My trouble with Vice City is the miniature helicopter blowing up the union thugs building.
For the realism aspect? Then how about unlimited ammo in the Hunter, or for that matter, the idea that Tommy can carry 500 RPGs, 10000 rounds of MP5 ammo, 10000 rounds of pistol ammo, 5000 rounds of M-16 ammo... and 500 Molotov cocktails?
I believe the thinking with the helo was that the bombs were placed on explosive barrels, thus upping the total explosive poundage.
As for San Andreas, I got the Official Strategy Guide, which makes the game much, much more manageable. It has walk-thrus for all missions, which is ok, but, importantly, it has the locations for all the graffiti tags, lists of all the cars and their sex appeal stats, all oyster/photo/horseshoe locations, as well as tables for clothing attributes (sex appeal/gang respect), tattoo values, basically every little thing in the game.
The full-page maps also help quite a bit.
I feel proud that I was an early GTA adopter, playing the first version when it came out (around the time of Columbine... I have memories of listening to talk radio discuss how video games contribute to juvenile delinquency while I ran down the GTA street with my flamethrower going full-bore.)
GTA III was kind of darkly comic, while Vice City took the comic aspect to new levels, as well as the whole Miami Vice conceit.
San Andreas seems like it's in the middle, with some dark humor, some campy humor, and a much larger playing area.
I spent my first two hours of playing the game riding a BMX bike throughout Los Santos, amazed at how expansive it is.
If only they'd released a PC version (Personal Computer) with the PS2 release... the computer version is going to be so much cleaner.
Good SA tips: shoot drug dealers. They're the ones on streetcorners with their hands folded, and if you approach them, they'll offer you drugs. Popping them can net you up to $2000 in spilled cash.
After the Doberman mission, you'll soon realize that starting turf wars are a good way to stock up on ammo, and armor and health, played correctly (each turf war spawns health and armor powerups in or near the warzone). Plus, zones you've taken over produce cash at an icon outside your Grove St. hideout.
That took me a lot of practice(stairway especially). I eventually got it. I use the chopper blade to take out the IUPAT types that try and destroy it, and just went one bomb at a time from bottom to top. I eventually got it with about 30 seconds to spare.