Entertainment/Gaming Consoles

[vsp]

I'd have to go back and check where my money's at -- it's been a while. Once you've bought all the properties, it's all uphill from there.

The vigilante missions are a bastard... UNLESS you use the attack helicopter, at which point it becomes a lot easier once you get the hang of its missiles. Since you've finished Keep Your Friends Close, the chopper should be available at the Air Force base. (Note that getting into and out of said Air Force base without being shot to ribbons is another matter entirely.)

Free tip for weapons that'll save you a ton of money: some weapon types use the same ammo. This is particularly useful with the Uzi family; you can buy up thousands of shells of the ultra-cheap variety (MAC10s for $100 in Ocean Beach), then buy ONE expensive MP5 and the ammo will transfer over. Ditto for shotguns (buy standard Chrome, then pick up one Spaz) and assault rifles (buy Rugers, then pick up one M4). Unfortunately, this doesn't work for the Colt Python or the Sniper rifles.

Saving money on weapons is important when you start doing rampages, because your weapons will have an annoying tendency to disappear due to a bug. If you start a rampage that has (let's say) a mini-gun as the weapon of choice, you are given an unlimited-ammo mini-gun. When you finish it or time runs out, it takes away the mini-gun BUT DOESN'T RETURN whatever weapon you had in the Heavy Weapons slot before you started the rampage. This is particularly aggravating for drive-by shooting missions, which take away your submachine gun.

Supposedly, what can tend to happen is that it tries to give the weapon back, but assigns the ammo to the wrong weapon class. This is how I ended up with a Colt Python with 4000 shells. If you have the "right" weapon already readied when you touch the Rampage icon, it generally eliminates this problem, but that implies that you already know what the Rampage is before you touch it.