History VideoGame / GrandTheftAutoViceCity

--> '''Tommy:''' (spots a biker parking his Freeway) Hmmm... Nice Bike!
--> '''Biker:''' (upon Tommy stealing his bike) No! My bike!

* {{Irony}}: While (accidentally) moonlighting as a hitman, Tommy is tasked with protecting a bank from an attempted heist planned by a European gang on Mr. Black's behalf. [[spoiler:Very much later, after the Malibu Club is bought, Tommy plans a heist on the very same bank he is tasked with protecting it previously, and successfully pulled them off (all ''without'' Mr. Black ever realizing it).]]

* KnowNothingKnowItAll: Radio personalities Maurice Chavez (Host of VCPR's Pressing Issues) and Adam First (DJ on Wave 103) very well fit into this. First fashions himself a music connoisseur but he gets basic facts about the artists he's talking about wrong (For example, he claims that Music/{{Blondie|Band}} is experiencing their "finest hour" even though they broke up four years prior). Chavez, despite claiming to have been a history major, regularly gets basic facts about history and the operation of government wrong.

* MisterSandmanSequence: The opening [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI9jzdWkqO4 logos and title sequence]] establish that it's TheEighties. The Rockstar North logo simulates a UsefulNotes/{{Commodore64}}, then the title sequence plays a very ''Miami Vice''-esque theme while showing scenes of life in 1980s Miami, big hair, boxy cars, etc. Just in case the atmosphere needs to be reinforced, Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" hammers it down.

** The first half of the game is dedicated to Tommy trying to find out how busted the deal in Vice City, while it's implied to be Gonzalez and Diaz (although never outright confirmed), the second half of the game is about Tommy establishing his crime empire in the city after taking out Diaz's place. The three hitmen that ambushed the deal (even if one of the could be Leo Teal, killed at the start of the game) are never mentioned again after that.

* BraggingRightsReward: Achieving 100% completion rewards you with some things like infinite ammo, extra car durability and the ability to hire bodyguards in for $ 2,000 each. Too bad that, besides randomly wreaking havoc through the city, there isn't much left to do.

! All spoilers for this game will be marked as usual. However, due to ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoViceCityStories'' taking place two years prior to this game, spoilers pertaining to the aforementioned game are unmarked. Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned!

The game was originally released on October 27th, 2002 for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation2, and on PC and UsefulNotes/XBox the following year. It then got released on mobile devices on December 12th, 2012 as part of its 10th anniversary. On October 8th, 2021, It was announced that ''Vice City'' would see a CompilationRerelease alongside ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIII'' and ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas'' for UsefulNotes/PlayStation5, UsefulNotes/PlayStation4, UsefulNotes/XboxSeriesXAndS, UsefulNotes/XboxOne, and UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch as part of the 20th anniversary of ''Grand Theft Auto III'', with a version for mobile devices planned for the first half of 2022.

* GratuitousFrench: Rarely, Haitian gang members will say "Attention!" during fights, using the French pronunciation ("attention" means "Beware" or "Watch out" in French). Cortez's French courier and the French commandos sent to kill him also [[PoirotSpeak pepper their dialogue with stock French words]].
* GratuitousSpanish: Pepe, the DJ from Espantoso, speaks almost exclusively in Spanish. The Cuban gang members and all of the Hispanic pedestrians also use random Spanish words. Additionally, many of these pedestrians use the word "mamífero" as an insult, which makes no sense as it literally translates to "mammal", which is far from being an insult.

* KnowNothingKnowItAll: Radio personalities Maurice Chavez (Host of VCPR's Pressing Issues) and Adam First (DJ on Wave 103) very well fit into this. First fashions himself a music connoisseur but he gets basic facts about the artists he's talking about wrong (For example, he claims that Music/{{Blondie}} is experiencing their "finest hour" even though they broke up four years prior). Chavez, despite claiming to have been a history major, regularly gets basic facts about history and the operation of government wrong.

