History YMMV / GrandTheftAutoViceCity

* ThatOneAchievement: On the UsefulNotes/Playstation4 version, there's "Take the Cannoli", easily one of the most time-consuming trophies to earn in the game. Getting it requires getting the criminal rating to Godfather, which you get by getting a million criminal points and having $10 million. Getting points depends on how many people you kill, vehicles you destroy how much money you have and your accuracy. It would be the last thing that affects how much points you have. And if you get any other trophy and play all the missions and get 100% completion, you will more than likely have your accuracy rating low and if you want it, expect to do hundreds of hours of grinding. There are quicker ways to do this, though they would still take several hours before you get it. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpb4uSAiQIk This video covers one's efforts and exploits to earn this.]]

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: Apartment 3C, which is an eerie shout out to ''Film/Scarface1983'', and not only it's unmarked, it has no significance to the plot or everything whatsoever.

** The cutscenes of the Auntie Poulet missions shows the aforementioned Haitian gang leader mind controlling Tommy by making him drink some mysterious tea every time. While supernatural elements appear in other games in the series, its usually just in EasterEgg form or they receive the MaybeMagicMaybeMundane treatment (i.e. The Truth's conspiracy theories in [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas San Andreas]]), which only makes this more weird. Needless to say, Tommy being temporarily turned into a brainwashed agent of the Haitians is never mentioned again once Auntie Poulet missions are completed.

* DemonicSpiders: The army, as it's the only enemy in game packing M4 assault rifles. Try driving next to Fort Baxter. Thankfully there is almost no mission involve fighting M4 equipped armies and in missions where Tommy fights an army, they are equipped with anything but an M4.

** After completing "Trojan Voodoo," the last mission in the gang war side mission chain, the Haitian gang turns hostile to Tommy. If they spot you they will begin to shoot you, whether that be on car or by foot. They are not difficult to take out by any means, but dealing with them also means taking the risk of gaining a one or two-star wanted level. If you are doing any Taxi Driver, Vigilante or "Ice Cream" selling side missions, you are better off avoiding Little Haiti and its surrondings unless you want to deal with these gang members and the subsequent police officers.

** The RC helicopter side missions. Remember when you blew up that building? Good. Because these missions are slap in the face to that. The helicopter, in complete defiance of the perfectly manageable one you flew before, is so damn sensitive that you'll literally do flips if you press a directional key. Not press and hold, just press. At least it's a checkpoint mission and the time limit doesn't affect OneHundredPercentCompletion.

** The RC helicopter side mission. Remember when you blew up that building? Good. Because this mission is a slap in the face to that. The helicopter, in complete defiance of the perfectly manageable one you flew before, is so damn sensitive that you'll literally do flips if you press a directional key. Not press and hold, just press. At least it's a checkpoint mission and the time limit doesn't affect OneHundredPercentCompletion.

* ScrappyMechanic: The police spawning. In an effort to correct III's laughably easy-to-avoid police (once you got used to the game's quirks), they overdid it. It's next to impossible to lose even a two-star wanted level without going to a Pay 'N' Spray. This is because once you hit two stars, the cops continually spawn everywhere. No matter how far away you get from those following you, no matter how inconceivably remote of an area you attempt to hide in, they will show up. Also, see the supercop glitch. SA and onward adjusted this, but it's still really hard to get away from even a two star level until IV.

** The cutscenes of the Auntie Poulet missions shows the aforementioned haitian gang leader mind controlling Tommy by making him drink some mysterious tea everytime. While supernatural elements appear in other games in the series, its usually just in EasterEgg form or they receive the MaybeMagicMaybeMundane treatment (i.e. The Truth's conspiracy theories in [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas San Andreas]]), which only makes this more weird. Needless to say, Tommy being temporarily turned into a brainwashed agent of the haitians is never mentioned again once Auntie Poulet missions are completed.

* GenreTurningPoint: Before ''Vice City'', music in video games was limited either to original tracks or from very obscure artists. Even ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIII'' was mostly made up of new songs for the game. After ''III'''s success, the Houser Brothers believed they could still make money while populating their game with a vast amount of licensed tracks. They used their contacts in the music industry to put together a tracklist of some of the biggest pop/rock music from TheEighties. To this day, it's still regarded as one of the best soundtracks in gaming history and played a huge part in establishing the game's atmosphere. Afterwards, the number of video games using licensed music for their soundtracks jumped up.

