Heyyyyy, it's Mista Vee!

[prog]

I have to admit, now that I'm finally well into the midgame, a lot of Vice City is actually a hoot. I couldn't help but love the Kaufman Cab missions, where you take sides in a war beetween two rival taxicab companies who literally battle it out on the streets over fares. It comes to a head with a demolition derby, and then a final showdown with the katana-wielding, tiger-striped cab-driving leader of your competition.

I think I like these bits for the same sorts of reasons that so many sensible button-down movie critics were all gleeful-despite-themselves about Kill Bill. The ultra-violence becomes something weirdly transcendental once it's firmly established that the world is not our own, and the extreme mayhem and dismemberment actively refuses to be taken seriously, even to flinching girly-men like me.

Comments

[rserocki.livejournal.com]

I read stuff like the unrealistically plentiful blood in a sword fight scene helped make it less realistic/brutal (K.B.)

[cortezopossum.livejournal.com]

In some ways I actually liked GTA3 better than Vice City ... For one, GTA3 had more places to do bigger and better car stunts. Two, just the overall color scheme in Vice City got annoying. I didn't like it in the 80s and I didn't like it the second time around either. Three, I kinda missed that dopey airplane that was a real pain in the keister to try to fly. It was a real challenge just to get the thing airborn.

Nonetheless, the one thing Vice City really had going for it was the wide variety of things you had to do for the missions.