Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories
Liberty City Stories, for the PlayStation2, is a port from what seems to be a developing PlayStationPortable (PSP) franchise, with games inspired by and based from the Grand Theft Auto console games. In this particular spin-off you return to Liberty City, the well-known metropolitan area made famous in the GTA series' most revolutionist title, Grand Theft Auto III, for the PlayStation2. For those of us players who lack such a long-term memory, in Grand Theft Auto III you most of the time ran around doing errands and pulling off hits for a variety of characters. One of these characters was, I daresay, mama's boy Toni Cipriani. Toni Cipriani makes his appearance in Grand Theft Auto III as a loyal member of the Leone family who suddenly disappears. Through his somewhat cryptic message, left behind, it is apparent he's laying low after putting someone to rest. Liberty City Stories does not hesitate to let the players know he's back, and not only is he back, but you actually are playing his character this time around.
This is great news, or at least players thought it was. The game gives you the impression that you're no longer at the bottom of the barrel trying to rise to the top, you aren't a petty street thug, or thief, but in fact that you're apart of something now, part of the Leone family, almost a made man, no longer running simple errands, because you have bigger fish to fry and much bigger problems to solve! Now as interesting as that sounds, or I made it sound (forgive me), Rockstar Leeds could have not made it anymore uninteresting. As unpredictable as the game seemed before hitting store shelves, all the more predictable it was as you played the game. As foreshadowed you are no longer a grunt, you're almost a made man, you deserve more respect than you get, a capo, your Don's right-hand man. Regardless of all these things, however, the man in charge, Don Salvatore Leone puts you under the watchful eye of small-time Vincenzo Cilli to the player's and Cipriani's dismay. It is for Cilli that you will in fact find yourself running more errands, helping him out, while you make a few extra bucks in return. The rest of the game doesn't fan out from this concept, calling for repetitive game play and lack of depth.
The reason you probably won't find this game at all fun to play is because most of the time you're completing missions you aren't really accomplishing anything. Most of the missions you get nothing out of except the money, which the value changes greatly between that of the real world and Liberty City. You'll find yourself driving from point A to point B, unless things get really exciting and you must continue to point C. How a Grand Theft Auto game usually plays after you've beaten it is how Liberty City Stories feels all the way through. Countless unnecessary shootings, car jackings, and police chases. This is a port from the PSP so don't expect as fancy or big a selection of vehicles as with other Grand Theft Auto titles on the PlayStation 2. Some driving fast and some driving slow, is really what it'll boil down to in the long run when deciding which car to hop in. I mentioned shootings and as far as weapons go you can expect the same range of them. You have your pistol, machine guns, rocket launcher, grenades and pipe bombs as players have gotten familiar with in the other games. They make good for a quick scheme of running from the police as they always have. There is, however, a minor plus that Liberty City Stories poses with weapons. You are now able to sprint with any/all of them, big or small. The excitement wears thin after a prolonged amount of time though. There's still plenty to do outside of missions such as the unique stunts and finding of hidden packages.
If there's anything that makes this game harder to play it is the terrible graphics from PSP blown up to your TV screen. The camera angles also looked to be scrunched no matter how much adjustments you make. It's clear the difference in graphical capability between the PlayStation 2 and PSP, but this game makes it crystal clear. With obvious shapes and horrendous lighting effects no better word could describe this game, but ugly. Also the cheap price tag ($20) proves exactly you're getting what you pay for, which in this case, isn't much. I couldn't go on about the visual limitations as there, negatively speaking, wasn't much to go on about.
In essence the game holds true to other minor details the games are known for like the original radio stations, humorous ads followed by funnier shop names, and open-endedness. Disappointingly none of which added up enough to overcome the game's shortcomings. It's a very basic, watered down, version of Grand Theft Auto that would be more accepted on a handled then any console. Save yourself the twenty bucks, it's better spent elsewhere.
