My regret for Grand Theft Auto 6 was just too much hype created around the game, made of Netflix revelations, preorder details, physical media debates and console star prices. And then I made a trip in the past, returning to play Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. This gave me the necessary concentration to appreciate the true value of the new game. Vice City is a historical work, and was not the first GTA. The series was born as a top-down murder simulator on PlayStation in 1997, with the ambition of Vice City that found its first iteration there. The title is not even the first to introduce GTA in 3D: that recognition is the monumentally innovative GTA III of 2001. However, as a direct follow-up to GTA III, a milestone in the design of video games and the birth of modern open world, GTA: Vice City remains a fundamental game. It is the game I chose to represent the whole saga in my book of videoludic history, “Videogame of the Year”, because that’s where GTA crystallized its identity – the one we still see today. The vision of Vice City on what it wants to be is so clear and performed so that it remains surprising how strong it is when you go back. And then there's Ray Liotta, Tommy Vercetti's voice. It's amazing that Rockstar has pointed directly to a movie actor, almost as a model for modern video games. But the group was ahead at the time in realizing its gangster film ambitions, literally choosing the actor of Goodfellas as the protagonist. It is a class demonstration and makes these games feel above others. Like many protagonists of Rockstar, Vercetti is a move driven by the circumstances of the plot. But Liotta gives him a real point of view, offering players a crucial lens through which to live what otherwise would be a tangle of unrelated accidents. The narrative of Vice City is also based on its setting: the ambition of the 1980s. The game is full of references to pop culture, with the ascent drugata of Tommy Vercetti that leads him to plunge into everything, from Scarface to Miami Vice. Vice City, in quanto pietra miliare di GTA, dimostra ancora una volta un’audace transizione verso l’open world che Rockstar avrebbe poi consolidato. Il focus su Ray Liotta e la sua interpretazione gangster, mutuata da “Goodfellas”, rappresenta un’intuizione straordinaria nella costruzione del personaggio, non solo perché ha ispirato approcci simili in titoli successivi, ma anche per il suo impatto culturale nel definire l'identità di Tommy Vercetti. L’inclusione del merchandising a tema "Leonida" nel box collezionistico aggiunge un ulteriore livello di nostalgia e di richiamo al contesto dell'ambientazione degli anni '80, consolidando ulteriormente la posizione di Vice City come pilastro fondamentale della saga.
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