It has been revealed that Grand Theft Auto 6 will be set in a redone and expanded version of Vice City and the surrounding area in the alternate universe of VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto4 and VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto5, slated for release in 2025.

It has been revealed that Grand Theft Auto 6 will be set in a redone and expanded version of Vice City and the surrounding area in the alternate universe of the VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto4 and VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto5, slated for release in 2025.

** Because beer brands had not been properly established yet in the ''GTA'' universe, the walls of the Greasy Chopper are littered with crudely-made edits of real beer logos, rather than ones for ''GTA'' brands such as Pisswasser, Logger, and [=FleishBerg=].

s* TheCartel: Ricardo Diaz's organization [[spoiler:until Tommy and Lance take him down for good.]]

* MisterSandmanSequence: The opening [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI9jzdWkqO4 loading screen and title sequence]] establish that it's TheEighties. The loading screen simulates a UsefulNotes/{{Commodore64}}, then the title sequence plays a very ''Miami Vice''-esque theme while showing scenes of life in 1980s Miami, big hair, boxy cars, etc. Just in case the atmosphere needs to be reinforced, Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" hammers it down.

** Pastor Richards and his Salvation Statue scam is parodying disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker, who convinced his followers to buy $1,000 memberships for a retreat which he never finished constructing, instead pocketing the money and using it to live a life of luxury.

Unlike its predecessor, ''Vice City'' features a full-fledged protagonist in "The Harwood Butcher" Tommy Vercetti, who has just finished spending fifteen years in jail for killing eleven people during a job to assassinate one man in the neighborhood of Harwood. The Forelli mob family knows Tommy will cause more trouble if they allow him to roam Liberty City unchecked, so they send him down to [[OnlyInMiami Florida's]] [[ViceCity]] to keep him out of the way -- and to help the family get into the new "businesses" growing there.

Unlike its predecessor, ''Vice City'' features a full-fledged protagonist in "The Harwood Butcher" Tommy Vercetti, who has just finished spending fifteen years in jail for killing eleven people during a job to assassinate one man in the neighborhood of Harwood. The Forelli mob family knows Tommy will cause more trouble if they allow him to roam Liberty City unchecked, so they send him down to [[OnlyInMiami Florida's Vice City]] to keep him out of the way -- and to help the family get into the new "businesses" growing there.

* DamnYouMuscleMemory: When you first use an RC helicopter, with default PC controls. Normally, WASD controls movement in relation to the ground. The helicopter instead has W and S control height, with Numpads 9 and 6 controlling forward and backwards movement -- ground movement is therefore split across the keyboard. This can be rebound if desired.

* TheEighties: Hawaiian shirts, sports blazers, neon everywhere, pastels, polyester, Music/MichaelJackson and Hall and Oates on the radio, and EightiesHair, among other things. This game is pure Eighties distilled into one package.
* AnEntrepreneurIsYou: Probably the first game in the series to use this trope.

* FakeBand: Love Fist who plays alongside the real artists on V-Rock and you do several missions for. [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic They're actually pretty good,]] and really SugarWiki/{{funny|Moments}}.
** The musicians behind Love Fist claimed that they have been ScrewedByTheLawyers, preventing them from [[{{Defictionalization}} touring as Love Fist]] [[https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/archives/news/84452/were-one-of-worlds-most-famous-bands-thanks-to-gta-but-got-paid-just-200/ after having been paid 200 pounds each for their contributions to the game]].

* TheCartel: Ricardo Diaz's organization [[spoiler:until Tommy and Lance take him down for good.]]

* TemporalParadox: PlayedForLaughs in the mission where Tommy has to drive a wounded Phil Cassidy to the hospital. If Phil dies, the game will say that Phil is dead and asks who is going to supply arms to Liberty City now. Obviously no paradox occurs and you can just simply redo the mission without any time paradox shenanigans.

! All spoilers for this game will be marked as usual. However, due to ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoViceCityStories'' taking place two years prior to this game. Spoilers pertaining to the aforementioned game are unmarked. Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned!