Number 1: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

I had so much internal debate about this particular position. Diablo was only just pipped and well this was a toss up between Grand Theft Auto:San Andreas and Vice City itself. So good are both these games that I almost broke my one game from a series rule.

When it came down to it had to be Vice City. I just did everything right, the soundtrack the look the feel it just too you right to the 80’s. The soundtrack was the strongest of the series, the first game to have a fully licensed soundtrack.

It’s strongest feature was giving you a cast of characters the were quirky, and had real motivations.

Add to this excellent mission variety. Who could forget bombing Cubans with a toy remote control plane? Or distributing fliers for an ‘Adult’ movie via a sea-plane? Or driving around a rock band at high speeds so a bomb dosen’t go off. I know I can’t. It all just felt right. Add to this all the extras, hidden packages, Fire Ambulance, Police, races it goes on and on. There is so much to do pack into those 3 islands.

It felt like you could be a complete manic, and the missions were so diverse that you never got bored. It never became a dash from mission to mission just to be done, like GTA4 was for me.

It added much needed customisation but didn’t make it so overwhelming that there were too many choices, I’m looking at San Andreas in this respect.

The gameplay still holds up quite well today although the graphics have dated, the draw distance is really quite low and textures and buildings popping in are very frequent, which is a bit of a curse of the open world game. Despite this I have no real complaints with the game it’s just so completely awesome.

This is a game I always go back to…in fact it may be time to go back to it now, maybe you should to.