Grand Theft Auto and Grand Theft Auto III - Double Pack (PS2)

This is a must buy
So buy it!!!


Grand Theft Auto III & Vice City Double Pack (PS2)   March 9, 2005
matt (Flitwick, England)
7 out of 10 found this review helpful

GTA III

"You've been betrayed and left for dead. Now you're taking revenge, unless the city gets you first. Mob bosses need a favour, crooked cops need help and street gangs want you dead. You'll have to rob, steal and kill just to stay out of serious trouble."
"Anything can happen out there."

This is one of the two brilliant games in this double pack, and is set, of course, in New York. You have a mass load of freedom and can kill anyone in the street; therefore this game is an 18. But obviously this game isn't about killing random people with a variety of weapons; you can hijack mostly any car and go about for a drive.
This is the game engine was the first to convert GTA into 3D and was so popular that it wasn't just used for only GTA III and Vice City, but San Andreas also.
This GTA has a good storyline, but doesn't have the freedom of Vice City, therefore I shall not review this game in much detail and will skip ahead to Vice City, and after you have read Vice City's review, you will just have to bear in mind that GTA III is similar just set in a different darker location, with worse graphics, but with a subway.

GTA: Vice City

"Vice city, a huge urban sprawl stretching from the beach to the swamps and glitz to the ghetto, a town brimming with delights and degradation"
Vice city, is of course, based on Miami, and this game has inspired the Grand Theft Auto series to expand, with San Andreas already out, and another GTA being created as you read this.
The freedom you get in this game is mainly, what made it so popular, the range of vehicles you can drive/pilot, also the amount of firearms and other weapons (with amazingly different types to try out on random civilians from Aks and uzis to screwdrivers and hammers), and finally the amount of properties you can purchase all add up to make this perfect 10 out of 10 game what it is.
You get hours of fun also from the missions set for Tommy Vercetti, the main character you control, which is all part of a brilliant storyline, the missions range from dropping off a women at a strip club, to destroying a building with a toy helicopter, also many missions included killing many people.
Vice City is huge for a video game, even if San Andreas is six times as big, and there is a noticeable difference in the islands. The first island, which includes Ocean Beach, Vice point, Washington Beach and Leaf Links, is the tourist island, including many hotels, night clubs, strip clubs, shops, etc, it even has a mall, and a golf course! Prawn Island has a film studio which you can purchase, Starfish Island is a rich island, with many mansions, and the last island, has an army base, airport, docks, a tatty Cuban gangster area called Little Haiti (which looks a bit like where your first home is in San Andreas), but north of Haiti lays downtown, with many skyscrapers, and a unattractive beach, but downtown also has the Hyman Memorial Stadium, the place where there is many races, and a dirt track.
The cars on offer, range from saloons, to sport cars, to super cars, jeeps, home-use trucks and SUVs, vans, service vehicles, limos, but a new instalment to the GTA world is motorbikes, including the legend called a PCJ-600 (based on a Ducati apparently, this bike is so popular it returns in San Andreas) and a Sanchez (a dirt bike), and a freeway and angel (both based on Harley-Davidson bikes). There are also two planes including a sea skimmer (a plane that can land on the sea) and many types helicopters, with range from normal helicopters to Army helicopters, here are a few:

Maverick/Police Maverick (both are normal looking helicopters, the only change with the police version is the paint job)
News Maverick (which handles very differently to the other
Sea Sparrow (which comes with a machine gun attached)
Hunter (apache helicopter, with twin rocket launchers, and a Minigun.

All of these vehicles come with a brilliant collection of soundtracks from the 80's, these are put into groups, and put onto a radio, including rock (VROCK), pop (FLASH FM) etc. These radio stations don't just play songs, but are also the main way that rockstar used to input great jokes.

All in all this game is of exceptional quality, and will keep you entertained for hours, another classic from Rockstar.


OK I guess   October 23, 2004
1 out of 10 found this review helpful

Doesn't live up to the hype. Gets boring very quickly. But it is still very good, especially as there is so much to explore. I warn you now don't get the double pack. You will only ever play Vice City. It is so much better than GTA3, just buy it on its own. But do buy it. Even if only for the rocket launcher


An utterly addictive Game!   July 1, 2004
3 out of 4 found this review helpful

I once owned Vice city but I lost it. I went over to my friends and I saw he was playing it, immediatly i found myself craving to play it again, so I went out and bought it.
The Soundtrack is fantastic and the songs get stuck in your head and you cant get them out, you'll be humming them for weeks.
The gameplay is brilliant and the city in which it is based is huge, and apart from the main missions the is HUNDREDS of other things to do, this game would last an eternity on the replay value alone.
Buying this game again was the second best thing I ever did, the first best thing was buy it in the first place!


Two Precious Games Still Shining Bright   February 20, 2004
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

I have bought both these games twice now, what greater testament can be bestowed upon them, for they are two of the most sublimely diverse and rewarding games in history.

The medley of missions and side quests, as I like to call them, positively ooze with variety and are limited only by the imagination of the beholder, well almost.

These remarkable and prodigious masterpieces must really be seen to be appreciated. They are in essence life itself, only with more violence. A whole world to traverse with different experiences to be gained everytime.

Few other games can offer such rich entertainment and divergent forms of enjoyment in one package. I can only see these games being bested by rockstar itself. What other developer can tackle the earnest issue of violence and crime in such a gratifying and ultimately jocular manner. Marvellous.