Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

I think this was the first GTA that I fully finished. GTA 3 I dabbled but I think I struggled sometimes with the story missions and got too carried away with stealing cars and murdering pedestrians. But this one had a whooole lot of personality that kept me hooked.

The story for one I really enjoyed. Tommy Vercetti voiced by Ray Liotta (who I definitely had no idea who that was when I played this at 11 years old or whatever), Ricardo Diaz the drug kingpin voiced by Luis Guzman, and a bunch of other heavy hitter voice actors like Burt Reynolds, Dennis Reynolds, Tom Sizemore-- on and on.

I loved the progression of you being this underling for the mafia with no power and how you slowly build up ownership of properties and stuff in the city till you basically run a drug empire. It's an epic tale including the betrayal by your partner, Lance Vance.

It had all the humor that defined the series. I could honestly probably replay the game and recall almost every talk show and every song on the radio stations from memory.

What a terrific game.

It of course had some really frustrating missions I'm sure. Ones where you had to tail someone or kill a huge amount of enemies with the shitting shooting. And if you died you likely had to go all the way back to the start. Just really dated gameplay. But man it was the tip top back in the day.