GTA San Andreas CJ video: https://youtu.be/enw2KF5IV8U
--
The colors. The palm trees. And, of course, the music.
Those are the first things that come to mind when I think of Vice City.
And with Rockstar reportedly spending 2 billion dollars to take us back there in GTA 6...
I figured this was the perfect time to revisit the OG Vice City.
It wasn’t grounded like GTA 4, or sprawling like GTA 5—Vice City knew exactly what it wanted to be, and it went all in.
And no one embodied that alpha energy more than its protagonist: Tommy Vercetti.
We tend to praise protagonists who are deep, conflicted, vulnerable.
Tommy Vercetti is none of those things.
And yet—he still works. Or does he?
That’s the question I’ve been thinking about.
Does Tommy actually hold up as a great character—or are we all just high on 80s music and nostalgia?
To find out, I went back to Vice City—and I mean to the original GTA Vice City.
--
CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Intro
01:05 - Early 2000s
03:05 - Welcome to The Jungle
06:18 - Tommy as a Character
11:15 - The Design of Vice City
17:02 - The Fantasy and the Frame
21:16 - Side Characters
28:12 - Nostalgia Is a Hell of a Drug
31:08 - The Legacy of Tommy
33:36 - Voice Actors
34:58 - Conclusion