Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars

9.2

Format Nintendo DS

Developer Rockstar

Publisher Nintendo

Genre Action

23 Comments

Even with a fraction of the power of its home console brothers, Rockstar's DS debut is - as Apple would say in its iPod ads - one of the funnest Grand Theft Autos ever.

Chinatown Wars returns to GTA IV's Liberty City, which is rather surprisingly replicated completely on DS bar one island. Spoilt rich kid Huang Lee, following his father's death, travels to "the worst place in America" to deliver an ancient sword to his Uncle Kenny, thus ensuring his family's control of the Triad gangs.

Things don't go to plan and you're robbed and left for dead, leaving the family heirloom in unknown hands. It's now down to Lee (you) to reunite the family and recover his dead father's sword from the gangs of Liberty City.

Off the bat Chinatown Wars feels like a new take on the original 2D GTAs, although the 3D town has to be seen in motion to be believed. Sticking to the formula, cops, traffic and pedestrians all go about their daily routines, while flashing chevrons beckon you inside Burger Shot and Ammu-Nation.

	GTA: Chinatown Wars Official trailer 1:20  Sniping trailer GTA: Chinatown Wars Official trailer 1:20  Sniping trailer Age Restricted Content Please enter your date of birth below in order to verify your age before watching this video     Verify Age You must be at least 18 years of age. Play Again? Missed something? Just watch it again.. Watch More Videos Browse related videos and see what's new & popular Share This Video Email this video, or embed it into your own web page GTA: Chinatown Wars Official trailer 1:20  Sniping trailer GTA: Chinatown Wars Official trailer 1:20  Sniping trailer                                                                                                             DEBUG - State:  Status: skip to curtain Now playing More videos Share this   Now playing More videos Share this   Email this video to your friends Enter your friends' email addresses below, one per line. This functionality is currently disabled. Embed this video into your own page Copy & paste the HTML code below into your own web page or blog. <iframe src="http://web.archive.org/web/20090320081540if_/http://www.computerandvideogames.com/video_embed.php?id=2424" width="418" height="378" border="0" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe> GTA: Chinatown Wars Official trailer 1:20  Sniping trailer Now playing More videos Share this

A 3D re-imagining of the series' retro past would probably have been enough, but the DS's touch screen injects a fresh take on many a GTA hallmark. The simple task of hotwiring a car has now been transformed into an inventive touch sequence involving screw drivers, wires and immobiliser codes.

The stylus also comes in use in other areas; lobbing a Molotov cocktail or grenade is done by positioning your pointer on the lower screen for the perfect throw trajectory. Even simple mishaps like plunging your vehicle into water are made fun with a windscreen-smashing escape routine.

Chinatown Wars thankfully excels in its excellent mission design compared to some of GTA IV's by-the-numbers missions. Its little brother opts for a more action-packed, streamlined set-up, which means you spend less time immersed in the itty-bitty details of the world and more time blowing shit up.

You'll be sabotaging opponents' car engines before a street race (jamming a fish in the radiator) and in another you'll be fitting a tracking device, piece-by-piece, onto a cheating wife's car.

Some of our favourite early missions (not too spoilerific) include sneaking onto the back of a loaded truck to lob goods onto a perusing triad car with the touch screen, and another that had us hijacking an ambulance in police custody, driving carefully so as not to initiate a defibrillator touch screen scramble. There isn't any real 'go here, drive this person there' repetition that occasionally made the console versions veer into dull territory.

That's not to say there's any less of a GTA experience here. The size of the city and depth of content on offer is immense. Rockstar North could certainly learn from Leeds' excellent pacing.

Chinatown Wars isn't without an issue or two though. Fiddly combat lock-on - GTA's Achilles' heel - often decides to target the dog down the street instead of the bloke shooting you in the face, which can be frustrating in massive battles and changing weapons with the stylus on the touch screen is too time consuming during heavy fire fights.

What it loses in HD glory it more than makes up for in attitude, reclaiming some of that tongue-in-cheek silliness lost in recent current-gen and PSP series entries. Obscene weapons like the chainsaw and mini-gun are back, plus the arcade-enthused blood bath that is the Rampage challenge, which dares you to cause as much carnage as possible within a time limit.

Central to this new fun-filled slant is the re-jigged police pursuit system. Instead of sticking a big 'police radius' on your map, Wars simply displays the number of pursuing police cars on the HUD - more cars for more stars - and once you've successfully smashed them off the road and slipped past the eyes of others, your wanted level will disappear.

This way you're encouraged to take on the coppers in crash-filled ram-offs, rather than swimming in an empty canal for ten minutes hoping no one spots you. A subtle but effective 'auto straighten' assist makes these high-speed police chases even more effortless on DS.

But perhaps the most controversial and key addition to GTA's DS outing are the new drug-dealing mini-games. We call them 'mini-games' but they're actually an integral, compelling part of Chinatown Wars' story - and they work brilliantly.

Using your touch screen PDA to seek out rival gangs' drug dealers, you can flog and sell dodgy substances to build your property empire and make a ton of cash in the process. Like San Andreas' turf wars mechanic, the drug dealing gameplay can quickly become an addictive and absorbing game in itself, and we've had some dodgy looks in the office upon complaining aloud that "nobody wants to buy our f***ing heroine".

Each gang has their preferred buy-and-sell substances, and you'll often get e-mail alerts when a visiting dealer is desperate to flog or acquire a certain commodity (this is where you'll make the most cash).

Buying the Irish gangs' speciality, Acid, and then offloading it to the hungry Midtown Gangsters for a profit is a quick way to grow your dollar, for example. But stockpiling a certain drug when a dealer's doing special rates and then selling it on at "a high price" (as the Merchant from Resi 4 would say) is the most rewarding strategy. It's so good we'd love to see dealing taken on by the next home console episode.

Multiplayer modes consist of co-op and versus-style game types similar to GTA IV's which, while being a good blast with a lot of players, ultimately lack the scope and ambition to drag you away from the masterful single-player game.

92% of the time Chinatown Wars is a brilliant, inventive top-down GTA experience, which is why it comes most highly recommended to any over-18 (but probably under 65) DS owner.

Andy Robinson