Been playing this GTA 3 mod that adds Vice City since 2009, and it's still holding me over

I stumbled on this GamesRadar piece about the Back to the Future: Hill Valley mod for GTA 3 and it hit me right in the nostalgia. I've had that thing installed on and off since 2009, no joke. It's not just a car or a skin, it's a full-on Vice City map ported into the GTA 3 engine, complete with the neon, the palm trees, and that weird pink sky. The mod's been around so long it's practically a relic at this point, but it still works if you're willing to fiddle with some old files.

The article goes into how the mod came together, and honestly I never knew the backstory. The creator basically reverse-engineered the Vice City map and rebuilt it inside GTA 3's Liberty City framework. It's janky in places, sure, but there's something about cruising Ocean Beach in a DeLorean that hits different when you've been waiting for a proper return to Vice City for two decades.

With the extended look dropping later this month and the actual game still months away, I've been firing up all kinds of old mods just to feel something. This one's been my go-to. It's not the real thing, but it's a weirdly comforting placeholder. Anyone else digging through ancient mods to pass the time?

Source: GamesRadar+ · Curated content.

I'll take a janky 2009 mod over another polished trailer that'll age poorly by November.