Featured Image

This episodes featured image is based on the Grand Theft Auto Vice City logo as uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, which you can find here.

Players

Squidge

Jay

Chief

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Content Warning

We’re discussing the 80s spoof-a-thon, and Scarface rip-off pastiche Grand Theft Auto: Vice City in this episode. As such we talk about a lot of rather NSFW topics.

Please listen responsibly

Show Notes

This episode saw the Wafflers tackle the fantastically stupid GTA: Vice City - one of the first 3D, open world, crime-a-thons from acclaimed developers Rockstar. It wasn’t the first, but was a lot of people’s firsts - the earlier title GTA 3 was the first from Rockstar, and it set the stage for later titles in the series, and competitor titles like Saints Row.

Anyway, Jay and Squidge were joined by Chief in this episode

and it was recorded on the same day as his previous appearance on the show: Spirits Within; Plot Without

Chief wanted to start the conversation by bringing up “Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis” (aka “Table Tennis”):

Chief's Avatar Chief

It was bonkers, completely out of left-field.

And he’s not wrong, because there wasn’t even a table tennis competition or global event happening at the time. They just released it, seemingly randomly.

And the big topic of the day that we recorded

back in September of 2022

was that someone had hacked into Rockstar’s systems and leaked a bunch of early GTA 6 stuff.

this is Jay: please don’t do this. Us developers don’t want our early builds of stuff to see the light of day otherwise, we’d release them. Please remember to be nice to people, especially developers.

But before they could do that, the system that they use to record episodes completely crapped out

Jay: and it was after that day that we started using our Discord server to record episodes

Grand Theft Auto Vice City

Jay's Avatar Jay

We all need to put on our pastel coloured suits, [and] get a pile of cardboard boxes and prepare to drive into them. Because we are going to be talking about Scarface meets Miami Vice - or as we all know it Grand Theft Auto Vice City

But they couldn’t seem to get away from just how bonkers it was for Rockstar to have released a Table Tennis game, randomly between several entries in all of their extremely violent, very silly, crime-a-thons. It would be as bonkers as if:

Squidge's Avatar Squidge

Nintendo releases Diddy Kong Does The Accounts

This brought us to the topics of Nintendogs, societal pressure from parents in Japan, and what some young, Japanese couples get up to during bank holidays

or BONK holidays. Amiright?

Chief's Avatar Chief

I mean, that hasn’t helped at all.

What Miyamoto has done is he’s clocked into other people’s misery, and sold them a copy of Nintendogs. Which hasn’t helped the problem, and has just made it worse, AND he’s charged them £45 for it.

Attempt Number 2

Since there are a lot of people who have neither played Grand Theft Auto, nor GTA Vice City specifically, Jay wanted to challenge both Squidge and Chief to come up with a 30 second long (or less) elevator pitch for Vice City. Squidge went first:

Squidge's Avatar Squidge

Do you wanna play a game where you can race around, jump over things, shoot people, and apparently there’s a story that’s set in the ’80s?

You need to play the story, you can just drive around, running people over and shooting things.

Then Chief came in with:

Chief's Avatar Chief

Don’t bother, just play Table Tennis.

It’s reliving the ’80s, isn’t it? Great soundtrack. You drive around in ’80s, like, Miami and Florida. It’s fun, yeah. And you drive around and it’s cool. ’80s soundtrack.

It’s a lot of fun. There’s a good story there as well, despite what Squidge said. I mean, it’s just nicked off Scarface like, but yeah. A lot of fun. A lot of fun.

’80s!

But who won the elevator pitch battle? You decide

let us both know either on Twitter or on our Discord server

And afterwards, Squidge was able to reduce his elevator pitch down to:

Squidge's Avatar Squidge

Vice City is a soundtrack with a game built around it.

And finally, Jay had a shot at it (but without the timer):

Jay's Avatar Jay

So GTA Vice City.

It’s a game set in 1986. You play as Tommy Vercetti, who is essentially Scarface, and you’re running through a whole series of situations that are very similar to episodes of Miami Vice.

And it has an absolute BANGER of a soundtrack - I hate to have said that word after all of that; I’m getting the finger from Chief, but not the naughty one, the other one: the naughty finger.

And it’s a real shame that they had to drop most of the licensed songs in the soundtrack for the “remasters”

the less said about them, the better

due to the rights being way more expensive now.

Attempt Number 3

They started attempt number three by talking about Sony having patented an ad-skipping technology back in the days of the PS3 - the technology required the viewer to leap up and yell the brand name, for the ad to be skipped.

Essentially, they had said:

missingNo's Avatar Sony

We patented it to stop other people from doing it.

Which is precisely what happened with Namco’s racing games in the tail end of the ’90s: a number of them had mini games on the loading screen. Namco patented that idea, and it stopped anyone else from doing it.

And even curiouser still: Magnavox

the company who got a home console to market ahead of the Atari 2600

patented video game cartridges in the 1970s, but waited until 1982 (the home consoles with video game cartridges where almost ubiquitous) before suing all of the video game console companies.

Jay then wanted to know what both Squidge and Chief think of when he says, “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City”. Squidge went first:

Squidge's Avatar Squidge

Listening to Billie Jean on a [motor]bike.

Waiting outside of a yellow check[point] marker until the tune I’m listening to finished, then getting off of the bike and going on with the mission.

That, and insane jumps over a canal - which I never managed.

Then Chief shared his first thoughts:

Chief's Avatar Chief

Table Tennis.

I suppose: the ’80s. But I don’t really know.

It’s been so long since I played it, but obviously it reminds me of Scarface. Other than "the ’80s" or "Scarface" I’m not entirely sure.

Music

Links to the music used in the podcast can be found below. Definitely check them out, because they're amazing tracks by awesome musicians.

All copyrighted material contained within this podcast is the property of their respective rights owners. Please see the above list for copyright details pertaining to music used.

Games Covered

We mentioned 19 games in this podcast. In the following order, those games where: