Vice City Stories improves upon some of the flaws found in the first game, not the least of which is improved length and direction, as well as a great deal more personality. The story's still pretty subpar, though, and as much as this is very much Grand Theft Auto, certain conventions of the series are starting to feel a bit antiquated.

Additionally, much as was the case with Liberty City Stories' transition to the PS2, Vice City Stories loses a lot of its appeal when played on a console versus the PSP. Still, it's only $20, and if you don't own a PSP or just never got around to playing it upon its original release, this isn't a bad way to go if you absolutely, positively must get your GTA fix.

Vice City Stories returns to the pastel- and neon-colored excesses of the 1980s and Vice City. Modeled after '80s-era Miami, GTA: Vice City told a Scarface -inspired tale of Tommy Vercetti, a shunned mobster who found himself sifting through the aftermath of a cocaine deal gone wrong, and subsequently ended up building a major criminal empire throughout the city.

It was a bizarre, convoluted, and completely entertaining tale, filled with ridiculous and profane characters, as well as lots of biting satire on the most superficial of decades. Vice City Stories is, again, a prequel, taking place a couple of years prior to the original game.

You play as Vic Vance, the brother of central Vice City character Lance Vance. Vic's a strange fellow.

When the game begins, he's just joined the army, and he gets off the transport truck at a military base in Vice City. Upon meeting his commanding officer--a borderline psychotic named Jerry Martinez--things start going wrong.

We find out that Vic has joined the military to make some money to support his family, specifically his sick brother. But within the first few minutes of the game, you'll find yourself inexplicably picking up drugs for Martinez, killing Mexican gang members, and chauffeuring prostitutes.

Of course, any veteran of this series won't be shocked one bit by missions like these. The trouble here is that the setup for getting Vic into this mess is beyond flimsy.

From the get-go, Vic talks about how uncomfortable he is with illegal activities, and yet he does every single illicit thing Martinez asks him to do. If you're someone who doesn't want to do anything illegal, and your boss starts asking you to pick up hookers and hide drugs for him, are you going to just gripe about it and then do it anyway? Not to mention that Vic seems completely willing to run into an apartment complex and start wasting Mexicans without even being ordered specifically to do so.

He just says, ""I'll go get it"" (referring to owed money stashed inside one of the apartments) and goes in guns blazing. GTA heroes are never heroes, exactly, but the trick in the past has been that there's been no attempt to play those characters up as sympathetic.

They weren't boy scouts--they were gangsters, killers, and dope dealers. Vice City Stories tries to present Vic as a guy who doesn't want to get into that stuff, yet he freely and frequently does throughout the entire game.

He mostly comes off as a hypocritical idiot. For what it's worth, though, once you get through about the first hour of the game, you'll probably be inclined to stop questioning why Vic is doing what he's doing and just go with it.

As time passes, the game settles into the typical progression of GTA missions and oddball characters. While Liberty City Stories was almost devoid of memorable characters, Vice City Stories digs up a few favorites from the original Vice City, and introduces a couple of new ones as well.

Vic's mildly crazy brother Lance, the alcoholic gun nut Phil Cassidy, the balls-obsessed Cuban gang leader Umberto Robina, and the foul-mouthed Ricardo Diaz (voiced by Phillip Michael Thomas, Gary Busey, Danny Trejo, and Luis Guzman, respectively) are all back. Lance plays a huge role in the story, but the others aren't quite as prominently featured as they were in the first game.

Still, you get a good chunk of time with each of them. Functionally, Vice City Stories plays very much as Liberty City Stories did on the PS2, return of the right analog stick camera control and all.

When running around and shooting people, you simply press the R1 button to lock onto an enemy. Occasionally the game will lock onto random civilians, as opposed to the guy with the submachine gun blowing a hole in your head, but usually it's pretty good about identifying exactly whom you should be killing.

Mostly, though, the combat is quite fun. Running around causing mayhem and blasting away at the masses is just as enjoyable as it's ever been, and there's a good variety of guns and other instruments of destruction to play with.

The one part that isn't so good, unfortunately, is the melee combat. Basic fisticuffs and blunt-object beatings are merely a bit clunky, but if you try to get yourself into a fight while holding a gun at close range to someone punching you in the face, you'll lose every time, unless you run a good distance away, turn back, and start firing.

For some reason, the game just can't deal with aiming mechanics while you're face-to-face with an enemy; you're basically hosed. Vice City is a sizable open-world environment and driving around it can be a bit overwhelming at first.

Odds are that unless you've had the original Vice City regularly inserted in your PS2 for the last couple of years, you won't remember too much of the city's layout. But even though it'll take a while to figure out all the roads and side streets, there's plenty of familiar scenery and landmarks that appear just about where you remember them.

