Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Game music has been a passion of ours roughly since, oh, 1985, but in the past 10 years, it’s come to mean something more. Don’t get us wrong, we still love the beepatronic music of the 8- and 16-bit periods (and the wave of chiptune artists it inspired), but the past decade has also seen licensed music become a surprisingly important part of gaming. Sometimes, this just means a selection of familiar hits to accompany our music games, but every so often, a game will use licensed tracks to careful, brilliant effect – and in the process, will expose legions of gamers to music they might never have heard otherwise.

What follows are the games and franchises that have been the most influential in bringing strange and terrifying new musical styles to gamers’ ears – and in the interest of making this our most self-indulgent Top 7 since that other one, we’ve asked a handful of our editors to explain what made each one important to them personally...

There’s not long to go now until Rockstar finally unveil their Grand Theft Auto 5 trailer – unless you’re reading this afterwards, in which case disregard that first bit. Let’s be honest, we’re properly excited. Like groin tingling-ly so and by the amount of activity in our Twitter feed we can tell we’re not alone. 

We’re so pumped for the debut of GTAV that we’ve scoured the interwebs in search of the old, initial trailers for previous iterations. We remember GTAIV’s ‘things will be different here’ trailer with the first glimpse of Niko Bellic from yesteryear but how many of you remember how you felt when Vice City and San Andreas were aired?

Click inside to jog your memory and find out what we think these past trailers mean for GTA V's debut.

NO! We’re not talking about frigging hockey masks! Nobody has ever strapped on this mouthless, empty-eyed, bone-colored facial façade with the intent of instilling a victim with the fear and intimidation that comes with facing down a goaltender. No, virtually every game character not playing for the NHL who’s ever put on a hockey mask is doing it for one reason, and one reason only: to crib from Jason Voorhees. And that’s our incredibly loose criteria here.

With that in mind, we tried to find as many instances of characters dressing up as Friday the 13th’s hero (yes, he is the hero) in honor of Halloween. So turn out your lights and put the lawyers to bed... it’s time for Jason Masks. Let’s start with the obvious...

As we inch closer to the 10-year anniversary of Grand Theft Auto III this Saturday, we’ve done a lot of reflecting about the era of gaming that it ushered in, and how it changed the way developers look at games. But aside from standardizing open worlds and giving us and a decade of morally ambiguous gaming, GTA as a series has told a lot of fascinating stories. And a big reason those stories were so fascinating was their cast of larger-than-life scumbags, psychos and sociopaths, most of which were not only memorable, but surprisingly complicated underneath their cartoonish exteriors.

With that in mind, we roped together a few of our editors and wouldn’t let them leave until they’d told us, in their own words, which ones were their favorites...

The 35 rampages located throughout Vice City typically require you to kill gang members or destroy vehicles. Some of these challenges can be tricky; it is recommended you attempt each one with full health and armor. Finishing all 35 nets you a small amount of cash and a chunk of the 100% completion rating.

Note that when you begin a rampage, you cannot pick up or buy new weapons. Each rampage has a time limit in which the appropriate challenge must be completed.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City may seem to be nearly as old as the 1980s culture it parodies and tributes, but we still found a lot to love about this last-gen gem. The feud with the Forelli Family has been quelled by bloodshed and our beloved Tommy Vercetti reigns as Vice City's champion of organized crime. But what's a kingpin to do when all his enemies have been vanquished? Follow our guide to find all of Vice City's hidden packages, unique jump locations and more.

There are 36 unique jump locations throughout Vice City. You’ll want to procure a PCJ Motorcycle, as some jumps cannot be completed without one. You can find a PCJ 600 bike near the Standing Vice Point building in Vice Point.

You'll always want to hit each jump with as much speed as possible. Most require that you clear an obstacle or land on the roof of a building. Make sure you get the “UNIQUE JUMP” title after landing a jump before moving on to the next one.

After pumping goodness knows how much time, energy and capital into their baby, the last thing a developer wants is for it to fade into bargain bins unnoticed. You could tie it to a well-loved motion picture, thus ensuring a pre-existing audience… but what if you can’t afford the license? Then it’s time for what charitable reviewers might call “paying homage!” Here are 20 games that are just really, really big fans of their cinematic cousins… copyright be damned.

Grand Theft Auto IV nearly upon us, and the only group anticipating the release of GTA IV more than gamers are lazy-ass journalists readying their speculative segments and editorials. Crouched at the April 29th starting line and foaming at the bit for that coveted variable to throw in place of their tired "Grand Theft Auto inspires X to Y" headlines.  

Crime doesn’t pay. But virtual crime? That does pay. And by the bucket-load. Even by the time the series reached Florida, it was breaking records in a major way, with Vice City becoming the fastest-selling PS2 title ever - until San Andreas beat it. And that’s despite four million Americans pre-ordering Vice City, and a million more buying it upon its release (here in the UK, the Miami Vice-vibed title shifted over a quarter of