Grand Theft Auto Liberty City Stories Review

Grand Theft Auto, prior to GTA3 the GTA series was nothing special and was seen as just another series of games. GTA3 changed that when it was released on the PS2 around 4 years ago. Unlike the other GTA games, which had a birds eye view, this one was 3D and you could do almost anything you could do in real life with a lot of exaggeration added to make it a better gaming experience. On handhelds, GTA has been similar. There was nothing worth buying until Liberty City Stories. This fully 3D handheld wonder is the PSP’s best game yet, so good it’s been announced for release on the PS2. It’s everything its console counterpart is plus a whole lot more.

Liberty City Stories comes out with all guns blazing and shoots down any sort of handheld opponent on both DS and PSP. It provides around 35-40 hours of single play with around about an extra 10-15 hours of multiplayer giving you a big 50 hours in total. In addition to that, changing your clothing to suit what you're doing, be it blowing the hell out of everything in sight with a shotgun or simply getting away from the police is as fun as ever.

Onto the story of the game now, you are a member of the Mafia, Toni Cipriani and you are working for Salvatore Leone, a man a lot of you remember you killed on GTA3. Did he come back to life? No, Liberty City Stories is set three years before GTA3 and so you’ll see a lot of the characters from the previous games on this. As a member of the Mafia, you expect nothing less than gang wars, robbery, murder and everything else that comes along with it and that’s exactly what you get. Using the help of everyone else, you try to take Liberty City over with Salvatore. The missions you do are as always original and good with ones such as taking photos of a man in a nappy. They are a mixture of both short and long with the shorter ones and the start and the longer ones to the end and really do vary in how hard they are to complete.

In addition to the missions which only take up around 40% of the game, there are as always, other things you can do. These include the usual sub-missions, such as Taxi driving, Vigilante with the addition of others such as car and bike salesman ones. Not only is there that but the phone missions that we loved in Vice City and 3 are back and better than ever. There are also, just like GTA3, 100 hidden packages to collect that are dotted around the island as well having to do rampages, unique stunts and much more.

For a console game, GTA’s graphics were never anything good and the bad thing is they have only improved rain and lightening effects on it. The good thing is, this isn’t a console we’re talking about, we’re talking about a PSP game. On the PSP it is, visually, amazing. When I got it I spent the first few days just staring at how good the graphics are on something so small. The graphics are to simply say it, amazing.

In terms of how the game sounds, this is where the game has become slightly worse. Still, the radio stations are good to listen to be it, for momentum purposes or to laugh at the jokes they tell. The cut scenes for the missions are well scripted but at times can be a bit hard to hear. Sound effects in terms of shooting are the same as their PS2 counterparts which means stunningly sounding explosions.

The gameplay of the game is as good as ever, they’re customisable to get the best and you can choose whether you want to use the d-pad or analogue stick to get the best possible result where as in San Andreas you were forced into having to use the analogue stick which some dislike. Whether you’re cruising around on your motorbike or simply going around killing everyone you’re going to have fun and find the game short and snappy when it comes to it. Getting 4-6 stars is as fun as ever and is as challenging as ever, having to escape from the Police, FBI and Army.

Transport on the game is similar to that of Vice City, you have cars, vans, motorbikes, trains, boats along with almost everything else but there are no planes like in Vice City and Helicopters which were in Vice City. You can get downloads to get helicopters in your garage and other things like that but it would have been good to have had something to fly in on the game. The cars and motorbikes are better than they are in the other games and vary depending on what island you’re on.

One of the biggest additions to the game is multiplayer mode; this is arguably the best part of the game. You can do anything from mucking around to seeing who is the fastest to blow up four cars. It’s fun trying them out and whether you have two or six people you’re guaranteed hours on end of fun. As you progress on in single player, you unlock more and more on multiplayer so be sure to do single player first to unlock everything you can possibly get.

There is no such thing as something perfect and GTALCS is no exception. In terms of what you can do on the game it’s around about Vice City’s level, which is acceptable considering it’s a handheld game. The sound is a bit jittery and when you get into or out of a car can suddenly pause for a second which is annoying. Also, when you’re going from island to island sometimes you can’t see into the distance and have to wait a while for the rest of the scenery to load up.

In conclusion, GTALCS is the best game on the PSP at the moment. It carries on from the PS2 franchise and is a brilliant transition from console to handheld. If you wanted a reason to buy the PSP, then this is it. The mission, the graphics, the gameplay, everything about the game is simply phenomenal.

Final rating: 93/100