I can still clearly remember the old Sony Trinitron CRT monitor I played GTA: Vice City on 20-odd years ago. I was 11, and yes, far too young to be venturing through the neon-tinted streets of faux-Miami as Tommy Vercetti, clad in his signature teal palm-tree shirt. But I was only allowed to play it under the proviso that I didn't actually do any of the missions.
The chunky monitor – which was impressive in its day – sat nestled in the corner of my childhood bedroom, handed down to me by my generous dad, and I would race home from school to drive around listening to the iconic Flash FM radio station. From cruising around to Wang Chung's Dance Hall Days, to parking up by a house (I would pretend was my home) while jamming to Out of Touch by Hall and Oates, I have GTA: Vice City to thank for sparking my lifelong love of '80s music. But it also kickstarted an ongoing trend when it comes to the way I play GTA.
See, I didn't even want to do the missions in Vice City, I was just there to drive cars. And not unlike my obsession with The Sims, I'd pretend I was actually in this world, orchestrating stories of my own; doing pretty mundane things in the grand scheme of things, but to me, it was the most exciting way to spend my free time. A few years later, I stepped in the world of GTA: San Andreas and ended up doing much the same thing. The missions may as well have been the background score to what I considered the main event: the world itself. I was all about the granular things you could do within it, be that eating at a fast food restaurant, adhering to traffic laws, or riding a BMX bike through the neighborhood.
Even as I got older and some of the later games rolled around, the way I've always approached my time with GTA has remained the same. In fact, if anything, it's only intensified as the worlds have gotten more realistic, with GTA 5's setting of Los Santos offering up no end of side distractions outside of the core campaign. Now, with the prospect of all that GTA 6 might hold for us, I just know it'll be the life sim-like elements that will speak to me above all.
Life's What You Make It
In many ways, the original Vice City was pretty limiting when it came to what you could actually do, and I had to let my imagination do a lot of the heavy lifting. But over the years, that side of the experience has only gotten better. San Andreas came around and offered more, with GTA 4 also adding to the life-sim aspect I craved, but it wasn't until GTA 5 came along that I was truly in my element. After progressing enough through early missions to switch over to Michael, I got stuck right into life in Los Santos.
Making trips to the movie theater, hanging out at his house, doing yoga and watching TV, I played GTA 5 like I was living a quiet peaceful life, away from all of the action the world was also home to. There's so much to do and see in the vast city that I could have only ever dreamed of when I was sitting behind that big chunky CRT monitor with Vercetti all those years back.
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The world really felt like my oyster to live out my own virtual life, driving safely through the streets like any good citizen, and making pit stops here and there to buy more clothes or play tennis or visit the beach. My fondness for the smaller side activities is why I quickly fell in love with the Yakuza series, which are packed with Sega games to play at the arcade, restaurants to eat in, and Karaoke bars, among many other things.
We may now live in a world teeming with life sims that would send kid me into a veritable frenzy, but back then, The Sims was really leading the charge. Even though I was a massive fan of Maxis' game, I wasn't able to drive a car around an open-world like I could in Rockstar's action adventure. Vice City filled a space for me no other game could at the time, and now that GTA 6 is set to take us back to the very streets I once drove around, listening to Billie Jean by Micheal Jackson, maybe I'll finally get to experience it the way I've always wanted to.
Not only is it exciting to think about seeing the city realized for the modern era, but for the possibilities it could have in terms of life-sim features. The GTA 6 trailer didn't give us much in the way of what we might be able to do in the respect, but with some hints of social media elements, nods to familiar locales, and various antics that riff off Floridian life, I have no doubt I'll be able to keep on playing GTA my way.
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