I’m having problems with my game and was wondering if anyone else is too. Having achieved 100% completion, I find myself spending a lot of time in the Hunter doing vigilante missions and generally firing off rockets at anything that moves.

However, when my wanted level gets to four stars the game starts freezing/lagging to the point where its almost unplayable. OK I think, there are lots of pink arrowed targets, theres police Mavericks and SWAT vans homing in on me the game has to keep track of, its fair enough that that would slow it down a bit. The problem is that it slows it down a LOT and I often notice the same thing when I’m near the Chunder Wheel on foot with a big wanted level, a lot of movement on screen and the game pretty much grinds to a stop.

I never had this problem on any other GTA game (San Andreas had a bit of slowdown occasionally but nothing as bad as this) so was wondering if VCS is just badly programmed or if there’s something specifically wrong with my game. I don’t like having to take my wanted level down just because the game is freezing every couple of seconds to load something or other, my PS2 seems in working order and my game disc is clean so I’d be happier if I knew I wasn’t the only one to have this problem.

I had a HUGE slowdown in the middle of a smuggler mission when I had four stars and was trying to make it back to my warehouse. I had just crossed from one island to the next and the screen loaded just fine, I got about ten seconds away and the game slowed down to the point that I was turning the vehicle, but it didn't actually turn.

I ended up hitting a wall and flipping over instead and had to redo the mission.

Seems like a lot of stars slows down the game considerably, which is odd considering it's on a more powerful console than it was originally intended.

Yeah, I also noticed a bit of slowdown coming back from the four-star smuggling missions but it wasn’t an issue working through the other missions as I always kept my wanted level down as far as possible.

Now I’m just messing about and deliberately maxing out my wanted level it ruins my fun every time. I can’t believe its too much for the PS2 to handle as I had no problems doing the same thing on the original Vice City (and San Andreas for that matter), which it now looks like I’ll have to go back to if I want to play with the Hunter...I have never been more disappointed with Rockstar in all my years of GTA gaming.

Yeah, I noticed this too, and to be honest, I don't get it. When it was ported to the PS2, I played this game mostly on my PS3, believe it or not. Now it seems *bleep*ing absurd to me that this game hangs and stutters, not only on the PS2, but on the next gen console, which is capable of running MUCH higher end, not to mention more graphics intensive games? Weird. The only thing I can think of is that the limiting factor here CANNOT be the console, lol obviously! If this game runs poorly even on a PS3, which it does on BOTH of mine, then the problem is in the porting of the game from the PSP to the PS2.

Odd but true.

If it locks up on the PS3 as well then it must be sloppy programming – pretty shameful in my book. I assumed the game would have been playtested for slowdown, as there’s no tear gas (which was the only thing that noticeably slowed down the original Vice City) but evidently it wasn’t playtested enough. Now every time I hit four stars in the Hunter I go straight to a police bribe and the game generally plays OK, but it’s a crying shame that prolonged gameplay with a high wanted level is effectively not possible anymore, its really curtailed my enjoyment of the game.

On a related note I sometimes get a glitch where all traffic disappears from the roads and does not return until a saved game is loaded. This makes races easier as there’s no other cars beside the other racers and parked cars. It also makes smuggling missions easier due to the absence of SWAT vans but bizarrely the game still freezes up once the wanted level hits four stars, which leads me to wonder what exactly is causing the slowdown if its not the number of vehicles the game is trying to keep track of.

I also have experienced the No Traffic glitch. There are PARKED cars, like the ones at my businesses, but nothing moving on the road. It seems to me it happens mostly when I cross the bridge from one island to the other near the docks.

Amazing a high wanted level makes it so difficult to play when that is one of the lynch pins of the game.

I had 5 stars on the PSP version by using the cheat code where you get a tank, and I was blowing up evrything in sight, and there was absolutely no slowdown, even though the SWAT team and new police cars spawned at every corner. It must be that R* did a bad job porting VCS to the PS2.

On San Andreas when u hit blur speed in a chase it went into slo mo kinda has this happened to u

Yeah I just finished the Kill Phil mission and decided to do a few smuggler missions then my game froze after I completed the smuggler missions so I had to start over and I also had the no traffic glitch on my game, I was getting shot at by some sharks then the police came and I got a 4 star felony for gunning dow 5 police cars and blowing up the helecopter then I went to the pay n spray and as soon as I started driving I noticed all the cars and peds were gone, in fact I was surprised to see that Vice Port and Vice Point mall area were empty.

Ive never had a slow-go i have on vcs though when you have a few stars and you crashing all over the place and shooting everywhere ..ye it has a little go slow but thats about it