Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories - Progress Report 3

Progress Report III

Song of the Day

Turn It On Again - Genesis (Duke)

Story Missions Complete: 17/59

Mission 13; Takin' Out The White Trash - DRAMA, Louise forgot the baby's stuff when she ran away. We must go over to Marty's and get them! But OH NO, some of his men have come to attack us. Basically kill a bunch of guys, with the help of a baseball bat-wielding Louise and drive back to her place. They are supposed to chase you, but one only caught up to me just as I approached the mission marker. Easy.

Mission 14; Marked Men - Back to Phil's for a sec and we see him and Martinez having a little discussion. It seems Phil no longer trusts Martinez, but Jerry won't put work Phil's (and thus, our) way until he does trust him. All the honourable Sergeant wants us to do is check on some of his merchandise. Easy stuff. Everything goes according to plan...except it ends up being a trap and we have to kill our way out of it. We must drive back to Phil's, but Martinez's men will give chase. Phil decides to use his boomshine as EXPLOSIONS, so just concentrate on the driving. After this Phil decides to lay low for a while, but Vic refuses to follow suit. 

After this we get two pager messages, the first from Martinez warning us that we're still on his "shit list". Lovely. Also, Louise pages us to tell us we've got trouble from Marty...

Mission 15; D.I.V.O.R.C.E - SEE WHAT IT MEANS TO ME...SOCK IT TO ME SOCK IT TO ME SOCK IT TO...oh...erm...sorry, got carried away there. Anyway, we enter Louise's to find an obese lass all worried about Louise. This is Mary-Jo Cassidy, sister of Louise and Phil (though Phil never mentions Mary-Jo, or vice versa...). She tells us that Marty has kidnapped Louise and is threatening to "turn her out". Mary-Jo is actually a bit jealous of the attention Louise gets, especially after Vic decides to go rescue her. Drive to the Trailer Park where you see Marty drive off (almost running over Vic in the process).

We're then attacked by some of the Trailer Park Mafia, you can either fight or give chase immediately. Eventually Marty will make a stop and you finally get to kill him. This should be an epic fight, the last hour or so of the game has been building up to this moment when we can finally kill Marty and I want it to be special. However, I didn't notice him get out of the car and I immediately ran him over. Enter the car with Louise who is worried about how to look after her baby with Marty dead. Vic tells her not to worry and we drive off to the new safehouse in Little Haiti!

Villa del  Vance

Completing the mission also unlocks our second outfit, the 'Trailer Trash'.

San Andreas players may experience flashbacks...

Mission 16; To Victor, The Spoils: Remember how I said the Marty missions were tutorials for the business side-missions? Well, it's time to unlock them. Basically, Louise has a great idea to make money, Victor should take over Marty's businesses and become a gang leader himself. So, you grab two random guys, kill all the gang members protecting one of Marty's old places and then drive to the next place, kill all of them, go inside, take over the business and you win. Now you can start taking over businesses, which I'll write all about in a separate post. You also unlock the ability to recruit gang members, just like in San Andreas.

FRIENDS!

This pretty much marks the end of Act I (or, as I like to call it, The Tutorial missions). You get a pager saying that there is a visitor at the airport. Oh boy, I wonder who it is?

Mission 17; Jive Drive: Oh hey, look who it is...

Lance Vance...err..before he got "cool".

You didn't expect the brother of our hero to not show up, right? Well here he is, and Vic isn't too happy. Vic claims that Lance always gets the two of them into trouble. After some pleading, Vic agrees to let Lance help. Now, onto the mission. The Cholo attack you ("You killed many Cholo. So the Cholo will kill you plenty"). It's a rail shooter mission, Lance drives and we shoot. The mission can be tricky if you suck at first person aiming (like me) and especially if you suck using the PSP's control nub (like me). It took me fourteen attempts to beat this..though I had mastered the rail shooter section by the third or fourth. After Lance drives off a ramp and blows up our lovely car, we are surrounded by Cholo. This section gave me a lot of trouble, since there are Cholo all around you. My biggest problem was that I always decided to stay in one place and shoot, which is stupid. Another problem? Lance isn't bulletproof, and if just one Cholo gets shots in on him, he's as good as dead. 

After this you've still got more to take care of, as you'll inevitably end up with a two star wanted level. You have two options, either drive straight to Lance's hotel while evading the police, OR go to the nearby Pay n'Spray and get rid of the attention. I prefer the second option, even though it involves going the opposite direction for a few seconds. After that, drive Lance to his hotel and win. This unlocks a Louise mission and we get a pager from some fella called 'Umberto Robina'. Vice City players will remember that name...

Cast

Mary-Jo Cassidy

(Voiced By: Cathy Trien)

The sister of Louise and Phil, she's a rather minor character overall. She's good natured enough, but she does get jealous of the attention that her (better-looking, thinner) sister gets, she genuinely gets upset when Louise is kidnapped that it wasn't her. 

Lance Vance

(Voiced By: Philip Michael Thomas)

Making his second appearance in the GTA series, Lance Vance will act as Vic's main ally during the game, even though he has a knack for getting them both in trouble. He has ambitious plans, but for now he's just Vic's speccy bro.

His voice actor is most famous for being Ricardo Tubbs in the 80s TV show 'Miami Vice', which both Vice City games are heavily influenced by.

Next on VCS: Businesses.