The Grand Theft Auto series was not made for kids. The Nintendo DS’s main audience is kids. So when GTA Chinatown Wars was announced last year, I wasn’t expecting too much. Perhaps a minigame spinoff, or a smaller scale game. With a subtitle like Chinatown Wars, I decided that the game would be nothing more than GTA confined to a few blocks of Liberty City. Calling the game a pleasant surprise would be a severe understatement. Yes, it’s on the DS. But don’t make the mistake I did. This is no sidescrolling platformer, nor minigame collection, nor turn-based rpg. This is Grand Theft Auto.
Chinatown Wars is the full GTA experience, crammed into the restrictions of the DS. But instead of chopping the GTA formula at its stems, Rockstar Leeds has worked around the technical barriers by playing on the handheld’s strengths. Obviously, the graphics are not that of GTAIV. They’re cel-shaded, and look closer to the original topdown GTA and GTA II, except that the game is in 3D, save for the human sprites. The result is a very polished look, and a more cartoony style. It is distinctly different from the style of the recent console versions, but the DS wouldn’t have been able to achieve that sort of gritty appearance. As well. the cutscenes are shown in comic book styled stills, with text only and no voice overs.
It’s development choices like these that make Chinatown Wars such a successful game. The game was built for the system, a comment that cannot be made for the PSP games Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories. Leeds didn’t try to fit the console version of GTA into a cartridge. Instead, they modified the game design so that it would be perfectly suited for the DS.
The game is set in Liberty City, which also hosted GTA III and GTA IV. As in, Liberty City in it’s entirety; this is still free roaming GTA. Despite the technical limitations, the city remains more of a character and less of a setting. You’ve heard it many times before: Liberty City is a breathing, living being. You play as Huang Lee, a spoiled kid from Hong Kong, who moves to Liberty City when his father is murdered. Huang wants to meet up with his uncle, Wu “Kenny” Lee, to deliver the family sword. But things turn nasty, and everyone tries to use Huang to become the next leader of the Triads. The story really isn’t that gripping. Things don’t get interesting until the end of the game. However, the dialogue is often humourous. Huang is persistently sarcastic, and his dry comments don’t come off as too cheesy.
A new addition to the series is the element of drug dealing, a gameplay mechanic that is fairly prominent in Chinatown Wars. To say the least, it works excellently. There are dealers sprawled out everywhere in Liberty City. Basically, you find these dealers, buy or sell, then go to another dealer to turn a profit. The six different drugs are weed, coke, heroin, downers, ecstasy, and acid. The drug dealing minigame is completely optional, but it’s how you’ll earn most of your money. And it’s so well implemented that you’ll never find it tiresome to go across town to offload all your weed to a pothead willing to pay high.
Another new feature is that you can lower your star level by getting police cars to crash. Basically, if enough police cruisers get totaled, you’ll lose your wanted stars. The more stars you have, the more cruisers need to be crashed. However, you killing policemen will raise your wanted level, traditionally. It’s a new concept that makes car chases more exciting.
The game features a litter of touchscreen minigames. They happen often enough that you’ll might want to find a way to keep the stylus in your hand as you’re roaming around (which uses classic controls). I found myself constantly sliding the stylus in and out of the slot, to the point where I got pretty efficient at it. Minigames are required for tasks including stealing parked cars, assembling sniper rifles, and breaking open locks. The 10 second jobs don’t feel tacked on, and they provide fun breaks from all the shooting. The firing is all auto aim powered, with a lock on system. Again, this is a welcomed mechanic as aiming on the DS would be a nightmare.
The main action of the game is laid out on the top screen, with the GPS and other menu items on the bottom screen. Framerate is consistent, although at rare occurrences you’ll see some screen tearing if you’re in a speedster and there’s a lot of action going on (namely, the cops are chasing you). Apart from the main story missions there’s the usual side missions, including tax, ambulance, and vigilante tasks. Instead of hidden packages, there are 100 security cameras to destroy, tieing in with the drug dealing theme. It took me almost 9 hours to get to around 55% completion, which includes the main story and a handful of side stuff.
It’s very difficult to be disappointed with GTA Chinatown Wars. Even after reading this review, after knowing what to expect, you’ll be blown away by seeing this game in action. Rockstar Leeds has pushed the limits of the DS and has successfully transformed GTA into a portable title that plays so well that I hardly hesitate to call it one of the tighest entries into the series. The thought and refinement that went into the design shines through. When you play the game, you can really appreciate that the developers made a game for the system. Chinatown Wars also adds new mechanics to the formula. There’s a good chance that you’ll see ideas in this game used in the next console GTA’s. Strong design and sharp execution make Chinatown Wars the best handheld GTA ever, and a must play.
