Some criticisms from Grand Theft Auto III include
- Grand Theft Auto III's soundtrack was rather limited and got tiring after a short-while..
- The game engine needed some tweaking.
- Grand Theft Auto III's targeting system needed to be improved.
- There where many camera related problems in Grand Theft Auto III.
The Improvements
As expected with a sequel, there are a number of "essential improvements" with Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Here's the list;
- Nine
hours of CD quality music - that's over ninety tracks (Grand Theft Auto
III - 3 hours)
- Miami (Vice City) is 2-3 times the size
of the whole of Liberty City (Grand Theft Auto III)
-
8000 voice-over effects (Grand Theft Auto III -
2000)
- A total of 40 weapons (including a Machete)
(Grand Theft Auto III - 15)
- 120 vehicles (Grand
Theft Auto III - 50)
- Fully flyable
helicopters
- Multiple motorcycles used by the public
and the player, varying in speed and
durability.
The
Visuals
A big criticism of the original; Grand Theft
Auto III was built around
the Renderware engine. Rockstar programmers really tweaked this rather
limited engine to its limits -- and what they produced was quite
remarkable for what the Renderware engine was actually cut out to do.
However many complained this wasn't good enough - blocky textures and
nasty pop-ups plagued both the PS2 and PC
version.
Since then
the Renderware engine has been vastly improved. And look
at the screenshots, you can definitely see an improvement all-round.
Textures are in a higher resolution and the frame-rate has been
increased. The lighting system of the Renderware engine has been
re-vamped; so expect to see real-time shadowing and reflections. The
world seams generally much more colourful too - this perhaps could be
due more to the new setting than the game engine, but it will certainly
be a welcome relief after the dark seedy world of Liberty
City.
Various other visual tweaks have been made since
Grand Theft Auto III's release. The
camera has been tweaked to aid movement on-foot - the camera now fixes
to an over-the-shoulder view to easy targeting. Character models have
also been given a new lease of life, now sporting much more detailed
features overall.
The
Gameplay
Set in the 80's, Vice City features a whole
new storyline based
around our protagonist, Tommy Vercetti. And this time round he speaks -
vocalised through the talents of Hollywood's Ray Liotta (famous for the
superb gangster flicks Goodfellas and Muppets From
Space).
A whole host of new features to enhance
gameplay from Grand Theft Auto III were included in Vice City, including
more in-depth missions as oppose to just the pick up > drop off
> kill somebody missions that were featured in Grand Theft Auto
III.
Another big addition
includes the ability to enter some buildings, such as for some missions.
Vice City also features a full flying system with a range of
helicopters and a sea plane at your
disposal.
Tweaks
One
big revamp over Grand Theft Auto III the new auto-targeting system.
Playstation 2 users were
often infuriated by the auto-targeting in Grand Theft Auto III, which
would often
target completely the wrong person at a critical time. The new method
selects the victim based on priority (rather than proximity) - so when
you're having a gang shoot-out you won't find yourself targeting a
pedestrian.