** Patrol Invest Group members ([[FunWithAcronyms PIGs]] for short) can be quite the nuisance when doing the "Ice Cream" selling side missions. If they spot you, they will run up to you, pull you out of the vehicle and the mission will automatically end, forcing you to go all the way back to the Ice Cream factory and start the mission again, and to add insult to injury they start shooting you when you are out of your vehicle. You are way better off avoiding Starfish Island and the Mall for those sidequests.

** In "All Hands On Deck!", the extremely thick-accented Scottish sailor who fights alongside you is a genuine highlight of the mission.

* OneSceneWonder:

* ThatOneAchievement: On the UsefulNotes/Playstation4 version, there's "Take the Cannoli", easily one of the most time-consuming trophies to earn in the game. Getting it requires getting the criminal rating to Godfather, which you get by getting a million criminal points and having $10 million. Getting points depends on how many people you kill, vehicles you destroy how much money you have and your accuracy. It would be the last thing that affects how much points you have. And if you get any other trophy and play all the missions and get 100% completion, you will more than likely have your accuracy rating low and if you want it, expecting to do hundreds of hours of grinding. There are quicker ways to do this, though they would still take several hours before you get it. First there's the Hyman Condo Method, which has you parking four Sea Sparrow helicopters in the Hyman condo garage and then getting three helicopters together on the roof of the same building and spam the blow-up-all-vehicles chat until you earn the achievement. There's also the Sea Sparrow method, where it's best to start a new game. This trick exploits the glitch for accuracy. Once you start the new game, you collect 80 packages to unlock the Sea Sparrow at the Vercetti estate (despite how it's still Diaz's property) and then get a gun and fire 100 shots as accuracy doesn't count until 100 shots have been fired. Then take the Sea Sparrow to the film studio and have the Sparrow fire at the Packer truck (even after it's destroyed) as it won't count for shots fired but for shots hit and put a rubber band over the fire button on the controller until it unlocks. And as for money, just keep replaying Cone Crazy until you reach $10 million. No matter what method you choose, expect hours of grinding. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpb4uSAiQIk This video covers one's efforts and exploits to earn this.]]

* GeniusBonus: In his interview on "Pressing Issues", Jeremy Robard lists "[[UsefulNotes/{{Lebanon}} Lebanese]]" as one of the countries where he owns a vacation home. In 1986 Lebanon was in the middle of a devastating civil war that had reduced the entire country to rubble and completely obliterated what used to be a vibrant tourism industry. This claim foreshadows Robard being exposed as entirely full of shit by the end of the interview, fresh out of jail and living in a shoebox apartment next to the gas works. Not only is it highly unlikely that Robard's vacation home would survive the violence even if he actually owned one, but it shows an understandable lack of knowledge of current events given he a substantial amount of time in jail.

* GeniusBonus: In his interview on "Pressing Issues", Jeremy Robard lists "[[UsefulNotes/{{Lebanon}} Lebanese]]" as one of the countries where he owns a vacation home. In 1986 Lebanon was in the middle of a devastating civil war that had reduced the entire country to rubble and completely obliterated what used to be a vibrant tourism industry. This claim foreshadows Robard being exposed as entirely full of shit by the end of the interview, fresh out of jail and living in a shoebox apartment next to the gas works. Not only is it highly unlikely that Robard's vacation home would survive the violence even if he actually owned one, but it shows a an understandable lack of knowledge of current events for someone who spent a substantial amount of time in jail.

* GeniusBonus: In his interview on "Pressing Issues", Jeremy Robard lists "[[UsefulNotes/{{Lebanon}} Lebanese]]" as one of the countries he owns vacation homes in. In 1986 Lebanon was in the middle of a devastating civil war that had reduced the entire country to rubble and completely obliterated what used to be a vibrant tourism industry. This claim foreshadows Robard being exposed as being entirely full of shit by the end of the interview, as Chavez reveals to the audience that Robard is fresh out of jail and living a shoebox apartment next to the gas works. Not only would any vacation home in Lebanon that Robard owned likely would have been reduced to a crater by the time of the interview, but it shows a lack of knowledge of current events that is understandable for someone who just spent a substantial amount of time in jail.

