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00:07Welcome to Mojo Plays and today we're looking at the easter eggs, continuity fixes, ambitious
00:13mechanics and technical tricks stuffed into these handheld prequels.
00:17Darling, you're here to lighten my heart.
00:22Uh, not exactly.
00:23I love you.
00:24I love this man.
00:27Kiss me.
00:28Hey, hey, give me a break.
00:29Before we begin, we publish new content all week long, so be sure to subscribe and ring
00:34the bell to get notified about our latest videos.
00:3899 Red Balloons
00:39Ever wonder why Vice City Stories has exactly 99 red balloons scattered around the map?
00:45It's not because Rockstar misplaced the last one.
00:49The number is in reference to Naina's classic song.
00:53Even better, the song itself appeared on wave 103 in the original Vice City,
00:57making the collectibles a musical callback as well.
01:05Players had to shoot every balloon, rather than simply walking over them, with every tenth balloon unlocking another weapon at
01:10safe houses.
01:11Saving can stop empire attacks.
01:14Building a criminal empire sounds glamorous, until rival gangs start attacking your businesses every 17 seconds.
01:21But players discovered a wonderfully simple exploit.
01:29After taking over an enemy business, save the game and reload.
01:33Doing so can reset the gang hostility generated by your recent takeover, greatly reducing the immediate retaliatory attacks that would
01:40otherwise plague your empire.
01:42This isn't an officially advertised feature, it's just an old school gamer trick.
01:46Apparently the two best methods for running a successful criminal organization are overwhelming violence.
01:52And turning the PSP on and off again.
01:57You can fly a helicopter.
02:00Normally, Liberty City Stories doesn't allow Tony to pilot helicopters.
02:04Normally.
02:05During certain missions, however, players discovered ways to steal helicopters that were never intended for free roam use.
02:11Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.
02:13Again.
02:14And you shall be redeemed once more, my son.
02:17The missions, Calm Before the Storm, and False Idols can provide opportunities to hijack helicopters.
02:22And with the right technique, they can even be flown around Liberty City and stored.
02:27Availability varies slightly between versions, but it's considered a pretty reliable loophole for those wanting a bird's eye view.
02:33Considering Liberty City already looks impressive from the ground level on PSP,
02:37seeing the entire city from above feels almost like accessing a forbidden developer mode.
02:47The Fido Connection
02:49Before San Andreas officially established GTA 3's silent protagonist as Claude,
02:54many fans referred to him as Fido.
02:57Why?
02:57Because Maria wouldn't stop referring to him like our own personal doggo.
03:01Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure your new lapdog has everything covered.
03:04And isn't he big and strong?
03:06Hey Fido, let's go visit Chico and get some potty treats.
03:09Then Liberty City Stories revealed something hilarious.
03:13She calls Tony Fido too.
03:15Hello Fido, it's Maria.
03:17Salvatore gave me your number.
03:19I found it in his address book.
03:21But whatever.
03:22It was never a personal moniker.
03:24Maria apparently just likes calling Salvatore's dependable henchman Fido,
03:28because she views them like obedient lapdogs.
03:30We'd say it was a cheap shot if not for how accurate it was.
03:34Ten radio stations, one UMD.
03:37Getting an open world GTA running on PSP was difficult enough.
03:41Then Rockstar decided it still needed ten complete radio stations.
03:52Rockstar Lead Studio Director Gordon Hall explained that the team had to cram audio, textures, scripts, environments, vehicles, and everything
03:59else onto the PSP's one-point gigabyte UMD.
04:02Assets were stripped down to their essentials, while compression technology previously used for Vice City and San Andreas were heavily
04:09optimized for the handheld.
04:10Hall said without those techniques, fitting ten full stations alongside everything else simply wouldn't have been possible.
04:16Today, individual patches can exceed 50 gigabytes.
04:20Back in 2005, Rockstar shoved an entire Liberty City and its radio network on something holding less than two.
04:28Technical sorcery.
04:36Thinking about booting up your old PSP for some classic GTA fun?
