Video Game Soundtrack

As with everything involved with Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, the game's soundtrack is epic in scope and incredibly detailed. Though countless games have offered soundtracks, GTA: Vice City offers a unique twist on the format: Its soundtrack has seven volumes, one apiece for Vice City's radio stations. Though games such as Jet Grind Radio and Jet Set Radio Future also revolved around the concept of soundtrack-as-radio-station, GTA: Vice City's soundtrack is the most ambitious -- and impressive -- realization of this idea yet, offering DJs with distinctive personalities, tailored track listings, and realistic bumpers, voice-overs, and commercials. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Box Set collects all seven volumes into a sprawling, almost overwhelming set that spans the heavy metal of volume one, the new wave of volume two, volume three's soft rock, volume four's pop hits, volume five's hip-hop and electro, volume six's funk and urban hits, and the Latin jazz of volume seven. Several of the discs -- volumes one, five, and seven in particular -- are solid enough collections of their styles of music that they match, if not surpass, many "serious" collections of metal, hip-hop, and Latin music. The bumpers, voice-overs, and commercials on each of the volumes give a good idea of the DJ and radio stations' personalities, and help further blend the line between fantasy and reality in the game. Grand Theft Auto fanatics may want to buy the box set instead of purchasing each volume individually to get all of the Windows- and Mac-compatible multimedia material, which includes wallpaper, screenshots, screensavers, movie clips, and most importantly, the unique cheat codes that come on each disc. The cheats do everything from turning all the cars pink to making Vice City's skies perpetually sunny to unlocking a variety of weapons, making Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Box Set equally entertaining and useful for the die-hard GTA: Vice City gamer. ~ Heather Phares, AMG