Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Paramedic Mission Mini-Guide

Introduction

This is a short guide to doing the Paramedic mission in GTA: Vice City.

The paramedic mission works as follows: you have to complete 12 levels of delivering patients to a hospital. For level 1, you deliver 1 patient, for level 2, you deliver 2 patients, etc. This makes for a total of 78 patients. You receive $50 times the level number squared after completing each level ($50 for level 1, $200 for level 2, etc.). For a successful run to level 12, you receive a total of $32500.

For every level, you start off with a certain amount of time, which appears to be a function of how far away the patients are from the hospital. Your ambulance can only hold 3 patients at a time. Whenever you pick up a patient, you get an increment added to your time allowed, which is equal to half of your initial amount of time allotted. The first time that you drop off 3 patients at once at the hospital, you get an additional increment, also equal to half of your initial amount of time allotted. You do not get an increment for subsequent groups dropped off. If you succeed, you get "Infinite Run", i.e. you do not get tired running.

Advice

• Use the handbrake to stop on a dime every single time you pick someone up.
• Do not panic or rush, since time is almost never a problem. Drive carefully. Only hurry and take chances if you are behind on time.
• Do the paramedic mission before any of the gangs are mad at you. It's almost impossible when the ambulance is being shot at.
• The biggest problem area, if you start at the Washington Beach hospital, is those patients who are near the lighthouse. Take the bridge, driving very slowly so that you run over pedestrians but do not kill them, then go very slowly next to the water. There are a couple of places, before and after the lighthouse, where you can do a 3-point turn.
• Try not run anyone over, bump into a police car, or break any laws, so the police ignore you. Getting busted in the middle of a paramedic run is highly irritating, and you are vulnerable when you stop to pick patients up.
• The mission takes an average of about 1 minute per person picked up, or around 75-80 minutes to do the whole thing. Taking a break, in order to retain concentration, by pausing the game halfway through is not a bad idea.
• The Vice City paramedic mission is a lot easier than in GTA3, so if you have done that, you should not be too worried. The time increments are typically 50-70 seconds, whereas in GTA3 they are typically 20-30 seconds. You do have to cover some more distance, but not that much more.
• The siren can be helpful in certain cases, however I find it too irritating to leave on for over an hour.
• Try to get a group of 3 patients that are near to the hospital first, since you get an extra increment of time for the first group. This should give you a nice cushion to work with for the patients that are further away from the hospital.
• At the start of every level, try to plan your route by grouping the patients into groups of 3.

Feedback

If you have any comments or questions, feel free to email me at: gta [at] jeays [dot] net

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