Probably one of my most anticipated games is the 10th Anniversary Edition of Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto: Vice City which is set to release later this week. While its sequel GTA: San Andreas eclipsed it in terms of size and variation, many gamers have a soft spot for Vice City due to its incredible storyline and ’80s-soaked nostalgia and soundtrack, myself included.

Rockstar released a trailer for the 10th Anniversay Edition of Vice City last week, which didn’t show actual in-game footage of the iOS version but got me all hyped up for the game nonetheless.

Today, the developer posted to their blog the first screens of the game running on iOS, and it looks to be a pretty massive improvement over the original.

As you can see, the visuals have received an incredible facelift. More detailed character models and textures as well as improved lighting effects really make GTA: Vice City pop on iOS. Rockstar also mentions “new and more precise firing and targeting options" and it will be really interesting to see what those are, as Vice City‘s gunplay and combat always was pretty clunky. Other than that it appears to use the same set of virtual buttons that worked surprisingly well in the iOS release of Grand Theft Auto 3 ($4.99) last year.

This Thursday really can’t come soon enough for me or the excited folks in our forums, and we’ll have much more on Grand Theft Auto: Vice City when it hits the App Store.