* ValuesResonance: To modern gamers, Jeremy Robard could serve as an effective parody of the many social media influencer scammers that keep popping up everywhere.

*** [[spoiler: It is heavily implied in the dialogue between the two in the final mission that Sonny set up the drug deal to go wrong deliberately 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]]. This is supported by the cutscene straight after the drug deal goes wrong: Sonny phones Tommy and on the table he's sitting at are both the coke and the money, indicating he sold Tommy out from the start and simply used him to build an empire he thought he could take over after having Lance bump off Tommy. Fortunately for the player, it doesn't go down that way...

* HarsherInHindsight: On "Pressing Issues", John F. Hickory warns that unless Florida curbs immigration, "We will be piled on top of each other like they are in UsefulNotes/{{Australia}}!" Come TheNewTwenties, Australia would [[https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/australias-housing-crisis-largely-hidden-is-getting-worse-2022-12-19/ experience a housing shortage]] that many experts claim rising immigration is at least partially to blame for.

* MagnificentBastard: [[VillainProtagonist Tommy Vercetti]], aka the Harwood Butcher, is a member of the [[TheMafia Forelli crime family]] who, shortly after his release from prison, is sent to ViceCity to expand the family's influence in the drug trade. After a drug deal goes wrong due to an ambush, he begins investigating who was responsible so he can recover the stolen money and product and take revenge. Upon discovering that his new employer, drug baron Ricardo Diaz was behind the incident, he kills him and takes over his operation. Tommy decides to branch out into legitimate business, using some of the properties he acquires as fronts for criminal activity. Double-crossing his nominal boss Sonny Forelli to become independent and successfully straddling both sides of the law, Tommy makes himself [[TheDon the most powerful crime lord in Vice City]].

** "Keep Your Friends Close..." The final mission and a thrilling conclusion to an excellent game that also doubles as a ShoutOut to ''Film/{{Scarface1983}}''.

** "Keep Your Friends Close..." The final mission and a thrilling conclusion to an excellent game that also doubles as a ShoutOut to ''Film/{{Scarface}}''.

* MagnificentBastard: [[VillainProtagonist Tommy Vercetti]], aka the Harwood Butcher, is a member of the [[TheMafia Forelli crime family]] who, shortly after his release from prison, is sent to ViceCity to expand the family's influence in the drug trade. After a drug deal goes wrong due to an ambush, he begins investigating who was responsible so he can recover the stolen money and product and take revenge. Upon discovering that his new employer, drug baron Ricardo Diaz was behind the incident, he kills him and takes over his operation. Tommy decides to branch out into legitimate business, using some of the properties he acquires as [[TotallyNotACriminalFront fronts for criminal activity]]. Double-crossing his nominal boss Sonny Forelli to become independent and successfully straddling both sides of the law, Tommy makes himself [[TheDon the most powerful crime lord in Vice City]].

* MagnificentBastard: [[VillainProtagonist Tommy Vercetti]], aka the Harwood Butcher, is a member of the [[TheMafia Forelli crime family]] who, shortly after his release from prison, is sent to ViceCity to expand the family's influence in the drug trade. After a drug deal goes wrong due to an ambush, he begins investigating who was responsible so he can recover the stolen money and product and take revenge. Upon discovering that his new employer, drug baron Ricardo Diaz was behind the incident, he kills him and takes over his operation. Tommy decides to branch out into legitimate business, using some of the properties he acquires as [[LegitimateBusinessmensSocialClub fronts for criminal activity]]. Double-crossing his nominal boss Sonny Forelli to become independent and successfully straddling both sides of the law, Tommy makes himself [[TheDon the most powerful crime lord in Vice City]].

