Grand Theft Auto: Vice City hits iOS/Android this December

Rockstar Games has revealed plans to release a special 10th Anniversary Edition of the classic Grand Theft Auto: Vice City for mobile devices on December 6.

Can we all just take a moment to agree on one point before we get to the news? Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is, to date, the best Grand Theft Auto title Rockstar Games has ever created. Yes, objectively it features less content than San Andreas, and it’s not as technically impressive as Grand Theft Auto IV, but when has the series ever felt as awesome as when you were driving down the neon-drenched streets of faux Miami in a faux Lamborghini with Simon Le Bon singing “Hungry Like The Wolf” on the in-game radio?

Never, we say, and that’s why it’s so exciting to hear that Rockstar plans to resurrect Vice City just in time for the holidays. In an announcement issued this afternoon, the developer revealed that Grand Theft Auto: Vice City 10th Anniversary Edition would debut on the iOS app store and Google Play on December 6. What’s more, either iteration of the game will only set you back a mere $5.

Given that Rockstar created a largely new title for this re-release, it only stands to reason that the firm would want to pack it with new features, right? Of course it does! Thus, Rockstar explains what’s new and interesting about this latest incarnation of Vice City:

This 10th Anniversary Edition brings the full experience of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City to mobile devices, with native high-resolution graphics and several enhancements unique to the iOS and Android platforms including updated character models and lighting effects, new and more precise firing and targeting options, a fully customizable control layout and native support for Retina display devices.

That’s lovely to hear, but we would have been content with higher resolution graphics and the same touchscreen controls seen in Rockstar’s iOS version of Grand Theft Auto III. Prior to that game’s release it seemed crazy that anyone might actually translate the title’s complex controls to a touchscreen device, yet Rockstar somehow managed to pull it off, and Grand Theft Auto III stands as one of the best games to have been ported from a console to iOS. Assuming the same user-interface magic can be harnessed for the 10th Anniversary Edition of Vice City, that $5 price tag looks very enticing.