tend to get choppy, they'll keep you playing long after you've finished the game's lengthy storyline - as will all the hidden nooks, unlockable vehicles and dozens of optional tasks scattered around the city.

It's a shame Rockstar chose not to fix obvious flaws that have been called out repeatedly, but the weight of the total experience more than counterbalances this disappointment, making PSP owners, however briefly, the envy of those in the portable war.

Essentially more of the same, for better or for worse. It's a nice leap over what we saw in last year's release of Liberty City Stories, but it still feels "safe" by many standards.

Obviously more attuned with the PSP hardware, Rockstar has topped last year's excellent "Liberty City Stories" with a GTA sporting as many thrills, action and now-famous witty dialogue as the series has ever seen.

The loading times on the PSP may test your patience, but this is a game entertaining enough to make it worth the wait.

The mediocre plot, and control limitations keep it from being the groundbreaking experience it always is on the bigger systems.

Vice City Stories is an amazing game, and one I would wholeheartedly recommend, (a lot of work has gone into it, despite the fact that the city has undergone few changes from the original) but I hope that for the upcoming (if you can wait a year) "GTA IV" we see enough of a change to refresh the genre and franchise, because the games are great, but starting to seem quite samey.

Okay, so there’s nothing majorly new here, but if this isn’t a game to showcase the PSP and spur on other developers, we just don’t know what is.

Like all the Grand Theft Auto experiences, Vice City Stories offers fun gameplay, an excellent story with hours of enjoyment wrapped up on a little UMD.

Stunning graphics, awesome soundtrack and top notch story combine to make this one of the year’s must have titles and not just for the PSP.

While Vice City Stories may strike you as being formulaic and unoriginal, know that the similarities are merely skin deep; dig a little deeper and you'll discover an experience with the kind of production values, Rockstar-gloss and utter playability that the GTA titles are reputed for.

I chuckled a little less, partly because the game does have a little more of a bite to it (the change in political climate probably has something to do with it), but I still enjoyed the portable version of Vice City every bit as much as the PS2 version.

Like last year's game, VCS impresses like few other games on the PSP.