GTA Vice City Stories on the PSP - Got to say i liked this one a hell of a lot more then Liberty city stories. I very much prefer the sunny shores of vice city compared to the gloomy gray wet skyscrapers of liberty city. it also plays a lot better namely its mostly a set of flat islands and made getting around much much easier. liberty city itself is a hilly, geometric mess at the best of times.
Unsurprisingly Vice city stories is a massive step up from its predecessor, adding a lot of stuff (like boats/helicopters) and quality of life features. You don't drown instantly if you drive into the water (although stay in the water long enough you will) and you can swim. Secondly if you get busted/wasted you don't lose all your weapons. You get the chance to buy them all back and be on your way, plus weapons is relatively cheap. Additionally (something i haven't thoroughly tested) there are checkpoints in the missions. mess up part of the way in a mission and go back to the starting line it will ask if you want to start at a certain point in that mission rather then the beginning (if applicable). money isn't an issue thanks to the empire building mechanic automatically putting money into your wallet every day (no need to go collect it like in vice city!)
Speaking of the empire, feature this is probably the main new addition. Players attack a rivals site, clean it out, buy and set up shop and generate money. Play side missions to improve the quality of the business and unlock costumes. It can be a bit grindy at times as its more rinse repeat for all the sites. That said i think the aggression from the rival gangs is a bit on the high side, no sooner have you claimed a new site your rivals instantly attack back and usually i would like to save my game etc. Plus they can come in multiple waves and it gets annoying. My strategy? Head back to a save game point, save it, reload new save file and reset aggression so everything is back to normal. Repair damaged property and go back and trash another rival's site.
The story of VCS is also a lot better, you meet more interesting characters, vince vance is a much better protagonist and it fleshes out the vice city story much more significantly as more key pivotal characters in the original vice city games are introduced. Namely Lance himself. Whilst in the original game i had him as a sort of swave cool cat, in VCS he is a much much more incompetent, greedy and troublesome character. Additionally the story is much much more interesting, starts off vince as a law abiding citizen/soldier soon out of circumstance gets dragged deeper and deeper into the criminal underworld. That said, whilst the game does end with a bang, it couyld have been handled a lot better. The whole thing is wrapped up somewhat quickly which is a shame. As always the voice acting is top notch; surprising since its a PSP game.
that said some of the niggles from the previous game are here as well. Camera struggles with tight indoor interiors, special missions or side races etc aren't marked on the map (you better remember where to go to do them!). Unlike before i decided to go to gamefaqs and just grab the maps to all the stuff and just avoid the pain/tedium of finding it myself. Controls can be a bit awful especially doing drive bys and the auto aiming still locks onto dead bodies etc. There are some horrible missions to play, like the 3rd mission near the end trying to protect lance whilst on a bike and he just gets in the way of my gun fire whilst absorbing the enemies.
Audio wise can't fault it. Voice acting is good the radio stations are excellent with great work done by all. Killer soundtracks and trademark humor you expect in GTA are all there. Unsurprisingly i found myself flipping between flash fm, the wave 103, vrock and VCPR you can listen to them on youtube.
But would i recommend you play it now? If you have a psp/vita and still play that, then yes absolutely. If you're a die hard fan of the GTA series i would recommend it. Everyone else? unless you have an emulator and desperate to try you won't regret it, otherwise not essential to play.