Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories Hands-on

October 4th, 2006, 18:47 Posted By: wraggster

Heres an excerpt:

Rockstar's GTA series first hit the PSP last year with Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, and in a few short weeks the follow-up will hit Sony's portable powerhouse. We recently had a chance to get our grubby mitts on the latest build of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories to see how well the '80s have made their way to the PSP. Playing through three different missions, we managed to get behind the wheel of a buggy, ATV and a number of different cars, as well as put our hands on the flight stick of a helicopter.

One of the biggest questions surrounding Vice City Stories is regarding said helicopters. Specifically, how well they fly, how the controls work and how well the engine can handle drawing the massive world of Vice City. In short, the answer is anywhere from very well to fantastically. Despite requiring the system to draw the entirety of Vice City at essentially any time, the game still holds a very solid framerate. There's some pop-in to be sure, but it's not really any worse than we remember seeing from GTA: Vice City on the PS2. In other words, Rockstar has certainly upped the technical bar it set in the first game and the results are impressive.

The chopper's flight mechanic uses X and Square for throttle control while the analog stick pivots and tilts in any direction and L and R are used to turn. It took us a very short time to get used to the controls, and most of the learning curve simply has to do with how far or long you need to tilt or turn in order to shift direction. But functionally, it's about as natural as could be and really feels great. Good stuff here.

In one of the three missions we tried, we had a chance to hop aboard both an ATV and a dune buggy. The ATV is a squirrelly little rascal, quick to get going but not all too fast. It turns on a dime though, making it great for navigating through numerous pedestrians should you not want to up your civilian kill count. The dune buggy, on the other hand, is much faster and a little more maneuverable on sand than the ATV. Its physics properties combined with the rough and hilly beach that we were on made it feel "bumpy" in that you need to watch how far you're turning the wheels while in mid-air or you'll skip quickly to one side when your wheels touch down again. Slightly tricky stuff, but this is exactly how it should be.

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