Grand Theft Auto: Advance

GBA review by Matt Wadleigh - Saturday 20th November 2004

“Let’s walk for a second.” Vinnie’s eyes were cold. “We’ve been delivery boys for these guys for way too long! We’re doing all the work, and they’re getting all the pay!”



Vinnie started walking away. Suddenly, he stopped and turned to face me, with a smirk on his face that told me that he was aiming for something higher. “No way man, are you kidding me? We’re package boys. We don’t have the guns, the funds, or the manpower to do a job like that. Nah, we’re getting the hell out of Dodge, Mikey. We’ll find a nice place, away from Liberty City, some town out there that needs the type of services that only you and me can provide. We’ll be the big fish, bossing around package boys in some other city that we’ll run. I got a couple of guys that can help us get some cash to get out of here. We’ll save up, and we’ll be out of this **** hole before you know it.”

I could tell by the look on his face that Vinnie had it all planned out. We were going to get the hell out of Liberty City once and for all. Soon, we were going to be on the top.



We spent three days gathering cash. Then, a car bomb took Vinnie away. It was never my intention to have so many innocent people get hurt. I deserve whatever sentence I am handed today. Just hear me out, show me some respect. That’s all I’m asking.

I was enraged. Anger, depression, it all consumed me. It was like losing a brother, to see Vinnie go out like that. We knew, getting into all this ****, that at one point, one of us would bite the bullet. We knew the other would have to live with the guilt and anguish the rest of our lives. I think we each kind of hoped that we’d be the first to go. My line of work, it’s a rough business, but hold the tissues. This isn’t a sob-story. I’ll never pretend that I didn’t know what I was getting into before I got into it.



Talking to contacts was a daily thing. I liked it. I found out that getting deeper into the Liberty City mafia underground was a lot more fun than trying to get out of it for sure. I still took too many orders I think, but I was much more in control. I only had a few contacts though. Even though I’d been in the business a while, Vinnie handled public relations for the both of us.

A buddy of mine, he did some work on cars, and was pretty well connected. He knew enough people to help me get my first few leads. He had girls that went in and got information out of clientele. After that, it seemed simple: grab a car, grab a gun, whatever. Then go and get some information out of someone, and if they’d done Vinnie wrong, make them say goodnight.



It always seemed easy enough anyhow, before I set out. It was a lot harder to pull the trigger than I thought. Every time I had someone in my sights, my nerves must have locked up, because I’d miss. Occasionally, stray bullets that I thought should have hit my target directly instead hit the wrong people, or worse, were completely wasted. It was fortunate that guns are so easy to find in this city, with the shotgun and other wide-burst weapons; it didn’t really matter if I aimed at them, just near them.

I didn’t always kill people though. Sometimes, I just got upset and went for drives. Sure, I did a little speeding here and there, but I was alright. Yeah, sometimes when I went too fast, I couldn’t see the cars in front of me and hit them, but it wasn’t my fault, I swear! It’s like, I could only see about 10 feet around my car at anytime, which really hurt. Imagine how much it hurt me to crash into those people! It wasn’t very comfortable for me either. I guess I can’t say that I didn’t always kill people. I killed a lot of people while driving, let’s face it. I did save a couple of people. I pretended to be a cop, medic, and a fireman on several occasions and performed their jobs admirably. Yeah, I did only do it for cash, but that's the way it goes sometimes.



And the cops! Man, were they vigilant. Thank God for all the ****ing alleys in this city or I never would have escaped them. I’m lucky those *****es aren’t smarter either, or you people would have been seeing me a lot earlier. The best they could ever pull off were roadblocks. They’re aiming was so bad, they couldn’t even hit me half the time as long as I strafed left or right! Seriously, with all the money you’re going to be saving with a bastard like me off the streets, you should consider sending those cops back for some training, because they aren’t worth what they’re paid. And believe me; I imagine they’re being paid a lot, because I looked at my police report, and…man. It’s just too bad my crime spree was so short. That Tommy guy that was in the papers back in the 80’s, the one that ran Vice City, he still controls that town.

So whatever you decide, hey, that’s your call. I confessed, I’m guilty. But I don’t deserve the same sentence as some of my counterparts have gotten. I’m not nearly as high ranking on the criminal scale as they are, ****, I don’t even look as good as they do. I held a big celebration party; I couldn’t even get big-named bands to show up, I hired a bunch of college kids and half of them didn’t show up and the other half got drunk. At least know this: I didn’t enjoy my crime spree nearly as much as I should have. Does that mean all those people’s deaths were in vain, or worse, does that mean Vinnie’s death was in vain? I’ll let you decide on that one.

Thunderbolt score: four out of ten

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