Green Room Review| Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Definitive Edition

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With Grand Theft Auto VI looming on the horizon with a tentative release date of May 26th, 2026 I realized that I had only beaten one GTA story mode and two DLCs so I decided to play the 3d era games starting with my personal favorite Vice City. Now the Definitive Editions released in 2021 to mostly negative reviews due to bugs, flaws, and low quality overall many of us wrote the release off as a cash grab. That is until a large update was released almost three years on the date that fixed many of the issues players had with the trilogy so is it truly worth jumping into now? Lets dive into the review!

(Reviewed on Xbox Series X on a 4k TV)

Gameplay

The gameplay of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Definitive Edition (will now be shortened to GTA:VCDE) is a modernization of the games original gameplay the controls updated to the standard of GTAV with a weapon wheel in addition to the original dpad cycle from the old controls. The lock on shooting for the smgs, pistols, and shotguns feels a little sluggish and can be quite annoying when engaging multiple enemies at once. The cars feel very light and weak compared to the later games in the series but it did provide extra challenge in vehicle based missions.  The movement does feel as clunky as the original version and had some systems that weren't really explained and learned through gameplay as with most games of the era. The game does have an abundance of side content from races, rampages, to the vehicle quests that give you permanent buffs like more armor or make you fireproof. These distractions are great ways to earn money for weapons or to purchase businesses which open up more missions and are required to unlock the true last missions. The amount of levels is decent with a large variety involving robberies, shootouts, chases, and more. The game has decent amount of content to distract you for several hours if you chase 100% completion or even just focusing on the story will leave you feeling like you didn't waste too much time.

Story

The story of GTA:VCDE follow Tommy Vercetti after being released from prison being sent to establish a foothold for his mob family in the Vice City drug trade. Things go south very quick and tommy must build an empire while chasing down those responsible for an ambush that left him without money or drugs to sell. Navigating Vice City's neon soaked streets tommy must deal with everything from drunk party rockers, rival gangs, and other criminal enterprises who are in his way. Overall the story is a loose connection of characters that string you from one gunfight to the next car chase till the credits roll.

Audio

By modern standards the audio can be seen as old, compressed, and at points annoying. Overall though this game has aged decently but there were many audio bugs unsure if those are artifacts of the original version or bugs in the remaster. One key point is to talk about the amazing selection of licensed tracks on radio stations separated for pop, metal, rock, Latin music, rap, and new wave all being incredibly fun to listen to from the funny DJs to the hilarious and at times dated radio adds parodying 80's culture alongside the amazing roster of hits. The "Definitive" edition did unfortunately have to remove some other great tracks as they were unable to renew the licenses for those songs. The other complaint I have is that each radio station is played in a pre defined loop so it can be tiring to listen to the same station for more than half an hour.

Summary

This version of GTA:VC may claim to be the definitive edition of the game and may succeed in places such as the lighting and texture updates stumbles as much as it succeeds. This version is great if it is your only way to experience it but it looses some of the charm that was there on the original releases. The graphics and slightly modernized gameplay do excel in making it more accessible to newer generations. Overall it is hard to give this game anything more than 2.5/5 when the modding scene has made much better remasters than this but if you want to experience the trilogy and don't want to fiddle with mods this is the best way to do it. Thank You for reading!