Can lightning strike twice in the same spot? Rockstar Games sure hopes so. In 2001, Rockstar's stylish crime simulator Grand Theft Auto III was met with critical acclaim, won numerous awards and went on to become one of the best-selling console games in history. GTAIII redefined the notion of what a video game could be and proved quite convincingly that games tailored to the tastes of adults could sell in high numbers. While most fans would have been content with an expansion pack for GTAIII, Rockstar saw fit to deliver a brand new game that would surpass GTAIII in every conceivable way.

This would be a daunting task under any deadline, but the developers sought to release the sequel, entitled Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, in just under a years time. I'm not sure what sort of voodoo they resorted to or how many of their souls they had to sell, but Grand Theft Auto: Vice City has turned out to be an excellent game that exceeds the high standard that was set by GTAIII. Sharper graphics, expanded gameplay freedom, an all-star cast of actors and the largest licensed soundtrack in history all culminate in one of the years' best games. It's not nearly as ground-breaking as GTAIII was, but Vice City is still an excellent game and one hell of a fun ride.

Like its highly-acclaimed predecessor, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is a non-linear action game that blends various gameplay types (driving, action, RPG) into a hybrid formula that stands in a class all its own. You take on the role of tough guy Tommy Vercetti (expertly voice by Ray Liotta), who is sent down to Vice City by the Forelli family after serving a fifteen year prison sentence. Tommy quickly winds up in a world of trouble after a drug deal is botched and he loses the money he was given. From here you'll have to earn back that money by doing odd jobs, taking assassination contracts, robbing stores and working your way up through the crime ranks. Though you will work for various crime lords, eventually you'll become your own boss and call your own shots. It is in this regard where Vice City differs the most from GTAIII; as Tommy, YOU will become the biggest, baddest dude in town during the course of the game, which ends up being a hell of a lot of fun.

The game takes place during the drug-running/big-hair/synthesizer craze of the 1980s (1986, to be exact) in the living, breathing confines of Vice City. This sprawling metropolis accurately recreates the style and atmosphere of southern Florida, complete with neon-clad hotels, posh golf courses, drug mansions and Cuban ghettos. From the instruction manual, to the stylish opening credits to the outstanding music selection, Vice City oozes a well-conceived 1980s vibe throughout. I had my doubts as to how well the nostalgia angle would work, but Rockstar has gome to extraordinary lengths to make the experience cool, funny and engaging. The same off-beat sense of humor that made GTAIII so much fun is back in force here in Vice City, so expect to laugh out loud at some of the more unexpected cutscenes and radio commercials.

The core gameplay remains similar to GTAIII, in that you will accept missions, execute them as you see fit and receive a monetary reward for completing them. Rockstar has spent a considerable amount of time beefing up Vice City's mission structure and the results are impressive. Most of the missions are more involved and complex than the myriad of fetch quests that characterized GTAIII, making Vice City much more engaging and challenging than its predecessor. Many missions involve multiple objectives ranging from changing clothes to procuring weapons to meeting contacts. Killing people and destroying property is still the order of the day, and the weapon controls are much improved in Vice City. The camera no longer swings wildly; it will instantly jump over Tommy's shoulder when aiming, and you'll automatically select the most dangerous target. There are still some quirks in the system (especially when there are multiple targets to choose from), but it works much better than it did in GTAIII.

Your arsenal is limited to one weapon of each type, which is a good thing considering there are well over 30 total weapons. The coolest new weapons are of the melee variety and include meat cleavers, katanas, hammers, chainsaws and nightsticks. Tooling someone up with a hammer is extremely satisfying, as is tearing up a car with a chainsaw. You can also use the chainsaw on your fellow citizens with very messy results. There are some new firearms as well, such as a very satisfying colt python and a badass rapid-fire shotgun. And let's not forget the minigun, which fires about eight thousand bullets per second. Vehicles can also be used as weapons, either running down fat people on your moped or launching missiles from an apache helicopter. Carnage has never been so much goddamn fun.

