Game review: Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars 

Source: GamefreaksGrand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars

Publisher: Rockstar Games
Platform: DS

A match made in potential controversy heaven, the sweet and innocent Nintendo DS gets hitched to a series from the very wrongest side of the tracks. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars does the kind of naughty things to your DS you only ever dared dream.

When it was first announced that an original Grand Theft Auto title was in development for the Nintendo DS it sounded like a perfect bit of cross-promotion, the world's best selling game machine meets one of the most popular series of all time, however nobody could quite picture how it would all work out. As it happens, with Rockstar Leeds and Rockstar North working together to pull out all the stops, it would work out quite brilliantly indeed.

We all had a perfect right to be sceptical; the sprawling, intricate urban tapestry of Liberty City doesn't exactly jump out as ideal fodder for a machine that is more often that not used as a dumping ground for shovelware, minigame collections, and movie tie-ins. But the artisans at

Rockstar remembered what so many had until now forgotten; that rush of potential we all felt when the DS was first released, it was a unique piece of hardware ripe for innovation.

The game once again shows us the untamed Liberty City through fresh eyes, this time as a young Huang Lee, spoilt son of a recently murdered Triad leader. Liberty City is where Huang was born but he has spent recent years living the good life abroad on his father's crooked dime. With the mysterious death of his father Huang is once again called home, to deliver a supposed heirloom sword to the family's new number one. Needless to say, things don't go well.

The game is presented in a way the melds the ground-level view of recent GTA titles with the top-down perspective of earlier entries to the series. The player can position a fully rotatable camera to observe a scene angled above the action. This style allows the DS to overlook the more minute details of Liberty City as presented in GTA 4 while still offering a familiar, easily navigated rendition of the iconic map. The visuals are rendered in a charming cel-shaded style, giving the title a solid, bold comic book-type aesthetic that remains knowingly hard-boiled.

The entire rhythm of the game has been remixed to a more appropriate tempo for handheld gaming. Gone are lengthy missions involving long drives, extended shoot-outs, and epic getaways. Instead the game delivers it's mini-missions in a rapidly succeeded bursts; it's easy enough to pick the game up and fly through a handful of story points in five minutes, but the machine-gun delivery of each job also makes Chinatown an absolute devil to put down. If you can shake yourself free of the manically bounding grindhouse story, however, you'll still likely be addicted to the game's drug running element for days to come.

Rockstar have performed the seemingly impossible task of shrinking the incredibly busy Grand Theft Auto onto two tiny screens so well that they almost make it look easy. The game is bold, engaging, addictive, stylish, and just plain irresistible. Easily one of the greatest games on the Nintendo DS (and if we take RPGs off the table it's unequivocally first place), Chinatown Wars is a triumphant challenge to all other DS developers; handheld gaming is no longer an excuse for second-rate products.

Synopsis
Chinatown Wars is exactly the kind of game the Nintendo DS has been gagging for, evidence that handheld gaming is worth the effort. The game's appeal crosses the hardcore-casual divide and does more justice to the series than seemed possible.

This review bought to you by Gamefreaks .