![]() ![]() It’s hard to understand the current - but dwindling - fascination with that era without at least acknowledging this game’s massive influence on this century’s pop culture. Perhaps the most fascinating thing about replaying GTA: Vice City in 2023 is that we’re hopelessly nostalgic about a video game whose makers were already nostalgic about the ‘80s back in 2002. The jump to the ‘90s featured in San Andreas would only reinforce the idea that decade largely felt like a worn-down extension of the 1980s, presenting a country more conscious of what drugs and senseless gang wars had taken away from them for years. Fast-forward to the post-9/11 world, and it made sense to return to a “prettier” image of modern society. Vercetti finds a much happier on-screen ending though, something that feels kind of perfect when you consider the trick performed by Rockstar, which was to paint the nicest-looking, most nostalgic picture possible of a period defined by the rampant violence spawned by the rise of hard drugs on the American streets.Īgain, the same could be said about every other GTA setting ever, yet the ‘80s already were infatuated with themselves long before the nostalgia we all know and love came knocking on the door. Tommy Vercetti is a man of ambition, much like Tony Montana in Scarface, the most obvious influence for the game. There’s no family to protect or a personal vendetta that goes beyond “I’ve been fucked over by the mafia,” and that’s fine. ![]() This is especially funny when we consider that the actual game is as hostile as a game world gets, with local gangs shooting each other up all the time around certain spots and citizens representing the very worst of North American society with mean barks and vapid chatter. There’s something sincerely enchanting about the location, and it mainly has to do with the laid-back atmosphere that covers pretty much every street and NPC. In fact, when the infamous Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition dropped in late 2021, most players jumped straight into Vice City before even paying attention to the much larger and refined San Andreas.Ĭoming into the Definitive Edition almost a year later, when initial tech woes had been mostly fixed up, I was one of those players who wanted to cruise through the colorful streets of Vice City first. While many contemporaries are now regarded as borderline unplayable, the PS2-era GTA titles retain a protective aura that appears to be produced by their vibes first and everything else second. When it comes to Rockstar Games’ second 3D open-world hit, this raw nostalgic power has prevented it from aging in many players’ eyes.
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