The good citizens of Vice City won't take your reign of destruction lightly, as the VCPS police force is much improved over the tubby shlubs from Liberty City. Pulling a gun on a cop earns you an automatic two stars on your wanted meter, and these guys can pull you from a moving car with alarming regularity. Don't even think of making a getaway on a motorcycle, as the cops won't hesitate to jeopardize the safety of everyone else just to nail you. Three stars brings out a pair of suave crimefighters driving a sexy sports car (there's a joke there) along with SWAT members descending on ropes from helicopters. The FBI will give chase at five stars, though their Ranchers seem to lack the power and kamikaze intensity of their Liberty City compatriots. The army still kicks ass though and just nudging your car against a tank results in a spree-ending explosion. At that point, you just exit the hospital and start all over again.

The main missions in Vice City are certainly outstanding, but Rockstar has beefed up the side missions quite a bit. In addition to the standard Vigilante, Paramedic, Firefighter and Taxi Driver vehicle missions, you can also deliver pizzas, sell ice cream and participate in demolition derby events. All of these fun diversions will net you cash, which is much more important to your success in Vice City. Tommy can purchase a variety of properties, ranging from broken-down shacks to multi-car condos. Some of these merely serve as safehouses (complete with weapons storage and helipads), while others open up varying mission strands. Completing these "asset missions" will allow your properties to generate daily revenue that you can collect at your leisure. This welcome aspect really makes you feel the role of a mob boss running the town.

There are well over 100 vehicles in Vice City, and not all of them are of the wheeled variety. Of course the biggest addition is the inclusion of motorcycles, which might not sound like much, but riding a hog or crotch rocket through the city streets is an incredible amount of fun. There are a handful of different helicopters to pilot, allowing you to go just about anywhere on the island. The graphics engine really shines here, as you can see for miles when you're up in the air. The ability to fly certainly adds an extra dimension to executing missions. Rockstar also added just about every vehicle-related feature you'd ever want in a game, from smashing them up with baseball bats to shooting out tires to being able to bail from a speeding car. I gotta say that ghost-riding a motorcycle into a crowded sidewalk is almost too much fun for any one man to have.

Vice City is perhaps the ultimate paradox with regard to visuals, as it is both amazing and underwhelming at the same time. In just about every fashion it is a much better-looking game than GTAIII and shows improvements in the areas of draw distance, modeling, texturing and lighting. Vice City is much larger in scale and density than Liberty City and includes many more back alleys, side roads and shortcuts for you to explore. All of this streams from the disc so that there is very little loading during the actual game. New to the series are interiors locales like jewelry stores, pizza restaurants and shopping malls that are tightly integrated into the landscape, though some of the larger areas require brief loading events. Interior spaces like the Malibu Club, Pole Position and Ocean View Hotel look fantastic and feature a host of little details and great lighting schemes. There are dozens of interior spaces to discover, and these add a great deal of interactivity to an already impressive virtual city.

Lighting in general is fantastic in Vice City, from neon-clad hotels on the main strip to sun flares reflecting off the backs of cars. Character modeling has also received a substantial boost, as the characters in Vice City are fully skinned and look much better than the blocky, segmented people in GTAIII. Tommy's various outfits look particularly sharp. Texturing is also improved over the last game, most notably on character clothing and building exteriors. There are host of great-looking vehicles in the game, from cars and trucks to helicopters and motorcycles. The various bikes are modeled particularly well, and Tommy looks fantastic while riding one. The car models, while not the most detailed ones to be seen in a game, are still modeled quite well and exhibit some nice damage in over a dozen different areas, including blown tires. Overall there are few games that can compete with Vice City in terms of sheer scale and ambition, so its flaws (discussed below) can easily be forgiven.

