Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002 Video Game)
Trivia
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Spoilers (4)
When Ray Liotta was asked why he decided to voice the main character of the game, he said: "for the money". Tommy was meant to have a (voice only) cameo in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, but since Ray Liotta was under the impression he was underpaid, he refused to return.
You get the following with 100% completion: 200 Health, 200 Armor, All vehicles can take double the normal damage, a T-Shirt pick up that says "I beat Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt", Infinite ammo on all weapons, and sometimes there will be three body guards sitting in where the Colt Python and Health are (in the Vercetti Estate) with pink markers in front of them. If you step into one of the pink markers, you will lose $1,000 and one of the body guards will stand up and follow you around everywhere and shoot at people that you shoot at.
Two of the missions are called "No Escape" and "Cop Land". No Escape (1994) and Cop Land (1997) are movies that star Ray Liotta (who voices Tommy Vercetti).
When switching radio stations you can hear pieces from Grand Theft Auto III (2001) radio stations hidden in the radio seek noise.
As of March 2004, this game was the best selling video game ever on a worldwide basis. The previous record holder was its predecessor: Grand Theft Auto III (2001).
The game is heavily influenced by Brian De Palma's Scarface - arpinaama (1983) remake, which stars Al Pacino: both feature a low-life thug who leaves a place he doesn't want to be (Prison/Cuba) and moves to Miami (or in VC's case, Vice City), gets caught up in a riot, wears flowery shirts, and begins to take over the city, with a chaotic ending battle. The apartment where Tony's friend was killed is featured, along with the area known as Little Havana that was featured at the beginning of the film, and two nightclubs (The Malibu, and Pole Position Club) are clones of two nightclubs in the film (The Babylon, and the Little Havana Club).
With sales of 9.61 million units, it is the fourth best selling game on the PlayStation 2 and one of the best selling 6th generation console games.
The Kaufman Cab company is a reference to comedian Andy Kaufman, who starred in the television series Taxi (1978).
Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser stated that the frustrations experienced with working with Burt Reynolds on this game prompted the studio to cease hiring big-name actors to star in their games.
If, while in the office of the Vercetti Estate, you stand in front of the bank of security monitors and look at them through the sniper rifle scope, you will see that the image displayed on some of the monitors is that of the final shot of Scarface - arpinaama (1983): the main hallway in Tony Montana's mansion, featuring the sweeping staircase, the 'The World Is Yours' statue, and the small swimming pool.
In the cutscene for the mission 'Supply and Demand', Ricardo Diaz shoots an unplugged VCR because it wouldn't eject "My favorite El Burro movie". El Burro is a gang leader in Grand Theft Auto III (2001), who specialized in pornographic videos.
After entering the upstairs office of the Malibu Club, look on the left wall and you will see a large mural of palm trees tinted red by the setting sun. It is the same mural that adorns the office wall of Lopez Motors, owned by Frank Lopez, Tony Montana's boss in Scarface - arpinaama (1983).
On one of the talk-show stations in the game (VCPR), Jeremy Robard, a "motivational speaker" names a few of his treatment tapes. All of the titles, when abbreviated, are names of drugs. "Motivate, Demonstrate, then Motivate Again" becomes MDMA (Ectasy), "Think, Hold that thought, Complete" becomes THC, and "Learn, Start, Do" becomes LSD.
In the mission 'The Shootist' where Tommy Vercetti must impress Phil Cassidy at the shooting range, the cardboard targets are characters from Grand Theft Auto III (2001). Cassidy also made an appearance in that game, in the mission 'Arms Shortage'.
When released on the computer, many people complained about the difficulty of a mission involving a remote-controlled toy helicopter. The player is supposed to pilot the aforementioned toy into a building with explosives. Many keyboards could not handle as many simultaneous button presses as the controls required the player to press, causing them to crash the helicopter. Many game-modifying programs ("Trainers") were designed exclusively to make the mission easier to complete.
In the background of the opening cutscene there's a dead body hanging in the closet behind Sonny (impaled on, what looks like a meat hook). This is possibly a reference to Bad Boys: Miami Takedown (2004). EDIT: This would be an impossible reference, since Bad Boys II was made 2 years AFTER Vice City.
If you get a boat and search off the shore of Leaf Links near the Downtown area, you can look under the water and see a fat man wearing cement shoes at the bottom of the sea.
There are numerous references to Miami Vice (1984), including the casting of Philip Michael Thomas as Lance Vance.
In the mission "Autocide", the men Tommy has to kill all have names similar to those of characters from games that are based on the Grand Theft Auto games: Mike Griffin (Mace Griffin from Mace Griffin Bounty Hunter (2003)) Dick Tanner (Detective John Tanner from Driver (1999) and its sequels) Marcus Hammond, Franco Carter and Charlie Dilson (Mark Hammond, Frank Carter and Charlie Jolson from The Getaway (2002)) Nick Kong (Detective Nick Kang from True Crime: Streets of LA (2003)).
In the opening cutscenes, Tommy Vercetti is picked up from Escobar International Airport to make a cocaine deal. This is a reference to a real life cocaine dealer Pablo Escobar who was the richest cocaine trafficker during the 1980s through the early 1990s.
The Deluxo car (found on the showroom floor after you purchase Sunshine Autos) is a reference to the DeLorean, a unique car that was popular for a short time. It was manufactured from 1981 to 1984. It's popularity grew after it "starred" as the time machine in Paluu tulevaisuuteen (1985). The Deluxo reappears in Grand Theft Auto Online (2022).
