Upon its release, the game was acclaimed by many reviewers who praised the music and gameplay, which uses a tweaked version of the game engine used in its predecessor. It became the best-selling video game of 2002, and has sold over 20 million copies as of 2011; until July 2006, it was the best-selling PlayStation 2 game of all time. The game is cited as a landmark in video games for its far-reaching influence within the industry. The success of Vice City led to the creation of a prequel, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (2006), which revisits the Vice City setting just two years prior. Vice City's violent and sexual content has also been the source of public concern and controversy.

Its successor, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, was released on 26 October 2004, and also received critical acclaim. In December 2012, in celebration of the game's tenth anniversary, a mobile version of Vice City was released for iOS and Android. The game has also been ported to various other platforms and services, such as Mac OS X and the PlayStation Network.
To prevent this from happening, Sonny ostensibly promotes Tommy to a capo and sends him to Vice City under the guardianship of a crooked lawyer and Sonny's contact Ken Rosenberg to act as their buyer for a series of cocaine deals for Sonny, whose interest is to expand his family activities down the South and to overrun the Liberty drug market with the high-end cocaine from Vice City, hoping to create a monopoly on the Liberty City drug ring to establish the Forelli Crime Family on the top.[6]

Soon, Tommy and his bodyguards are awaited at the Escobar International Airport by Ken, who gives them an info about the deal and takes them to the docks, where they are awaited by the Vance Crime Family, a prominent drug kingpins of Vice City, and their leader, Victor Vance, who arrives in the chopper. As they settle the deal, they are ambushed by several armed and masked men, who kill Victor and Tommy's bodyguards. Tommy narrowly escapes with Ken from the docks, and as a result, he ultimately loses both Forelli's money and the cocaine in the process. Ken drives to his office, while Tommy returns to his hotel.[7]

When Tommy informs Sonny of the ambush, Sonny loses his temper and threatens Tommy with the consequences of attempting to cheat the Mafia. Tommy promises to retrieve the money and the cocaine and kill whoever was responsible for the ambush.[8] Towards this end, Tommy meets up again with Ken at his office, who leads Tommy to retired colonel and mid-level drug dealer named Juan Garcia Cortez, who was Victor Vance's contact and who organized the deal between Vance's and the Forelli's. Cortez expresses regret about Tommy's bad deal and promises that his own lines of inquiry are being made to find out who masterminded the ambush plot. Tommy also meets Cortez's daughter Mercedes, who becomes Tommy's confidante shortly thereafter.

While Tommy waits for the outcome of Cortez's investigation he meets cocky 21-year old British record producer Kent Paul, real estate mogul Avery Carrington, and a mysterious man, who introduces himself as Lance Vance, younger brother of Victor, and the underboss of the now-defunct Vance Crime Family, who wants revenge for the death of his brother and also wants the Vance Crime Family back on the map.[9]

As time passes, Tommy befriends Cortez and begins to do regular work for him as an errand boy and hitman. On one such job, Tommy is called in with Lance to protect the deal of a drug baron named Ricardo Diaz during a deal with the Cubans, looking to buy some high-end cocaine. During the deal, Diaz is ambushed by a gang of Haitians, but Tommy is able to kill them and save the deal, as well as Diaz's life. Consequently, Diaz begins hiring Tommy for his own agenda. Tommy takes this work because it pays well, in spite of his distaste for Diaz. On another errand for Cortez, he plans to meet a French courier in order to retrieve missile chips stolen from the