History YMMV / GrandTheftAutoViceCity

* CrowningMomentOfFunny:
** You drive like a lunatic all over town, running over innocents, gun down several people including cops, SWAT teams, FBI agents, and cause massive destruction of property, all in broad daylight and in plain view of every law enforcement officer in town. You are eventually arrested, and as you emerge from the police station (minus weapons and a small bribe/fine) you can hear Rosenburg in the background, "Tommy Vercetti is an innocent man!"
** The mission "Publicity Tour," where you have to drive Love Fist around in a car that'll explode if you slow down too much. The dialogue is hilarious.

* CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming: For a lunatic psychopath and drug dealer, Tommy genuinely seems to care about Earnest Kelly's wellbeing.

* GameBreaker: The free aim on the PC port turns the assault rifles, M-60 and minigun into this. Without the need to manually aim, you can hit enemies at sniper distances with ease. It also makes shooting drivers out of their cars a breeze.

** Man, how comes we forgot ''"Death Row"''? That mission was so a pain in the ass it's easily the game's most hated mission all around the world by a long mile!!: While you are ongoing a carefully approaching to the man who spoiled your transaction at your arrival to Vice City, Lance precipitates and attempts to kill this man to avenge his brother's death, but he fails and so he is kidnapped and brought to the city's dump to be tortured to death. [[TimeBomb Countdown starts]] as Lance's life starts to decline, and you have to zap there in the other side of Vice City, break through a car barricade blocking the dump's entrance, storm through heavily armed gang members shooting at you with height superiority, escape from the dump all while protecting Lance from even a single punch, and taking him to a hospital while lots of sports cars chase and harass you. The mission was so {{Jerk Ass}} that you indeed wished to kill Lance. ''Oh, and did we mention this mission doesn't give you money?...''

* AlasPoorScrappy: After joining your team, [[spoiler:the annoying Hillary King is gunned down by the VCPD on his first big job just seconds after he arrives.]]
** [[spoiler:Although after the hell you went through that is [[ThatOneLevel racing with Hillary]], this might count to some players as AndThereWasMuchRejoicing.]]

Part of what makes it so frustrating is that you're racing Hilary so that he will be your driver for a bank heist. Putting aside the fact that [[FridgeLogic you're hiring him specifically because he's supposed to be better at this than you]], [[spoiler: he's gunned down just seconds after showing up to pull your bacon out of the fire, resulting in an unnecessarily hard escape sequence against the heavily armed SWAT team. That's right, you might as well have not hired him to begin with, ultimately making that awful race pointless.]]

*** I just did that mission, and I must admit I don't understand what all the fuzz is about. You're given a generous amount of time to reach the junkyard (I even got lost in east Vice City at one point and I still arrived there in time). Then it is simply a matter of taking out every enemy. If you do that, no one will harass you while you're still on the junkyard (since no new enemies spawn). You can then jack the garbage truck standing around to make your escape to the hospital. The truck moves slowly, and there will be cars that chase you, but the truck is heavy enough to not be pushed around and it will take a good deal of abuse too (the enemy cars are more likely to explode due to the damage taken from repeatedly ramming into you). I usually struggle to complete missions on the first try, but I managed to do it with this one just fine. A mission that drives me insane on the other hand is "Demolition Man". You're given control over an RC helicopter and have to plant bombs on a construction site. This wouldn't be very hard, were the controls for the helicopter not completely unintuitive and clunky. A thoroughly unenjoyable mission due to terrible handling, in my opinion.

** The actual mission arguably counts as well. Basically, you're escorting the band Love Fist to their concert, but their crazed stalker rigged the limo to blow up if you drive below a certain {{Speed}}. So you're driving through town like a maniac, avoiding traffic and sliding in the rain (it's always dark and raining during this mission to conceal the game's graphical limitations: everyone in the car is technically sitting still) until the band figures out how to disarm the bomb. Definitely one of the more different GTA missions.

* AlasPoorScrappy: After joining your team, the annoying Hillary King is gunned down by the VCPD on his first big job just seconds after he arrives.
** Although after the hell you went through that is [[ThatOneLevel racing with Hillary]], this might count to some players as AndThereWasMuchRejoicing.

* BestLevelEver: "Publicity Tour", if not for the actual mission, then for the dialogue.

** The fast-paced "Phnom Penh '86" could count as well.

* GameBreaker: The free aim on the PC port turns the assault rifle and minigun into this. Without the need to manually aim, you can hit enemies at sniper distances with ease. It also makes shooting drivers out of their cars a breeze.