Some of the hard-hat, Industrial Area construction worker's lines are lyrics written by The Village People.
The character of Ken Rosenberg is based on David Kleinfeld, from Carlito's way (1993). In addition to the physical similarities, both are cocaine addicts. Furthermore, Rosenberg's office looks just like Kleinfeld's.
All the missions at the film studio are in the building with the letters D & H on the front, the initials of Dennis Hopper who does the voice of Steve Scott the director.
This game became the fastest selling UK game ever, with over 250,000 sales in the first weekend alone.
Some of the chants you can hear during the mission "Riot" are the same ones that are in the game "Hooligans: Storm over Europe"
In 2003, Rockstar decided to remove references to Haitians after Haitian-Americans complained about it.
Luis Guzmán's character, Ricardo Diaz, was originally named "Fernando Diaz" and wore a suit instead of a Hawaiian shirt.
One of the posters in Phil Cassidy's trailer is actually from a Maxim magazine cover featuring Joanna Taylor. It is located in the bedroom on the left side of the bed.
The game was produced by Rockstar Games, whose logo is visible in several places in town. It can even be seen as a constellation in the eastern sky at night and a swimming pool on Starfish Island.
The police cars in the game are green and white. However, their original color design was white with red and blue stripes. A picture of the original color scheme can be seen on page 8 of the game's instruction manual ("Vice City Tourist Guide").
There are several references to the humor website Somethingawful.com including the title SA Goon when your score is between 1000 and 1010, and there is a newspaper called Front Page News, a reference to the Front Page of Somethingawful.
The mission Publicity Tour is based on the movie Speed - kuoleman kyydissä (1994) as it features a car that will detonate if you go too slow and Speed has a bus that would activate if the driver drives at 50 and detonate if it drives below 50. Dennis Hopper who plays Howard Payne, the mastermind in that movie, also plays Steve Scott the movie director but has no connection to this mission in the game.
The intro to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City has a Commodore 64 style load screen. Also, VICE was also the name of an emulator for Commodore systems. Also, the music playing after the C65 "LOAD" screen is the same music as Claude's pager in GTA III.
The game was so successful that it got a sequel, which actually works as a prologue. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (2006) came out in 2006 and features characters from the original game and stories that complement well-known narratives.
An English masochist named Freddy calls into K-Chat wanting to be hit by a broom. In Grand Theft Auto III (2001), another English masochist named Freddy discusses being spanked by his nanny on Chatterbox. However, the voices are slightly different, so it can be assumed to be the same person twenty years earlier. In both games, the character is voiced by the series writer/producer, Dan Houser.
The logo of the Vice City developers, Rockstar Games and Rockstar North, can be found around the city:
- On Dwaine's T-shirt.
- On the door of the V-Rock recording studio
- "Roxor International's" logo is shaped like the Rockstar logo.
- An airline is called "DMAir Rockstar", Rockstar North was formerly known as DMA Design.
- In the old water channel.
- In the shop window of Funeraria Romero.
- On a sign in Fort Baxter.
- On the jacket of the Ammu-Nation seller.
The game was initially intended to be an Expansion Pack for Grand Theft Auto III (2001), called Grand Theft Auto: Miami and a directly follow up to the events in that game. Hints to this are in Grand Theft Auto III where there are billboards advertising "Visit Miami" and in the last mission for the character Ray Machowski, called "Marked Man" has the player drive Ray to Liberty City Francis International Airport where he catches a plane for Miami, hinting at the characters return appearance. However, Rockstar decided to make it a standalone game that acted as a distant prequel and set it in the 1980s and re-titled it Grand Theft Auto Vice City after one of the cities used in Grand Theft Auto (1997).
Phil Cassidy is one of the most featured characters in the series' games, appearing in four in total.
There's a Non-Playable Character (NPC) model that can be seen in Vice City that's dressed like Michael Knight from Ritari ässä (1982) wearing a black leather jacket, black jeans and a red roll-neck sweater.
This Grand Theft Auto game does not use a number after the title, as it is considered a "spin-off" from Grand Theft Auto III (2001), that is, a derivative game that is not part of the main saga, but is still official.
Reportedly the bulk of the game's budget went to the voice cast, which is a who's who of both 1980's cult favorites and contemporary character actors, which includes: Ray Liotta, William Fichtner, Philip Michael Thomas, Tom Sizemore, Luis Guzman, Robert Davi, Burt Reynolds, Danny Dyer, Gary Busey, Danny Trejo, Dennis Hopper, Lee Majors, Fairuza Balk, Kevin McKidd, Debbie Harry, and Jenna Jameson.
One unused phone conversation has Avery Carrington sending Tommy on a mission to the "Gator Keys". This hints that a Florida Keys stand-in was planned and may have even seen some development, but was ultimately scrapped.
According to Dan Houser in an IGN interview, Sonny and Tommy were friends since childhood. In the same interview, Houser explained that Tommy never told anyone that Sonny was the one who sent him to kill the key mobster, and by extension his henchmen, because he believed in a mafia code and sense of honor amongst thieves.
Donald Love was scheduled to have a bigger part in the game. In the final version, however, his appearance was reduced to two non-speaking cameos.
Spoilers
If the player somehow obtains the cop uniform outside via a cheat code he automatically obtains a wanted level.
Once the player obtains the cop uniform he can enter the Washington Beach police station without attracting police attention.
