Comparison · GTA III vs Vice City
GTA 3 or Vice City in the browser: which one should you play first?
Both games run in the same tab, both save locally and to the cloud, and both are the original PC releases. The differences are in tone, difficulty, side content and how much RAM the browser has to swallow. Here is the honest comparison.
The short answer
Play Vice City first if you want the friendlier game. It has better mission checkpoints, a clearer map, helicopters, boats, property and a soundtrack that does half the work. Play GTA III first if you want the history lesson or if your machine is modest: it is smaller, lighter and the purest version of the formula.
Playing them in release order also makes sense for a different reason: Vice City adds systems that GTA III does not have, so going backwards feels like a downgrade. Going forwards feels like an upgrade.
Head to head
| GTA III | GTA Vice City | |
|---|---|---|
| Released | 2001 | 2002 |
| Setting | Liberty City — grey, rainy, cynical | Vice City — neon, pastel, cocaine and synth |
| Map | three islands, no swimming | two islands, swimming, helicopters, boats |
| Story length | shorter and more linear | longer, split between story and businesses |
| Difficulty | higher: fewer checkpoints, missions can be lost | lower: retries are cheaper, weapons are easier to find |
| Side content | 20 rampages, 20 jumps, 100 packages | 35 rampages, 36 jumps, 100 packages, 15 stores, 7 safehouses, 8 businesses |
| Browser weight | about 110 MB of game data | about 200 MB before the first mission, more audio streamed after |
Atmosphere and story
GTA III is a cold game. Claude never speaks, Liberty City is permanently overcast, and the radio is built from talk stations and sparse electronica. It is the better crime story: a mute outsider working his way up through three gangs that all betray him.
Vice City is a party. Tommy Vercetti talks, the pastel suits are louder than the guns, and the soundtrack — Flock of Seagulls, Michael Jackson, Iron Maiden, a dedicated talk station — carries more of the mood than any mission. If you only have an hour, Vice City is the easier game to fall into.
Missions and difficulty
The two games handle failure differently. In GTA III a failed mission often means driving back across the city and starting from a payphone, and some missions can be lost permanently if you take another job first. There are no mid-mission checkpoints.
Vice City still has long drives, but it hands out better tools: health and armour upgrades from the ambulance and vigilante side jobs, weapon pickups in safehouses, and property missions that pay for themselves. The famous helicopter and RC missions are the exceptions — they are harder than anything in GTA III, and they are where most 100% runs stall.
Side content
GTA III's optional list is compact: 100 hidden packages, 20 rampages, 20 unique jumps, four vehicle sub-missions, import/export and the payphone jobs. Vice City roughly doubles it — 35 rampages, 36 stunt jumps, 15 store robberies, seven safehouses, eight businesses with their own mission lines, six street races, three stadium events, four chopper checkpoints and the Sunshine Autos import lists.
Practically: GTA III is a tighter 100% (around 20–25 hours), Vice City is a longer one (around 30–40). If your goal is the achievement of finishing a game completely, GTA III is the cheaper commitment.
How they run in the browser
GTA III is the re3 source port compiled to WebAssembly; Vice City is reVC, the same project for the second game. Both keep the original missions, physics and save format, and both cache assets in the browser so the second launch is fast.
The practical difference is weight. GTA III needs roughly 110 MB of game data before it starts. Vice City loads about 200 MB up front (the city and the first audio) and streams the rest of the radio and mission voice-over after the game window appears, which is why its progress bar behaves differently on a cold cache.
- Weak laptop: start with GTA III. Smaller memory footprint, fewer audio streams, steady frame rate.
- Modern desktop: either game runs well; Vice City looks better and has more to do.
- Phone: both work, but Vice City's helicopter and RC missions are painful with touch controls.
Saves and progress
Both games write to browser storage and copy progress to the cloud after you sign in, so a save started on a laptop continues on a desktop. The save files are the original ones — a GTA III save from the browser opens in the PC version and vice versa.
So which one?
- New to the series: Vice City. Friendlier missions, better music, more variety.
- Want the origin: GTA III, then Vice City. The mechanics build on each other.
- Short on RAM or on an old laptop: GTA III.
- Going for 100%: GTA III first — it is half the length and teaches the collectible discipline you will need in Vice City.
Frequently asked questions
- Do I need to install anything?
- No. Both games load in the tab, cache their data locally and start from the same page on the next visit.
- Can I play both at the same time?
- Not in one tab. Open the second game in another tab or window; saves are separate and both sync to your account.
- Is Vice City heavier because it looks better?
- Mostly because of the audio and the bigger map. The renderer is the same generation, so the GPU load is similar; memory is where Vice City asks for more.
- Which one has more content?
- Vice City, by a wide margin: more side missions, vehicles, weapons and collectibles.
Play GTA III in your browser · Play Vice City
Going for the full run? Start with the GTA 3 100% guide and then the Vice City 100% guide; the San Andreas 100% checklist covers the biggest one.