5 areas where GTA Vice City Stories beats GTA Liberty City Stories

GTA Vice City Stories and GTA Liberty City Stories are two non-mainline titles in the Grand Theft Auto series that are often compared to one another. The former is arguably the better game. However, it wouldn't be wrong to prefer the latter over it. Everything about this topic is merely subjective, so let's focus on some areas relevant to it.

There are several gameplay features that GTA Vice City Stories arguably executes better than its Liberty City counterpart. This article includes five examples to support this argument.

Note: Some aspects of this article are subjective. The entries are not ranked in any particular order.

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Five examples where GTA Vice City Stories surpasses GTA Liberty City Stories

1) Side content

A High-Roller Protection Racket in GTA Vice City Stories (Image via GTA Wiki)

GTA Liberty City Stories has some side content, but it's basically just a few repetitive missions for vehicles or assets. It's just the standard fare that most games in the series possess.

By comparison, GTA Vice City Stories has random missions plus Empire Building. This ambitious feature means a player could run a few businesses scattered all over Vice City to earn plenty of money. This gives the game a little bit of customization that is otherwise missing in most other titles in the franchise.

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2) Combat

Most 3D Universe games, including GTA Liberty City Stories, have the same set of controls for melee combat. Players can basically punch, kick, or run away.

There's not much to say about the standard way melee combat used to be done, but thankfully, GTA Vice City Stories spices things up. Victor Vance has the ability to snap necks and throw people a few feet away from him. This makes melee combat with his fists pretty solid, especially since this sort of feature is strangely absent from other games within the series.

Only time will tell if Grand Theft Auto 6 will bring this feature back.

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3) Swimming

Victor Vance has to swim in the first mission of his game (Image via Rockstar Games)

Oddly enough, GTA Liberty City Stories lacks swimming, despite coming out a year after Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which had the feature. That means if Toni Cipriani touches water, he's as good as dead. This is pretty disappointing to see.

GTA Vice City Stories, thankfully, allows Victor Vance to swim. He can't dive underwater like CJ can. Still, swimming on the surface is good enough. This allows the character to not be completely helpless in case he ends up in one of the many watery parts of the game.

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4) Main antagonist

Jerry Martinez is a memorable antagonist (Image via Rockstar Games)

Generally speaking, the storyline of GTA Vice City Stories is much more engaging than that of GTA Liberty City Stories. Jerry Martinez is the main antagonist of the game. He's the one responsible for getting Victor Vance kicked out of the military. Due to this action, Victor Vance is eventually led to live a life of crime, starting his own drug empire.

Jerry Martinez is easy to hate, which makes him a much more interesting character to fight against than GTA Liberty City Stories' main antagonist, Massimo Torini. The latter character only appears in two missions and feuds with Salvatore Leone rather than the main protagonist Toni Cipriani. This makes playing through the story less fulfilling since Toni is more of a follower than a leader.

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5) Soundtrack

Musical taste is entirely subjective. Fans of tunes from the 80s will love GTA Vice City Stories more than GTA Liberty City Stories in this regard. Memorable songs from the former game include:

• Laura Branigan's "Gloria"
• Hall & Oates' "Family Man"
• Scorpions' "Rock You Like a Hurricane"
• Quiet Riot's "Mental Health"
• New Order's "Blue Monday"
• Afrika Bambaataa & Soul Sonic Force's "Renegades of Funk"
• Pat Benatar's "We Belong"

It's not like GTA Liberty City Stories' songs are bad. They're just less memorable, especially compared to one of the series' better soundtracks.