I've played Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars for a short while now and have to admit it is quite an impressive DS game! It may be a small version of Liberty City, but it feels as big as any other game released since GTA 3!

This time it is the turn of the Triads. As per GTA IV, you're an immigrant who immediately gets involved in Liberty City's world of crime, murder, sex, drugs and anything else you can think of that could set the Daily Mail off on a 'Games will end the world*' rant.

Typically, this is Grand Theft Auto. Get car -> Drive to point A -> Get mission brief -> Drive to point B -> Find weapon -> Drive to point C -> Fulfil mission -> Drive away from the cops -> Mission complete. If you’re fed up of this style of play since GTA III, Vice City, San Andreas, Liberty City Stories, Vice City Stories and IV including Lost and Damned, then you will not benefit from playing this. However, if this is still your thing then Chinatown Wars does it perfectly!

So far, I’ve managed swimming, stealing cars, shooting, drug dealing, dodging a police chase (they weren’t chasing me!) searching dumpsters for guns and mouldy sandwiches, recruiting gang members, make Molotov cocktails to destroy cars and shops,  and hotwiring. All this in less than an hour’s play!

Now it may be small, but it’s very effective. The city is realised in over-head 3D and isn’t too dissimilar to GTA IVs Liberty City – accept it’s missing an island. The driving control feels great on a D-pad, and that helps greatly when you’ve got a wanted level. To escape the police you’ve got to drive like you’ve never driven before! Weave through the traffic and try to make the cops crash! This includes ramming the cops! Who’d’ve thought that by causing police to crash, suffer whiplash or potentially die, your wanted level would decrease**!

Similar to GTA IV, you’ve got a radar on your lower screen which includes a GPS feature to help you reach your destinations – still not as good as Saint’s Row 2’s GPS, but it works. If you’re not in a mission and need to get somewhere quick, you can set a GPS route on the lower screen in a few taps of the stylus. This is very handy when you want to heal yourself at the safe house or simply save your game...which auto-save seems to do quite nicely!

Where Chinatown Wars fails compared to its older, bigger brother, is that the lack of full 3D gaming means you can’t get away with hiding behind cover in shootouts. Therefore you’re best having the strongest weapons available in any fight. Also, you can only move the camera to stay behind you – meaning you’ll get quite lost if there are any objects or bits of scenery above you to block your vision. These are only minor flaws when you consider what Rockstar Leeds have achieved though.

If you fancy a new DS game...especially now DSi is around the corner, I strongly recommend trying Chinatown Wars. Just make sure you’re over 18, know the difference between right and wrong, and have the sense not to enter a world of crime based on a videogame***.




^{*The world ended in 1981 with the release of Donkey Kong. The realistic graphics and the thought of the super scary 1933 King Kong movie being realised in colour would corrupt children’s minds so badly that we’d all end up wearing ripped jeans, dye our hair blacks and all be teenage parents before we reach 14!
**Daily Mail please note: This behaviour existed a long time before videogames were released! After all, wasn’t it cartoons like Biker Mice From Mars that caused our demise back then?
***Especially when you can learn about these things from the various movies that have been available since before you were born anyway!}