Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

This page details one or more prototype versions of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

Debug MenuStuff that makes Vice City more trippy... VehiclesWith earlier Top Fun livery. CharactersSam...or Dan?! TexturesSurprisingly high-res.

General#

• A watermark is on screen at all times in the top-left corner, reading "Wed-02X10X2002".
• Pause menu always displays a build date:

Compile Date: Oct  1 2002
Compile Time: 22:34:23
Wed-02X10X2002

• Unlike the final game, pressing L1 + L2 + R1 + R2 on the Rockstar logo doesn't skip you straight to the load screen.
• Tommy's idle animations don't work properly when holding two handed weapons, much like in the PC version.
• Bouncers inside the Malibu club do no damage.
• Ammu-nation clerks are unarmed.
• A single change was made to PARTICLE.CFG, the initial intensity value for ENGINE_STEAM was changed from 16 to 12.
• The "Play as Ricardo Diaz" cheat (L1, L2, R1, R2, Down, L1, R2, L2) doesn't seem to work.
• The "Black Cars" and "Pink Cars" cheats affect the Barracks OL and Patriot, while in the final game these vehicles would be immune to the cheat.
• In the mission "Guardian Angels", instead of the white Admiral, Diaz has a unique blue Admiral.

Intro#

Proto	Final

• The Commodore 64-inspired Rockstar North logo sequence includs a system date on it: June 22, 1986. Otherwise, it is identical to the final version.

• The intro FMV had a slightly different mix of the main theme, in uncompressed PCM audio. For the video itself, the "Vehicle Designers" slide uses a different shot of Tommy in front of the El Swanko Casa safehouse instead of him and Mercedes driving by on a bike. The game logo at the end also has a white drop shadow instead of blue.

HUD#

Proto	Final

Proto	Final

Proto	Final

Proto	Final

• The Boatyard, Malibu Club, and Cubans HUD icons had their background color changed from white to blue, and the Printworks icon originally had no background or outline at all, making it quite difficult to see on the map.

Audio#

• An early version of Lex Horton's Vice City theme is used during the intro cutscene, featuring some missing instruments as well as a synth swell during the opening buildup that didn't make it to retail.

Radio#

• The files for Flash FM and Fever 105 are different in some way, but no audible differences can be observed.
• K-Chat is otherwise identical, but this short ~20 second segment is missing from this build.

Cutscenes#

• "Broken Wings" was louder in the mix for the intro cutscene.

• The very beginning of Phnom Penh '86 had some extra ambience that was edited out, suggesting the cutscene might have at one point started with a brief outdoor shot. If you listen closely, you can actually hear the cut in the final audio, while the prototype audio has a smoother transition into Diaz's rant. Otherwise, the rest of the audio is identical.

• The mixing in the opening cutscene for Alloy Wheels of Steel was slightly different, most noticeable being the bike at the very beginning being louder in the final game.

• The end credits theme is slightly shorter, fading out exactly 6 seconds earlier than in the final game.

SFX#

• SFX0.RAW is missing three sounds; the Degenatron arcade machine and two Dodo sfx.
• SFX1.RAW has 311 changed files, all of them being the various lines Tommy says during gameplay. The main difference seems to be that the final lines are slightly louder, and some files contain minor edits to the start/end of the sound. Below is an example of one of these lines, prototype on top.

Text#

• One line from Phil's phone call after Boomshine Saigon used an earlier subtitle.

• The post-game phone call with Colonel Cortez has several early subtitles, highlighted below.