The game's minimap is about as useful as it's ever been in depicting where you are, and there is a larger map to check on in the pause menu. Still, it feels a bit antiquated, especially considering evolutions we've seen in recent games of this type, where the best possible paths for a mission are highlighted on the map.

Heck, even an arrow pointer telling you where to turn would be nice. Driving in the game is pretty much as it's been for years now.

The vehicle physics are perhaps a bit more exaggerated than they were in Liberty City Stories, and that's both a blessing and a curse. It's extremely easy to spin out while taking turns in many of the game's cars, trucks, and motorcycles, but at the same time, some of the jumps and ridiculous crashes you can have make those wacked-out physics worthwhile.

You will run into weird physics glitches from time to time, and you'll sometimes get stuck in pieces of the scenery. These issues aren't exactly new to the series, but they're as annoying as ever.

In addition to cars and bikes, helicopters make their return in Vice City Stories, and they're among some of the most enjoyable vehicles in the game. The flying controls are easy to handle, and flying around the city is often much quicker than trying to drive it (less)

Boasting multiple single-player, multiplayer and online crash and race modes, Burnout 3 offers players the opportunity to race through busy city streets and be rewarded for taking risks that result in heart-pounding action and electrifying crashes (less)

In movie recording, the LED light turns on for beautiful movies in dusky underwater environments or at a night time camp. Create glorious high-definition movies using iA (Intelligent Auto) mode Record full HD 1920x1080 movies in AVCHD format.

A dedicated button lets you instantly start recording movies without having to change any other settings in the menu’s. The iA Mode is also available in movie recording.

The POWER O.I.

S. with Active Mode comes in handy when shooting movies on the move whilst walking or swimming.

Both photos and movies are easy to view on a Panasonic VIErA TV using the SD card slot. Map your memories with GPS tracking A built-in GPS unit allows the location data where the photo was taken to be automatically embedded with its latitude and longitude.

So now you will remember the exact location in the ocean where you caught that monster fish or the exact point in the sea where you caught that huge wave.These geo-tagged images can be pin-pointed on the maps of social media internet maps.

The DMC-FT3 also shows the name of the county, state, city and landmarks where your shots are taken Images with the location names are automatically sorted in the virtual folder alphabetically in the camera. You will never get your holiday shots mixed up again.

Record more travel data than ever before The DMC-FT3 adopts a compass, altimeter and barometer to show and record altitude, barometric pressure and orientation data. The barometer also works as an indicator for depth and pressure underwater.

The rugged design, GPS and advanced measuring equipment offer a variety of fun in wide-ranging situations. Take the camera fishing, camping, diving, snorkeling, surfing, mountain climbing or snowboarding.

Whatever adventure you choose, you can be sure the DMC-FT3 is an all-year-round active field player. Immerse yourself in vibrant 3D imagery The 3D Photo Mode produces a 3D image in the camera.

Take 20 panning shots and the camera automatically selects the two most suitable images to synthesize a 3D composite. These can be viewed back easily using the SD card slot on your compatible Viera 3D TV.

Rugged compact camera featuring Full HD movie recording and a host of tough features Waterproof, Shockproof, Dustproof and Freezeproof Full HD movie recording Altimeter, Compass and Barometer GPS Tracking 3D Photo Mode Specification OPTICS Pixels Camera Effective Pixels 12.1 Megapixels Image Sensor Sensor Size / Total Pixels / Filter 1/2.

33” CCD Sensor / 12.5 Total Megapixels / Primary Color Filter Lens Aperture F3.

3 - 5.9 / Iris Diaphragm (F3.

3 - 10(W) / F5.9 - 18(T)) Optical Zoom 4.

6x Focal Length f=4.9-22.

8mm (28-128mm in 35mm equiv.) Extra Optical Zoom (Max.

) (under 3M size) 9.1x Intelligent Zoom 6x Lens LUMIX DC VARIO - ELMAR Optical Image Stabilizer POWER O.

I.S.

(On / Off / Active Mode(only for motion picture)) Digital Zoom 4x (Max. 36.

