Can you believe it, GTA: Vice City is turning 20 years old this month (on October 29 to be precise) so what better time to look back at this game, one that is considered to be an absolute giant of the video game world, and one that brings with it a wealth of idyllic memories. What were you doing 20 years ago? I wasn’t even old enough to play this game, but that didn’t stop me from doing so anyway (don’t tell my parents).
October is the month of birthdays though, with the Fallout series turning 25, Portal 2 reaching the grand old age of 15, and the daddy of them all, Mortal Kombat, which just turned 30 years old, which is where life begins, so we’re told. But we’re here to talk about GTA: Vice City, and we could go on all day about this classic video game.
Vice City was a gigantic game for its time; released a year after Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City became a trailblazer for the crime genre, with its epic open-world setting that is a fictionalized version of Miami, Florida. This game used everything that made the predecessor so great but improved on pretty much everything too, with its slick new gameplay, higher quality graphics, more of that classic Rockstar humor, and one of the most iconic protagonists in the series.
Players took control of Tommy Vercetti (who was voiced by the late, great Ray Liotta) in this campy 80s aesthetic, and it had everything you could have ever wanted. Even though the game is celebrating 20 years of life, there are no official plans to give it the party it deserves. But unofficially, we’re sure that there will be thousands of people out there that will want to celebrate properly, whether it’s through a small gaming session of the original, or maybe they can revisit the Definitive Edition collection. Why would you choose house red when you can experience a deep red that has matured over 20 years though?
Vice City has become one of the most well-known games of the PlayStation 2 era, but to be fair, GTA 3, Vice City, and GTA: San Andreas are what complete this classic trilogy of PlayStation 2 games. These older games are definitely more cartoon-like than the latest games, but that’s what makes them memorable because they have a charm like nothing else, and that’s the magic of them.
It’s really hard to get your head around how quickly this game has turned 20, but it’s quite the occasion for fans of the title. The amount of hours spent playing this game around the world is hard to even fathom, and even though GTA 4 and GTA 5 are considered much more well-rounded games, and just better in general, there’s one thing that is for certain, they don’t have the unbridled joy and love that Vice City has. Let’s see what the next Grand Theft Auto can offer us.
