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not as fun or amazing as i thought it might be Grand theft auto vice city is, as you may know, one of the most lauded computer games of all time and you will find no shortage of enthusiasts singing its praises on amazon. While there has also been a great deal of negativity about this game, and moral condemnation, it has usually been from people who don't much actually play computer games and from many who did not take much time to see what this game is about or understand its context. That doesn't mean these people are entirely wrong, but it does mean they are mostly wrong, and, actually, one of the very clever things gta vice city does is actually lampoon the hypocrisy of its critics. This, along with some excellent music, is done on the game's brilliant radio stations that play randomly in any of the cars you steal. I was a little surprised that the in game radio was perhaps my favorite thing from the game. Anyway, that's a pretty wordy preamble. You maybe just want to know what I thought of the game, so I wont go into an essay on morality in computer games. I'll tell you what I thought. I thought the game was all kind of a joke, which is fine, just, it was a mean joke. Its meant to be played as a mean joke. I didn't like that so much. From here I'll just rank it according to some categories I devised reflecting issues important to me. Story: C- never very great in computer games, but, taking that into account it was pretty nicely done, ridiculous at times, the free roaming thing integrated well with it, you sort of intersect with different lines of the story as you like, still linear- don't know how you could have a story without that- but, like I said, it's all a bit of a mean joke and I got tired of it. I cant say how well it developed as I only managed to play about a quarter way through this game. Characters: C- clever, very well voice acted, colorful types but completely lacking in any emotional connection whatsoever. Gameplay: C here is where I really expected this game to be so great but was surprised it wasn't. The variety of things to do was good, driving, shooting, very different kinds of missions, etc, but mainly I never much liked the shooting stuff. I thought it had a stiff jerkiness to it, found it unnatural and not as good as an average shooter. The city was neat but I never felt like it was very satisfying, like, you could really only be a thug and that's it. I guess that's the point, you could do a lot within that, just, there wasn't any feeling of richness or depth, just breadth. Graphics: C- again disappointing. I was expecting something terrific, but was surprised to find that, though the city was beautiful in its way, the character modeling was pretty unimpressive and seemed sort of out of date (even more so now). The stylish, cartoony characters of the box are not a fair representation of the more graceless figures in the game. Dreariness factor: D+ personally mugging people and shooting and vandalizing and stealing my way to power kind of brought me down. It was nice to do it by the ocean though. Technical issues: did not have problems. That's just me. Learning factor: C+ the game helps you along pretty well with a while-you-play sort of tutorial. But quite a few things you're left on your own to figure out and controls for keyboard on certain missions (like an awful remote control helicopter) were very difficult to learn and handle. Product materials: D+ a good example of stylish but sort of useless. Just tell me in detail about how things work and about controls and stuff. All too often in pc games I get either almost no info or, like this, a bunch of setting the stage. Cute, but useless. Chore factor: F see below Difficulty: F yes, I am all alone in this maybe, but most games are too hard! Difficulty levels are god's gift to a diverse population! Especially useful difficulty levels. This had none whatsoever. Some things you do are easier, some are hard and, SINCE THERE ARE NO IN GAME SAVES, you (I) have to do them over and over, from the start. Game saves: F no. there are these save places you can go to or you can sort of lose a lot of stuff and just come out of the police station or hospital, but either way creates quite a bit of tediousness, often involving a bit of a drive just to get there. Other: if the concept of this game sort of leaves you cold but you're curious because its such a well reviewed game I really say, don't bother. If it sounds hilarious to be a rising young tough driving around `miami' in cars you stole I do sincerely recommend it. It totally got the whole weird pulp fiction gangster movie amoral thing pretty well.