Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories - Progress Report 7

Song of the Day

Everything Counts - Depeche Mode

Progress Report VII

Story Missions Complete - 38/59

Mission 34; Hostile Takeover - Armando wants us to 'take care' of some bikers who owe the Mendez Brothers some money. This one is a fairly simple mission, use a long-ranged weapon such as the assault rifle (available at the Ammu-Nation inside the mall) to pick them off at a distance. Considering this is GTA, however, a fair amount of the enemies will get caught on walls or, in my case, inside the building. If the latter happens, toss a grenade, the splash damage should kill him. After you've killed all the bikers, more will magically show up on motorbikes, but this time they are fleeing. Well, we can have that, can we? Grab a bike and this is easy, just drive-by right in front of you and you should be able to take care of the rest of them.

Lance will beep you to ask you to see him pronto...so naturally we'll finish the Mendez strand and maybe screw around for a couple of days before seeing him,

Mission 35; Unfriendly Competition - This time Armando is complaining about a couple of drug pushers using their "home" as a gateway to bring drugs into America. He calls it "plagiarism". We must deal with them. From this point on you should ALWAYS have a full set of health and armour before doing any mission. There's armour in the film lot near the mansion, as well as a health pick-up as you approach the Mendez's. 

The first part isn't too bad, you have to kill the dealer and his bodyguards. If you have an assault rifle then they will fall pretty easy and they should be able to land much, if any, shots. Then we have to drive to an apartment in Ocean Beach. We waltz right up to the dealer in the middle of his party to be a bad-ass. Unfortunately it's hard to be a bad-ass when it ends with a dozen or so girls pointing their guns at you. This part can be tricky, it's easy enough to take cover in the (empty) pool, but that doesn't make shooting the girls any easier. Again use the assault rifle for long range or, if you've been to the Mall's gun shop, the Equalizer for short range (basically it's the most powerful handgun in the game..)

Do ya feel lucky, punk?

Once you've dealt with them, he'll race off in a...ugh...quad bike...and you have to chase him using a ...ugh...quad bike of your own. It's actually not too bad, providing you have a SMG of some sort. He'll throw grenades at you, but they're dodgeable enough. A few hits with the SMG and he'll fly off his Quad and it's mission complete.

Mission 36; High Wire - Armando has bad news, a shipment of cocaine has been taken by the police. Even worse, Armando says that he'll tell the police that it was ours and that he has a document that proves it. Yet he still says it in such a friendly way. However there is one way to make sure that doesn't happen...get the coke back. We have to drive to the junkyard in Little Haiti where we'll meet a Mendez gang member. After that we get into our first helicopter on the game and hey...it has a magnet! It's pretty clear what we need to do here...first we fly over to the impound yard and pick up the container. Easy enough, just descend over it and it will automatically attach. Fly over to the pink marker, descend and it will automatically detach.

However, DRAMA...the second container is about to be moved to the station! It's on the back of the truck and we have to pick it up. It's not too bad, the truck doesn't move quickly meaning it's easy enough to grab it. Mendez's guy will praise us and tell us to drop it off. So we do. Then he'll start screaming that Bikers are on his tail. We have to pick him up. This one is a little harder, the time limit is a little stricter, his car moves faster and is on another island. Still, you should have plenty of time in order to do it in. Drop him off on top of the car-park and that is the Mendez Brothers strand finished...for now.

Mission 37; Turn On, Tune In, Bug Out - We arrive at Lance's place only for him to tell us to be quiet. Vic refuses, demanding that Lance tells him what's going on. Eventually Lance loses his patience and reveals that they're being bugged. Vic goes to check their other places, but Lance tells him of an easier way...take out the police antennae dotted around the city. First you go to Ammu-Nation to pick up a GODAMMED ROCKET LAUNCHER YES!

It's a portable action-movie-scene maker.

Drive over to the first police station and get on the roof. Use the BOOM!-maker to take out the two antennas and then kill the policemen guarding the helicopter. Take the helicopter and fly over to the next station in Little Havana. Be careful where you park it though, too close to the antenna and you could blow it up as well, while if the rotors get caught on anything it will blow up, thus making the mission harder. Blow up the next two antennas and you'll find yourself with a four-star wanted level, meaning helicopter will start shooting you. No biggie though, just quickly fly to Downtown and take over the last two antenna. By now, you'll have a five-star wanted level and you have to get rid of it before completing the mission. If you can get your hands on a helicopter fly to the nearest business to a pay n' spray you've got, pick up the car that spawns outside and then drive quickly to the pay n' spray. A five-start wanted level can start getting really mad if you're not careful.

All this and all you get is a mere $300. I have close to $300,000 by now, what the hell is this? Also I got a pager-message from Reni telling us about a "lucrative contact". But we haven't even met this Rei...though I'd like to...

Mission 38; Accidents Will Happen - Reni's an interesting fellow...in that he's pretty much not a fella, but he is, but he's also a lady, but he isn't...you know. Reni gets very excited that we're the "cocaine man" amd then starts flirting with Vic, but his assistant tells him of a problem: the stunt driver quit the commercial Reni's filming because Remi kept touching his ass. Well we're already a Hollywood superstar from 'Brawn in the Dead', sure we could take the driver's place.

It's a simple mission, drive through the checkpoints and get 10 seconds added on to your time. By the end you should have plenty of time. There is an "action" meter that will go down, but you can fill that up by driving into "stunt cars", which explode on contact (though does no damage to you, it is a commercial after all). After a couple of minutes we reach the last checkpoint, which we have to drive through fast enough. There will be a small cutscene showing our car jumping off the ramp in slow-mo and crash through a window. Mission complete.

Cast

Reni Wassulmaier

(Voiced By: Barbara Rosenblatt)

A German avant-garde film maker, Reni is an interesting fella to say the least. He's in Vice City to shoot a commercial, but he'll be one of our main allies for the next portion of the game. Although he's implied to be gay, the more you learn about the character the more you realise he's pretty much a woman, considering he was born as one. He's also connected to most of the drug lords that we'll take missions from later on and one very special contact we'll meet later...

Reni would make an appearance in Liberty City Stories as a DJ. By then, he's a she..though we'll find out what happened by the end of VCS...