Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories

Rockstar did a great job of pulling off the same experience that we are used to and love from the full console releases. And better yet they managed to fit it on an UMD making it fast and easy to download. While the load times in GTA: Liberty City Stories are obviously not as brief as you would expect from the ps2, the load times are still fairly quick and you aren’t left at long loading screens. Again I’ve got to give the makers credit for creating probably the best free roaming action games to ever hit a handheld system. And if you are like me, who loves the GTA series, then you will love this continuation of the story. Though the storyline may seem mundane in much of Liberty City Stories, it still manages to carry on Toni Cipriani’s story, even though the cut scenes leave much to be desired. However if you are new to the GTA series, the story will still make sense and not knowing the story won’t hold you back in the game in anyway.

If you stick to the missions and not mess around too much, you can finish the story mode in 10-12 hrs. But the deceptive game progress counter will only report around 40% completion. The game has some rampage side missions and the standard pizza delivery, vigilante, taxi service, and ambulance missions, too. You can seek out ringing pay phones to get into street races. You can report to car lots to sell cars or motorcycles by test-driving vehicles for prospective consumers. And, of course, there are 100 hidden packages to find. If you get into all this optional stuff, there's a lot more city to see, and plenty of different cars to see it in. The radio stations are still one of the most entertaining features; the djs and commercials are as hilarious as ever.

Where Rockstar falls short is in the gameplay. Missions are usually one tiered and do not offer that much variety. The psp’s weak controller scheme makes taking out a large number of enemies far from pleasant, and you would be better off picking off targets from a distance which makes you miss the fun of the fire fights we have grown to love from the previous installments of the GTA series. But the lock-on target aiming functionality does help a little. Also, the game's mission path does not deviate into crazy territory, and most of the characters are fairly lifeless. This dulls the game's personality, preventing its characters and events from becoming as memorable as we have come to expect from GTA games and their excellent storylines.

Overall, GTA: Liberty City Stories is a well put together game and is a must have for any GTA fan.

Also, check out the links on the right! All you need to know about psp, and a couple of coool sites hahaha. Tagboard coming up, upon jiakai's request..