04:40Scan the QR code on screen and hop on over to Mojo Play's 24 hour livestream for more great gaming
04:46content.
04:47Hey Tony, que pasa? Give us all!
04:51Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you sticky!
04:54Vic's criminal empire vanishes.
04:56By the end of Vice City Stories, Vic can control up to 30 criminal businesses.
05:01Then Tommy arrives two years later, and they're all gone.
05:05100% pure grade A Colombian, my friend.
05:09Let me see it.
05:10The Greens?
05:11Tens and Twenties. Used.
05:14Compare the 1984 and 1986 maps, and the empire building locations have disappeared,
05:20with many replaced by newer structures, vacant lots, or properties in completely different states.
05:25The game never gives us a definitive blow-by-blow explanation for how Vic lost everything,
05:30but considering he eventually returns to drug trafficking with Lance before being murdered during Vice City's opening deal,
05:37clearly retirement did not go according to plan.
05:40I think we have a deal, my friend.
05:43Hahahaha!
05:46Shit!
05:47The Tank.
05:48Tony destroys an entire section of Liberty City during the story.
05:52Rockstar rewards him by parking a tank there.
05:55Seems appropriate.
06:02Achieving 100% completion in Liberty City Stories grants infinite ammunition,
06:06and causes a rhino tank to permanently spawn within the ruins of Fort Stanton.
06:11That's especially dark when you remember Tony is personally responsible for turning the neighborhood
06:17into a ruin in the first place.
06:19Nothing says congratulations quite like revisiting the site of massive urban destruction,
06:24and finding somebody left you a tank.
06:31The secret sign keeps changing.
06:33One of GTA 3's most famous Easter eggs is hidden in a difficult-to-reach Stanton Island alley.
06:39The original sign reads,
06:41You weren't supposed to be able to get here, you know.
06:49Naturally, players returned when Liberty City Stories recreated the city.
06:53Rockstar anticipated them.
06:55The PSP version replaces the message with,
06:57Hello again, complete with a cheerful drawing.
07:00Then the PS2 port changes the sign yet again, reading,
07:04You just can't get enough of this alley, can you?
07:06That's three different messages effectively documenting Rockstar's ongoing conversation
07:11with players determined to reach places they weren't supposed to access.
07:14By the third time, it was starting to feel a lot like judgment.
07:19New content.
07:28Usually when a handheld game gets ported to a home console,
07:31you expect better resolutions and perhaps nicer controls.
07:35Vice City Stories quietly added actual gameplay content.
07:45The PS2 version contains six additional unique stunt jumps,
07:49five extra rampages, five extra checkpoint races,
07:52and another vehicle-based side activity compared with the original PSP release.
07:57Unfortunately, there was a trade-off.
07:59The PSP's multiplayer didn't survive the move to the PlayStation 2,
08:03meaning home console players received more single-player activities,
08:06but lost one of the original version's most impressive features.
08:10Rockstar giveth, and Rockstar taketh away.
08:19Six-player multiplayer.
08:21Years before GTA 4 brought large-scale online multiplayer to consoles,
08:26and almost a decade before GTA Online took over everybody's free time,
08:30Liberty City Stories already offered multiplayer GTA on PSP.
08:34In 2005!
08:42Up to six players could connect via local ad-hoc Wi-Fi
08:45and compete across seven modes.
08:47Players could battle in Liberty City Survivor,
08:50race across the map, steal vehicles, attack opposing bases,
08:53and unlock more playable characters by progressing through the campaign.
08:56There were over 60 character models available by the time everything was unlocked.
09:01The major limitation was obvious.
09:03Everybody needed to physically be nearby with their own PSP and copy of the game.
09:08Essentially, GTA Online existed early.
09:11You just had to convince five friends to buy PSPs.
09:15Log on and have it at your door the next morning! Log on to Ammunation.net!
09:20Ten modes multiplayer.
09:21While perhaps not as impressive as the foundation that Liberty City Stories laid out,
09:26its spiritual successor was not content to simply copy and paste.
