Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was first released in 2002 for the PlayStation 2 - a lifetime ago in the video game industry - but it remains one of the best-selling and most popular games of all time, one that many players remember with fondness and nostalgia. Players who weren’t even alive at the time of the initial release have since discovered the game, either in its original form or remastered as part of Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition, released in 2021. For veterans and new players alike, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is beloved not only for its characters, setting, and storyline but for the many cheats, tricks, and adventures awaiting them as they explore the sprawling urban terrain of Vice City.
Set in 1986 in a fictionalized version of Miami and Miami Beach, Florida, GTA: Vice City 's story follows Tommy Vercetti, a mobster who rises to power within the city’s world of drug trafficking and organized crime. Along the way Tommy must complete a series of missions, each with a distinct objective, while navigating among rival gangs and kingpins to enrich himself and advance his reputation, accumulating power and building his own criminal empire. Tommy also can perform any number of optional side missions, activities, and random actions as he traverses the immense, complicated landscape of Vice City.
Along with Grand Theft Auto III, its predecessor, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is perhaps best remembered as one of the first video games to capitalize fully on the potential of the open world concept. The game’s missions are linear and goal-oriented, but Rockstar's GTA: Vice City's setting feels as real as any American city in their level of detail, the variety of activities in which a player can engage, and the colorful, exciting, and often violent nature of daily life. As they explore Vice City - getting to know (and rob and kill) its people, running from its police, knocking over its lampposts with their souped-up El Caminos - players experience not just a game but a fully realized world. The high points of these explorations - some thrilling, some hilarious, some entirely unscripted - are what stand out in memory long after a player’s first encounter with the game, and represent things that virtually every player has, at one time or another, tried to do.
Buying An Adult Film Studio in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Located on Prawn Island, one of GTA: Vice City's classic Florida settings (the name itself is a pun), InterGlobal Films is where director Steve Scott shoots his pornographic movies, starring such performers as Candy Suxxx and Jack Howitzer. As Tommy, players can buy the studio and run errands to promote its films (including such classics as Closer Encounters and Return of the Anaconda) while combating corrupt politicians who oppose the porn industry. One of these is Alex Shrub, a right-wing congressman who secretly employs Candy as a prostitute. In the mission “Martha’s Mug Shot,” Tommy photographs Shrub dressed as a woman, evidence that will be used to discredit the politician and destroy his anti-porn campaign. The mission marks the only opportunity to acquire the gold stretch limo, a unique, drivable ride.
Starting A Riot With A Cheat Code In GTA: Vice City
The mechanics of inputting cheat codes for robberies and other gameplay in GTA: Vice City are difficult, requiring the player to punch a series of keys on the controller or keyboard without having the opportunity to pause the game. But once players master the technique, they can gain instant weapons’ upgrades, swap skins, turn their cars invisible, spawn a tank, and even change the weather. But one of the most popular cheat codes enables the player to start a riot among NPCs. Though starting a riot is part of a Ken Rosenberg mission (appropriately titled “Riot”), players can initiate chaos at any point by entering the riot cheat code, turning NPCs against one another (and, if the player isn’t careful, against themselves) in a frenzy of fistfights, shootings, stabbings, and cars run amok. Though GTA: Vice City's gritty setting affords Tommy many opportunities to cheat, causing mayhem among NPCs is one of the most popular, and the most memorable.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Is A Stunt Jumper’s Playground
There are a host of different vehicles available for driving in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and just cruising around the incredible open world of Vice City is a pleasure, but performing stunt jumps is a special way for players to engage with the urban environment. One of the most fun vehicles to drive is the PCJ-600, the fastest motorcycle in the game. And, due to its incredible stability and stopping power, the PCJ-600 is a great bike for performing stunt jumps.
Players can perform stunt jumps anytime they like, and doing so will earn them rewards, but the game also contains 36 Unique Stunt Jumps that players must execute to earn the Daredevil achievement. Looking like something GTA: Vice City stole from TV's Miami Vice, some of the most memorable jumps are available in the Downtown area, where players can race over ramps and leap their bikes over the gap separating two tall buildings. The adrenaline rush from successfully completing one of these jumps feels entirely real, and ranks among the most memorable thrills of the game.
Exploring Grand Theft Auto: Vice City By Helicopter
Though present in earlier franchise games, helicopters became flyable for the first time in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. While not particularly robust in this game - they can be damaged by gunfire, midair collisions, and hard landings - helicopters in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City are simply fun to fly, and a unique way to explore the three-dimensional world of the game environment. As with other vehicles, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City's story missions that specifically require the use of a helicopter (including the classic “Demolition Man,” which requires the player to deliver a bomb via remote control helicopter). But the most memorable aspect of the helicopter is in the flying, something most players will never experience in real life. Helicopters are available for theft in eight different locations across Vice City, and players can spawn a helicopter via cheat code.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City contains so many possibilities that it is impossible to mention even a fraction of them. Apart from the many classic missions, the game contains endless opportunities for players to experiment and explore within its huge open world. These explorations, even more than the missions and the larger game narrative, remain what players remember best from, or frequently return to, during their time in Vice City.