5 anti-piracy features found in GTA Vice City

Anti-piracy features are often meant to deter pirates from pirating a video game, and it's no different with GTA Vice City.

Now, GTA Vice City's anti-piracy features aren't as well-known as GTA 4's simply because the latter is more aggressive in its approach. Still, GTA Vice City has some interesting anti-piracy features that could seriously annoy some pirates who play the game.

Sadly, GTA Vice City was cracked by pirates before the game came out, meaning that pirates never saw these anti-piracy features for the most part. Hence, it didn't really do its job effectively when it came to deterring people from pirating the game. GTA Vice City's anti-piracy features are still interesting to discuss, especially since most players won't be aware of them.

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Five anti-piracy features in GTA Vice City

#5 - Permanent rain

There's a 25% chance permanent rain will happen when this occurs (Image via LibertyCity.Ru)

This anti-piracy feature isn't game-breaking by any means, as the weather in GTA Vice City is mostly a visual thing. However, it should be noted that the permanent rain only happens 25% of the time when the player sees something like "Mission Failed" or "Mission Passed."

Like other anti-piracy features, this one is saved into the player's save file. It is worth noting that some missions force the game to be a certain weather. Likewise, weather-related cheat codes still work.

#4 - Sniper Rifles are useless

Players will have to use weapons other than sniper rifles in this situation (Image via GTA Wiki)

Sniper Rifles deal 0 damage if GTA Vice City is detected to be pirated. Players will hear the sound effect and can still zoom in like normal, but no bullets come out. NPCs don't react to it, either.

It can still change the size of the moon, at the very least. Predictably, this makes some rampages impossible to complete.

#3 - Garage troubles

Garages don't work anymore after a while (Image via Annmarie Davies)

GTA Vice City counts time by the number of frames that have passed. Once 35 minutes has supposedly passed, all garages in GTA Vice City will no longer work if the game suspects the player is using a pirated copy.

This includes Pay 'N' Spray and mission-related garages. Missions, where these are mandatory, become impossible to complete as a result of this.

#2 - Fire Trucks & Pickups

A Fire Truck in GTA Vice City (Image via GTA Wiki)

Oddly enough, whenever a Fire Truck spawns in GTA Vice City, there will be a 12.5% chance that all non-mission pickups will be collectible (excluding cash). This means that weapons, save icons, and police bribes don't work in their intended manner.

Considering how hard it is to cause a fire in GTA Vice City, this anti-piracy feature tends to go unnoticed by pirates who use the pirated copies with everything still intact.

#1 - Instant crash

Players who want to save their progress and reload might be in for a rude awakening (Image via Rockstar Games)

If a GTA Vice City player manages to save a game with more than 40 minutes' worth of gameplay and tries to reload the game, it will instantly crash. This crash will occur 100% of the time as a result of an unhandled exception error.

If a player has less than 40 minutes' worth of gameplay, the game just loads in with no pedestrians on the street. Only a few can be seen in the mall, or by missions. Likewise, they can also come out of a parked Coach.

Also, this only applies to players who load GTA Vice City. They're free to leave it on as long as they'd like.

Note: This article reflects the writer's personal views.