Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars

I was disoriented. Instinctively I pressed X – the top button always enters and exits cars, but it didn’t work. My sword stolen, I survived a bullet to the head and now I was going to die in a car. Looking at the bottom screen I saw that it had changed, it was an image of the windscreen. I touched it with my thumb and a crack appeared. I tapped the windscreen furiously until it smashed completely. I swam up from my watery grave to find myself in Liberty City, all of Liberty City, recreated in a pseudo 3D format on the Nintendo DS.

I ran up the docks and spotted a vehicle parked nearby. I jumped into my new car, ready to speed off. Instead, the touch screen changed again, to a screwdriver and the ignition – I’d have to start the car myself, exactly like I would in real life... I imagine. I'm not on trial here. I made my way to my uncle’s house, where he told me that getting shot in the head and losing the family heirloom sword was poor judgement on my part. I was still family though, so I could stay at his nearby apartment while we sorted this mess out. I walked there and took a nap on the couch.

When I woke up it was time to visit my uncle again. I planned to get the basic missions out of the way before spending some time just driving around enjoying the city – the essence of GTA games. I did some missions, netting myself a bit of cash, and finding out just how dire things were for my uncle with the sword missing. All in all, I was enjoying myself immensely, this was a true to form GTA game, and it was utilising all of the functions of the DS. It brought me back to the days of Vice City, or San Andreas, where I would forget about everything and just get sucked into the game.

I had driven around for a bit, found out what happens when you don’t pay attention to where you are going (you inevitably crash into a cop car) and I liked the lack of any closed bridges trapping me on an island until I completed a specific part of the game. As with all GTA games though, I soon wanted to advance the story further, I visited my uncle for another mission. As I said before, I had been sucked into the game. I had forgotten everything I had heard about the game, and I was just enjoying the ride. I was all about doing missions, finding stupid stuff to do and taking over the town.

My uncle gave me some drugs to sell, and the game explained how I could sell and buy drugs from various dealers around the town. I went and sold the coke my uncle had given me, and it finally dawned on me why the missions had been giving me $50 instead of the usual several hundred. Using the money I made from the coke deal, I could play the different markets the game now explained in the Trade Info tab of my PDA, and I was not going to need money from my uncle any more. With various dealers letting me know when they were overstocked on a particular item, or desperately in need of another, I was going to be rolling in money in no time.



I had a hot tip that a guy in Bohan needed some product bad, and the turf map told me the Irish were known to supply a lot of it. I drove to their usual hangout and bought as much as I could and I floored it to Bohan to get paid. I was pumped, on my earlier explorations I had seen safehouses all over the city, and with this cash I was going to find one that had an actual bed to sleep in! I had to make a left turn up ahead, but I wasn’t sure if it was here or the next street, so I glanced at the map on the bottom screen for a second – it was the next one. When I looked back up my car was attempting to drive through another car... A cop car.

My heart jumped, I had all of my money tied up in the 30 tabs I had on me, and if the cops caught me I’d be practically bankrupted. One star was no problem - if I could get him to smash his car into a wall or another car I’d be back on track, all I had to do was make sure I could put enough distance between the two of us that he didn’t try to pull me from my car. I reversed as quickly as I could – straight over the officer trying to arrest me. As I swerved my rapidly dying car down the street, I looked around Liberty City for what could very well be my last time. Because if these pigs caught me and took my drugs, I was going to put a bullet in my head.

I haven't played my DS this much in a long time. Any time I get a break I am back in liberty city, regularly crossing the fine line between daring and reckless. It used to bother me how many police there are in the LC these days, but once you've smashed into a thousand of them, you learn how to get rid of them fast. The small screen and top down view means you have to be alert every time you get behind the wheel, and while that was annoying at first too, it forcibly drags you into the game, and makes everything seem more personal. You have to keep your focus on what's coming up - either that or putter along like the rest of Liberty City's residents - and correct driving procedure is not in the spirit of a Grand Theft Auto game. The bad news is this does impact on the games portability - it's yet another game you won't be playing much on a bus.

You will also need your stylus out, as the game uses both touch screen and the control pad. When I first worked this out I was worried - most games which employ this tactic fail miserably. Thankfully Rockstar have combined the two successfully, the stylus is really only required for easily manoeuvring around the PDA application that serves as your menu. Most things requiring the touch screen during action can be done with the thumb but once you are in the swing of the game you shouldn’t have many problems with it. Once again Chinatown Wars exceeded expectations.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is an achievement. It's not the typical kind of game you'd expect on the DS - the learning curve is steeper than normal thanks to the small help text (expected on a portable) and the legions of police and it's a very adult game. Still, I'll gladly take the time to learn if it comes with the entirety of Liberty City, a working drug economy plus people, cars, boats, and the occasional helicopter and next to no loading times. Especially compared to all the garbage available on this system.