Bright Lights, Big City
Don't let the top-down angle fool you; Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars does Liberty City on a massive scale. Oh, and it's awesome to boot.
Published: December 1, 2009
The PDA also houses one of the most important advancements to any portable GTA game: Rockstar's Social Club. Though you have to enable it, doing so allows you to sync up with online servers that store your progress and stats throughout the game, open up new missions and data for your PDA and so on. This exists outside of the "normal" wireless multiplayer (Ad-Hoc only, sadly, though there's always Ad-Hoc Party in the future if we're lucky), though it complements it too by way of collecting stats and letting you compare with buddies you can add to your in-game friends list. Everything from races (with tanks!) to territory control to delivery duels to a playable version of Liberty City Survivor (remember the promos for that in GTA III? Yeah, it's you and another guy in a city filled with weapons and over-eager cops, and it's awesome) are playable so long as you have one other person in range. That two-player limit is likely because it seems the games are constantly trying to stay synced, leading to some hiccups during high-speed moments.
Speaking of cops, there's one very important addition to the classic GTA formula if you're aggressive enough: cops can be taken out. Take enough out by ramming their cars into walls or oncoming traffic and you can drop your wanted level. Take 'em all out in decreasing numbers per wanted level and you can actually become anonymous with even the FBI on your tail if you're quick with the carjackings and pursuer takedowns. This actually changes the way a GTA game can be played in short spurts on a fundamental level; if you're good (and fast) enough, you can bash your way out of a high wanted level and back to the underground where you belong. It means the old game of just causing mayhem no longer ends once the choppers and tanks roll in -- if you can work the system enough. It also means I spent far more time just wrecking shit in this game than perhaps any GTA since the first one.
I've purposefully avoided talking about the DS version because I honestly didn't have much time to play it. Once I'd heard there was a PSP version of Chinatown Wars in the works, I shelved the dual screen version and started to count the days until the widescreen re-release. In short, though, the game does lose a little of the gimmicky fun of the DS' feature set. Tapping and rubbing and swirling the stylus made for an immersive set of challenges and hotwiring a car or kicking out a back window isn't quite the same when you're just tapping a button. Even still, the game's move to a single screen hasn't dampened its impact one iota.
It has however, provided those little graphical flourishes I mentioned before. Barring some hitching and streaming issues that don't really plague the downloadable version of things like they do the UMD release (honestly, just get the PSN version; it's better than the UMD in every way -- especially loading), this is a markedly prettier version. You'll still see some rather off-putting blurry sprites for all the characters, which can clash with the 3D cars and buildings, but that's about the only visual gripe I have with the game. The weather effects, lighting at night and sheer size of the city is amazing.
The same goes for the audio, though that's perhaps the biggest indicator that this used to be a DS game. There's no voice work during cutscenes and all the audio is instrumental (though the PSP version does get a few new exclusive radio stations), but Rockstar was incredibly smart about "omitting" voices in the soundtrack as it provides a perfect platform for Deadmau5's fantastic EDM tracks. The rest of the audio, from the ambient city noise to pedestrian chatter to gunshots, sirens and screeching tires all sound fantastic (and, yes, were given a quality update for the PSP). In short, the game sounds as good as it looks.
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars has become the go-to time killer on my PSP. Thanks to the downloadable version, it's now permanently installed on my PSP and pretty much rests in sleep mode, ever-ready to go when I'm not reviewing anything else. It is an absolutely phenomenal game, and one that every single PSP owner (fine, every one of age) needs to have on their system. The number of things available from a sleep resume are staggering, and most of them are perfectly suited for a quick train ride or a few hours at home alike. Buy this game. Now.