Part of what makes it so frustrating is that you're racing Hilary so that he will be your driver for a bank heist. Putting aside the fact that [[FridgeLogic you're hiring him specifically because he's supposed to be better at this than you]], he's gunned down just seconds after showing up to pull your bacon out of the fire, resulting in an unnecessarily hard escape sequence against the heavily armed SWAT team. That's right, you might as well have not hired him to begin with, ultimately making that awful race pointless.

* FridgeBrilliance: During the Steve Scott missions, Tommy is dead-set against featuring a giant shark in Scott's "movie" ''Bite'', claiming that it wouldn't be successful. Then you realize that Tommy's been behind bars from 1971 to 1986, so he missed the release of [[{{Jaws}} a certain wildly successful 1975 movie featuring a giant shark]], or at least the ''GTA'' equivalent.\\
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Then again, he could just know that what people want to see in a porno is big breasted hotties being defiled, and not mashed potatos and sharks.

** Right after you [[spoiler: Off Diaz and become the new Boss]] You have to go to the mall to smash windows with a 5 minute time limit. Oh, Did I mention that the timer starts BEFORE you get to the mall?

** ThatOneLevel: Right after you [[spoiler: Off Diaz and become the new Boss]] You have to go to the mall to smash windows with a 5 minute time limit. Oh, Did I mention that the timer starts BEFORE you get to the mall?

* AcceptableReligiousTargets: Conservative Christians. [[CorruptChurch Pastor Richards]] preaches to his flock that "selfishness is a virtue" (a parody of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_gospel "prosperity gospel"]] preached by many televangelists), has a harem of five mistresses, and is using donations sent by his listeners to build himself a mansion in {{Hawaii}}. Alex Shrub, meanwhile, is a corrupt congressman who is targeting the "Puritan vote" and supports legislation to crack down on pornography, [[StrawHypocrite while secretly engaging in crossdressing and an affair with a porn star]].

* ScrappyLevel: The race against [[TheScrappy Hilary]], in which you race a supercharged muscle car while driving a puny family sedan (and if you try to steal a faster car, you'll fail the race if you don't get back in the old one)...with the VCPD on ''your'' tail, not his. This one mission has singlehandedly spawned countless pages of text on GameFAQS consisting of ''nothing'' but every method and theory in the world to win it. Part of what makes it so frustrating is that you're racing Hillary so that he will be your driver for a bank heist. However, after you rob the bank, he's gunned down just seconds after showing up, leaving the escape up to you. That's right, you might as well have not hired him to begin with, ultimately making that awful race pointless. Even hardcore gamers are willing to use cheats for that.\\
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A bit of Fridge Logic also in wondering why would you need a driver who you can beat despite him using a vastly superior car.

* Examination of the motives of Sonny Forelli and Tommy Vercetti can easily turn them into, respectively, an AntiVillain and a VillainProtagonist. Sonny sent Tommy down to Vice City to make a drug deal, and when it goes wrong, Tommy tells him that he will recover the money and the coke for him. However, Tommy then stabs him in the back by creating his own criminal empire in South Florida and keeping everything for himself. Sonny had every right to do what he did to [[VillainProtagonist Tommy]] and his business.
** Although,[[spoiler: it is heavily implied in the dialogue between the two in the final mission that Sonny set up the drug deal that landed Tommy in this mess to go wrong and did not intend for him to survive. It is also implied that Sonny had also set up the incident that landed Tommy in jail several years prior]].

** Although,[[spoiler: it is heavily implied in the dialogue between the two in the final mission that Sonny set up the drug deal that landed Tommy in this mess to go wrong and did not intend for him to survive. It is also implied that Sonny had also set up the incident that landed Tommy several years prior.

* AcceptableReligiousTargets: Conservative Christians, particularly [[CorruptChurch televangelists]]. Pastor Richards preaches to his flock that "selfishness is a virtue" (a parody of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_gospel "prosperity gospel"]] preached by many televangelists), has a harem of five mistresses, and is using donations sent by his listeners to build himself a mansion in {{Hawaii}}. Alex Shrub, meanwhile, is a corrupt congressman who is targeting the "Puritan vote" and supports legislation to crack down on pornography, [[StrawHypocrite while secretly engaging in crossdressing and an affair with a porn star]].

* AcceptableReligiousTargets: Conservative Christians, particularly televangelists. Pastor Richards preaches to his flock that "selfishness is a virtue" (a parody of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_gospel "prosperity gospel"]] preached by many televangelists), has a harem of five mistresses, and is using donations sent by his listeners to build himself a mansion in {{Hawaii}}. Alex Shrub, meanwhile, is a corrupt congressman who is targeting the "Puritan vote" and supports legislation to crack down on pornography, [[StrawHypocrite while secretly engaging in crossdressing and an affair with a porn star]].