Grand Theft Auto:Vice City


agent 47

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Here is a special thread dedicated to the videogame Grand Theft Auto:Vice City, you can post anything you want on the game here, reviews, stories of gameplay experiences, similarities to Miami Vice, behind the scenes stories, etc.etc. Also you can post photos of magazines and weird gameplay stuff an, happy posting!

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Does anyone else think the Downtown police station looks a bit like the OCB?I would get a photo, but the last time I tried the computer crashed.

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It does,doesn't it? But I found a lot of Miami Vice references in the game because the developers didn't actually go to Miami, they mostly created it on stuff from tv and films,you have the club(The Malibu) and the mansion(Vercetti's estate) and the car dealership(Sunshine Autos) and the hotel room used for chainsaw(room down the block from the pay n'spray on ocean beach) from Scarface, a Less Than Zero vibe, the look of Miami Vice, also vice cops coming after you in a Testarossa, the Daytona Spyder(although the devs wouldn't put it in black!), the bridge from the closing shot of the pilot, OCB downtown, the Ocean Beach one looks like the squad room from the pilot from Miami Vice, a bank robbery scenario from Heat, plus it has Phillip Michael Thomas, Tom Sizemore(Heat and Robbery Homicide Division), Bill Fichtner playing a Sean Penn-Carlito's Way rip-off, also it has Crockett's Theme on the game and soundtrack cd, also to note, the character of Sonny Forelli seems a little too close to John Gotti, ironically Tom Sizemore played him in a tv movie called Witness to the Mob, anybody else get that feeling?

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There's a Daytona parked outside the downtown police station in Vice City Stories.I didn't know Rockstar didn't actually go to Miami while making the game. I think they should have. It would've given them a perception of what Miami was really like and they could've made the game more geographically like it.This is one of the reasons why I'd love if they made another Vice City for the PS3

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Bennay's cafe is also in Vice City Stories, also it has Phil"The Shill"Collins and his song In The Air Tonight, also the game has "Relax", the song by Frankie Goes to Hollywood from Body Double!

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When I catch some time, I'll put up all the MV references I've found in Vice City.It's the only game I play every few days, I'm done with all the missions but I'm still looking for those secret packages.I missed out on the game when it came out totally...I've got into it few months ago and it's really a joy.I've put white Testarossa with AIF 00M plates in there, black Daytona, DeVille, white Countash...etc...and made some tweaks to Vercetti's outfit, all white from head to toe with turquoise shirt under the jacket.Also a lot of songs from Jan Hammer and MV episodes are on my MP3 Player radio station :DEingefügtes Bild:):):D

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I played Vice City for 2yrs straight, day after day (after work of course). My wife put up with it day after day, as she was on her computer trying to find something to do while I took over the tv. LOL I went back and started to play it again after losing the memory card in a burglary in 05. I played it off and on to get back to the level I was previously at. I play it off and on now, just to look for hidden packages, as someone else listed.I also get to listen to the songs I came to know and love (or remember if I had heard them from the 80's), drive through a city that's become a relaxing place for me, and just kill time when nothing is on tv.I love the game so much, I have the CD box set. The only thing I hate is that it's missing "Japanese Boy." I kind of like that song. LOL

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Okay, deep breath....LOLYes, I agree that I won't pay for a new PS3 unless there is a NON Halo game on there, or a non Zelda game that I can really enjoy.Otherwise, I'll keep the old PS2. I'm used to the old girl anyhow. We are looking at a Wii, but it would be for the Wii fit game, along with anything else they might have, where I can involve my wife in it, instead of just watching her spend her night online. I know, I'm online too, but I don't count myself. LOLBack to Vice City. I can escape life there, which is wonderful. I can almost see MV in that game, which was their whole intent. I remember the first week or so I played it, thinking how incredible this game was. And I agree almost with you Agent47, this is "one" of the most essential games of all time. Another one being Asteroids. I'm kidding!

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Here's a snippet from a magazine interview with Rockstar Games president Sam Houser where he talks about the influence of Miami Vice on Vice City. Fascinating stuff:The Scarface influence was already deeply in the GTA DNA thanks to the previous game, but a more overt influence on Vice City came from a TV series, not a movie. "The thing that was more of a direct influence was Miami Vice, because it's a bit later. Scarface is earlier, like '83, and it kind of looks it, but Miami Vice was '84 to '89, about five seasons, 110 or so episodes, and I've seen them all many times. Before you get them on DVD I bought them off eBay - the crappiest quality VHS copies you've ever seen, and I have them all. But it was an incredibly slick show, and when we were first talking about it, everyone was kind of laughing, like: 'What are you on about?' And I was like 'No, no, no - it's so slick!'. Just in terms of music alone, when you look at the tracks that Miami Vice used, it's an amazing list, and Michael Mann would create these minature pop videos in every show which would be montages. So his use of music in the show was remarkable. A dream of mine and Dan's is to have a montage in a game, actually. We're on our way; we'll get it one day - a montage of your experiences set to music. Come on, that's going to be amazing, right? With hard drives in consules, you know it'll happen.""Then the other thing I loved - and we all loved, actually, although intially there was a lot of arm twisting that had to go on in order to make people watch it - was that each show was kind of like a mission. It may have have had a few cool little action sequences in it which were novel, but the overarching story was like a mission, so there was so much cool stuff to take in, whether it was the vehicles they used - incredible cars, incredible helicopters, incredible boats - or whatever. While we were finishing GTAIII I would even go home at lunchtimes and watched episodes, and I did that for about a year - it was all I watched."So Miami Vice conviently chopped out plenty of ideas that could be appropriated, but engineering them in a cohesive game form was hardly a straightfoward task, especially coming off the back of GTAIII. "Basically we were following up a game that had surprised us all, so we started the game immediately after we'd finished GTAIII and as the months rolled on GTAIII became more and more well known and was winning a lot more awards, so the pressure on Vice City went up and up and up, along with the expectation. So that definitely made things harder. The other thing is that we effectively made Vice City in nine months, start to finish."

