Reviewed on:
PlayStation PortableThe Good:
Looks, sounds, and plays just like any console-based GTA game released in recent years; dozens of hours of play exist outside the 15-hour campaign; offers seven wireless multiplayer modes supporting up to six players.The Bad:
Fails to advance the series in any significant way; the storyline doesn't quite live up to the standard set by other GTA games; missions aren't particularly inventive.The Verdict:
It's everything we love about Grand Theft Auto on a four-inch screen.
REVIEW:
I never knew handheld gaming could be like this.
Like most gamers my handheld habit was nursed on a diet of Zelda, Mario, and Donkey Kong games — healthy and nutritious video game fare, to be sure, but I now see these games as the equivalent of Arrowroot biscuits.
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories captures all of the wanton degeneracy made famous by its big brothers, and, as such, has forever changed my outlook on the possibilities of handheld gaming.
Unlike previous GTA offerings seen on the Game Boy and Game Boy Advance, Liberty City Stories isn't forced to make large concessions in narrative, visuals, or game play.
Rockstar Games' attempt to capture the console experience is apparent from the second the game begins loading and displaying the opening titles, which feature the franchise's trademark stylized drawings of gangsters, guns, and beautiful women.
Once the titles eventually dissolve into the actual game your jaw will drop.
You'll find yourself in Liberty City, the virtual metropolis styled after New York that we originally saw in Grand Theft Auto III. No corners have been cut; it's every bit as vast and detailed as it was when last seen on PlayStation2 and Xbox. Countless hours can be spent investigating the city's alleys, docks, and rooftops to find bonus missions, hidden collectibles, and ideal locations from which to run amok.
But perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me fill in a few important game details for those few readers who have yet to play a GTA game.
The GTA experience is remarkably open-ended, allowing players to explore an enormous world and advance the main narrative at their own pace.
Each game in the franchise starts players off in the shoes of a low level villain working his way up the underworld food chain by performing all sorts of bad deeds. The series' titular crime is actually one of the least offensive illegal activities you'll engage in, which include ferrying hookers at the behest of pimps, assassinating rival thugs for your boss, and beating innocents with bats and cleavers just for the fun of it. And that's saying nothing of the meaningless, non-story related maniacal rampages that all GTA players eventually indulge in.
All of these game elements have been preserved in GTA's PlayStation Portable debut, resulting in a game indistinguishable in virtually every meaningful way — save screen size — from its home console-based predecessors.
This time 'round players take control of Toni Cipriani, a Mafioso out to make a reputation for himself after years spent in hiding. A large cast of supporting characters that ranges from low level lieutenants to his ambitious mother to the Don himself provide Toni with a seemingly never ending stream of missions that will feel familiar to GTA fans, including deliveries, murders, street races, and more.
The greatest criticism that can be levelled at Liberty City Stories is that it fails to evolve the GTA experience in any meaningful way.
Few — if any — of the main missions differ significantly from missions we have undertaken in previous GTA games. That's not to say the missions are dull, but rather that Liberty City Stories holds few surprises.
