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The game is heavily influenced by Brian De Palma's Scarface (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).
When Ray Liotta was asked why he decided to voice the main character of the game, he said: "for the money". Tommy Vercetti was meant to have a (voice only) cameo in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004), but since Ray Liotta was under the impression he was underpaid for this game, so 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.
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 record would later be beaten by it's successor: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004).
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.