On the negative side, Vice City still suffers from some of the same visual problems that plagued GTAIII. Given the scale of the game these are acceptable drawbacks, though they must be mentioned all the same. Some of the textures tend to smear pretty badly when you get close to them, especially in some of the interior environments. The game runs at a fairly smooth 30 fps most of the time, though that tends to fluctuate wildly during heated engagements with multiple cars converging on the same area. It's nothing that hampers the action too badly, but it's annoying nonetheless. The character and car models are not nearly as detailed as those seen in other games, but again this can be easily overlooked considering the enormous size and scope of the game. Much like GTAIII, the good tends to outweigh the bad in Vice City, but there is still room for Rockstar to improve their game development skills with the PlayStation2 hardware.

GTAIII won critical acclaim for its nearly four hours of stellar radio airplay, but Vice City completely trumps it with over eight hours of radio chatter and licensed songs. There are ten radio stations that run the gamut of entertainment choices, from hard rock (V-Rock) and R&B (Fever 105) to new age (Wave 103) and pop (Flash FM). There's even an early hip-hop station (Wildstyle Pirate Radio) hosted by legendary radio DJ Mr. Magic. Many radio favorites return to host the various stations, including Lazlow, who is hilarious as an inept rocker, along with bungling pseudo-lothario Fernando Martinez. Rockstar has gone to great lengths in assembling the soundtrack and has created one of the finest musical accompaniments to any entertainment product. They didn't strictly opt for the cheese factor either, as there are a wide variety of great songs here that are still enjoyable to listen to. From Blondie to Michael Jackson to Ozzy Osbourne, there's something for everyone on Vice City radio.

Vice City is punctuated by a wide variety of sound effects, from squealing tires, to planes passing overhead, to multi-car explosions in the middle of the street. Everything sounds realistic and believable for the most part, though the game seems to recycle many of the sound effects from GTAIII. The game sounds downright fantastic though, with the optional DTS audio mix, and I'm absolutely thrilled that Rockstar was able to implement this functionality in Vice City. It's only a 4-channel DTS mix but it sounds great nonetheless. The true highlight, of course, is the phenomenal acting performances given by the various superstars behind the characters. As I mentioned earlier, Ray Liotta is the perfect Tommy Vercetti with his tough-guy voice and take-no-crap sensibility. The one-liners he spits out every now and then are funny, and the trash talk he spews when fighting cops and pedestrians is particularly enjoyable. Other notables include Burt Reynolds, Luis Guzman, Gary Busey, Jenna Jameson and even NFL great Lawrence Taylor! Overall it is one of the most well-acted video games yet and easily keeps pace with greats like Metal Gear Solid 2 and Final Fantasy X.

What Rockstar has put together with Vice City is a great audiovisual package dripping with style and nostalgia, expanded gameplay freedom with more compelling missions and the potential for hundreds of hours of gameplay. It is in every respect an improvement over Grand Theft Auto III, but is it a better game? GTAIII came out of nowhere to blow the doors off the game world and redefined the industry's perception of action games in general and adult-oriented games specifically. Vice City merely refines the formula it created and while these changes are all for the better, the game just doesn't have the same impact that GTAIII did last year. Some nagging problems remain, such as visual defects, graphical glitches and AI deficiencies that might have been cleared up with more than a year of development time. Vice City didn't knock me on my ass nearly as much as GTAIII did when I first played it, so I'm afraid the novelty has worn off quite a bit.

That shouldn't stop you from playing it, of course. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City builds on its predecessor's successful formula with a host of welcome refinements, and stands as a deep and engaging action game that should please fans of the series. Its only major drawback is that it feels like more of the same, but that shouldn't stop you from playing it. The improvements that Rockstar made have resulted in a much smoother playing experience, and Vice City itself is an impressive achievement in virtual world design. It's deep, stylish, looks great, sounds even better and is just a whole lot of fun to play. I'm not sure if it's still a Game of the Year candidate, but Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is still a remarkable game. Get it.