3x combined with Extra Optical Zoom) Focus AF Metering Face / AF Tracking / 23pt / 1pt / Spot Shutter Shutter Speed 8 - 1/1300 sec (Starry Sky mode: 15, 30, 60 sec) RECORDING iA Face Recognition Photo Optical Image Stabilizer Photo / Movie Intelligent ISO Control Photo Face Detection Photo / Movie Intelligent Scene Selector Photo (Portrait, Scenery, Night Portrait, Night Scenery, Sunset, Macro) / Movie (Portrait, Scenery, Low Light, Macro) Intelligent Exposure Photo / Movie AF Tracking Photo Motion Deblur Mode Photo Digital Red Eye Correction (Red-Eye Removal) Yes Backlight Compensation Yes (only in Intelligent AUTO Mode) Intelligent Resolution Technology Photo / Movie Intelligent Burst Mode - Intelligent Handheld Night Shot Mode - File Format Still Image Still Image: JPEG(DCF/Exif2.3), 3D Image: MPO Still Image with Audio - Movie AVCHD, QuickTime Motion JPEG Recording Modes Mode Dial / Mode Button Intelligent AUTO, Normal Picture, Sports, Snow, Beach&Snorkeling, Underwater, SCN, 3D Still Image Scene Mode Portrait, Soft Skin, Transform, Self Portrait, Scenery, Panorama Assist, Night Portrait, Night Scenery, Handheld Night Shot, Food, Party, Candle Light, Baby1, Baby2, Pet, Sunset, High Sensitivity, High-speed Burst (Image Priority / Speed Priority), Flash Burst, Starry Sky, Fireworks, Aerial Photo, Pin Hole, Film Grain, High Dynamic (Standard, Art, B&W), Photo Frame Movie Scene Mode* Portrait, Soft Skin, Transform, Self Portrait, Scenery, Low Light, Food, Party, Candle Light, Sunset, Aerial, Pin Hole, Film Grain, High Sensitivity, High Dynamic (Standard, Art, B&W) (Activated by selecting Still Image Scene Mode then pressing movie button.

Still Image Scene Modes without corresponding Movie Scene Mode is recorded in Normal Mode) HD Movie Recording 1920 x 1080 pixels, 50i (Sensor output is 25p) (FSH: 17Mbps, GFS: 17Mbps / AVCHD) 1280 x 720 pixels, 50p (Sensor output is 25p) (GS: 17Mbps, SH: 17Mbps / AVCHD) 1280 x 720 pixels, 30 fps (QuickTime Motion JPEG) Exposure Parameters Exposure Program AE Exposure Compensation 1/3 EV step, +/- 2 EV ISO Sensitivity Auto / i.ISO / 100 / 200 / 400 / 800 / 1600 High Sensitivity Mode (ISO 1600-6400) Image Parameters Aspect Ratio 4:3 / 3:2 / 16:9 / 1:1 4:3 (Still Picture Recording) 4000 x 3000 (12M) / 3264 x 2448 (8M EZ) / 2560 x 1920 (5M EZ) / 2048 x 1536 (3M EZ) / 1600 x 1200 (2M EZ) / 640 x 480 (0.

3M EZ) 3:2 (Still Picture Recording) 4000 x 2672 (10.5M) / 3264 x 2176 (7M EZ) / 2560 x 1712 (4.

5M EZ) / 2048 x1360 (2.5M EZ) / 640 x 424 (0.

3M EZ) 16:9 (Still Picture Recording) 4000 x 2248 (9M) / 3264 x 1840 (6M EZ) / 2560 x 1440 (3.5M EZ) / 1920 x 1080 (2M EZ) / 640 x 360 (0.

2M EZ) 1:1 (Still Picture Recording) 2992 x 2992 (9M) / 2448 x 2448 (6M EZ) / 1920 x 1920 (3.5M EZ) / 1536 x 1536 (2.

5M EZ) / 480 x 480 (0.2M EZ) Image Quality Fine / Standard (3D Mode: MPO Fine / MPO Standard) White Balance Auto / Daylight / Cloudy / Shade / Incandescent / White Set Others Wind-Cut in Motion Picture Yes Optical Zoom in Motion Picture Yes PLAYBACK Display Playback Mode Normal Playback, Slideshow, Filtering Playback (Picture Only, Video Only, 3D, GPS, Travel, Category, Favorites), Calendar Playback Playback Motion Picture Yes Slideshow Mode All / Picture Only / Video Only / 3D / GPS / Travel / Category / Favorites BGM Effect (Natural / Slow / Swing / Urban / OFF) Edit Video Divide Yes OTHERS Monitor LCD Monitor 2.

7” / 6.7 cm TFT Screen LCD Display (230K dots), AR Coating Viewfinder - Media Recording Media Built-in Memory, SD Memory Card, SDHC Memory Card, SDXC Memory Card Built-in-Memory Approx.

19MB Audio Microphone / Speaker Mono / Yes Interface Interface micro HDMI, AV Output, USB2.0 High Speed, DC Input (requires optional DC Coupler) HDMI Output Auto / 1080i / 720p / 480p (576p for PAL) Power Power (Included) ID-Security Li-ion Battery Pack (3.

6V, Minimum: 940mAh) Battery Life (approx.) (CIPA**) 310 pictures Standard Package Standard Accessories Battery Charger, Battery Pack, Brush, AV Cable, USB Cable, AC Cable, Hand Strap, CD-ROM METRICS Dimensions (W x H x D) 103.

5 x 64.0 x 26.

5 mm (4.07 x 2.

52 x 1.04 inch) Weight (with Battery and SD Memory Card) Approx.

197 g (0.434 lb) (less)