GTA Vice City Let You See The Impact You Were Making on the World (and Become the Boss)
While that strengthens the idea of going back to an older time period and choosing nothing but bangers, I do believe a more modern soundtrack could invoke that same feeling if it’s curated with care and consideration for the player experience. GTA 4 and 5 struggled to recreate the excellence of that soundtrack. Nearly every character with dialog in that game is designed to be remembered even if you only remember for them for the celebrity that played them or some strange moment. While the Grand Theft Auto games before Vice City featured generally interesting casts of characters, Vice City certainly elevated the series’ standards in that respect. GTA Vice City Made (Nearly) Every Character Memorable Yet, when you look back at GTA: Vice City, it’s easy enough to spot the lessons Rockstar should learn from that game when developing GTA 6.
There are times when that game’s reputation almost elevates the experience above the quality of the game itself. Even though Vice City was developed and released in a shockingly short amount of time (especially by modern GTA development timeline standards) it felt like such an incredible leap forward in so many ways.
Released in October 2002 (only a year after the revolutionary GTA 3), Vice City hit a generation of gamers like a lighting bolt. The recently released Grand Theft Auto: Definitive Edition remasters may be a bit of a disaster, but even in a mostly broken form, it’s hard not to appreciate the brilliance of GTA: Vice City.