At a time when developers want to scale back games and experiment with more cost-effective, bite-sized episodic formats (see Half Life 2: Episode 1 & II), Rockstar continues to churn out its old-school, 100-hour-plus dinosaurs.

Now gamers can choose to play Brain Age for five or 10 minutes a day or they can devote 10- to 15-hours to a day to Vice City Stories - the standard time commitment required to even scratch the surface of the new GTA epic.

The star of this saga Vic Vance (and brother of Lance Vance from the original Vice City) tries to take the moral high road and joins the military. His first mission: to pick up a package (of weed) for his mentally unstable Commanding Officer.

At his deranged commander's request, Vic reluctantly uses a stolen sports car to fetch a prostitute and drive her back to base without incident. After a few close calls with five-oh, Victor returns with the girl and the car intact, save for the steady stream of smoke billowing from beneath the car's hood. He's home free - until military police bust him for the weed, the stolen car and the girl.

Cut to Vic Vance walking off the base in his civilian clothes.

Just when it seems Vic can't be more humiliated, he finds a moped parked just outside the base. With no other ride available, Vic climbs aboard, and speeds away -- his humiliation complete - into a life of crime waiting on the other side.

Vice City Stories gets off to the most tepid start of any game in the series. As per the GTA formula, Vic can either cruise the streets or take on missions to earn cash and climb to the top of the criminal food chain. The action takes some time to get started though - the first few missions take place in obscure parts of the city vs. the iconic neon-lit beachfront area that plays such a huge role in Vice City. It's almost like staying at an airport hotel -- the action seems to be anywhere but there.

Eventually the action gets rolling - and despite the inevitable crap mission (the forklift-in-a-burning-warehouse mission has to go down as one of the all-time most irritating GTA missions) windy load times, and frustrating controls -- Vice City Stories still carries some of that old GTA gravitas. After spending a few hours driving around the city, jacking swank cars and building an empire, the days take on a pleasant GTA-style rhythm.

You'll also discover a big improvement -- bodies of water no longer pose a mortal threat.

When Vic falls into the drink, he immediately bobs to the surface. Press the X button, and he swims to shore. (Also a welcome improvement over the original Vice City's drowning animation, followed by the dreaded "WASTED!" prompt appearing on screen.)

Rockstar has made much better all around use of the waterways surrounding Vice City. A larger percentage of the missions take place on the high seas, with each one showcasing the newly "alive" ocean -- waves now roll in and out, currents pull Vic and his vehicles in various directions, and passing boats send dangerous wakes rippling across harbors. In other words, it's finally OK to get your GTA character wet.

The superb soundtrack helps smooth over the game's shortcomings, featuring a hundred songs from the '80s -- KISS, Dokken, Foreigner are all present and accounted for -- and there's really not a dud in the bunch. Phil "How can you just walk away from me?" Collins even makes a digitized appearance in the game.

Even so, as each GTA soundtrack balloons -- this is the most ambitious soundtrack ever found in any game, bar none -- and includes larger casts of nuanced characters, each with solid voice acting and well-written dialogue, Vice City Stories seems less like a traditional video game, and more like a series of cut scenes we interact with occasionally.

Remember when it was the other way around? When gamers couldn't click through those banal cut scenes fast enough? When the annoying radio (it was annoying in Grand Theft Auto III) detracted from the mission at hand?

Finally, remember a time when there was less style and more substance in GTA games?

A return to those days would not necessarily be a bad thing, but we'll happily play this until then.

Our Final ScoreGood

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