When Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories was first announced for the PSP, the first question that popped into many gamers' minds was when it would get ported to the PS2, like Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories had.

Four months after the PSP release, the PS2 gets its version of Vice City Stories. Unfortunately, after the release of the critically acclaimed Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Vice City Stories feels like a game that doesn't live up to it's potential.

Like the previous Stories game, Vice City Stories is a prequel set two years before the original Grand Theft Auto: Vice City game. You take control of Victor Vance, brother of Vice City's Lance Vance, who gets dragged into the drug trade by his commanding officer in the military, and then by the problem-causing Lance. As Victor, you'll be pulling jobs for various characters you meet during the game while trying to build your own crime empire.

Vice City Stories also features a cameo by Phil Collins, which is probably the best thing this game has to offer. Compared to previous GTA games, character development seems to fall a little short, taking a bit away from the overall presentation.

The new feature in this game is empire building, a combination of Vice City's property buying and San Andreas' gang wars. You'll need to attack businesses owned by rival gangs, then purchase and upgrade them to really start rolling in the dough. The only problem is that rival gangs attack back, especially when you get towards the end of the game, and it becomes very annoying.

For those who've played both San Andreas and Vice City, you'll be able to tell that Rockstar smashed the two together to get this game. More specifically, the game feels like a watered-down version of the San Andreas engine with the look of Vice City.

For veterans of the GTA series, Vice City Stories' game play will seem like nothing new because Rockstar hasn't changed a thing. The game plays a lot like San Andreas in the controls department, which is good since that game boasts the best controls of any GTA game. Lock-on controls are improved over Liberty City Stories, but there are still issues with targeting enemies during gang battles because you'll often target and take down your back-up before the enemy. Close combat is also broken, allowing the enemies to get in several hits in a row before you can even react.

Like past GTA games, the game is not a graphical beauty, and there are issues with both clipping and slowdown during intense game play. It's a problem that was never really addressed with this generation of GTA games and does become a bit of an annoyance at times.