Grand Theft Auto Vice City Full Setup (240MB)

Monday, January 07, 2013 Posted by Unknown

Vice City is my favourite Grand Theft Auto. It may not have had the disruptive influence of Grand Theft Auto III - a game that catapulted the GTA brand and the open-world crime genre into national consciousness and notoriety - but its 80s aura and colourful cast of characters was a significant elevation of personality. It's not that GTAIII was lacking in it, but the Ray Liotta voiced protagonist of Vice City, Tommy Vercetti, was a far more interesting man to control than GTAIII's mute-goon-for-hire Claude Speed.

Tommy's rise through the ranks of Vice's drug-addled criminal underbelly was fabulously judged, a violent ascent dressed in pastel and sound-tracked by Spandau Ballet. A tribute to the contradiction of 1980s crime dramas; Scarface, Carlito's Way, Miami Vice all touched upon in its neon and blood drenched narrative.

And it was enormous fun. Exploring the beach-skirted sprawl of Vice City - a facsimile of 80s Miami - stuffed with even more distraction than its predecessor. Buying up nightclubs, performing speedboat stunt runs, accompanying hedonist British rockers, engaging in high-speed chases in... golf buggies? It was nothing if not varied and eccentric. And we loved it for that.

It's a wonderful thing, then, that in content-terms, the whole package is here ten years later for mobile. At this stage of smartphone and tablet development, it shouldn't be surprising to find a ten year old game reproduced faithfully, but Vice City's size and detail impresses. The visuals have had an HD spruce and despite some blockiness in the character models that betray the game's age, the city looks terrific. There is the odd issue with buildings popping into existence on the horizon, particularly if you're approaching the shoreline in a boat, and there is slowdown when action gets hectic. Largely, however, this is an impressive technical feat.