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You know, I used to have a ton of magazines with vice city interviews, I didn't get this one! But here is something similar, I read in an old Official US Playstation Magazine(which sadly got destoyed during the bad rainstorms during last year in my area) that another big influence was the film Less Than Zero, especially the line where Andrew McCarthy asks to Jami Gertz "Do you feel okay?" and she replies "No,but do I look good?", one of the Housers said that is "So f...ing vice city!", good find, Tommy!

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I agree, great find. I might start back on Saturday. Now you've got me jones'in for it you jerk. :pI agree with a lot of reviewers that the storyline for VCS was a bit weak. But damn was it nice to be back in VC!!!!!!!!!!!I'm just glad they released it on PS2, I can't see things on the PSP.Because XM has a somewhat small playlist on some of it's stations, I can hear a lot of VC and VCS songs in a week. I always crank it up when I hear them, but I never let people see me sing, because I'm in a company car with logo's on it. I don't want to be reported for having a good time at work. LOL

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I'm glad they put it on the PS2 as well, to be honest,Vice City is my favorite, and my second is Liberty City Stories, and third is San Andreas. I had trouble controlling the VCS PSP version,the handling on the cars are slippery and it's hard to hit anything during gunfights,I liked Liberty City Stories a lot,though,I got both on PS2 , I only play the psp games when I'm traveling. I usually play Silent Hill:Origins when I play PSP, or Daxter.

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I've never seen Less Than Zero. How is it like Vice City exactly?

Well,exactly,I don't know where the developers got the Less Than Zero thing,it had some influence on the characters in the game,like have you seen civillians walking around in green coats with ray-bans?That sort of resembles the way Robert Downey Jr. is dressed on the cover,another thing might be because it's about a college man returning home to Beverly Hills where his friends have been caught up in drug addiction and excess.I'm guessing it's sort of influenced that part of Vice City that deals with the rich excessively using drugs and having no idea of reality and only caring about the way they look,even if they die.
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Thanks dude. I'll have to give that movie a look some time.There are many other influences part from Miami Vice and Scarface. The counterfeiting is To Live and Die In LA, the bank robbery is Heat, the porno is Boogie Nights and Ken Rosenberg is of course from Carlito's Way

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And Kent Paul is Pee-Wee Herman! Just kidding! He seems like Phil the Shill(Phil Collins) with a Bryan Brown haircut, except more annoying. But where did Avery Carrington come from? It seems like everything is from movies. The club is obviously a Scarface thing, the mission Supply&Demand is sort of like The Great McCarthy from Miami Vice. But Avery? Simon&Simon, I guess?

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Here is an article I found in an old videogame magazine while going through old magazines today!:

Rockstar Games co-founder Terry Donovan cites Hollywood influences such as director Michael Mann for the brighter style that brings Vice City to life.The movie and tv influences of the gaudy 80's are readily appearent in every sceneon on this city's streets. To capture the style and spirit of the era, Donovan revealed the team's inspiration, a blistering 12-minute montage from iconic movies of the age. Al Pacino's sneering face dominated the show as his Scarface character snorted coke and introduced foes to his little friend. But the montage, like Vice City's gameplay, illustrade more than drug dealing and shooting the crap out of things. Scenes frm disparate 80's cultural touchstones like Working Girl gelled with moments from Bachelor Party, Wall Street's greed mixed with Purple Rain's sexuality, Xanadu's spandex merged with Miami Vice's flat soled shoes, no sox, and rolled up sports coat sleeves. "Miami Vice dominated the planet in the 80's" says Donovan, attesting to the worldwide cultural impact of the show even back in his native England "Everything was bright-it was like the US was on steroids at the time...have a coke, have a smile" he adds with a wry grin. This pastel take on reality and the colorful characters-even Donovans admission that Miami Vice owes a lot to it's intrinsic style to jut  being camp-opes up numerous oppurtunities for comedy in the game world.

Edited by agent 47
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That is cool. Miami Vice did rule supreme.Another great movie reference in the game was the hilarious Rambo spoof 'Exploder: Evacuator Part II'. Rated PG for Patriotic GarbageCol. Trautman like guy: Tim, we need you!Tim: I'm a man of peace. I'm done killin'. I wanna rise a familyCol. Trautman like guy: That's just it Tim, they've got your family!Tim: NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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That was a funny commercial,especially where he goes"He would have been a fine american,I'll cry when I'm done killing!"I'm going to search for more vice city magazines today,don't forget yuppie and the alien,Alf meets Miami Vice?

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Pet Stuffers is good, and so is the commercial for Salivex(?). I like to lick my boyfriends stamp collection.....The commercials are really great, which added to it. But you know, listening to the Emotion CD, I miss Fernando cueing the next song. I'm just disappointed that he doesn't do it.I love that station just because of him, he's too funny!

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I looked through an issue of game informer with Vice City on the cover,I found an article on what inspired Vice City,mostly what we know already,but I found an article on Jimmy Swaggart,the obvious inspiration for pastor Richards(well a mix of Jimmy Swaggart and Hugo Drax from Moonraker)here it is:"Another symbol of the corrupt eighties,televangelist Jimmy Swaggart(real life cousin of rock and roll legend Jerry Lee Lewis)was the epitome of the decades do as I say,not as I do morality.He denounced everything from rock music to catholisism as sinful,before being caught on tape leaving a New Orleans hotel room with a woman of ill-repute.He then apologized to his flock in famously tearful fashion,and disappeared from the public eye."

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