* ThatOneLevel:
** "Stunt Boat Challenge", the first mission given by Umberto Robina, is flat out ''insane''. You are required to collect 27 checkpoints strawn across the water canals, but you have to do it under a strict time limit and in a boat that is unforgivingly slow and takes too long to accelerate. While turning the frame limiter on might make the mission easier, it does not always work, and ultimately [[LuckBasedMission it all comes down more to luck than actual skill]].
** The race against [[TheScrappy Hilary King]]. You have to race him in the normal variant of the Sentinel while he uses a special version of the Sabre that is much faster. You can't steal a better car, assuming you could even find one, because the sedan is mission-critical. Even if it weren't, in the time it takes to stop your sedan and jack another vehicle, Hilary will either catch up to you and pull ahead (if you're fortunate enough to be in the lead) or put even more distance between the two of you. The VCPD try to arrest you, and ''only you'', for street racing. Assuming you get ahead (or fall behind), Hilary actually drives even better because game mechanics only spawn NPC traffic in relation to your car (the road is functionally empty from his POV). Finally, there's a glitch on the bridge near the end of the track that can happen on the [=PS2=] version which can cause you to clip through and fall to your watery death. This one mission has singlehandedly spawned countless pages of text on Website/GameFAQS consisting of ''nothing'' but every method and theory in the world to win it.
** "Death Row", which is easily the most hated mission next to racing Hilary. To explain, you now know that Diaz is the one that messed up your deal at the beginning of the game. Tommy is content to wait it out, but Lance, like an idiot, [[LeeroyJenkins jumps the gun and gets himself captured]]. You have to rescue him before he's beaten to death. You have to do this starting at the Malibu, while Lance is being held at the dump on the other side of the map. His remaining health [[TimedMission is your timer]], and starts right away. Sounds annoying yet? Good, because [[FromBadToWorse it gets worse]]. The dump is barricaded by mooks armed with automatic rifles and high-powered machine guns which will chew through even an armored Tommy or a helicopter if you do a flyover. They're positioned high up on cover to make killing them harder and more time-consuming. Once you rescue Lance, you have to get him to the hospital, which is when three sports cars with goons decide to chase you down. If you blow them up, a fourth comes along. It also respawns (albeit slowly). On top of ''all of that'', there's literally no reward. You don't get paid jack for one of the hardest missions in the game. Perhaps to make up for it, Diaz's mooks drop the largest amount of lootable money, the next mission gives you the most powerful assault rifle in the game, and is practically a cakewalk unless you're criminally incompetent thanks to not only Diaz's guards less frequent at his mansion, but [[ArtificialStupidity they often fail to notice you if you're far enough away, and tend to have trouble navigating certain pathways to get to you]].
** Right after you [[spoiler:off Diaz and become the new boss]], you have to go to the mall to smash store windows. The clock is set to five minutes... starting from your house! For reference, the mall is at the back end of the first island, and you start from the center island. A good driver with a fast car (which the house will provide) can get there within 1-2 minutes, leaving three minutes to kill everything in sight, but if you get bogged down you fail. There's a helicopter on the roof that can get you there even faster, but there's a chance that won't spawn, forcing some SaveScumming to get it.
** "Cop Land", where you dress up as cops and set up explosives at the mall. You can only drive to the mission in a cop car, [[ThisIsGonnaSuck with all other traffic in the area also being cop cars]], and RIGHT after you set the explosives off, and despite wearing cop uniforms you IMMEDIATELY gain a five star wanted level and everyone zeroes in on you, somehow. Since you presumably don't have a regular car and the Pay 'N' Spray won't take a cop car, the point of the mission is to get back to the mansion from the other side of the island with a near full wanted level and survive. It's incredibly tough to do even in a fast, tough cop car. Did we mention this mission is only at the halfway point of the story mode? Adding to the frustration is that you need to keep Lance from getting killed, and he's relatively easy for the cops to kill. If all you needed to do was get ''yourself'' to safety, it would be significantly easier.
*** On the PC version onwards, there is a semi-hidden undercover police Cheetah that is sprayable and counts as a cop car for the mission...if you know where it is parked.
** Love Juice. You start at the [=VRock=] HQ and have to head to a nearby location to meet a drug dealer. Upon meeting him, he then takes your money without giving you the product and runs, while a cutscene lets him escape on an incredibly fast PCJ-600 bike, while the game expects you to chase him down. If you aren't aware this is going to happen, you might not even be facing the right way, and you have about five seconds to follow him before the game declares the misison a failure. Once you take out the dealer, you get a call telling you to go and pick up Mercedes from her apartment to bring her to the gig before the band start playing. Once you pick her up, the game gives you an absurdly strict timer of only 1 minute and 20 seconds to get to the gig location. If you fail it (which you will if you don't know what's coming next), you do it all again. Chase down the dealer, pick up Mercedes, and drive like crazy to make it on time.
** Trojan Voodoo. Okay, get this: you start at Umberto's cafe and have to go on a mission to destroy a Haitian drug factory. This involves stealing a specific type of car (a Voodoo) and then driving it to the factory. But if the game happens to simply not spawn any Voodoos on the street, you're going to be stuck waiting for one to roll on by, or going to some unmarked locations where one can be known to spawn in order to steal it. Once you've gotten the car, you drive to a meeting point with some other Cubans, and then drive to the factory proper, which is full of Haitians with guns. You have to head inside, survive being shot, and place three bombs around the building. From the moment you plant the first bomb, you have exactly 45 seconds to plant the other two and make your escape. So, you run back out the way you came in, right? Wrong. Glancing at the minimap, it looks as if there's a way around the right side of the building, right? Wrong again. You have to go back to the closed gate, then do a 180, where you'll see a very small stairway tucked in on the left side, hidden by buildings and walls. Climb the stairway and it leads you to a roof. Run across the roof, and the game will trigger a cutscene showing the factory being destroyed, which ends the mission successfully.

