GTA: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition’s launch in 2021 was dreadful. That we can all agree on. But the fact remains that Rockstar didn’t abandon the re-release and ended up delivering three years later even if many disgruntled fans moved on long before that work was done. With GTA 6 still missing a firm 2025 release window and hype through the roof, it’s not strange to think about replaying some past entries, and perhaps it’s time to bring back two underrated handheld installments.
Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories, released in 2005 and 2006 respectively, are among the best PSP games of all time. The pitch back when Sony’s handheld was the hottest piece of portable hardware on the market was having fully-fledged 3D Grand Theft Auto games on the go. That sounded like utterly insane talk before LCS was first unveiled, but it somehow happened and was great. Far from being downgrades of what we’d experienced with GTA 3 and Vice City, they added new places, storylines, and even mechanics to locations we’d already visited on home consoles and PC. You just had to be there.
As publisher Take-Two and developer Rockstar Games scramble to take down the fan-made ports of GTA 4’s Liberty City into GTA 5 and Vice City into GTA 4, it’s become quite clear that there’s a hunger among the community for new experiences – even if they’re not really new – that take us back to past iterations of the most iconic cities in the long-running series. If Rockstar breaking ties with original Definitive Edition dev Grove Street Games and finally getting that re-release to where it should be was any indication of better quality control in the future, I’ll happily raise my hand and begin asking for LCS & VCS remasters.
Portable magic
After making a splash on PSP, both games were ported to PS2. Moreover, Liberty City Stories made its way to mobile phones in late 2015 and early 2016. Clearly, the powers that be didn’t quickly forget about them, which is why the possibility of proper modern remasters in the vein of the Definitive Edition isn’t too much to ask.
Despite the platform they were developed for originally, these spinoffs (prequels to both GTA 3 and Vice City, actually) retained improvements that happened first in the bigger entries. For example, LCS included motorcycles, clothing changes, and a bigger number of interior environments vs. GTA 3’s more limited approach to a 3D sandbox (it was the pioneer). Likewise, VCS added its own exclusive empire-building system and recovered air vehicles and the ability to swim from Vice City and San Andreas respectively.
Those key features were just the tip of the iceberg. As I said before, neither LCS nor VCS were designed as lesser versions of the original trips to Liberty and Vice City. Whereas Chinatown Wars (2009) returned to the franchise’s top-down origins and clearly was a smaller-scale experiment, Rockstar’s PSP efforts should’ve stood tall alongside the ‘classic trilogy’ we continue to praise to this day. The only thing that’s stopping more players from discovering and enjoying them is, once again, video game preservation being treated like an afterthought (or a downright annoyance).
Forgotten stories and history
I’ve also batted for Grand Theft Auto’s strong stories and characters for as long as I can remember. Far too many people treat the IP as an uncomplicated, unambitious series of wacky tales that are little more than excuses to support all the sandbox elements and the potential carnage. I could understand this (crap) take if it came only from boomers and folks who are completely disconnected from the medium, but to see it popping up time and again, and coming from supposedly dedicated gamers and even some games media individuals who are asking for ‘more’ from video games every other day is baffling.
Sometimes, we just need mean, hard-hitting satire which makes fun of everything and everyone at a certain point in human history, points out flaws in the systems which are supposed to protect us, and lets natural tragicomedy flourish out of the constant state of contradiction most of us live in. Dan Houser, James Worrall, and other writers that have allowed to GTA to grow over the years should be celebrated more often. Even when the PSP games were envisioned and developed, they made sure they had a firm place in the GTA timeline and added to the cities, characters, and relationships that had driven much of their bigger relatives forward.
Toni Cipriani and Victor ‘Vic’ Vance – and their bumpy personal journeys – are every bit as important as Claude and Tommy Vercetti. Their hijinks and struggles weren’t just ‘more content’ while everyone waited for GTA 4. It’s hard to fully understand how the series evolved in the gap between San Andreas and its successor without playing these neglected games, and their original platforms should’ve never dictated their importance past their prime. In the age of endless remasters filling the gaps between massive AAA releases, there are enough solid reasons to let Liberty City and Vice City Stories make a dashing return.
If you’re a fan of Rockstar’s series, check out our pick of the 10 best games like GTA.
