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Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories for PlayStation Portable
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories for PlayStation Portable follows Vic Vance in Vice City in 1984. After his military career goes wrong, he becomes increasingly involved in the city's criminal life. Together with his brother Lance, he tries to earn money and influence among rival gangs and unreliable employers. You drive through sunny streets, carry out armed jobs and choose your own detours between story appointments. The camera follows Vic from behind through the three-dimensional world.
An important part of the game is building your own criminal empire. You take businesses from rivals, choose their activities and invest in expansion. You then also have to defend your properties when other gangs strike back. This business struggle runs alongside the regular story missions. For transport you use cars and motorcycles, but also boats and flying vehicles. While driving, radio stations with music and talk shows give the city a distinctly eighties atmosphere.
The campaign is for one player. In addition, two to six players can take part in separate local wireless matches, including races, fights and Empire Takedown, where teams attack an enemy building. Each participant needs their own PSP with wireless support and their own copy of Vice City Stories. Extra systems and games are not included. These ad hoc matches use a direct connection between nearby handhelds; they are not internet matches or a jointly played story campaign.
Region and language
Our PlayStation Portable games are European editions and come with a Dutch or English box, unless stated otherwise. By default, you receive the version for the European market. We note it in the product details if the region is different or the box is in another language. In almost all cases, the game is playable at least in English, and often in the other five common European languages too.
You receive the physical UMD edition. You need a PSP with a UMD drive to play it; a PSP Go cannot play this disc.
Manual
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories for PlayStation Portable includes the manual unless the product title states otherwise. If the booklet is missing, the title says “No Manual”. This lets you see before ordering whether the game comes with a manual.
The manuals included with our games usually contain at least English and often around six European languages. The exact languages vary by edition, so Dutch is not always included. The booklet explains the controls and the main rules. You can use it to check how to control the game, which actions are available and how its different features work.
The history of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories
Rockstar first released Vice City Stories for PSP in 2006. Rockstar Leeds worked with Rockstar North, following their earlier handheld adventure Liberty City Stories from 2005. The new title returned to the city of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City but set its story two years earlier. Vic Vance took the lead in 1984, well before Tommy Vercetti's story in the original Vice City began. This allowed familiar places and people to be shown at a different stage.
Development built on the three-dimensional city structure of Liberty City Stories and expanded it with more travel by water and air. The business system gave conquering territory an economic side: a captured site had to generate income and could be attacked again. The original PSP manual presented the world as a local newspaper, The Vice City Inquirer, complete with fictional advertisements. That format connected practical game instructions with the same satire found on the radio stations.
A PlayStation 2 adaptation appeared in 2007. The PSP's local wireless matches were not part of that console version. The handheld release therefore retained its own combination of solo story and separate matches. The later Platinum packaging is a reissue of the same PSP game, not a new campaign or polished remake. The original adventure remains a standalone prequel: you do not need Grand Theft Auto: Vice City to follow Vic's story.
Similar games for PlayStation Portable
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories on PSP uses the same combination of a freely explorable crime-filled city, driving and shooting. Toni Cipriani works for the Leone family in Liberty City, while Vic Vance builds his position in Vice City. The biggest gameplay difference is the business system: Vice City Stories lets you take over and defend rival enterprises. Liberty City Stories focuses more on individual jobs for Mafia bosses and has a greyer, more densely built urban setting.
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on PSP also offers a standalone crime story with vehicles, police chases and optional activities. Huang Lee moves among the Triads in Liberty City and trades with street contacts. Vice City Stories puts Vic behind a network of businesses in the eighties. The presentation also differs clearly: Chinatown Wars looks down from an angle and tells its story through illustrated panels and text, whereas Vice City Stories uses a camera behind the character and voiced scenes.
Driver 76 on PSP shares the period urban setting, crime story and freedom to alternate between driving and on-foot action. It takes place in New York in 1976 and puts considerable emphasis on chases and car customisation. Vice City Stories chooses the fictional Vice City of 1984 and allows more room for gang wars and business management. Where Driver often directs your side-job earnings towards your car, Vic also invests in his criminal properties.
Gangs of London on PSP, like Vice City Stories, revolves around gangs trying to control a city. During missions you can give orders to teammates, and in a separate strategy game you attack and defend districts. Vice City Stories integrates taking over and protecting businesses directly into Vic's open world. The cities also create different moods: Gangs of London uses contemporary London streets and illustrated interludes, compared with Vice City's palms and eighties radio.
The Warriors on PSP also combines rival gangs, a historical American city and a story about loyalty. You follow the group of the same name in New York in 1979, with fights centred on fists, environmental weapons and fellow gang members. Alongside fighting, Vice City Stories gives you extensive opportunities to drive, sail and build businesses. The Warriors mainly follows individual fighting missions and events surrounding the film; Vic chooses his own route through Vice City between appointments.
