Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (Nintendo DS) > Reviews (8)

GRAND THEFT AUTO - CHINATOWN WARS
NINTENDO DS
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The Grand theft Auto games first came about in the late 90’s, when DMA designs decided to stop killing Lemmings and started thinking of a higher species.

DMA later became Rockstar, and took games to a place they had never been before, but were soon copied by almost everyone.

The first 2 ½ GTA games were quite old school in graphics and sound, seen from above like games such as micro machines, turbo esprit and super off road racer amongst others.

But what they both and a bit contained was controversy, these games sold not for game play but for the fact you could do anything in this world, you wanted to kill a group of religious nuts, just run them down, want to nick a car, its yours, it opened a whole new world to games players, we were no longer told what to do, we could go nuts, which many of us did, but we were still not satisfied, we wanted bigger and better…

Along came the next generation of systems, and more importantly GTA 3, this took the world into 3d, the whole city lived, it was as close to life as you could imagine except you could be bad without getting into any real world trouble!!!
Unless of course you illegally downloaded it!!! Then you are evil lol!!!!

Well since GTA 3 their have been a handful of sequels that don’t bother numbering themselves, then on ps3 a proper sequel that ive not played so have no idea about!!!!

During the time between playstation 2 and 3 appearing a small handheld console by a small company called Nintendo came out, the DS, this Rarely noticed console managed to get a contract to have a new GTA game, but it was never going to manage the flashy 3d graphics of the high powered playstation cousins, so Rockstar went back to its roots and then grew an whole new tree……

THE GAME

The Nintendo DS has a sort of problem in that it was made for non gamers, it was made for casuals, the sort that think playing games on facebook makes them a gamer!!!

So how was this system going to take what is a real gamers game and make it work for everyone, I was imagining match 3 games aplenty, maybe the odd card game, with a little trading ala mob wars!!!!

Yet a lengthy trip to hospital made me part with some cash id saved from not smoking or drinking for weeks made me decide to buy an handheld to pass the time, and the psp was way overpriced and I quite liked the novelty edge the DS had so money spent, one of the first games I acquired had to be the GTA title, as its been on all other consoles!!!
My first judgement was after a two minute burst and I didn’t like it, it felt wrong, I didn’t feel in control, maybe I was drunk, quite possible!!!
So a few months later I read a review of the psp version by my favourite games writer, he’s a ciao user yet should be so much more, He knows who he is!! As im legally not allowed too name tom1clare as a top writer!! Damn.. ill delete that line on edit lol!!!

Well this instantly made me pick up my copy again cos this guy knows what I like in games.

Since that day ive spent hours driving the streets, dealing drugs, killing crims, getting into cop chases!!
Basically living the life of a criminal, because if you’ve got this far into the review and have no idea what GTA is that’s it in a nutshell, you are a petty criminal on his way up the ladder so you will be doing everything a criminal should do!!

Graphically the game has took steps, nay leaps backwards towards the whole 2d above style, yet it still manages to keep its beautiful looking cities and the feel of a 3d game, you will be driving under bridges etc, all giving the feeling of height and vastness.

But it all looks so perfect, apart from sometimes if you’re driving too fast it sometimes takes a bit long to load the next section of road so a little foggy, but the effects are good and the game moves at a nice high speed!!

The little things amuse me a lot, like if it starts to rain certain pedestrians, or tyre fodder as they shall forever be know, start to put up umberellas, just adds to the charm, so much went into tiny details.

Sonically there is no voice acting, not surprising really but is a bit disappointing.
Music is so so, I tend not to listen to it, whereas in older GTA games I would always play the radios in the cars this game doesn’t really feature any songs etc that are of any interest.

The DS plays its own place in this game through its split screen system, the bottom screen features your map, which you can set up gps system that leads to your place of interest, being it a local drug dealer, or a mission.
Other places the DS touch screen comes in handy is when stealing cars, they have different alarm locking systems, which require you to pass certain tasks with the stylus.

The game contains many different missions to the main story, you have simple go and kill so and so type missions, some where you are in the back of the vehicle throwing objects to a car behind.
Going back to casual gamers, this game is almost perfect, each mission takes at most 15 minutes the game auto saves afterwards, then you can either carry on with another mission, or just drive around and find random missions, big jumps, rampages or a little drug dealing, there is always something you can do for 5 – 10 minutes without getting invested in the game!!

Having finished the game though I have one gripe and half a gripe and possibly a couply of little niggly gripes, the main problem is the story is just too short, ive played nearly all the GTA games and never finished one, as I normally loose interest or find myself locked in another universe for just long enough for me to forget why im driving round doing stuff for others, well not this time, within 13 hours the game was complete storyline wise.

Some of that time was also taken up dieing, getting busted, doing random other stuff, so if you were to just follow story missions, you could probably finish this in half the time, which is not good value for money, the extra missions and races etc help in a way, but are not listed on your map on the gps system so you have to hunt them out, which can be very frustrating as the city map is quite big!

So overall I have really enjoyed this, I wish id have played it sooner so I could beat mr tom1clare to his review!!!!
Id highly recommend, id say to check second hand games shops or eBay for cheap prices. But id imagine between 5 and 15 pounds no more than that.
Beware the game features bad language drug reference and sexual references so is not suitable for children, though I know a lot of kids play these games!!!!!

Anyway have fun, take care and read more…

Kyle!!