* ValuesDissonance: The way Creator/SteveIrwin gets ruthlessly parodied as Mr. Zoo on K-Chat may not sit well with younger people who play the game today, given [[PosthumousPopularityPotential how much of a beloved figure he has become]] [[DiedDuringProduction since his unfortunate death]]. However, Irwin was one of the most frequently parodied public figures of the early 2000s and some of the period caricatures make ''Vice City'''s seem respectful in comparison.

** The fast-paced ''"Phnom Penh '86"''. In a total reminiscence of [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar Vietnam-era aerial raids]], you team up with Lance and fly in a helicopter to a [[StormingTheCastle drug gang's stronghold of three mansions]], and while Lance drives the helicopter you fire an M60 machine gun at gangsters which continue to appear from the mansions corridors, terraces and backyards, you ''[[HilariousInHindsight eradicate them]]''.[[note]]Diaz' request in the mission introductory cutscene.[[/note]] Also note that the mission's name is actually the capital of Cambodia, rounding off the "jungle war" theme. Bonus if played while playing Radio Espantoso's tropical music. Also it's the mission that reward you with full access to the city.

** "Death Row", which is easily the most hated mission next to racing Hilary. To explain, you now know that Diaz is the one that messed up your deal at the beginning of the game. Tommy is content to wait it out, but Lance, like an idiot, [[LeeroyJenkins jumps the gun and gets himself captured]]. You have to rescue him before he's beaten to death. You have to do this starting at the Malibu, while Lance is being held at the dump on the other side of the map. His remaining health [[TimedMission is your timer]], and starts right away. Sounds annoying yet? Good, because [[FromBadToWorse it gets worse]]. The dump is barricaded by mooks armed with automatic rifles and high-powered machine guns which will chew through even an armored Tommy or a helicopter if you do a flyover. They're positioned high up on cover to make killing them harder and more time-consuming. Once you rescue Lance, you have to get him to the hospital, which is when three sports cars with goons decide to chase you down. If you blow them up, a fourth comes along. It also respawns (albeit slowly). On top of ''all of that'', there's literally no reward. You don't get paid jack for one of the hardest missions in the game. Perhaps to make up for it, Diaz's mooks drop the largest amount of lootable money, the next mission gives you the most powerful assault rifle in the game, and is practically a cakewalk unless you're criminally incompetent thanks to not only Diaz's gang guarding the mansion are less frequent, but [[ArtificialStupidity they often fail to notice you if you far enough as well as having trouble navigating certain pathways to get to you]].

* MisBlamed:

* HarsherInHindsight: On "Pressing Issues", John F. Hickory warns that unless Florida curbs immigration, "We will be piled on top of each other like they are in UsefulNotes/{{Australia}}!" Come TheNewTwenties, Australia would [[https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/australias-housing-crisis-largely-hidden-is-getting-worse-2022-12-19/ experience a housing shortage]] that many experts would blame on rising immigration.

* HarsherInHindsight: On "Pressing Issues", John F. Hickory warns that unless Florida curbs immigration, "We will be piled on top of each other like they are in UsefulNotes/Australia!" Come TheNewTwenties, Australia would [[https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/australias-housing-crisis-largely-hidden-is-getting-worse-2022-12-19/ experience a housing shortage]] that many experts would blame on rising immigration.