5 reasons why GTA Vice City Stories is more fun than GTA Liberty City Stories

The Grand Theft Auto (GTA) series has consistently been one of the top franchises in the gaming industry. It includes several titles that are available on a variety of consoles and systems. Two of them, Grand Theft Auto Vice City Stories and Liberty City Stories, are among the very few of this series' titles available on the PlayStation Portable, a hand-held gaming console.

While both games are enjoyable and have unique specialties, Vice City Stories emerges as the much better game overall. With that said, in this article, we will be taking a look at five reasons why GTA Vice City Stories is more fun than Liberty City Stories.

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New gameplay elements and 4 more reasons that make GTA Vice City Stories more fun than GTA Liberty City Stories

1) Provides a backstory for Lance Vance

Rockstar Games' hit 2002 release, GTA Vice City, introduced its player base to a cast of memorable characters. If there is anyone besides the protagonist, Tommy Vercetti, and his lawyer, Ken Rosenberg, who has made a similar impact on fans, it's the game's secondary antagonist, Lance Vance.

Lance is an eccentric individual who happens to be the brother of Vice City Stories' lead character, Victor Vance. Hence, plenty of scenes involving him always make for an interesting interaction. As this game is a prequel to the 2002 title, we can witness the origins and rise of the beloved Vance brothers in detail.

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2) Return to Vice City

Vice City is arguably the most popular location in the Grand Theft Auto universe. It has unfortunately been visited only twice but maintains its position as a fan-favorite to this day. Therefore, despite all of Liberty City's glory, Vice City Stories returning to the east coast gave it an edge over Liberty City Stories.

This location is a fictionalized version of Miami and hence includes beaches, buildings, and beautiful palm trees all around the map. As it happens, GTA 6 is rumored to be set in Vice City. If that turns out to be true, it will be great to finally see its HD version.

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3) Players can swim

Although there are many beaches and coastlines on Vice City's map, Rockstar had not yet implemented swimming mechanics in their 2002 game. Fortunately, Vice City Stories does not suffer from that issue and lets players swim wherever and whenever they want.

The swimming animations resemble 2004's Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. Although Victor Vance can't dive underwater, it is still a much bigger advantage over Liberty City Stories, as swimming is not possible in that game.

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4) New gameplay elements

Apart from the swimming mechanic, many new gameplay elements were included in GTA Vice City Stories. One of its best features is its detailed combat system wherein players can lock onto a target NPC and use a variety of intricately-animated offensive maneuvers against them. This is non-existent in Liberty City Stories.

Furthermore, Vice City Stories also allows players to take over gang territories and build their own empires by establishing businesses. Interestingly, Businesses became a big part of the franchise much later in GTA Online. After its recent San Andreas Mercenaries update, players can invest in them to make a lot of money in the game.

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5) The music

The music is what makes for greater immersion in any game. Both GTA Vice City and Vice City Stories are set in the 1980s; hence, they feature a great selection of songs from the top artists of the time.

Not only are they nostalgic but also pretty iconic, which players can enjoy while free-roaming or doing a mission. While Liberty City Stories' soundtrack is not bad by any stretch of the imagination, it just fails to surpass what Vice City Stories' radio has to offer.