Vice City Stories ported from PSP, telling the origins of Victor Vance's empire in a carefully presented Miami. GTA gameplay is complete despite portable origins. Highly enjoyable for Vice City fans wanting to complete the city's mythology.
Your verdict
Category
Open-World4 players18+
Description
A late-2006 PS2 spin-off ported from a PSP original. Rockstar Leeds returns to 1980s Vice City with Vic Vance, brother of Vice City's Lance. Compact but well-paced, the game features an Empire Building system that lets the player carve out criminal businesses district by district.
Grand Theft Auto - Vice City Stories review
4/5
Art direction
★★★★★
"Striking"
MAX
Music
★★★★★
"Legendary"
4/5
Story
★★★★★
"Captivating"
A nostalgic dive into the 1980s, the game spins on its radios an avalanche of synthpop, new wave and disco hits of irresistibly period-perfect accuracy. Each station becomes a film soundtrack, elevating the neon driving. This licensed selection, perfectly in tune with the Miami atmosphere, remains an unforgettable sonic madeleine.
Gameplay
"Excellent"
Fun
"From the very first seconds"
A return to the sun-soaked neon city to build a criminal empire from scratch, seizing territories and beating back rivals. The blend of unbridled action, management and retro mood delivers an immediate, addictive pleasure. The sandbox freedom stays intact, the style as biting as ever. A generous open world that brilliantly extends the legend.
Addictiveness
"Obsessive"
Taking up the neon city again to build an empire, this time managing your own businesses mission after mission, adds a layer of management to the criminal sandbox. Expanding your territory and unlocking weapons and vehicles keeps reviving the advance. The handheld port shows its technical limits, but this 1980s atmosphere and this freedom of play keep an immediate pull.
A console port of the portable Grand Theft Auto entry returning to 1980s Vice City, a prequel extending the saga's retro mood. Still fairly widespread in the West, its interest lies in this status as a companion to a flagship line rather than scarcity. An accessible piece for open-world fans wanting to complete the Vice City cycle on the console.
Better with friends
A sun-drenched return to the criminal sandbox, also lived together around the screen, everyone pitching their misdeed while the pad passes hand to hand. The shared fun rests on improvised dares and the spectacle of a playground begging to be subverted. Far from any direct rivalry, it's the unbridled freedom and the hilarious disasters that gather the crew for endless sessions.
A cult cover
Reprising the emblematic grid, Vice City Stories replays the pastel Miami but darkens its hue slightly, toward mauve and dusk. The vignettes — guns, beach, motorbikes — distill an 80s nostalgia a touch rougher than its model. Coherent and instantly recognizable, the cover elegantly extends the cycle's visual identity.
A questionable morality
Climbing the criminal ladder here means borrowing every vehicle without asking, running shady errands and sowing cheerful chaos across an entire city left at your mercy. The game wraps it all in a sharp satire, which never stops the player from stringing together crimes with a delighted grin, perfectly at home in the role of the thug.
