Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (Video Game Review)

Video Game Review
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
Nintendo DS
2009
Developers: Rockstar Leeds and Rockstar North
Publisher: Rockstar Games

If there’s one thing that the Playstation 2 taught us was that we were too lenient on games during the Playstation One/Nintendo 64 era. Grand Theft Auto is a great example of games that weren’t that great during the PSX days but were tolerated to a certain degree. However, the series hasn’t looked back since its jump into the 3D realm during its tenure on the Playstation 2. Once anyone had played GTA 3, they couldn’t go back to the clunky overhead perspective used for the first two games of the series. Rockstar wanted to publish a game on the world’s most dominate system, the Nintendo DS, but it’s not as powerful as the original Playstation, let alone the Playstation 2. The first trailers of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars show us that Rockstar was planning on bringing the series back to an overhead perspective. Many were sceptical. However, the company probably saw the problems from its past and surprisingly turned out the one of, if not the best game in the entire series.

The standard plot is back. The misunderstood main character must work his way to the top of his gang for whatever reason. In this version of Liberty City, the main character is Huang Lee who must work for Triad leaders to find Yu Ling, a sword that he was supposed to deliver to his uncle who in turn was going to offer it as a gift to the Triad leaders. The sword was stolen during an altercation at the airport as Lee arrives in the city and is left for dead. To restore honour to the family, Lee must do the bidding of various Triad leaders (and their underlings) in an attempt to regain some respect, as well as to try to find the sword. The story becomes convoluted as there are plenty of rival gangs and double-crosses that keeps everyone suspicious of one another. Throw in some side-plots like controlling the city’s drug trade and you’ve got the plot for another Grand Theft Auto game.

The game controls surprisingly well despite its pedigree. The d-pad is used to move around and the face buttons are used to do various actions. The left shoulder button centers the camera while the right shoulder button toggles which enemies or items to target. Shooting or tossing weapons are really simple. Guns and the like are fired with taps of the A button while throwing Molotov cocktails are done with a swipe of the stylus across the screen in the direction it’s to be thrown. It’s incredibly simple and becomes second nature almost immediately. The stylus is also responsible for performing other tasks like starting stolen cars by either hotwiring the ignition or bypassing the car’s electronic security system. The microphone is also used to hail a cab as well although it feels kind of silly since you can pretty much steal any car that you see on screen.

The graphics look pretty good for the DS. Everything is presented from a top-down overhead view in a cel-shaded style. It looks pretty slick and hides the fact that the game is running on limited hardware. The cut scenes are not animated at all, offering just a few moving pictures with subtitles. It works to tell the story but it won’t impress anyone from an artistic perspective. Also, if you’re expecting full audio from the cut scenes, you’ll be disappointed. It’s subtitles only. In fact, the audio in the game is the only real letdown. Unlike the console versions that have licensed music and a really awesome soundtrack, there’s little variety here. It’s all unlicensed midi stuff that isn’t all that charming to one’s ears. Perhaps, in the event of a sequel, they’ll allow for SD card support for user-created soundtracks (although knowing Nintendo, they’d probably restrict it to AAC files).

If there’s one issue with the graphics, it’s that it becomes hard to familiarize oneself with Liberty City. Everything looks the same from the top-down perspective. It’s not that the streets and the buildings aren’t detailed, it’s just that nothing feels distinct. At least the game has a feature that points you in the right direction with arrows on the road as well as a map of the city on the second screen.

Even though it looks and sounds like a truncated experience, Chinatown Wars feel like the strongest game in the GTA series in terms of the main gameplay. One problem with the series has been that while there have been a lot of extra-curricular activities to do in the game, the main story is finished within a couple of hours. I remember beating Vice City in a few sittings; which makes for a short game considering I rarely play for more than an hour at a time. As well, there’s enough variety in the missions that keep the game interesting to the end.

Even the drug-trade mini-game is really interesting although it did make me feel sleazy while playing it. Then again, I’m the type of guy that gets disgusted by the sex mini-games in God of War, so if you don’t mind that sort of thing, you’ll probably have no moral issues with this. However, if you do have a problem with the idea of buying and selling drugs, even in a video game, you may be very uncomfortable playing this title. Drug dealing is the easiest way to get money in the game and, at times, becomes necessary due to some of the missions during the game’s main story. Still, because of this, it should definitely not be in the hands of kids. If you’re getting a gift for a child, or even a teenager, buy another game rather than this one.

The game does have its issues other than morals. It’s a bit on the easy side. Although you definitely won’t beat this game in one or two sittings, it doesn’t feel like anything is going to stop you. There are two reasons for this: the graphics of the game prevent anything too complex from occurring on the screen; the other is that the game is very easy to control. Some of the problems from previous GTA games have been the controls. It has never been easier to fire weapons at the proper target or throw grenades (with the exception of playing the game on the PC). It sometimes feel like the game’s designers had intended to make a particular mission harder than it should have been but it ended up being a breeze because of spot-on controls.

The game makes very intelligent use of the touch screen. It really makes the experience more immersive and enjoyable. It’s great that stealing the cars can no longer be done at the touch of a button. It actually involves something more complex. Although, when jacking a car while someone is in it, nothing more is required other than pressing the X button to steal it and drive off. If you see a parked car you’re going to have to get your stylus ready. It’s not hard to hotwire a car or disable its security system. In fact, after the first couple of times, it becomes second nature. However, it’s these little details that make the game such a great experience.

There is are also multiplayer options; both online and DS-to-DS. They’re fun for a while but there are many more entertaining multiplayer games on the DS that it feels silly to waste much time playing this option. It’s fun a couple of times but the real meat and potatoes of the game is the main story and that’s what you’ll basically spend most of your time with.

Rockstar hasn’t had much luck with Grand Theft Auto on the portable systems in the past. However, not only does Chinatown Wars vastly outperform those titles, it’s comparable an experience to the console games. In fact, I would have to say that I enjoyed my time playing Chinatown Wars more than I did with any other GTA game. At least with this game I didn’t feel compelled to enter a cheat code to get a tank and destroy the city after playing the game for a few hours.

☆☆☆☆