09:29The PSP version of Vice City Stories supported up to six local players across ten multiplayer modes,
09:35five of which returned from its predecessor, while another fresh five were added.
09:44These included death matches, street races, base attacks, car stealing competitions,
09:49and gloriously chaotic modes centered around tanks and the hunter attack helicopter.
09:54Vehicles weren't restricted to cars either.
09:56Aircrafts and boats could become part of multiplayer matches.
09:59Still awesome for a PSP game back in 2006.
10:05A huge upgrade, Liberty City Stories already seemed impossible on PSP.
10:11Then Rockstar decided it wasn't impressive enough.
10:14Studio director Gordon Hall said Vice City Stories could display roughly double the polygons within a city block,
10:21while adding animated textures, neon effects, an entirely new lighting system, and a greater draw distance.
10:33That extra draw distance was especially important,
10:36because Vice City Stories introduced freely usable aircrafts,
10:40meaning players could suddenly look down upon huge portions of the world.
10:43The result is one of those fascinating late-era handheld games where developers went beyond the Call of Duty.
10:56Getting the band back together.
10:58The two stories games took surprisingly different approaches to returning actors.
11:03Liberty City Stories brought back performers including Frank Vincent as Salvatore Leone,
11:07Guru as 8-Ball, and Sandra James as Mark Ipriani.
11:10Who's gonna be Mama?
11:13Oh my!
11:14Aw, come on girls, get with the program!
11:17But several major characters were recast.
11:20Michael Madsen didn't return as Tony,
11:22neither did Debbie Mazar as Maria,
11:24Robert Logia as Ray Machowski,
11:26or Kyle McClarkin as Donald Love.
11:28Twenty million dollars in the hole!
11:31Gone!
11:33Bankrupt!
11:34Done!
11:37Arrivederci!
11:37Vice City Stories, meanwhile,
11:40managed to reunite several of Vice City's most recognizable performers.
11:44Philip Michael Thomas returned as Lance Vance,
11:46Gary Busey as Phil Cassidy,
11:48Danny Cleo as Humberto Rubina,
11:50and Luis Guzman as Ricardo Diaz.
11:52Not bad for a handheld game.
11:54This is it man!
11:55No more Mendes!
11:56No more trouble for us!
11:59Ha ha ha!
12:01Why GTA 3 has no motorcycles.
12:04Liberty City Stories takes place in 1998,
12:07and contains motorcycles.
12:09GTA 3 takes place in the same city three years later,
12:13and doesn't.
12:13Remember, just watch your back in Chinatown.
12:16It's triad territory.
12:17Rockstar took what could have been a throwaway continuity error,
12:21and baked it into the game's lore.
12:23Say hello to the American Road Safety for Everybody,
12:26an aggressively anti-motorcycle pressure group
12:29conveniently abbreviated to ARSE.
12:33By 1998, they had already helped get bicycles banned,
12:36and by 2001, their campaigning had supposedly succeeded in removing motorcycles as well.
12:42Their propaganda claims motorbikes cause more deaths than old age,
12:46and actively encourage citizens to attack riders.
12:48Yeah, that checks out for a city like this.
12:55Inventing GTA's criminal empire gameplay.
12:59Long before GTA Online let players become nightclub owners, gunrunners, smugglers, bikers,
13:04and whatever else Rockstar could monetize,
13:06Vice City Stories let Vic build a genuine criminal empire.
13:10There are 30 empire sites spread across Vice City.
13:18After defeating the occupying gang and purchasing a property,
13:21players can convert it into one of six operations.
13:24Protection, loan sharking, prostitution, drugs, smuggling, or robbery.
13:28Businesses can then be upgraded from small time operations through medium ventures,
13:33to high roller establishments, generating more money.
13:35It's remarkably sophisticated for a side system inside a PSP title.
13:41And in retrospect, feels like an early blueprint for the business management loop
13:44that eventually became central to GTA Online.
13:52Phil Collins Made GTA History
13:55Phil Collins wasn't just an unusually famous guest star.
13:59He achieved a GTA first.
14:01Hey, aren't you Phil mate? Phil Collins.
