Review: Grand Theft Auto: China Town Wars

By now it seems that the GTA series has hit every kind of culture with their main characters. Rising from the struggle and proving themselves. This time from proud and prominent dynasties to even its asian crime and mob underworld, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars borrows a bit from each old and new. This is Liberty City in China Town and we already know where this is headed.

GTA: Chinatown Wars starts off in familiar fashion in Liberty City with your main character Hwang. He comes to Liberty City to avenge his father death and your first encounter is with your uncle who is the head honcho in Liberty City’s Chinese Triad syndicate. Hwang will need to meet new people and be involved in many events that will give him the clues leading to the culprit behind his father’s murder.

GTA:CW goes back to its roots with birds eye view display. Since this a port from the DS, the developers chose to use the same engine and the game looks good for a DS port, utilizing hardware from the PSP. The main characters and the npc’s are designed in small sprites, the cars and the environments are rendered in 3D polygons, which are some of the best seen on the system. While playing through the story, the dialog will be presented in a drawn art form similar to Comics. Since this GTA is a portable rendition, this style of story progression fits in very well.

Gameplay stays true to the classic GTA while adding plenty of car chases and explosions to it. Hwang will navigate through liberty city in standard GTA style, hijacking cars, taking out criminals and if thats not enough for your appetite, then this virtual top down sandbox will let you do anything you want with it. There will be various alternative missions to do in liberty city such as making a honest buck as a cab driver, deliveries, crooked jobs etc. Combat in GTA:CW is very similar to previous GTA’s. You start with nothing but your bare knuckles, gaining money which will then allow you to use big boy guns to handle all the dirty work that needs to be taken care of as missions get heavier.

One thing to point out is that GTA: CW has borrowed ideas from the excellent GTA 4 such as the gps system, phone, and email systems. This helps with navigating through the game and overall making the much more enjoyable. Fans of the series will feel definetly at home with interation of the series

To concluded GTA:CW for the PSP rocks, whether it be for GTA fans on the go, looking for a classic title with tremendous replay value and great gameplay. It retains all the elements from the previous GTA’s that made it such a great series and pays homage to the classic style in which it origianted from. blending the new and old are a great welcome and for those who are unfamiliar with series (which is hard to imagine at this point in time) can get into the game with its simplistic controls, feel and overall free roaming freedom that GTA games are known for. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is great for all fans and casual alike.

Overall Score = 9.2

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