14:04Let's do the meet and greet another time, aye?
14:07While countless celebrities had already voiced fictional characters,
14:10Ray Liotta, Samuel L. Jackson, James Woods, and many others,
14:14Collins became the first real-world celebrity to portray himself within the GTA universe.
14:20Collins appears across three missions,
14:22with Vic protecting him from assassination attempts connected to his manager's enormous debt to the Ferrelli family.
14:28Everything culminates in the now famous stadium performance of In The Air Tonight.
14:40GTA would eventually feature other celebrities portraying fictionalized versions of themselves,
14:45including the likes of Ricky Gervais, Dr. Dre, and Cat Williams.
14:49But Phil got there first.
14:51You can pay to watch Phil Collins again.
14:53Protecting Phil Collins during In The Air Tonight is already one of the strangest GTA missions ever made.
15:00But Rockstar didn't stop there.
15:09After completing the relevant missions, players can return to Hyman Memorial Stadium
15:14and spend $6,000 to watch Collins perform In The Air Tonight again.
15:18Not another mission, not a shortened cutscene.
15:22You can simply purchase another ticket and enjoy the concert.
15:25Considering Rockstar had to animate Collins himself, create his band,
15:29build the stadium performance, and synchronize everything to the song,
15:33they obviously wanted their money's worth.
15:38Donald Love, Cannibal.
15:46Remember Avery Carrington, Tommy's cowboy hat wearing property development mentor from Vice City?
15:52His story ends horribly.
15:54Avery travels to Liberty City intending to develop Fort Stanton.
15:58His former protege Donald Love wants those plans.
16:02So naturally he sends Tony to murder Avery.
16:04Already pretty dark.
16:06My God, this is good.
16:08It tastes just like chicken, but somehow more, er, sentient.
16:13Then Donald asks Tony to steal Avery's corpse from the morgue.
16:17Why?
16:18Liberty City Stories reveals that Love is a cannibal who casually eats human flesh
16:23and talks about morgue parties.
16:25Avery's body is ultimately taken with him when Donald escapes Liberty City,
16:29and the implication is anything but subtle.
16:32So, that eccentric media billionaire from GTA 3?
16:35Apparently, he eats people.
16:38It's so, um, um, um, Wagnerian, you know? Arrivederci, amigo.
16:44Already dead.
16:45Imagine introducing a compelling new GTA protagonist,
16:48and knowing from the beginning that he has approximately two years left to live.
16:53Victor Vance first appeared, although wasn't originally developed as a full protagonist,
16:57as the man killed during the drug ambush that opens Grand Theft Auto Vice City.
17:04Then, four years after that game was released,
17:07Rockstar went backwards to 1984,
17:09and made Vic the playable hero of Vice City Stories.
17:13This gives the entire adventure a bitterly tragic undertone.
17:17Vic repeatedly talks about wanting to escape crime,
17:20provide for his family, and find something better.
17:22But players already knew there was never going to be a happy ending.
17:26Vic! Still so uptight!
17:29You know what your problem is?
17:31You're trying to be the good guy in a bad man's game!
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17:59Tony created GTA 3's giant construction site.
18:03This is certainly one of the cooler examples of Rockstar turning existing map design
18:08into retroactive storytelling.
18:10In GTA 3, much of Fort Stanton is dominated by a huge construction area.
18:15Go there three years earlier in Liberty City Stories,
18:18and you discover something dramatically different.
18:21It's an actual neighborhood.
18:28During bringing the house down,
18:30Donald Love orders Tony to plant explosives beneath Fort Stanton
18:34as part of a scheme involving property development
18:36and revenge against the Ferrellis.
18:38Tony detonates the charges.
18:41The district collapses.
18:45And when Claude arrives in 2001,
18:48the area is still being rebuilt.
18:50So one of GTA 3's biggest landmarks isn't simply background scenery anymore.
18:55It's the aftermath of the GTA protagonists violent act.
19:00Do you agree with our picks?
19:02What's your favorite piece of GTA trivia?
19:05Let us know in the comments below.
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